Author Archives: David Truss

Getting unstuck

I remember teaching Grade 6/7’s about Nigerian fables. One of them was about a greedy animal during hard times. All the animals had collected food and stored it in a clearing to share, but each night some of the food went missing. To catch the culprit they put tar around the food and the thief got caught in it. The next day after an apology the other animals started trying to pull the animal out. He was extremely stuck and they yanked so hard that they stretched this animal and ripped of its legs.

The fable is about not being greedy, but the title is something like, “How snakes came to be.” I love when the moral is not explicit in the storytelling.

I got thinking about this for a totally different reason, one I’m far more explicit about in my title… the idea of getting unstuck. Sometimes we absolutely have to step out of our current experience in order to see what’s possible beyond where we currently are.

The saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are,’ has come up a few times recently in conversation. This is only true if you let it happen, if you stay inside of the tiny box you put around yourself. There are people who travel all around the world and they look forward to seeing a Macdonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks. They look to keep their world the same. But travel can give you so much more than that. There are people who keep friends that aren’t nice to them, who dismiss an entire genre of music, who stick to a plan and never take side adventures. None of these people might see themselves as stuck but they are.

For me personally, I’ve been stuck in pain and/or drowsiness for a couple months and while I’m slowly recovering, I am also stuck in the way my days go. I’m not following any healthy routines to consistently workout or meditate. I can still ride a stationary bicycle without causing any harm to the bulged disc in my neck. Meditation would actually be great right now and I’ve let my daily habit slip.

I’m going through slow (admittedly often dizzy) motions of the day waiting for moments of clarity, but when they come I don’t necessarily take advantage of them. I need to see beyond my current condition. I need to see what I what to accomplish in the future and I need to do things now to support that. I need first to have goals that I want to achieve beyond where I am now, then I need to move towards those goals.

Sometimes it only takes baby steps, sometimes it takes a massive leap. But you don’t get unstuck thinking ‘No matter where you go, there you are’. The issue with this is not about geography, it’s about moving who you are to who you want to be.

Altered states

I’ve spent most of the last few weeks in an altered state. My herniated disc is almost always on my mind. The meds have numbed most of the pain, but I’m often feeling like my head is not screwed on tight enough. The description I use is ‘loopy’ which I describe as somewhere between mildly drunk and mildly high. The challenge is that I don’t really enjoy this state, and I find it hard to concentrate. It’s not a feeling I enjoy.

Even writing my Daily Ink has been challenging with me often putting these short posts away for a while and coming back to them. I end up doing a lot of edits… like making this new thought into a new paragraph and breaking a stream of consciousness run-on sentence up in the previous paragraph. I also used a wrong word (probably a typo) and I’m struggling to make sense of what I actually wanted to say… the sentence no longer having any meaning for me.

At least I’m no longer adding to the altered state with (legal in BC, Canada) marijuana gummies , which I was supplementing my pain meds with to manage my pain between pills. As much as I don’t enjoy the loopy feeling now, I enjoyed it less when I had to numb myself to doldrums of constant pain.

New meds that I started Friday night are leaving me with windows of clarity I haven’t had for a while, but also reintroduce new levels of ache and discomfort (verging on pain) that I thought I was free of on the more loopy medication.

Overall… I think I’m on the mend, but I am not there yet. I’m now dealing with feelings I know I should let go of, but struggle with. Feeling that I should start catching up on work, feelings that I will be in recovery for a very long time. Feelings that I’m wasting away life in a loopy altered state. I’m on the mend, I’m in the mend, I’m on the mend… that is what I need to focus on, loopy altered state or not.

Use it or fall behind

Check out what Khan Academy has done so far, since getting early access to Chat GPT4 last August.

And here’s what’s coming soon:

The gut reaction to using new technology in education is to ban, block, and/or punish students for ‘cheating’. While I’m not going to link to the many times I’ve already said this, I’ll say it again… the technology is not going away!

So how do we use it effectively, creatively, and for learning? 

That is the question question to ask… and Chat GPT4 and tools like it probably have better answers than you can come up with.

14 years ago

I shared this on my Pair-a-Dimes blog, May 13th, 2009:

— — — —

Sometimes you can’t just take baby steps, and you’ve got to commit fully to experience something…

I’m leaving my job, my home, and my country.

I have just accepted a Principal’s position in Dalian China for September. My wife will be teaching at the school and my daughters will be attending it. We weren’t actually looking for different jobs, they found us several years after my wife and I had applied to a number of International Schools for teaching positions. A path opened up before us… it wasn’t the planned path, but it was certainly worth investigating.

