Author Archives: David Truss

The shallows vs the deep

When you meet some people, you instantly like them. They are friendly, personable, and genuine. Some people take a while to grow on you. There isn’t that quick assessment, and you need time to figure them out and have them figure you out. They can easily be as genuine as the people you like instantly, but you don’t immediately know.

Then there are the ones you instantly dislike or mistrust. There are those that seek to complain, and are quick to annoy you or to be easily annoyed themselves.

Isn’t interesting how much time and thought we spend on these different kinds of people? Those that have a depth of quality, we appreciate and want to know, but we don’t necessarily think or talk about them when they aren’t around. But those that annoy and frustrate us consume more of our thought and attention than they deserve.

We spend too much time focused in on the shallow end of this continuum and not enough time going deep with those that deserve more of our attention. We play and replay scenarios dealing with shallow people instead of doing the work to let go of petty things and investing time with those that lift us up in body, mind, and spirit.

Sometimes I’m surprised by my inability to move beyond the shallow end. I try to convince myself that I’m not interested in playing in the shallows, but I allow small conversations and interactions to consume too much of my thoughts. And then I wonder why I don’t have the time or energy for more intellectual endeavours?

This is why I seek people to converse with one-on-one. I create the opportunities to go deep, to invest time with people that are intelligent, forthcoming, insightful, and enjoyable to be around. I create time away from from the shallow end, where conversations can go deep. We might still splash around in shallow conversations but these are enjoyable rather than taxing, playful rather than confrontational… and always open to going deeper.

Turtle mode

I’m just turtling right now. I’ve had a bad cough for over a week, and I’m worn out. Last night I felt like things were getting worse, but this afternoon I feel like I’ve turned a positive corner. I had covid in November and now an ugly cough to start the new year… this hasn’t really been enjoyable.

Two years of wearing masks kept me healthy for a long time and being hit this hard twice in just a couple months had been challenging and exhausting. So, I’m curled up with a blanket, I’m drinking a lot of liquids, and I’m medicating myself with cold, cough, and sinus pills every few hours.

No plans, no agenda. Netflix, my audio book, and sleep. I’m turtling all weekend long.

Sub Rosa

Sometimes the hardest part of my job is not over-sharing. When I was a principal in China my wife was on my staff. Another staff member told me in confidence that she was pregnant. When she finally told everyone, my wife was the last to know. My pregnant staff member assumed I told my wife, but my wife was her colleague and so I kept the confidential announcement confidential.

Keeping things confidential is part of the job. While my wife understands this, not everyone does. Some people expect explanations, and when I can’t share it can then reflect poorly, or seem like I’m not making choices or decisions that would be expected. There is no easy or polite way to say, “None of your business.”

But there are times when the most prudent thing I can do is keep private information private, and speak only to those who have or need relevant information. It may not be popular, but necessary.

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Postscript: This was written quite a while ago, but I chose not to share it at that time because the subject matter that inspired this post would have been obvious, and this is a public space that I choose to write in.

Have the day you deserve

I like this little phrase. It’s simple, sharp, and sneaky.

Someone’s being a jerk to you? “Have the day you deserve.”

Someone is rude? “Have the day you deserve.”

Someone intentionally cuts you off in traffic? “Have the day you deserve.”

It’s a rather condescending phrase, but sometimes it’s just the right thing to say to a person who doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely.

I’ve never actually used this. I’ve mostly heard it used on TikTok’s when someone does a reaction video to a rude commenter. But it has a nice ring to it. Someone goes out of their way to be mean… what do you do? Don’t stoop to their level, don’t be rude, just tell them to have the day they deserve.

Hit hard

On the 30th I started feeling a cough coming on and it was full blown with a lot of sinus pain on New Year’s Eve. Thank goodness the sinus pain subsided for my flights home on the 1st because I’ve travelled on a plane with sinus pain before and it was a horrible experience. However, my cough got progressively worse and I’ve been knocked on my butt, coughing and exhausted for 3 days now.

I started to feel a bit more human again around noon today, but I’m still feeling hit pretty hard by this bug. I have to say that this flu and Covid back in November have both been the hardest I can ever recall being hit by the flu. I don’t normally spend most of the day exhausted and sleeping, and I usually bounce back quick, even if a cough lingers a while. These last two time have been much harder on me, they are hitting different.

I can’t wait to get back to my regular routine again but right now I really need to listen to my body and take the time I need to recover…Easier said than done… I’ve got so much to do!

New discoveries in old frontiers

I’m blown away by articles like this: Meet a rainbow fish and other new species discovered in 2022. How is it that in the year 2022, 146 new animal, plant and fungi species were discovered? Space is not the only undiscovered frontier, we still have so much more to learn about our own planet.

From the article: “The previously unknown creatures and plants were found around the world, including the mountains of California, Australia’s Queensland state, the rocky peaks of Brazil and the coral reefs of the Maldives. Scientists made discoveries on six continents and within three oceans.

Among the new species were 44 lizards, 30 ants, 14 flowering plants, 13 sea stars, seven fish, four sharks, three moths, two spiders and one toad.”

It’s amazing to think that we have so much more to learn about, both seeking and finding more living species, and also about some of the ways currently known species can be used in novel ways to improve our lives. Here is one example:

I think 2023 will be the year of the mushroom and we will see them used in unique medicinal, psychological, and health-enhancing ways. We’ll also see them abused and misused, and some people will mistake deadly ones for medicinal ones… but while these rare cases will foster some fear-mongering, most of the news will be about how mushrooms have amazing medicinal and even magical psychological properties that will help people with PTSD, depression, and even help people quite drinking and smoking.

