Category Archives: Daily-Ink

Our online persona

No one shares all of who they are online. We share snippets, frozen moments, and smiling images. Some share to learn, others to reflect, others to seek attention. What’s clear is that we are not our public or online persona.

Writing and sharing daily, I’m keenly aware that I share a lot more than others do. How is this perceived by others? I’ve had some surprising feedback, some of it good, some of it disappointingly bad. I’ve even had it questioned if this was somehow taking away from my work day. That would have made me laugh if it wasn’t, at the time, so upsetting. I wrote a scathing retort that will probably never leave my drafts. It was cathartic enough just to write it.

And that’s what I’m reflecting on now, what do we chose to share and what do we keep to ourselves?

What do I keep to myself? What do I blog about? What do I expose? What do I hide?

A few years ago I went through 6 months of chronic fatigue. My family and coworkers knew, they had to know because I wasn’t running at full capacity no matter how hard I tried… but I didn’t really share any of this online until I found out it was from an extreme Vitamin D deficiency, and I was on the road to recovery.

I can remember going to a conference once and meeting a blogger whom I read regularly and admired. I was so excited to meet this person who ended up just being an ordinary guy who really didn’t want to talk about anything I was interested in talking about. It was a huge let down. This is especially true because before meeting him, I’d connected with so many amazing people at conferences who felt like instant friends, and whom I loved meeting face to face. I had met so many people that I felt I knew, and who exceeded my expectations as wonderful human beings. This guy just let me down.

But did he? Did he let me down or did I expect too much? Had I built him up to be something he wasn’t? Did I imagine him to be more than he was? Did I imagine my online interactions meant more to him than I should have?

On the flip side, who have I let down, disappointed, and even unintentionally ignored? Who has met me and thought, ‘Oh, that’s not the guy I thought he would be… that’s not the online Dave that I know.’

Whether we want to admit it or not, we don’t put our whole selves online. We refine our online persona by intentionally editing things out. We may not see ourselves the same as the Instagram teen deleting images that don’t get enough likes, but in some way we are one and the same. We choose to put some things ‘out there’ and we choose to leave some things out.

I have a friend who shares the most incredible photos of themselves having a wonderful time on Facebook, who I know is unhappy and struggles with depression.

I have another friend who in the past over-shared a tremendous amount of information about themselves. I was concerned and mentioned this to them. The response: “I’ve had people thank me for being so honest, and sharing things they are afraid to.” They were over-sharing in my eyes, not in theirs. It was beyond my comfort zone, not theirs. It was an uncomfortable level of sharing for me, not for them.

I can see that we are not our online personas. They are different than us. Even though this persona can say a lot about us… they don’t always say what we think they say.

How intentionally different to you is your online persona?

A forgotten dream

Last week I visited my uncle and he reminded me of a dream that I shared with him, 27 years ago, before my move from Toronto to Vancouver.

There is a saying: “To the fish water is invisible.” And that is what my dream was about. 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.

The dream was that I was in my bedroom next to my dad’s office and everything was under water. It wasn’t scary, I could breathe. I knew the water was there but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

What was right in front of me was all of dad’s books that I had never read. 1,000’s of books. My dad has read and given away more books than any 50 people would normally read in their lifetime. 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.

I didn’t enjoy reading until I was in my 30’s. I slowed down again after that, getting too busy, until recently in my 50’s when I discovered that I could listen to audio books while exercising, and walking, and waiting in lineups, and commuting in my car.

We often don’t see the opportunities right in front of us. We often take things, and people, for granted because they are right there.

About 8 or 9 years after I moved to B.C., my librarian at the school I was teaching at did an exchange with a teacher from Australia. That teacher and her retired husband went away almost every weekend during the exchange. In a single year they had visited more of B.C. than I had in almost a decade. In fact, more than I have in over a quarter century of living here now.

We are fish, blind to the water we swim in. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and paying attention to what is right in front of us.

We do not know

In a number of different places I’ve already said that COVID-19 has humbled me in that my thoughts and predictions have been way off. I’m not the only one.

Here is an interesting but worrisome article from Vox: My patient caught Covid-19 twice. So long to herd immunity hopes?

“We do not know how much immunity to expect once someone is infected with the virus, we do not know how long that immunity may last, and we do not know how many antibodies are needed to mount an effective response.”

