Author Archives: David Truss

Simple little things

A happy thought,
A quiet walk,
A restful pause,
A candid talk.

A social night,
A laugh out loud,
A mutual friend,
A gap in the crowd.

A good book,
A favourite meal,
A restful nap,
A bargain deal.

Simple little things
that come our way.
Simple little things
that make our day.

We can appreciate
what we’ve got.
We can be happy
with our lot.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
needn’t care…

About things we lack,
and things we dread.
And avoid negative thoughts
in our heads.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
should care…

About the people we love,
and people in need.
About doing what’s right,
and doing good deeds.

Simple little things
that help us cope.
Simple little things
that bring us hope.

Appreciate the little things
that come our way.
And remember to cherish
each and every day.

The best gifts we have
are love and time.
A life well lived
is truly sublime.

Life need not be filled
with accolades and aclaim,
It need not be a life of
excessive wealth and fame.

What makes us rich are
the simple little things,
that bring us joy
and make our hearts sing.

Simple little things.

School Ambassadors

Last Friday six of our students presented to 34 middle school cohort student teachers from the University of British Columbia. They had prepared the presentation for two visiting Northwest Territories teachers a few weeks back but I didn’t get to see it. In preparing the presentation I had asked them not just to share some of the amazing inquiries they get to do at Inquiry Hub, but also ones that were challenging and did go as well as planned. I didn’t get to see their first presentation but I watched this second iteration.

Most of them didn’t just share a challenging inquiry, but their worst ones. They had me and their audience laughing as they described how things went epically wrong, or how what they thought would be a topic of great interest barely held their attention for 2 days. But more than that, each and every one of them eloquently expressed their learning from that epic failure.

Sitting behind the students, there were a few times I had the urge to say something, but I forced myself to stay quiet. Each time I had the urge, the students ended up helping each other fill in the blanks I thought were missing, and in several of those cases better than I would have… and allowing them to lead, without speaking up, gave more authenticity to the presentation experience than I could ever have contributed. I did come in at the second half of the Q&A and answered a few questions, but at that point the presentation was basically over.

I wrote this in an email to these students and their parents. I couldn’t be more proud of these young learners and leaders:

Greetings to our Inquiry Hub Ambassadors and their parents,

A few weeks back, I asked a few students to present to two educators from the North West Territories during our Pro-D Day. Today, those same school ambassadors provided school tours and presented to 34 Middle School Cohort Student Teachers from UBC. I didn’t get to see the presentation to the NWT teachers but I did get to watch today. I just want to say that it was an honour and a privilege to have these 6 wonderful students represent our school, and share their inquiries and learning experiences here at iHub. 

They represented our community, and their learning, extremely well and the student teachers were impressed, and I’d even say ‘blown away’ by their presentation. Their ability to respond to the Q&A questions the student teachers asked was also exceptional. 

I wanted to share this with them and their parents and to say on behalf of our school… Thank you!

Have a great weekend,

Dave

Getting outside

I went for my Coquitlam Crunch walk this morning at 8am. Last night it poured rain and it was unexpectedly wonderful to have a dry walk with clear skies, and it didn’t even drizzle until we were done our walk and in the warmth of a coffee shop. I went for a hot tub afterwards and while misty rain fell it certainly didn’t rain on my experience.

Getting outside is so important this time of year. It can be really hard when I’m driving to work in gloomy darkness and driving home in nighttime darkness. When I spend all sunlit hours at work, the desire to be outside is far less than on summer days when it can still be bright out after 9pm.

So it’s wonderful to have a reason to be outside during the weekend. I also need to remind myself that I can go on evening walks with my wife mid-week and neither darkness nor rain need stop us. The lack of sunlight and added likelihood of rain are not conspiring against us, it’s just the way things are this time of year on this part of our globe.

So, whether it’s a walk, or a hot tub, or even sweeping leaves off the driveway, it’s good to remember the value of getting outside. We don’t need to stay cooped up indoors just because the days are shorter and wetter.

Silent night

It’s after 11pm and the house is silent. Everyone is in bed but me. I like the silence of this time of day, or rather night. The air is still outside and I just heard the train that I only ever hear from our house when it’s late and quiet. But recently my tinnitus is so loud that it interrupts the silence.