What else will we learn? What new discoveries about our planet are in store for us in 2023? What new plants and animals will be found? What new cures are waiting to be discovered? Our forests and oceans might be old frontiers, but they are not frontiers that have been fully explored and exhausted of new discoveries.

The Thoughtful Ones

“We pay too much attention to the most confident voices- and too little attention to the most thoughtful ones.

Certainty is not a sign of credibility.

Speaking assertively is not a substitute for thinking deeply.

It’s better to learn from complex thinkers than smooth talkers.” ~ Adam Grant

Of course confident voices can also be credible voices. One can speak assertively and still think deeply. A complex thinker can also be a smooth talker. This isn’t a dichotomous contrast but rather a recognition of why we should pay attention to a confident voice. Or, when to seek out the opinion of someone not as in the limelight or as extraverted, yet thinks deeply.

There are too many confident people in the world that are loud but not worth listening to. This is the group to be worried about: The shallow thinkers that are vocal and garner more attention than they deserve. Seek out the deep thinkers and pay attention to them no matter their inclination to be assertive and heard.

They are so grown up!

When our kids were young my wife and I had our travel systems to make everything go smoothly. I managed the bags, she managed the the passports, our kids had their backpacks, and we’d wiz through security lineups and seldom had any issues. Then I was usually the one with directions but my wife would take that rôle sometimes, like in France where she speaks the language and I don’t.

This trip to Spain and France my oldest daughter took full control of this. She is fluent in French and very capable in Spanish. She organized which buses and trains to take, what routes we took following Google, and when we drove an hour and a half down the coast in France, we took her car and she drove.

It was awesome to see her in full travel guide mode and I fully enjoyed taking the back seat (figuratively and literally in taxis) and having her run the show. I made sure she was ok with the responsibility and there was one evening in Spain when she said she didn’t want the responsibility and I took over, but other than that, she was in charge.

Our kids also planned events on our trip. We went to a Flamenco show in Barcelona and a tour of the Royal place in Madrid, both organized by our girls. And we went to a fancy restaurant on Christmas Eve and they treated.

It’s awesome to see your kids grow up to young adults. We said goodbye to our oldest this morning and my wife, youngest daughter, and I are on our way home. We had to hike several terminals over when we arrived in Paris for our connecting flight and my daughter pushed the luggage cart. These are small things but they make me a proud parent to see these independent young women contributing to our family adventures.

Workout whimper, not bang

We spent almost a full two days getting to Spain, having booked our trip to Paris first, then deciding to continue on to Barcelona rather than staying in France where my oldest is living. I was up at 4am on the Saturday morning and we didn’t get to our final destination until almost 8pm Sunday. I obviously didn’t get my workout routine in, then the next two days I woke up early and did pushups and leg raises to check off my daily workouts. I wrote about this in a post, The long game, and finished that post saying:

I’m not trying to run ultra marathons or have a bodybuilder physique. I’m actually going to let myself let loose and eat a bit more gluttonous while on vacation. But I’m also going to find time to exercise, I’m going to return home and be more thoughtful about my diet after my vacation. I’m going to keep playing the long game and not worry about minor fluctuations in my schedule. Because while there will be fluctuations, I’m going to keep a schedule of writing, meditation, and exercise. I’m not looking for quick gains, I’m just working on staying on a healthy path, knowing positive results are still to come… in time. Perseverance and the long game are the path I’m on.

But here is the confession, while I’ve done a lot of walking since then, I haven’t done my fitness routine at all and have only meditated a couple times. I’ve been out late with my family, and not waking up to do my routine. I’ve maintained my daily write, but mostly on the go, and when my family shops, or when we have down time between planned activities. My lack of exercise was more than a minor fluctuation, I’ve gone 10 days without a workout, which is the longest break in my streak since I started tracking in January 2019.

I’m not beating myself up about this, I’ll be back on track when I get back home. I just wanted to share because I think it’s important to share that while I’ve been on a pretty amazing fitness journey, it can have bumps and things don’t always work out as planned. After three years of dedication 2022 is ending on a whimper, not a bang, and while I’m on the worst streak of my 3 year journey, I’ll be back to my routine in the new year.

Things don’t always go as planned, and while things haven’t been great in the short term, I’m here for the long game and this blip will be over when I get home tomorrow… well maybe the next day since with time zone changes tomorrow will be longer than 24 hours and spent mostly on airplanes. The point is, I failed to keep a workout and meditation schedule while vacationing with my family, something I won’t get to do too often anymore now that my daughters are 23 and almost 21. I know I could have done more, but I didn’t. Things didn’t go as planned and that will happen. It did happen, but it won’t define any lasting pattern and I’ll be back at it in no time.

Breaking 90 degrees

My favourite part of European architecture is that many intersections are not your typical 90° corners, and so as a result neither are the buildings on those corners. Building corners meet at acute and obtuse angles, or they truncate the corners to round them. I enjoy the visual experience of seeing buildings that are not lined up as if they can only be part of endless rows of boxes, rectangles and squares and more rectangles.

They also sit on uneven pavement with buildings meeting the ground at unique angles. Level the ground first? No! Just have more building protruding on one side. Match the building next door? No! Every building can have its’ own style. Match the footprints of the front face of the buildings? No! Put an alcove here, a protruding pillar there and break up the tidy rows.

Add beautiful facades and amazing heritage buildings that have been around longer than Canada has been a country, and the architecture here is just stunning. But more than anything else, it’s the lack of 90° that appeals to me. In Canada and the US we need to think about spicing up our angles.

Photo location: Biarritz, France.

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And just for fun, me being the only person to get drenched at a beech lookout:

And a family photo: