Category Archives: Daily-Ink

Travel plans

I’m heading to visit my parents during the March break. I’m looking forward to it. It will be wonderful to see them, my sisters, and other family.

But hopping on a plane in less than a week got me thinking of a planned holiday that was cancelled almost 2 years ago. We were going on a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and holiday stops in Spain and Portugal. Covid stopped that and all other holiday travel.

I thought about this trip and how much I love going to new places I’ve never been before. I love the newness of the environment, I love exploring different foods and flavours. I love the touristy sights, but also the side trips off the beaten track. I love the adventure.

There is a saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’ But I want to see more of the world. I want to visit new places and see new things. And I also want to do trips where I connect with family and friends.

Travel is a luxury. It is also a gift. It’s a way to expand your horizons and have relationships grow richer. I’m looking forward to the world opening up more. Thoughts of travel help me escape the pandemic, and news about war. No big trips planned yet, but the planning is part of the fun. I have no idea where the next big holiday destination will be, but I’m hoping Spain or Portugal might be back on the radar in the next year or two… it’s probably not something we could do this summer, but it really is good to be thinking about travel again.

No vs Know

Sharing some wisdom from George Couros and his mom, who always told him ‘it never hurts to ask, because the dreams you have are sometimes just a question away’. Here is the quote, and I really love it:

“It’s better to hear ‘no’ than to never know.”

When people meet me, they don’t often know that I’m an introvert. I used to spend hours living in my own head, and I still go there too often. Solitude is my friend, and I’d rather hang out with one friend, maybe 2, but I tune out crowds and would rather be alone than be in a group.

As a kid, and early into adulthood, I would build scenarios in my head about what could happen, but I wouldn’t speak up. I’d turn down opportunities that would have been great. And I’d not ask a simple question that could have opened doors for me, or provided my with opportunities. I’m still learning how to ask for help rather than doing a lot of work myself.

It’s not even that I fear the ‘no’, it’s the idea of asking that holds me back. So, maybe that’s why I love this so much… because I can think of many times in my life that hearing ‘no’ would have been better than not knowing.

Question my answers

Here is a wonderful quote from Derek Sivers, in a podcast interview on ‘Far Out‘.

“I like to ask myself questions, and then most importantly I like to question my answers. I like to doubt myself, and I assume that I am accidentally lying to myself. I assume that the person speaking is a liar, meaning me. So I like to dissect my beliefs and habits and actions, and see if they might be hollow.”

Later he talks about wanting to do something for a really long time and says that if that’s the situation you are in, then you really don’t want to do it. That is to say, if you really wanted to do something, then you’d do it. If you keep saying you want to do it but you don’t, you aren’t being truthful to yourself.

What do you really want to do? Whatever your answer… question it!

—–

I’m a huge fan of Derek, you can find his books, blog, and podcast all here: https://sive.rs.

The view from the summit

One of my favourite sayings, that I learned from a former Hare Krishna devotee is, “There are many paths to the top of a mountain, but the view from the summit is the same.” I was at a professional development session about restorative practices last week and I shared this quote in a circle.

This little saying reminds me of three things. First, good people are good people. If they are on a good and kind path, it doesn’t matter what their faith, background, or ideology is. If they are on a path to being the best they can be, if they are doing their part to make this a better world for themselves, their friends, and their community, well then they are on a good path. It doesn’t have to be the same path as me.

The second interpretation of this quote is that sometimes it’s good to take the 2,000 foot view of things, to not get lost on your own path, and not see that others’ paths are going in the same direction. A good example of this is when dealing with upset parents. It’s easy to get lost in the issues, but if you pause and look at the issue from above, suddenly you can see clearly… you both have the best interest of their child in mind… you both want the same thing. With this perspective, it’s easier to see the forest through the trees. It’s easier to not focus on your own path, but a mutual path. The view from the summit is not hindered by the path.