I have kind of forgotten what it’s really like to have a silent night. Instead I hear a loud and constant tone. During the day I can ignore it, but the quiet of solitude is gone. In it’s place is a constant high pitched stream of relentless sound.

It’s not painful, and in most cases it isn’t even annoying. But at this time of night, the time that I enjoy being alone and in silence, this is the time it can get to me. I miss the silence of solitude when no sound interfered with the evening. I miss the quiet.

High versus low trust societies

I love when someone adds to my perspective on social media. That’s exactly what happened after I posted Basic assumptions a couple days ago. The post reflected that, “people no longer give each other the benefit of the doubt that intentions are good. This used to be a basic assumption we operated on, the premise that we can start with the belief that everyone is acting in good faith.”

I shared the post on Twitter and Chris Kalaboukis and I had the following conversation thread:

Chris: Reading your post: could we be transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society?

Dave: Yes, that seems like an appropriate conclusion. Is there an author that speaks of this idea?

Chris: Not that I can recall, however, if you look at the attributes of low-trust societies you see a lot of what is happening now.

Dave: So true! The circle of high trust seems to be shrinking and it really seems like a step backwards… tribalism trumps the collective of a greater community.

Chris: It is. It seems that even our institutions are driving us towards more tribalism and division.

Dave: And how do you suppose we correct this course? I honestly don’t have a clue, and see things getting worse before they get better.

Chris: I think that in reality, most people prefer to live in a high-trust society. We need leaders and media who support that vision.

Dave: I think the biggest problem right now is that most leaders do not want to step into a limelight where both social media and news outlets are only interested in focussing on the dirt. It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.

Chris: If it bleeds it leads. we’ve never been able to communicate with more people at the same time but the only communication which seems to get through is negative. It’s all about keeping your attention to sell more ads.

Dave: I sound like quite the pessimist, that’s not usually my stance on things, but I do struggle to see a way forward from here.

—–

The idea Chris shared that we could be ‘transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society’ seems insightful and really intrigues me. It isn’t happening at just one level, but many!

• Scam phone calls and emails are perfect examples. We used to operate from a position of trust, but now unknown calls and unsolicited emails are all necessarily met with skepticism.

• Sensationalized news leads with misleading headlines that are more about getting attention and clicks than about providing truthful news. And if the news slant doesn’t match your beliefs, it’s ‘fake news’.

• Sales pitches and advertising promises almost everything under the sun, you aren’t buying a product with a basic function, you are buying a product that is going to change your life or transform how you do ‘X’, or use ‘Y’… your results will surprise you and you’ll be amazed!

• If you are even slightly left wing you are ‘woke’ or ‘Antifa’ in the most derogatory way you can use these words. If you are even slightly right wing you are ‘Alt-right’ and racist. No one gets to sit on a spectrum, you are either viewed as an extreme on one or the other side. And even agreeing on one topic on the other side makes you less trustworthy on your side.

These are but a few ways we’ve become a lower-trust society. Ad hominem and straw man attacks get more attention than sound arguments. A well said lie is easily shared while complex truths are not. Saying a situation is complex and sharing nuance does not make for catchy sound bites, and aren’t going to go viral on TikTok, or Instagram Reels. No, but the snarky personal attack will, as will a one-sided, extreme view that packs a powerful punch.

What’s worse is that moderate voices get shut out. And in general many people feel silenced or would rather not share a view that is even slightly controversial. So the extreme voices get even more airtime and attention.

I feel this often. Writing every day, and sometimes picking controversial topics to discuss, I find myself tiptoeing and treading very carefully. I said in my Twitter conversation with Chris above, “It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.” I sometimes wonder what one thing I’m going to say is going to get blown out of proportion? If I write one single inappropriate or strongly biased phrase, will it define me? Will it undermine the 1,500+ posts that I’ve written, and make me out to be something or someone I’m not?

