Monthly Archives: July 2021

Everyday amazing

I’ve always been amazed by airplane flight. I don’t truly understand Bernoulli’s principle and the idea that so much weight can be lifted off the ground based simply on propulsion and lift under carefully designed wings still seems unlikely to me. And yet in less than 30 minutes the plane I’m on is going to taxi down a runway and start a 4,239 KM (2,634 mile) trek across (about half of) one of the largest countries in the world… and I’ll be sitting on a runway in Vancouver in 5 hours. Amazing.

We spend a lot of our day taking full advantage of technology we don’t really understand. I’m holding a phone that will magically publish this post to the internet, where it will sit on a website, all the while not knowing how this all works or what http stands for? I can talk to someone half way around the world with virtually no delay in the conversation, but sound travels much slower than that. I will listen to my wireless headphones without knowing how Bluetooth works. All around us we use advances in technology, taking advantage of tools most of us barely understand.

But this ignorance can work against us. Without really understanding the world around us, some people make shit up and think it’s science. How can anyone believe in a flat earth in this day and age of flight? And that’s not even the craziest thing people believe! It’s one thing to be blissfully ignorant of the world around us, and yet another to think that conspiracies live everywhere and that our opinions matter as much as the science.

Two amazing things that surround us:

1. The mystery and marvels of technology and innovation.

2. The blind ignorance of humanity to how this all works.

I’m not sure the gap between these two are getting any closer. The more amazing the the technology, the greater the opportunity for conflagration of lies, deceit, and exaggeration of fears into a dumpster fire of conspiracies, ‘fake news’, and ‘alternative facts’… with people knowingly and unknowingly adding fuel to the flames.

But for now, it’s time to put my phone on airplane mode, take advantage of having a window seat, and stare out at a runway… Marvelling at how this massively heavy plane can leave the surface of the earth, and soar for hours, trusting the science of it without really understanding how it all works.

When I’m gone

I’m away visiting my parents and had a little getaway planned to meet a buddy and go fishing. Unfortunately one of my uncles passed away from cancer (we knew it was coming), and that changed the plans.

The friend I was meeting replied to my cancellation news saying, “No problem family comes before fishing. Hope we can do it next year if you come down. Talk soon, take care.”

He’s a good enough friend that nothing more needed to be said.

My uncles service, outdoors, at the graveyard, was quaint, and a wonderful tribute to a kind, caring, and unassuming man, who put family above all else. He was given a year and a half to live 3 years ago, and I think it was a relief to both him and the people who cared for him that the suffering that was particularly bad for the last month had ended.

The burial confirmed in my mind that I want to be cremated after I die. I have no desire to hold onto any real estate after I am gone. It sounds crass but I would rather be flushed down the toilet than buried in a plot that takes up space on this planet, when I have no practical use for that space.

I heard once that one of the reasons Disney Land and Disney World check your bag when you enter their theme parks is to check for ashes. People want to have their ashes spread on ‘The happiest place on earth” so frequently that it is an actual concern for them.

We see dead animals all the time. Parts of them are in our freezers, they show up as roadkill, our pets die. When they are gone, it is just their meat and bones that remain, the animal that was ‘is’ no longer around. The same applies to us. It’s funny, I used to think, “Spread my ashes in the ocean… but make sure it’s a warm ocean because I hate the cold.” Now I realize how silly that is. When I’m gone, I’m gone, and what happens to my powdery remains is something I don’t care about.

What I do care about is the life that I have, and people I love, and the things I hope to do before I’m gone.

Attention, not convenience

If you share a post on Instagram, it can go directly to Facebook, not because it’s convenient, but because Facebook owns Instagram. That same link will create a link in Twitter, rather than sharing the picture, so if you want to see the picture, you must go to Instagram. Why? Because Instagram wants your attention. If they share the image you want to share on Twitter, then you don’t need to click on Instagram, see other Instagram images… and advertising.

Got a message from LinkedIn? You’ll get an email informing you of it (if you want to be notified). But that email won’t contain the message. Instead, you cave to click a link and go to LinkedIn.

They want your attention at the cost of your convenience.

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Update: I want to share this tweet by Laef Kucheran here:

“This observation is strikingly useful when trying to understand almost *anything* the social media giants do.

They want your attention. Convenience (or health, or democracy, or societal happiness) are always secondary concerns.”

You can’t change the people around you, but…

I heard this brilliant quote yesterday:

“You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.”

It reminds me of:

“You are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most.”

Finding the right people to be around is a secret to life seldom discussed. We are blessed when those people are our family, and we don’t have to seek them out elsewhere. Being surrounded by people who make you a better person is a sure way to be a better person.

Choose your friends wisely.

Family visit

Tomorrow will be the first time in years that I will be seeing my parents and all 3 sisters together.

It has been very long since we grew up under one roof, and opportunities like this don’t happen often. I wish my wife and kids were here with me. I can remember being a kid and rolling my eyes because we had to go to yet another family gathering, now I wish we had these opportunities more often.

We’ve bantered before about everyone going on a big family vacation, but it’s never easy trying to coordinate everyone, and I am not sure if it will happen. So for now, I’ll just have to appreciate that we will have a rare opportunity to be together tomorrow, and make the most of the time we have.