When it comes to faith and religion, I think of this quote as meaning there are many ways to seek God, or to be spiritual. The biggest issue I have with religions is their fervour that there is only one path to God. That seems ridiculous to me for 2 reasons. First, how many 2,000+ year old religions are now dead? How many people lived before modern faiths even existed? Surely God cared about some of those people that lived before the ‘one true religion’ even existed. Surely He/She cares for people today who are good and righteous, but have never been exposed to that one religion. And secondly, if a benevolent God were truly that concerned about a specific unyielding faith, then He/She would have given us scriptures that were more universally interpreted and less framed in the era and geography they came from. Just think about the animals mentioned in religious texts, and whether they should be eaten, not eaten, or sacrificed… these animals had relevance not to a wise God, but to the people at the time that these people wrote the scriptures. No scripture is written well enough to be the words of God, they are all so obviously written by people.

“There are many paths to the top of a mountain, but the view from the summit is the same.”

A Buddhist, a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew, an Atheist… each one of these can be good people on a path to a kinder world, and each one of these can be selfish jerks that are of a belief that somehow their faith or ideology makes them righteous and heaven bound or makes them better than others. What if they just saw each other on the same mountain, and all heading to the same summit?

I like the view from the top of that summit!

Slowly coming together

We’ve been living through a renovation since mid November and as we approach the completion it is great to see everything coming together. Drywall and flooring are done. Cabinetry is almost completely done, appliances are in, with one delayed shipment. Dust still everywhere.

We will still have to wait until late April or early May for all of our furniture to arrive, but we will have a working kitchen in about 2 weeks. That’s when things can start to get back to normal. And while it may take a couple months to settle back in, it feels good to be at a place where the end is in sight.

Living through an entire floor renovation isn’t very convenient. But we can already tell that the end result will be worth it. The biggest leap was deciding that we are going to live here for quite a while longer, and so let’s make it the place we really wanted. After that, it’s just really about not blowing the budget by too much, because there are always things you can add, always upgrades that look appealing.

But now is not a time to focus on that. Now is a time to appreciate what we’ve done and to see the vision we had for this place when we started. We have a home that we can enjoy for years to come, and while the process has been challenging, the final results will definitely be worth it.

Good people

I was reminded yesterday that there are a lot of good people in this world. I’m not going to share the thing that led me to this, it’s not my story to tell. But the world seems pretty messed up right now. There is strife, upset, and war dominating our news feeds. And yesterday the kindness of strangers made a difference for a person I care about.

In our day to day experience we meet so many good people. We work with good people. We walk by good people. We spend our free time with good people. I watched a news clip about a Canadian woman who flew to the Ukraine to help support displaced orphans. Good people.

There are so many good people in this world. You are probably one of them. Thank you. And yes, I’m talking to YOU. Not some other person, you. Thank you for being inherently good. It makes a difference to the people you are surrounded by… and thus it makes a difference in the world.

You are good people. 😀

Beliefs, facts, and free will

I’m not sure that I’m going to do this topic justice in a short daily-ink, so I’m just going to mind dump and see where this takes me.

I’ve written about the Bell Curve of Free Will, where I stated,

If we have free will then I believe that how much choice we have will be influenced considerably by our circumstance and by how virtuous we are.

I won’t try to explain this too much further here, visit them post if this idea interests you. The image I added tried to do too much with a single chart, but my main points were that 1. You have more choice when you have more wealth (better circumstances); and, 2. You have less free will when you are more virtuous. Example: A very virtuous person can’t choose to take advantage of someone for profit the way a less virtuous person can, but the less virtuous person can make the choice to do so, or to not do so, or to maybe be 1/2 ‘generous’ and take advantage for less profit than possible, because they consider themselves as being nice.

But where do beliefs fit in? And what does this have to do with facts?

I think we might have less free will than I originally thought because our belief system alters our view of what truth is. When you believe that your religion is the only path to your salvation, then the information that led you to this belief are going to seem like facts… and these facts limit your choices and free will. If you follow Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Judaism, you have beliefs about the world we live in that are different from the other faiths. Based on your interpretation, there are things you can and can’t do, such as dietary restrictions. In many cases, your choice of partner are limited, by faith, or even by gender.