I can’t describe the turmoil my wife and I went through deciding whether or not we should uproot our family, and leave great jobs, friends and colleagues that we care about. Then finally we asked ourselves a simple question, “If we don’t do this, will we regret it later?” The answer was ‘Yes’.

And now that the decision is made, I am so excited about the new adventure!

— — — —

My close friends, my principal, and my assistant superintendent were told about my plan before publishing this, but I know it was an unusual way to share such information back then. Nowadays people expect to hear about things like this on Facebook or on other social media platforms, but that was far from the norm in 2009.

I remember an acquaintance saying to me at a meeting a week later, “So I had to read your blog to know you were taking off on us.” This perturbed me a bit because first of all we didn’t have the relationship where I’d be ‘informing’ him of this news in the first place, and secondly, I was sure he never read my blog and it was either shared with him or he just heard about it.

That was a different time. Looking back, and reading the comments I realize that I had amazing connections from my district, the province, and the rest of Canada, the US, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and China commenting. But I had many people in my district that thought it was completely weird that I’d share something like this on my blog. Meanwhile outside of a small but amazing group of local friends, it was my blogging and tweeting community that was genuinely excited for me.

They also stuck with me, reading and commenting on my blog and sharing in my China adventures.

I often say that I live my life without regrets, but if I had just one it would be that I wish I had travelled more when I was younger. This China trip opened up a world of experiences and holidays that I never would have had if my wife and I hadn’t realized how much we would regret not taking this trip.

My oldest daughter just finished an 8-month assistant teaching job in France and is currently holidaying in Greece, having just left Croatia, and is having exactly the kind of experience I wish I had at her age.

There’s a saying, that says, “No matter where you go there you are.” And I totally understand this sentiment… you can’t run away from yourself. But international travel creates contexts, experiences, and exposure to cultural differences that opens up your eyes and expose you to opportunities to grow in a way that’s hard to do ‘at home’.

We couldn’t have had the opportunities we did as a family had we not taken the plunge and moved to China… I would do it all over again if I had a chance!

Dinner with the dead

A question Tim Ferris used to regularly ask his podcast guests was, “If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?” 

Well now it might be a bit easier to have one of those dinner conversations… even if the person is dead.

Here’s a conversation on AI and education between Bill Gates and Socrates, but first the description of the video:

AI Brings Bill Gates & Socrates Together: A Must-Watch Dialogue on AI. An exclusive video of Bill Gates and ancient philosopher Socrates discussing the potential of artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this groundbreaking fusion of past wisdom and present innovation, reshaping our understanding of AI.

In this video, you will witness a fascinating discussion between Socrates, the Greek philosopher considered one of the greatest thinkers in history, and Bill Gates, the American entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft, one of the most important companies in the world of technology.

Despite belonging to different eras, Socrates and Gates have a lot in common. Both are considered pioneers in their respective fields and have had a significant impact on society.

The AI-generated conversation will allow these two great figures to discuss topics such as technology, ethics, education, and much more. Will Socrates and Bill Gates be able to find common ground in their ideas and thoughts? Find out in this video!

https://youtu.be/hJ5qN9PRmFc

It didn’t need the laugh track, and there is a slight cartoonish feel to the two characters, but this technology is just getting better and better!

Recipes from the soul

One of my favourite cooking quotes is, “Don’t ever let a recipe tell you how much garlic to put in. You measure that with your heart.”

I come from a family where recipes are impossible to follow.

Asking my mom how much of a spice to add, she shakes an imaginary spice bottle in a circle saying, “Go twice around the pot.”

My sister is cooking a recipe while on the phone helping our cousin’s wife cook the same recipe (and my sister is measuring for the first time to help): ‘Put a teaspoon (of a spice) in.’ Then once she adds the teaspoon herself, “No, that’s not enough, put another teaspoon in.”

My grandmother in her Guyanese accent, “Ya put a pinch a dis, a dash a dat” Or, “Cut-up some onion and mix it up with da same amount a garlic.”

“How much exactly?”

“Da same amount, not too much, not too little.”

As a result, I never follow a recipe:

A teaspoon of garlic? That can’t be enough!

A pinch of black pepper? Do you mean per serving?

Parsley? And no cilantro, that has to be a mistake!

Why isn’t there ginger in this recipe?

Hoisin sauce would make this rice stir fry recipe so much better.

Ground beef? I think I’ll just cut open a couple spicy Italian sausages and use use them instead.