Late night learning

Last night I had a conversation with my uncle that went until after 3am. Whenever we meet I learn so much. He’s working on a book that shifts the way we look at geometry and math. We went chapter by chapter and a 3 and a half hour recording that we made felt like it went by in under a couple hours.

My uncle took me on a fantastic learning journey, and explained his insights that made connections through many fields of study. He has an understanding of Math and Physics, life and culture, Science and technology, through basic geometry. His insights are both complex and mindblowingly simple. What’s really interesting is that it seems evident that his insights have been understood my ancient mathematicians and mystics. He is tapping into old knowledge that has been lost over time. Religious and occult symbols were born out of this understanding of geometry.

I hope that my uncle can meet his goal and get the book out in the next year. When he does, I’ll be sure to share it here!

Mindfulness is witnessing the dance

“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.” ~ Amit Ray

Today’s meditation was about meditation as a means to become a witness, and thus using meditation as a way to disconnect and observe rather than experience.

While I understand that meditation can be used to do this in a positive way, I wonder how many people bare witness to their own lives without actually living, not feeling anything? Kids cutting themselves because that’s when the feel the most; zombies moving through life from sleep to work to alcohol and/or television before sleeping again; people bitter about the hand life dealt them, who live in disappointment, numb to everything around them; lonely people, who may or may not actually be alone.

I think too many people are already witnesses to their own lives. I’m not saying meditation isn’t a good way to do this, but I wonder how many people need to do the reverse? I know that there are times in my own life where I’ve felt like I was existing rather than living, the observer rather than participant, but family and friends are good at snapping me out of this.

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but there can also be paralysis by analysis. You can watch a surfer and see all their moves, you can know everything about the wave, it’s energy and flow, but if it’s you on the surfboard, it’s probably best to be enjoying the ride than trying to witness it.

Happy surfing!

First guests

Yesterday my wife and I went to a family member’s house for lunch. The family has immunocompromised members and have taken the lockdowns and social distancing very seriously. We were the first guests in their house in almost a year and a half. At one point, one of them said, “I’m having a moment, this is the most normal thing I’ve done in a long time!”

Although we are double vaccinated, we still wear masks in public places, and practice social distancing, and when we had friends over a couple weekends ago, we still held the gathering in our back yard. We are being thoughtful about how we move forward. But yesterday that quote kind of struck me. Yes, it was also our first time invited into someone’s house for lunch in quite some time, as well as their first time receiving guests… It was a first step towards normal.

Sharing meals is a special thing that brings us together, and being freer to do so now is wonderful. While caution is still needed, and being double vaccinated does not give us 100% immunity, we are on a path to ‘normal’. I fear that large pockets of unvaccinated people will prolong the need for caution, and we are not moving fully towards pre-covid normal any time soon, but this moment of being first guests was pretty special.

I’m not sure what the new normal will be, but at least we are moving in the right direction, and I think we will have a few more ‘firsts’ in the coming months.

2 years and a week ago

On July 6, 2019 I wrote ‘It’s Time…‘ and said,

“I tried over a decade ago, now I’m going to do it – a short daily blog.

It’s time…”

I don’t think I’ve missed a day since. It hasn’t always been easy. I sometimes don’t think I have anything worth sharing. But sometimes I write something that just feels right. Other times I just jot down a simple thought and it ends up getting more engagement from readers than I’d ever expect. I know I only have a handful of daily readers, but I have quite a few weekly readers that check out a post or two when it lands in their Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook feed.

I am thankful to have people read my writing, but I feel that I do my best writing when I forget my audience. I readily admit that I enjoy getting ‘likes’ and comments, and yet sometimes the simple act of hitting the ‘Publish’ button is all the reward I need.

My blog tag line now reads, “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.”

As I state in the post where I originally wrote this, “The act of writing makes me a better writer. The commitment to this act every single day is itself a reward, making me feel like I’ve accomplished something before I even start my work day.”

Two years of public daily writing is a commitment that I wasn’t sure I could accomplish, and now I wonder how long I will keep going for? For right now, I feel that I have far more reasons to continue than to stop. So this blog will be continued every day until….

Sharing again

Revisiting my uncle, I was reminded of this story, and my post, forgotten dream:

From my earliest memories I can remember our house containing numerous bookshelves with books double stacked, one in front of the other, with whole sections having books stacked horizontally, so that 6 or 8 horizontal books could take the place of 4 or 5 vertical books.

And I read almost none of them.

The dream was a dream of lost opportunity. Of being blind to the ocean of information that sat before me metaphorically unseen, and literally unread.

Adding to this we need to spend quality time with people we care about… and not take them for granted. It’s easy to think the people closest to us will always be there and forget to treat them the way they deserve to be treated.

Inversely it’s a good thing when we remove people from our lives if they are not worthy of our time. I love this quote by Isaiah Frizzelle about creating boundaries for people that don’t deserve access to your life, “Time does not allow reentry and an apology does not always allow access.”

To the fish, water is invisible. It’s fine for us to ignore the oxygen around us, but we need to pay attention to, and show love and respect to, the people we care about.