But I’m just using religion as an example. We have many beliefs that affect our perception of facts, and that affect the choices we make. Conspiracy theories work like a religion. They paint the picture of a world that limits our choices and our ability to see alternative views. If you wholeheartedly believe the world is flat, you need to build a whole world model around how international flights arrive on time, and you have to construct entire belief systems around space flight and images of round stars and planets, and how gravity works. And when you do this, you literally create ‘facts’.

Other constructs of our beliefs alter the way we look at at facts, and how much free will we have to make choices. Because if we construct a world where we also construct the facts we choose to pay attention to, these created facts then limit the choices we can make.

If we don’t share the same beliefs then we don’t share the same truths. We alter facts to fit our beliefs.

How does someone on the political left vs the political right define the following:

  • Communism
  • Socialism
  • Fascism
  • Democracy
  • Social welfare
  • Liberty
  • Freedom
  • Religion’s place in politics

The definitions of these terms are very different on the political spectrum. Beliefs alter facts. Interpretations of these so-called facts limit our choices, our free will.

We don’t perceive the world as it is. Our beliefs define our world, define the things we are willing to accept as facts, and determine the choices we believe we have to make. Beliefs alter what we perceive as facts and limit our ability to make free choices.

Weapons of mass recording

As we watch war and resistance play out in the Ukraine, we are watching it from the film footage of civilians. Phones have become weapons against propaganda, weapons against tyranny, weapons of war. Instead of the story being told by a handful of brave reporters, anyone with a phone is now reporting and sharing updates.

These videos are being mapped and checked for authenticity, and they are being shared on social media. The battle might be being played out in the Ukraine, but it’s also being replayed all over the world. And now Elon Musk’s Starlink will ensure that the videos keep coming.

Resistance is now a shared global experience. The phone camera has become a weapon against tyranny.

Insightful comedy

Last night I went to see Trevor Noah live in Vancouver. My wife and I had a little escape from our house under renovation, and we enjoyed the weekend downtown. These tickets were bought months ago for my birthday, and this was the first large event gathering either of us have done in a couple years.

It felt weird to be around so many people, as I shared in this tweet about the Trevor’s ‘Back to Abnormal Tour’.

(Follow the link in the tweet here for a cute laugh.)

Watching the comedians, Trevor and his two clever lead-offs, it occurred to me that comedians are but a few people that can tread on hot topics without eliciting anger. They can broach topics and say things that would come off as inappropriate by anyone else, then they shed some insightful light on the topics. They can provide perspectives about hot topics while eliciting laughter instead of anger.

I don’t think we should live in a society where we need to rely on comedians to provide rational insight on hot topics. We should be able to have these conversations openly without name calling and yelling. But a couple hours before going to the show we were out for lunch, and on the way back to the hotel passed some anti-mask protesters. One of them was having an exchange with someone walking past. I have no idea who started it but they were both throwing F-bombs at each other. Nothing civil about that. Nothing insightful shared. Nothing funny about it.

A few hours later, I’m having a good laugh, listening to Trevor make insightful comments about topics others just bicker about. Wouldn’t it be nice if more of us could do that?

Misinformation machine

Yesterday I shared this tweet:


Daniel Funke shared a thread of images that are NOT from the current invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, but are being spread in social media as if they are from the current battle.

Today I read an article that stated, “Facebook has blocked Russian state media outlets from using its advertising platform or using other monetization features in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”

Its amazing that propaganda is so prevalent today when there is such easy access to information. But we are not living in an age where facts travel at the speed of fiction. Lies spread faster than truth. Sensationalism trumps information, and upset or outrage create the perfect venue for the re-sharing of fabricated stories that go viral.

Facts blend with fiction into a narrative that is anything but real news. What stories do the news stations in Moscow share with their citizens? How different does the news sound in neighbouring Belarus, compared to China, compared to news here in North America?

It’s easy to share narratives that match your own view, even if the source of the data is unreliable. We are living in an era when misinformation reigns. Social media has become an unstoppable misinformation machine, and every time we click a like, re-share, or forward a narrative that isn’t true, we become part of the machine. After all, we are the social in social media. We are cogs in the misinformation machine.