7 years of daily blogging

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Yesterday marked my 7th anniversary of writing a daily blog. I ended the original post that started this streak saying,

“I’m not getting younger and more than ever, NOW is the best time to start.

I tried over a decade ago, now I’m going to do it – a short daily blog.” ~ Daily-Ink, July 6, 2019

It wasn’t quite 10 years earlier, the idea for Daily Ink was actually attempted September 29, 2010. I was living in China and had purchased a leather bound book and decided that I’d write in it, take a picture of what I’d written, and post it on a blog which I changed addresses from datruss.davidtruss(.com) to daily-ink.davidtruss(.com).

In the original ‘first post’ I explained:

“The title ‘Daily Ink’ is inspired by Stephen Downes “Ol Daily” and his “Half an Hour” that he attempts to decticate to writing each day… and to my former student Kris Bradburn whose blog is cleverly named “Wanderng Ink”.

I stopped reading the Ol Daily for a while but Stephen has started sharing it on LinkedIn, and I’m back to reading it again. Also, just a couple days ago Kris’ substack blog arrived in my email. It’s wonderful to see the two original inspirations for my blog title still blogging.

Although it took almost a decade to make it happen, once I committed, I committed. How much longer will I go? I’m honestly not sure. What I do know is that I’m not ready to break the streak. The reward of writing every day exceeds the effort. Like I say in my byline:

“Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.”

And so my Daily-Ink will keep getting inked for a while longer…



 

Unmasking

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We play different roles in the lives of different people: A child, a parent; an employee, an employer; a host, a guest; a friend, a foe. People get different views of you depending on both your relationship and the role you play in their lives. And we act differently in each of these roles. It’s like we have no one defined identity. We wear metaphorical masks that reveal only limited aspects of who we are, depending on the roles we are playing.

Having just retired from a 27 year career, I’m leaving behind a mask that I no longer need to wear. I’m not going to ‘play that role’ anymore. I’ve unmasked from that identity. I thought maybe I would feel a loss, but I feel more like I’ve removed an unneeded layer. It’s reassuring to feel this way, I made the right decision.

On Wednesday my wife organized a wonderful group of family and friends to celebrate my retirement, then I spent a few more days with my sister, my cousin, and his family. It was really special to have this time, around people I love, feeling fully unmasked and completely comfortable.

Today I popped by to visit my predecessors, something we planned last week. I saw someone in his element, ready to thrive. This is even more cathartic. As a leader, I did what I could to leave things as best as I could. The factor I had no control over was succession… that was up to my bosses, not me. To see that the right choice was made and that the conditions for things to improve are in the hands of someone capable, with the right philosophy, and the skills to be awesome, makes it even easier to let go.

I don’t know what new masks I will put on in the future, but it feels fantastic taking this one off. I feel like I wore this mask for just the right amount of time, and deep down I know it is time to remove and ‘retire’ it. I can’t describe how good it feels to know this.

Human Zoochosis

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The first time I remember seeing zoochosis was with a baby elephant. I was at an elephant rescue sanctuary in Thailand, with my wife and daughters for ‘A day with the elephants experience’. We arrived and were waiting to meet our guides. About 20 meters in front of us there was a small elephant with one leg tied with rope to a post in the ground. This baby elephant was sort of marching on the spot. It took one step forward then one back in a rocking motion that almost looked like an Instagram boomeranm – a short video being played forward and backwards over and over again. It was novel at first but five minutes in, it seemed sadly hypnotic and unsettling.

‘Zoochosis is a psychological condition in captive animals characterized by repetitive, often self-destructive behaviours like pacing, swaying, or over-grooming, caused by the stress of captivity. These behaviors are not typically seen in wild animals and indicate significant emotional distress.’ (AI search definition)

Recently I saw a video clip where a woman was questioning if we were not at a point where we are dealing with human zoochosis? I don’t even think I watched the video to the end, I was just doom scrolling as a 30 minute mental break after work, and it was a video that came and went.

A couple days later this hit me as something very relevant. I saw another video of an American in his car. He was talking about doing food delivery as his second job, wife and baby at home, and how just to make ends meet he was working 14 to 18 hours every day. He said he didn’t know how long he could sustain this, and how hard it was to only see his wife and baby late at night before being the first one up to get to his other job. He wasn’t asking for help, he was questioning life, purpose, and meaning behind doing nothing but working just to barely exist. I realized he was describing what it’s like to be a ‘captive animal characterized by repetitive, often self-destructive behaviours’.

Captive in a system not designed for humans. Stuck in a cycle of living to work, not working to live. Trapped in survival mode and unable to think beyond subsistence and making ends meet. No time for joy, no hope, no sense of purpose or meaning. No place for a human to feel like they belong and can thrive.

I’m reminded of a video of a mouse seeking happiness in a world where he is in both a literal and metaphorical ‘rat race’, seeking happiness, which is either short lived, or out of reach. It is a social commentary about this exact issue. How many people are lost in this race to nowhere? Lost in the stress of captivity, knowing that they cannot escape? Animals, trapped and psychologically damaged, without the resources or means to escape human zoochosis.

Summer nights

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I’ve been staying at my cousin’s house, my sister is in town and we’ve had a couple wonderful days together. But more than the days, the evenings have been wonderful.

We’ve been hanging out in a beautiful back yard with comfy chairs and a fireplace. Shooting the breeze, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company.

When it’s warm, and still bright out until 10pm, summer nights hold a special kind of magic… and being with truly amazing people accentuates the experience.

Habit revamp

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Summer is here and I’m don’t have a morning routine anymore. I’m currently between sets at a gym I don’t usually go to, because last night I stayed with a cousin in a nearby city. I’m here 3 hours later than usual, which is perfectly ok, I really don’t need to be out of the house at 5:45 anymore… or anytime in the foreseeable future.

I don’t care about the actual time I work out, or write my daily blog post, or meditate, or take my vitamins, but I do care that I actually do these things very regularly. A perfect example is that today I went directly from cardio to weights and only now realize that I skipped my stretching routine… a key ingredient to keeping my back healthy and ready to do weights.

Basically I had a habitual routine that was rock soiled while I had a work schedule to plan my routine around, and now that’s gone. I’m not going to figure this out today, and new habits take a while to form, but I want to figure out a kind of flexible routine in terms of times of day, location, and summer plans. I don’t actually know how to do this, so it may be messy for a while. Even so, I know me, and if I don’t have systems in place I miss getting things done.

There is a saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. That was me for a long time, now that I have more time I really need to create systems that will ensure all the healthy habits I developed are part of my new patter and pace of life.

Taking it slooow

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I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday with friends and family, and I had a longer sleep in before going for my usual morning workout. The day started great. Then I had a nap, stayed in bed a while, had a shower, and then had another long nap.

I realize that I’ve been pushing myself hard physically and then with all the usual year end events at school as well as all the extra retirement celebrations, I’m also emotionally wiped too. Both my social and physical batteries needed a recharge. And the beauty of it is I don’t have an agenda to worry about.

Now I’m going on a mini getaway, heading to spend time with my sister and cousin for an extended weekend and we literally have nothing scheduled. The timing could not be better, I’m off to do a whole lot of nothing… and it feels good.

One… final… celebration

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After what feels like more than enough attention on me, my wonderful wife has planned one more retirement celebration for me. This afternoon family and a few close friends will gather at our house to welcome me into the world of retirement.

As a last minute thing, my wife just had me staple this poster to our fence. Well, last minute for me, this was obviously planned. The adapted meme first showed up at my shared retirement with my buddy Dave, and I thought that was the end of it. Apparently not.

I truly feel blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people, and I think this is a Canada Day I’ll remember for years to come.

Open Thinker

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I just realized that this past March marked 20 years of blogging for me. And so I checked my post count. I have 357 published posts on Pair-a-Dimes and 2,640 here on Daily-Ink (2,641 when I post this:). That’s just shy of 3,000 posts total.

What made me notice this is that I looked at my LinkedIn profile after someone commented on my post there. At the end of next month I’ll be retired from the school board and another ‘job’ will move up to the top of my ‘Experience’ column. It will be “Open Thinker”. Somewhere around 15 years ago I added this job to LinkedIn, and put the start date as the first month of my first blog post, March 2006.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been openly sharing my thoughts for that long. Just yesterday while chatting with my oldest she told me she was sharing the size of my digital footprint with a new friend. We discussed how I say, ‘my oldest’ and don’t regularly use her name because I don’t think it’s fair to her that if a future employer Googles her name, what would come up are dozens of her dad’s blog posts that include her name. Her openness online should not default to my choices to share. That said, I’m still on her first page if you search her name.

I’m not changing my open writing and sharing any time soon. And next month I’ll probably take a good look at my ‘Open Thinking’ experience description on LinkedIn and revamp it.

Blogging has changed over the years. At one point it was an engagement machine, I’d routinely get 8, 10, 12, even 24 comments on a post. Now I get Likes on my Facebook page and LinkedIn, where I share my posts, and occasionally I get comments. Most people who engage with my writing don’t go to my actual blog. That’s perfectly ok, my only disappointment with this is that comments on other platforms are not curated there the way comments are on a blog. Oh well… times change, tools change, use changes… but what hasn’t changed is that I’m still writing, and openly thinking, out loud on the internet.

Accumulation of stuff

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I’m in the process of clearing out my office. It’s fascinating to see the kind of things that accumulate in an office when you’ve been in it over a decade. I am admittedly comfortable with clutter, my slightly ADD brain does not come equipped with OCD superpowers to have a place for everything and everything in its place. So I admittedly have a lot of ‘unnecessary’ stuff.

The hardest things to get rid of are keepsakes that have sentimental value, and yet they’ve ended up in a drawer or the back of a bookshelf, and haven’t been seen for years. While they bring back some memories I’m left wondering, ‘If I take this home, where, except for a back of a drawer or bookshelf, would I put these and when in my life will I look at them again?’

I’m finding the process simultaneously cathartic and melancholy. Melancholy is the wrong word, it’s not a sadness it’s a solemn reflectiveness. I’m excited to be over, to move on to new things, and yet these hidden reminders in my office pull me back to thoughts and memories of the people and experiences I have enjoyed and even loved about this job.

And back to work I go. Serious question: Do I keep the the small hand carved song bird? The piece of brain coral? The stamp set of my name in Chinese? The beautifully hand painted rocks? How about the crochet rainbow bumblebee?

I’m going to be here a while.

Training continues and a poster

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We just finished going up the Coquitlam Crunch 6 times, and walked down it once. Now we are home for a few hours, then on the Crunch again at 6am to do 2 more before work. All part of our training to do 37 times up the Crunch on August 21-22. Why 37 times? Because that’s the height of Mount Everest. We are attempting to Everest the Crunch.

Here is the poster, with a QR code if you are interested in donating towards mental health initiatives in our community.

One other request: Join us for one trip up. Follow @EverestTheCrunch on Instagram to see what times we’ll be starting our way up from the Scott Creek parking lot, meet us and hopefully join us for one of our thirty seven trips up.

It’s going to be a real challenge, but Dave and I are up for it!

Oh, and tonight we saw a baby bear (no mama, and we were in our cars repositioning then at the top to drive down so we were totally safe), several rabbits, and two deer. The second deer didn’t run when we passed her. She just watched us as we walked by less than 10 feet from her.