There is still so much we need to learn about this virus that has changed the social and economic habits of humankind on a massive scale. So much we don’t know.

Here’s one thing I believe, (while admittedly not truly knowing):

We are going to be dealing with COVID-19 social restrictions and economic repercussions well into 2022.

I want to be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I doubt that I’m wrong.

I tend to be optimistic, and this doesn’t sound very optimistic. Not at all. But I think accepting that from now and right through 2021, we will be navigating a defensive response to COVID-19 will help us stay positive. We can plan the best possible path forward facing a very challenging scenario, and be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong. This is better than hoping for the best and continually being disappointed.

If we prepare for a long response, adhering to the required social distancing and social norms recommended to us, we will make things better, faster.

The path forward won’t be easy, but maybe we’ll learn some valuable lessons along the way. On the path, we need to be patient with each other. Tolerant. Forgiving. Kind.

We aren’t designed to live our lives in a constant state of anxiety or stress, and it’s hard to constantly adapt to change. But the rules for social interaction are going to be fluid for a while, sometimes loosening restrictions and opening public and social spaces, sometimes closing them down again. We need to be fluid too. Responsive. Adaptable.

We may not know what the future holds, but we will be more prepared for that future if we prepare for a prolonged and bumpy ride. Let’s work together and make it as smooth as possible.

Do I keep going?

I was looking forward to celebrating a year of Daily-Ink on July 16th… however, I just checked and my first daily ritual post (this time around) was on July 6th, 2019. The anniversary has come and gone!

Do I keep going?

I think so.

I need to make some changes though. I’m not happy writing for the sake of writing. If I don’t have something worth saying, I don’t want to fill the (public) page for the sake of filling the page. That said, if I skip a day here and there, I know what will happen: I will get busy, I will put writing on the back-burner, I’ll miss more days, and my daily habit will disappear.

I know myself enough to know that if I don’t commit to do this daily, it will not be something I’m consistently doing a year from now.

I know so. I know that I will keep going.

What I might do is skip a day or two, here or there, with respect to choosing to write publicly for my blog. What I won’t do is skip a day of writing. As long as I’m honest with myself and dedicate to writing every day, I’ll be happy. It took a long time to finally get my Daily-Ink going, and now over a year later… I’m not going to stop.

Goodbyes are tough

No matter how long I visit with family, the goodbyes are hard to do. I don’t know if anyone handles them well?

I’m not one that shows my emotions externally much, and this isn’t because I’m holding anything in… I am introverted and I internalize a lot. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.

It’s so much easier these days to say goodbye, with instant contact available at any time, but there is something special about giving your parents a hug. Sitting with them. Laughing with them.

Every opportunity is a treasure.

Some people

Today I had a funny interaction in a store. I was returning an item and an older gentleman decided that the lineup was too big and came along side me to make his purchase at the returns/customer service booth. Although he arrived just after me, I said he could go ahead of me. However Mrs. Persnickety working at Returns wanted to send him back. I was the only other person and I said it was ok, I’d wait. She rolled her eyes and let the old guy go ahead of me. When it was time for him to pay he struggled to find his Visa card and she helped him with another eye roll and an impatient tone.

When it was my turn, she curtly told me, the item had been opened, so I could only get exchange or store credit rather than a refund. I said I’d take a look around for exchange and her response was, ‘it has to be this value’ which I took as not getting store credit if it was less, so I took the store credit before looking to spend it, knowing I wouldn’t have to spend the credit all at once like I thought she was suggesting.

Overall Mrs. Persnickety was curt and a little unpleasant. She seems like one of those people who would be better off not working in the customer service department. Her exchanges with both the older gentleman before me and with me could’ve been a lot nicer with just a little bit of effort.

I went in the store and didn’t see anything to buy, so on the way out I saw that she was not serving anyone and so I asked her a clarifying question. “Is the store credit just for this store or can I use it in British Columbia as well?” I would’ve been happy with either response, if it was only the local store I would give the credit to my parents, and if I could use it across the chain, in BC, then I would take it home with me. Her response was that I can use it in any of the stores in Canada.

Then she asked me where in BC I was from, and started to tell me all the different cities where she had family in BC. We had a nice short conversation about how much she liked going there to visit, and how much she enjoyed the weather there. I said, “I used to live here in Toronto, however I have to say that the humidity is really getting to me this past week.”