I don’t really like to cook, but when I do, I don’t measure anything exactly as a recipe says. I don’t stick to the ‘suggested’ items list. I choose and measure items with my heart and soul.

My brother-in-law gave me some advice once, he said, “Follow a recipe exactly as suggested the first time, there’s a reason that exact recipe made it into the cookbook. Then if you don’t like it, change it up.”

Great advice… I just can’t follow it, and I blame my family! 😜

My life before Google

I shared this in a post a few years ago:

I grew up in a pre-Google era, but I had something better… I had my dad. It seemed that no matter what question I may ask, my dad had, and still has, a comprehensive answer. My only hesitation to ask him a question was that I needed to be sure I was interested enough to get his extensive and detailed answer.

He didn’t just have verbal answers, he had books, thousands of books, and files, and files, and still more files. In Grade 11 I had to do a project on tidal power, and so I asked dad if he had any information for me. He did, and after moving some file boxes around he found it. No easy task when there were layers of boxes to reorganize… and not a box, or a file was labelled!!!

The tidal energy file was 2-3 centimetres thick and I blew away my class and teacher with the research I shared. In a pre-Google era it would have taken 15-20 hours searching library bookshelves and microfiche to collect research, newspaper clippings, and magazine articles that I had at my fingertips.

This was the life most people lived before Google:

I always had the information I wanted, I just had to ask my dad.

Nuggets of happiness

My dad passed away last week. Today we did the paperwork at the crematorium, and we’ll do a family gathering in the fall. He had a stroke while I was visiting over the March break and he never left the hospital after that.

While at the hospital, my youngest sister was staying with dad late one night and she was feeling hungry. She said to him, “I’m heading down to Tim Hortons, do you want anything?”

My dad responded, “No thanks, are you going to get some nuggets of happiness?”

Puzzled, my sister asked, “Do you mean Timbits?

Dad smiled and nodded ‘Yes’.

Nuggets of happiness. This is a great metaphor for coping with my father’s death. There are a lot of emotions, and a lot to deal with. There is great sadness. But then there are also those moments of fond, joyful, and humorous times that I’ll enjoy remembering. Little nuggets to love. Little nuggets that remind me he is still with me as long as I choose to remember.

I don’t think I’ll ever eat a Timbit again without remembering my dad.

And while there are many other emotions right now, I know the memories I cherish, the memories I will share with my mother, my siblings, my wife, my kids, and even grandkids in the future, will bring me joy and happiness.

Major congestion

Yesterday I shared how malls are empty and said, “... all malls won’t die just the stand-alone ones. The newest form of densification in cities is to build a mall or commercial level shopping below high rises…”

Today I’m stuck in Traffic on the 401, the busiest highway in North America, and I wonder how more densification will affect this? Will these new vertical communities encourage less commuting or will the sheer volume of people overwhelm our transportation infrastructure?

It will depend on developers. Will they develop so that the pulse of our cities is pedestrian? Or will we continue to live inside smaller and smaller condos and use our car as the majority of our outside our apartment experiences. I hope to see more outdoor spaces designed for pedestrians to travel and congregate, but real estate is money and most developers care more about profit than liveability, even though liveability is a huge selling point.

Other countries are building communities that don’t require commuting, how much longer will we be focused on cars and congestion instead of cafés and places for pedestrians to shop, eat, and congregate?

Empty Malls

We went to the mall nearest to my parent’s house and I was shocked to see about 60% of the stores closed. The grocery store and drug store were busy, but while my mom waited for a prescription I went looking for a coffee, and the rest of the mall was almost empty. The closest I got to finding coffee was a Subway and Booster Juice, both with no customers in the stores. Both had shuttered, empty sores next to them.

The strip mall and small malls that we’ve known for decades are dead. There won’t be a revival. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and other online shopping sites are in direct competition with these malls and unless someone is pulled to these malls by the need for groceries or a prescription, none of the other few remaining stores will get a visit.

That said, all malls won’t die just the stand-alone ones. The newest form of densification in cities is to build a mall or commercial level shopping below high rises… stack the customers on top of the shopping spaces and make the mall convenient to visit. You don’t even need to put on a coat to visit the mall, it’s just a trip down the elevator, or a walk through an underground parking lot.

Goodbye strip mall. They will all be torn down and revived only when a few hundred condos are built above the mall space. You want customers in your mall? Make the mall an extension of their living space. Until that happens, you’ll see more and more empty, shut down, and abandoned stores… Malls that are mere shells of what they used to be.