This sounds paranoid, but I wrote one post a few years ago that a friend private messaged me about, then called me and said I’d gone too far with my opinion on a specific point. I totally saw his point, went back and adjusted my post to tone it down… but I feel like that one issue, that one strong and overly biased opinion shared publicly put a rift in our friendship. And that’s someone I respect, not some stranger coming at me, not someone that doesn’t know my true character. My opinion in his eyes is now less trustworthy, and holds less value. That said, I appreciated the feedback, and respect that he took the time to share it privately. That’s rare these days.

The path forward is not easy. We aren’t just swaying slightly towards a less trustworthy society, we are on a full pendulum swing away from a more trustworthy society. Tribalism, nationalism, and extremism are pulling our world apart. Who do you trust? What institutions? Which governments? Who do you consider a neighbour? Who will you break bread with? Who do you believe?

The circles of trust are getting smaller, and the mechanisms to share bias and misinformation are growing. We are devolving into a less trusting society or rather societies, and it’s undermining our sense of community. We need messages of kindness, love, and peace to prevail. We need tolerance, acceptance, and more than anything trustworthy institutions and leaders. We need moderates and centrists to voice compromise and minimize extremist views. We need to rebuild a high trust society… together.

It can be a struggle

Committing to writing every day is a challenge. I’ve added to that the pressure to publish what I write… Every. Single. Day.

It is a comfort to know that it doesn’t have to be great. That my audience is small, and that sometimes I can write something I think is great and no one else notices… And sometimes something I wrote just off the cuff resonates with people. I find that fascinating.

Still, there are times I am stuck, have writer’s block, and yet feel immense pressure to be thoughtful and creative. It’s a real struggle. I can develop self-doubt and question myself. I wonder what’s so unique about my perspective that I should have so much to say? I feel like an imposter, spewing ramblings that aren’t worth sharing. Sometimes I just can’t think of anything to write. Nothing comes to me except the dread that I’ve got nothing else of any value to say.

Then I remember something. I remember that if it was really easy, I would have gotten bored and given up by now. I remember that I love to write and before writing daily, I seldom wrote at all, despite my desire to do so. I recognize that though the struggle is real, it’s a struggle I desire to have.

And then some days the words just flow. Other days they start slow and the flood gates open and I can’t type fast enough. And so the days that it’s really hard, the days when I feel that I have nothing of value to say, those are the days that matter most.

The hard days are the ones that provide me with the consist opportunity to write. The struggle is real, and necessary, and even enjoyable. Well, enjoyable may not be the right term, but more enjoyable than tolerable. The hard days are hard, but rewarding… that’s the better term. The days I struggle create the space for the great days.

The hard days are a necessary part of a routine that opens up a river of ideas to let creativity, thoughtfulness, and self expression flow in. The hard days can feel like a dam, but a dam allows for consistency of pressure, allowing for the generation of energy, of ideas, of words flowing regularly. The daily commitment is not to produce great work, it’s to produce work consistently, without excuses. Not without struggle, but despite it… Because of it. Yes, it’s a struggle, but a struggle I need to experience if I’m going to continue to create; continue to craft; continue to write. Every. Single. Day.

This, on a day when I thought I had absolutely nothing more to say.

Basic assumptions

I was talking to a friend last night and we came to a conclusion about the way things have changed in the last few years. Our conversation was mostly about global power struggles and concerns for how certain global hotspots are really just proxy wars of superpowers so that they don’t have to fight directly. But we also talked about basic relationships between people, and how we relate to one another.

A conclusion we came to is that people no longer give each other the benefit of the doubt that intentions are good. This used to be a basic assumption we operated on, the premise that we can start with the belief that everyone is acting in good faith.

That used to be a good starting place: “Everyone here has positive intentions, now let’s look at where we agree and disagree.” But that isn’t what we see now. Instead it is about winning, making gains, counter arguments, and public attacks and shaming. The starting point is to believe the other side is acting in bad faith.

That dissolves the ability to come to a mutually agreeable conclusion. Before a negotiation or even a conversation starts, the premise is that the outcome won’t be good… that the injury is too deep, the conclusions won’t be mutually acceptable. High expectations, low compromise, and ultimately unsatisfactory outcomes.