She admitted that the heat was really bad this summer, and then said to me, “The worst part about the heat is how grumpy it makes some people.”

I agreed, with a little chuckle, and left the store.

Summer chat with Robert Martellacci @MindShareLearn

I dropped my mom off for her first hair appointment since covid hit, and there isn’t a waiting room to hang out in… so off to Starbucks for a coffee and then a parking lot chat with Robert Martellacci from MindShareLearning.ca.

I hope that you enjoy this episode of This Week in EdTech’s MindShareLearning Report. 🇨🇦

Notes:

My Twitter is @datruss (not dtruss in the tweet above)

Free e-book: Twitter EDU

My Daily-Ink about students/parents showing my wife appreciation.

Inquiry Hub Secondary (iHub) ~ And our website for educators.

Snapshots of another time

Recently I was telling my kids about these ashtrays that my parents had when I was a kid. They were totally inappropriate. One in particular was painfully over-the-top-bad.

I’m currently helping my parents move and we opened a box to determine what was in it and found these very ashtrays at the top of the box.

Here is the worst of them: A child, still in the womb, and the caption, “OH, OH… THE OLD LADY SNEAKED ANOTHER MARTINI!”

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  1. It’s an ashtray depicting a child in a womb.
  2. It is about a pregnant mom drinking enough alcohol to affect the baby.

Could you imagine this item being sold today?

It was a different time, with different norms. Pregnant women smoked and drank. Kids would sit in smoke filled cars, 4-6 of them in the back of a station wagon with no seatbelts. It was unheard of for a kid on a bicycle to wear a helmet.

We are talking about 50 years ago.

It’s fascinating to see how social norms change… mostly for the better. It’s also interesting to see how some of the old norms fade away while others (deservingly) are highlighted for being appalling. All transgressions of today, some causing upheaval, some (sadly) resurfacing, others just snapshots of a time long ago.

Ashtrays in general are relics. This one probably won’t ever leave the box, but I can’t see my mom throwing it away.

Significantly Insignificant

As far as scientists know:

  • The human species originated in Africa about 250,000 to 300,000 years ago.
  • Dinosaurs existed for over 180,000,000 years.
  • Dinosaurs went extinct about 66,000,000 years ago.

To put this into perspective, as a percentage, humans have been around 0.167% as long as dinosaurs were. Put another way, dinosaurs existed for 600 times longer than humans have so far. Beyond that, dinosaurs have been extinct for 200 times longer than humans have been around.

We are a species that has lived for an insignificant amount of time, on a tiny planet, not far from an insignificant sun, in an insignificant part of our galaxy, which lies in an insignificant part of our universe. We are insignificant specs of cosmic dust.

Yet we are conscious, thinking and dreaming entities, who are creative, inventive, and future focused. It’s unlikely that we are the only beings capable of this in the universe, but it is likely we will be extinct before we meet any other beings as capable of thinking and creating like us… or destroying like us. To the earth, our cities are like parasites. We have created weapons of mass destruction. We consume natural resources at an alarming rate. We have caused the extinction of countless species. We have had a significant impact on our planet.

We are showing our significance in the ugliest of ways. Perhaps we should think about being a little more insignificant, because at this rate, it’s unlikely that we’ll be around as a species for any significant amount of time.

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Through Persistence

We are living in a time of incredible change. It is not often that we have widespread changes in cultural norms, and shifts in the way we communicate with each other daily. Yet, now I have to read the signs on the floors of stores to know which way to walk and where to stand, and I need to navigate around people coming towards me giving them a wide birth. We also spend hours communicating digitally instead of meeting face-to-face, and shop far more online than ever before.

Amidst all these changes it is easy to forget that many important changes we want to see take persistence and time. My back aches every day, but regular exercise reduces this to the background of my mind, rather than having it become pain.

My daily meditation isn’t about reaching an end goal, but consistently being less distracted, and understanding that while meditating is a simple task, it is not an easy task.

My relationships that I foster do not get better unless I make an effort every day, every interaction, being intentionally giving, kind, and patient.

We can get lost looking for quick fixes and immediate changes. We can forget that certain aspects of our lives are about playing the long game, seeking incremental improvements, and keeping ourselves on a good path… making positive changes through persistence.

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” ~ Ovid