Category Archives: Daily-Ink

I am…

I am not a slam poet,
too many stutters and ‘ummms’ would I make,
I could never recite this all in. Just. One. Take.

I am not a storyteller that captivates,
enthrals, excites, and engages,
I don’t have audiences that applaud me,
on pedestals and stages.

I am not an actor,
I don’t dream of the limelight,
I’d rather be the stagehand
working out of sight.

I am not, I am not,
I am not all of these things,
I can’t dance, I can’t play an instrument,
can’t hold a note when I sing…

It would be easy to go on.
To cut myself up critically.
It’s what ‘most’ people do,
and we all know ‘most’ is at least 51% statistically.

But for everything that I am not,
there is yet something that I am.
For every I can’t,
there are things that I can.

I can write a blog post,
and share it each day.
I can develop my ideas,
and put them on display.

I am creative,
I am thoughtful, and reflective,
I may not alway be right,
but I’m not afraid to share my perspective.

I am a writer, not a poet
though I may try,
I can still be witty, sarcastic,
and sometimes even wry.

I can share my thoughts,
I can express what I think,
For I am artist of words,
typing digital ink.

I am the thinker and creator
of this rhyming verse,
Somewhat embarrassed,
though I know it could be worse.

I am a blogger,
I express ideas our loud,
I am a digital writer,
often humbled, yet proud.

For I am a writer, daily,
and I publicly share,
My words start of private,
until I put them ‘out there’.

Out in the ether
goes my digital text,
and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow
to see what’s next…

Low battery mode

I spent most of Thursday night coughing on the couch, trying not to bother my family. Friday was a sick day and while I had respite in the late afternoon, I’m back on the couch tonight. When this gets posted in the morning, I hope to still be sound asleep. But I’m not writing about this to seek sympathy.

I just started thinking about my recent post, Adding fuel to the 4 Burner Theory. In that post I talked about taking care of ourselves first, and thus having more to offer. I still believe this. But sometimes you get knocked on your butt and you have no fuel, or battery, to give. For the last week and a half colleagues, students, and my family have all been under the weather, and it finally got me. Other times we have to deal with personal tragedies, or relationship/friendship challenges that rock us.

I just think it so important to acknowledge that sometimes being at our best isn’t our best, because our batteries are low. Like our phones, we sometimes have to put ourselves in ‘low power mode’ and just do the bare essentials until we can get charged again.

The fate of humanity

The year is 2075 and my great grandchild decides to have a baby. Her and her husband visit the clinic a second time, the first time they shared some cell samples with a clinician. In the 2 weeks since their last visit, these cells were copied and modified into hundreds of egg and sperm cells.

Then through a relatively new process called SPICER, (Selected Polymorphic Induced, Cleaved and Enhanced Recombination), based on CRISPR, a series of ‘orders’ were followed to produce a few hundred ‘ideal’ embryos. These were then culled to the best 18 (this number varies between 12 and 20 depending on how well the top few embryos developed) and the happy couple now had a few final choices to make. I say ‘final choices’ because they already went through a huge ‘order’ list of features and enhancements at the start of the process.

Hair, eye, skin colour, and gender were carefully selected. Intelligence, both intellectual and emotional, were maximized. Strength, flexibility, vision, metabolism, and endurance/lung capacity were all enhanced. Now, the top 18 embryos were screened and tested and the happy couple had to select the ‘best of the best’ to be inserted into my future relative’s womb.

Will this child be human? My grandson, father to this soon-to-be mother, had a genetic birth defect that was fixed by CRISPR even before my great, great granddaughter was born… So before answering that question about her child, is she even human? After all, her father’s genes were modified and passed on to her. At what point do we consider these modifications different than a non-modified human?

The fate of humanity is clear. We are some of the last human beings on this earth. Future generations will be modified and enhanced. They will be more or less human depending on your perspective, but they won’t just be biologically evolved from their ancestors. They will be created.

__________

*Edited update: I totally made up ‘SPICER’… but the technology to do what I suggest is less than 50 years away.

We need a new word: Memidemic

In July, 2013, when I wrote ‘Positivity Memidemic‘, memes were not what they are today. The growth of the use of this word, meme, has made the idea of a new word, memidemic, even more relevant.

The definition I created in that post was a little off the mark:

mem·i·dem·ic

Noun ~ A widespread occurrence of a good idea in a community at a particular time: “a passion memidemic”.

Adjective ~ Of, relating to, or of the nature of a memidemic. Synonyms

I think I missed the point in my definition because it is the spreading of positive ideas, images, and videos that needs a new word to describe what’s happening.

The problem of not having a word like this lies in the current words we use to describe these positive events happening: Viral and Epidemic.

Both of these have very negative connotations to them. We don’t want viruses or epidemics to spread, but  we do want positive memes to spread.

When something positive goes memidemic, it is spreading, and we want it to spread. We want to share the joy of it spreading. We want to see it shared, re-shared, and enjoyed. The word ‘viral’ doesn’t suggest that.

So the next time you see something adorable, inspiring, heart-warming, or wholesomely entertaining that is spreading and being shared, tell people that it’s going memidemic!

