If you fell sick on the street today, what are the chances that someone would help you? From some of the things I’ve witnessed in recent months, I’m not too confident that I wouldn’t be left lying on cold Toronto pavement as people stepped over me. The days of Good Samaritans seems to be drawing to a disheartening end. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this society’s new favourite words are “me,” “my,” “mine” and “I”. Many of us think of ourselves as individuals capable of being perfectly independent of everyone else. What a grand delusion.

Last week I was sitting on a full bus. A man in a wheelchair – not the motorized kind, but the ones you have to propel by hand – was getting off at a major intersection. As the driver lowered the ramp and the man rolled off, the light turned red. Not proud to say it, but I groaned, as I was in a hurry.  From my seat in the back of the bus, I watched the man, slouching down in the chair, wearing a dirty motor jacket, open to show his large doughy belly, and a dingy baseball cap pulled down over his greasy long hair, back his wheelchair toward the turning lane. In disbelief, I watched helplessly as the man slowly rolled the chair off the curb, and toppled out on to the pavement.