A basic assumption of good faith won’t fix all the challenges we see in the world today, but it would be a better place to start. We don’t get very far when conflict usurps conversation and intransigence trumps compromise. There is a difference between wanting a good outcome and wanting to win, desiring conversation and choosing to start with an argument.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia that makes me think we ever had a different starting point, but I believe we have become less tolerant and more reactionary, and that people don’t start with basic positive assumptions anymore.

4 day weekend

We went away for the 4-day weekend. We took the ferry Thursday night after work, headed to Vancouver island, and came back Monday. We spent 3 nights in Victoria visiting my daughter and a night in Nanaimo visiting my wife’s parents.

I’m amazed how long this break felt. It was wonderful to get away for this little holiday. I feel like I’ve had a real break. I feel fresh and ready to start the week… and it’s a short week!

If I were to redesign the school year, I’d make the summer shorter and make every other weekend a 4-day weekend. Instead of a set 4-day week, with the same day off every week, like every Friday, I’d run a long weekend like this one we just had, with Monday and Friday off, then I’d run a regular 2-day weekend, then I’d run another 4-day weekend. Each week would only be 4 days long, but the weekends would alternate between 2 days and 4 days off, rather than repeated 3-day weekends.

I’d give up on a long summer holiday to run a schedule like this. 2-3 times a year these extended weekends could be scheduled school events like field trips with students, for things like visiting the capital or camping. Or maybe just the 2-day weekend, where students have 10 straight days of school with a special event in the middle.

But more than that, I think I’d be refuelled and ready for anything after a bi-monthly 4-day weekend. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t better for students too. While this is unlikely to happen, I’d just like to say that I’m thankful for this break and I’m ready to jump back in and have a great week at school.

Geology, Astrology, and Prophecy

There are some major geological disturbances and volcano eruptions in Italy, Japan, and at any moment potentially Iceland. We live on a volatile planet with harsh weather conditions, earthquakes, and occasionally tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Right now there is a lot of geologic activity. This happens in cycles, and it seems that we are on a very active cycle right now. That’s geology. That’s science.

What it’s not is ‘the end of times’, it’s not the end of the world as we know it as a human race, although it may feel like so to anyone living near one of these eruptions. And I don’t mean to downplay worst case scenarios. One of the volcanoes in Italy that is active is what’s known as a super volcano, like the one under Yellowstone National Park. A large eruption of a super volcano can devastate vast areas of land and upset the weather of the world for years.

It could get really ugly.

But this isn’t some biblical prophecy. It’s not an angry God upset with the failings of humanity, and it’s not the coming of the apocalypse.

It’s science. It’s Mother Earth doing what Mother Earth has done for millions of years. It’s cyclical, but on a geological scale that spans chunks of time that extend far longer than civilizations tend to survive.

Tying these geological events to ancient scripture is like tying your dating life to tarot cards, or waiting for the alignment of stars to make a career move… foolish. The earth isn’t angry, it’s seismically active. It isn’t punishing mankind, it is going through natural processes.

We build houses and cities on flood plains, and in tornado zones, and on the sides, and potential lava flows, of volcanoes. If harsh weather systems or major geological disturbances happen in these danger zones, it is disruptive to the lives of those living close by. If a super volcano erupts the whole world could be affected. Again, that’s science.

This could end up being a series of small eruptions, and it could be a massive global disruption… What it’s not is written in scriptures, holy texts, or the result of the alignment of stars. I’d hope that we have evolved past superstitious caveman and can recognize the difference.

Fall colours

A friend commented that this year fall seems to have lasted a lot longer than usual. Specifically, the autumn leaves stayed on the trees much longer, and the colours seem more vibrant.

Here’s a photo he took on a walk in Port Moody yesterday.

And a photo I took on a walk in Nanaimo this afternoon.

One of the only things I really miss about living in Ontario is the fall colours. Late October and early November are a special kind of beautiful in a place where deciduous trees transition from a summer lush of green to a rainbow of yellows, oranges, and reds… all ranging from vibrant and glowing to dull and faded.

Here in BC, the transition usually happens very quickly, and a windstorm or two will shed and blow the colours off of the trees in a rush to welcome winter.

Not this year.

This year we’ve had a full season of fall colours and it has been spectacular.