We want to see good memes about Greta Thunberg spread memidemically!

Blank Page

Sometimes I have a thousand ideas running through my brian and I can’t get them all out.

Sometimes I look at a blank page and my mind goes to mush. My mind isn’t blank, it’s not that I’m not thinking, rather what I am thinking involves being distracted by unimportant things. Writing a daily blog puts me in a dance between these two states. Sometimes I’m driving in my car and I think of 2 or 3 things to write about in less than 5 minutes. I will create draft titles and put a sentence starter or two on the page before I hit save. (No, I don’t do this while I’m still driving.)

Other times I can sit with a blank page and have no idea what to write? I go through my drafts and don’t really want to expand on any of them. I check the news, and search some of my social media feeds, and suddenly I’m no longer writing. This is when the discipline of just starting to write is important. This post was called ‘Wrapping’ and while it might sound interesting to some, the first few lines told me that I wasn’t going to unwrap the idea. So I deleted the title and once again faced the blank page.

In ‘The War of Art‘, Steven Pressfield said, “The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” I have the audio version of this book and I have listened to it twice. The fact is, that although the blank page can be intimidating, it doesn’t hold any more power over you than you give it. It can be an unapproachable mountain, it can be a desert plain, it can be a white-out blizzard, or it can just be a blank page, waiting for you to add some ink, (or digital ink).

This page is no longer blank. From the second sentence, this has been easy to write. It has taken me less time than most of my posts usually do. The words have flowed, the quote I was looking for above came up very quickly in a Google search, and so even that wasn’t a distraction. I just had to get past the blank page.

What are the blank pages that hold you back? And what can you do to get them started?

Glass ceilings are opaque

The idea behind the glass ceiling metaphor, is that there are invisible barriers that keep minorities and/or women from positions of power. But when I think about the portrayal of women in media and social media, I realize that there are some very visible, sometimes blatant and sometimes subtle, ways that make that ‘glass ceiling’ much more opaque.

I do not always recognize this myself.

Yesterday I shared this tweet and image: (I decided not to link to it)

1980’s: Experts agree that…

2010’s: It’s true, I read it on Facebook… 🤔

To me, that’s both insightful and funny. Then I received this response in a tweet from Natasha Knox:

So true!

Side note – do you find the male/female representation in this meme problematic, or is it just me?

To which I responded:

Ouch, now I notice it.

The use of gender roles here is problematic in more that just one way!

When my two daughters were younger, they used to love Dora the Explorer. This is a great cartoon with a female hero (recently a movie too, but I haven’t seen it). In the cartoon, Dora relies on two animated objects: a map and a backpack to help her on her adventures. Dora has to ask the male map which way to go. The female backpack always needs ‘your help’ to figure out what item in the backpack Dora needs. Intentionally sexist? I doubt it. Perpetuating gender stereotypes? Absolutely!

It is this perpetuation of gender stereotypes that I think makes the glass ceiling more opaque than people realize. Because looking through that ceiling, or rather breaking through that ceiling doesn’t always get women to the same place that men above that ceiling are. Not when expectations and preconceived stereotypes are different when women are in those roles. I think ‘problematic’ depictions of women, like the 2 examples above, are seldom done with an intentional bias, but they are done far more than people think. One or two examples may not seem like much, but done over and over again, on many forms of media and across many social media platforms, I think things like this can become normalized and self-perpetuate. That it is not necessarily intentional is what makes the issue so cloudy. That it is sometimes intentionally perpetuated makes things even worse.

I think it is important to identify and call out these biases. Where have you seen them recently?

No place to go

“Can we get to the place where there is no place to get to” ~ Michael Stone

I’ve been mediating daily since January 5th. It isn’t something that I feel I’m particularly good at, even months later. I wrote earlier about Embracing the suck, and although I know that on many levels, embracing this idea isn’t helpful, I have still stuck with it.

But in today’s meditation Tamara Levitt, on the Calm App, spoke about this idea of embracing that if we are trying to make something happen, then we are not accepting what is in this moment. Wanting to not be distracted is different than noticing I am distracted and focusing on my breath as a place to choose to put my attention. Rather than pulling away from the distractions, choosing to recognize them and letting go and accepting a new moment in time.

Even now I want to write that during meditation, ‘My distractions get the best of me’, when I know that’s counter to what I just said… this is a learning journey. But I thing it’s good to shift my thinking and realize that the journey isn’t to anywhere specific. I don’t have a destination, a place to go…. Rather I have thousands of moments along the journey to remind myself of this, and to embrace where I am, not where I’m trying to get to.

Adding fuel to the 4 Burner Theory

The four burner theory, as seen in this video shared below, suggests that we never actually live a balanced life, and if we do, we can never really be successful in any key areas of our lives: Family, Friends, Health, and Work.

The theory suggests that we have a limited amount of energy to distribute to these different burners, and so we need to decide where best to distribute that energy. The video also suggests that we might want to distribute that energy differently at different times in our lives.

I agree with this video in that I have seldom found balance in my life and I’ve often put one of the areas ahead of others, reducing those other areas in time commitment and overall satisfaction. However, this year I’ve also realized something else… we don’t need to accept that the limited amount of energy we have is completely fixed.

Since the start of this year, I have instituted a self-care program that has really changed my ability to give more to all 4 burners, so by giving time to a 5th burner of self-care, I have more to offer. This vlog shared my healthy living goals for 2019.

Does this mean that I’ve suddenly found balance in my life. Absolutely not! I agree with the idea that balance is not fully achievable if we want to excel in different areas of our lives. But I don’t agree that our fuel, our energy levels are fixed. I think we all know this too. Every one of us have had times when we’ve felt down, and low in energy, when trying to be successful in one area means we have nothing left for the other areas of our lives. We’ve also had times when we’ve had high energy levels and things are going great in more than one area of our lives. The question is, are these differences ones that happen to us, or do these differences happen because we create them? This year, I’ve been able to give more of myself in more areas of my life.

By taking the time to listen to audio books, and to write; by exercising more consistently than I have in over 15 years; by reducing my unhealthy snacking; and, by meditating daily for almost 10 months now, I have felt more energized, more level-headed, and more productive in other areas of my life. That said, I’m the first to admit I don’t have everything under control, I’m not perfect, and in fact I’m still my own biggest critic. The start of this calendar year was so crazy at work, I had days I just wanted to run away and move to a remote island. There were weeks where my only communication with my wife were logistical. There were days where 20 minutes on the treadmill started with 40 minutes of procrastination. But as I approach the end of September, the craziest time in the school year, I feel more on top of things than I did a year ago. I’m enjoying my family time more. I’m seeing leaps of improvement in my strength and conditioning. And I’m doing things like this daily post on a Saturday morning, while my family is still sleeping. Sunday morning, when this post goes live, I’ll be having breakfast with a friend.

The reality is that we may never have balance, but if make taking care of ourselves a priority, we have more fuel to add to the other burners in our lives.

Remote control buttons

When I moved to Vancouver in 1993, I brought with me an old TV, and it had a ‘converter box’ to change the channels. It was connected to the television by a long cord. It had 12 buttons on it and a 3-way toggle switch to triple the amount of channels it could go to. Even for that time it was a novelty to those who came to my apartment, why didn’t I just have a remote?

Now, in my basement we have a projector for a television, and we have 5 remotes:

The projector, the speaker/amplifier, the TV channel changer, the DVD player, and the Apple TV remote.

If I project my phone onto the screen using the Apple TV, my phone becomes a 6th remote.

None of these remotes looks the same or puts the controls in a similar place. Even a control as simple as the volume is something I need to search for when I switch remotes. There is no universal design for these tools. My upstairs TV starts and says, ‘Press ‘OK’ to watch TV’ but the centre ‘OK’ button is one of the only buttons on that remote that isn’t labeled!

I find this quite frustrating.

I think this frustrates me even more than it should because I actually don’t watch a lot of TV, so every time I use them I feel that I need to relearn the locations of everything. I will routinely change the channel instead of raise the volume, or jump back a full scene when I’m trying to rewatch/re-listen to the last 10 seconds.

I’m not advocating for universal design, that likely won’t happen. But what if remotes were to come up with some universal colour patterns? The yellow buttons change channels, the green is the power button, the blue button is are for volume, etc.

By doing something like this, remotes can continue to look different, but still provide a better user experience.

Where else does a lack of universal design hinder user experience?

Choosing well

Some choices we make are hugely influential and others are not, yet we seldom make distinctions when we should. Or at least, we get lost in the importance of decisions that are not important, giving them too much value.

We can spend a couple minutes choosing the right cereal to buy in the store… but both of our choices result in bringing home a breakfast that is loaded in refined sugar.

We can spend hours watching a TV series that is less interesting than it was when we started watching, but we feel committed to finishing the season. We don’t allow ourselves the choice to stop watching. On that note, when was the last time you chose to walk out of a theatre because the movie was bad? You probable chose to stay until the end… but it likely didn’t feel like you had a choice. You think or justify, ‘It might get better’, but it never does.

We can spend hours making a big purchase like a car, then let a salesman talk us into features and add-one we don’t need. Our choice for the car is done, and suddenly we are more easily persuaded and less likely to exercise choice.

How many unimportant choices do we spend too much time on? How many times do we passively do something without giving ourselves a choice to do something different? And how many times do we delay important choices to the point that our choices diminish? For example, you can’t decide what to do, and 2 hours later one of your choices is eliminated because there isn’t enough time to do it.

‘To do’ lists can become not do lists. I will choose to do a few easy things on the list, but those big things will sit on tomorrow’s list. I will write down the things I’m choosing to do later instead of now. I will add more things to the list so that I don’t have to do those things already on the list.

We make thousands of decisions a day. Some are big, but most are small. We also make thousands of non-decisions a day, doing something without realizing we can do something else or choose to do the same thing differently.

What’s something that you can do differently today? What’s something that you can make a choice not to do, that you do out of habit? Where in your daily routine can you empower yourself with better choices?