Category Archives: Daily-Ink

With a Discerning Eye

Yesterday, when I wrote ‘The inverted political bell curve’ about how politically many people have moved to the extremes. I ended by saying, “The bell curve is gone, only warring tribes remain, and the fighting is just going to get uglier.”

There are many reasons why I think this is true, and I think we are headed into a period before the US election where truth will be hard to discern, and extremist views will go viral. But I also think that many people can see it coming and will be ready. They will question, they will fact check, they will doubt the accuracy of what’s being spewed their way.

Will the extremes be loud, and will their messages be filled with personal attacks and un-researched facts that are actually fiction and propaganda? Yes.

But not everyone is going to listen. There are some savvy people who will be watching with a discerning eye. They will be the voices of reason. They will be as interested in determining the intent of the message as they will be in listening to it. They will hear something bad about a candidate they dislike, and still question the validity of what’s being said.

I don’t think this group will be a majority, but they will be present. And while yesterday I sounded like I saw a future of doom and gloom ahead of us, I also see some promise that not everyone is polarized and sitting on the extremes. And that keeps me hopeful that things might not get as messy as they could.

Watch the news and messaging on social media with a discerning eye in the coming months… question, fact check, and take the time to understand the context of things being quoted. We need common sense to prevail.

The inverted political bell curve

We no longer have an opportunity to be centrist. Extremes on either side make this challenging. Being centrist is too hard, hated by both sides because if you aren’t way over here on ‘our’ side, you lack the merit of being associated with ‘us’, so you belong with ‘them’. Rather than being seen as partial to common interests you are lumped in with everyone else that is not on ‘our’ extreme.

Examples: Liberal minded but worry about immigration? Well you may as well be fully right wing conservative. Believe in equal opportunities for gay marriage? Well then you might as well be a bleeding heart liberal, no matter how else your views may be conservative.

There used to be a bell curve where most people were not on the extremes, rather more centrist, more in the middle. That curve has inverted and flattened. Less people are ‘in the middle’ and more people are veering to the extremes. And it’s not getting any better because any political candidate who appeals to the center is not appealing to the masses. The once peripheral minorities are now a divided majority.

There is no room for nuance. No debate, just argument. Dichotomies, not a spectrum of ideas. But global issues are not well defined into clearly opposing views. Electric vehicles can be a net good while the environmental cost of dead batteries pose a problem. We can provide rights for some without taking them away from others. We can have strong border policies, and be both discerning and compassionate. We can disagree and not vilify, argue and not attack, debate facts and dismiss logical fallacies.

We can… but will we? Or are the propaganda machines too powerful right now? Are we entering an era where truth is elusive, and biased AI created videos constantly exaggerate perspectives? An era where fact checking is a requirement before accepting information? Throw in ad hominem, personal attacks, and intentional foreign interference focused on deepening polarization, and anti-social social media, and I’m afraid to think about where we are headed.

The bell curve majority of moderate thinkers have dispersed to the extremes, and these extremes are dragging everyone out of the middle. It’s 2024 and I can go on social media and watch a live debate between a scientist and a flat earther, and despite the evidence to the contrary, no flat earther is going to change their mind. I can find a bible prophecy that ignores wild extrapolations and factual inaccuracies, and no countervailing points will be accepted. I can find intelligent people arguing biased and counter factual points, and putting their intellect aside blindly to support a point, a belief, a perspective, or even a political candidate.

I’ve come to the realization that we are just monkeys. We are not civil, we are tribal animals, playing at being intelligent. We are more likely to solve disputes like other animals than we are as humans. We admire bravado, we look down on the meek, we beat our chests and vie for attention. Winning is more important than playing fair. I am safer when my tribe, my group, my monkey troop, is stronger and other troops are dominated.

The bell curve is gone, only warring tribes remain, and the fighting is just going to get uglier.

What are you showing up for?

I wrote this back in April 2022:

We live in a society now where there is so much pressure to do well; to be your best; to shine. It’s not easy. But sometimes the message doesn’t have to be ‘you are awesome’, ‘you have so much potential’, or ‘push yourself’. Sometimes the message of ‘just show up’ is all we need to hear.

  • Don’t plan an hour workout, just show up at the gym.
  • Don’t worry about how much you have to do, just start.
  • Don’t create a huge ‘to do’ list, pick 2-3 things you know you can get done and check those off… even if showing up is one of those things!

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than thinking your way into a new way of acting. ~Richard Pascale

Just show up!

In a coffee shop with a friend today we were discussing the value of ‘Just showing up‘, and he asked the very rich question, “What are you showing up for?”

Two things come to mind and they are related:

  • For the habit; and
  • For the accomplishment.

When your attitude is ‘just show up’ you often end up doing more than you expect. A perfect example is exercise. “I don’t feel like working out today” is not showing up! But “I don’t feel like working out today so I’ll just walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes…” This is ‘just showing up’! And if you only do 10 minutes, that’s great! You weren’t feeling up to doing anything and you accomplished a short workout. Fantastic!

But what also might happen is you could finish that 10 minutes and add another 10 minutes because now you’re feeling pretty good about it. You could decide you’re just going to do a walk and then you end up doing a run. You could finish the 10 minutes and then do 15 or 20 minutes of stretching that you wouldn’t have done had you not got on the treadmill in the first place.

So instead of not showing up and skipping the workout you have both maintained the habit and you’ve also accomplished something to feel good about.

What are you showing up for? Consistency: Habit reinforced; Accomplishment achieved.

Team support

When things are going well, it’s easy to compliment a team. Success and smooth sailing can make a team look good. Everyone is doing the role they should, and ‘results speak for themselves’. But what happens to that team when there is a crisis? How do they react then?

When things go wrong, when challenges arise, what does team support look like then? Does the team start to point fingers and blame others? Do they rally with or against each other? Do they seek advice from their colleagues or do they spew orders, demands, and/or expectations?

If you want to know how good a team is, watch them when things are tough. See how they support one another. Pay attention to how they deal not just with the problem but with each other.

Any team can handle success well, but it takes a very special team to deal with challenging situations in a good way.

The Gaps

They are the space in between. The gaps that separate knowing from doing.

It’s what allows you to be kind to others, but doesn’t allow you to be kind to yourself.

It’s the awareness of what you should eat and what you actually snack on without thinking.

It’s having great habits in one area of your life and not being able to duplicate them in other areas of your life.

It’s waning motivation when the job is almost done, which delays completion.

It’s getting too little sleep but delaying bedtime with unproductive distractions.

It’s not facing the most urgent thing by keeping busy with less important things.

It’s the gap. Sometimes it’s narrow and easy to cross, and other times it’s an impassable crevice. It’s the creator of guilt, and a point of self loathing, or disappointment.

It’s the yeast that gives rise to procrastination and excuses. It gets baked into your routines. It’s the stale crust that is unappetizing but still edible.

Take small bites.

Tiny steps forward.

Narrow the gap. You aren’t going to get rid of it, but you can reduce its impact. It’s easier to take baby steps than it is to try to leap across a chasm, but once you let the gap become a chasm, it feels like it’s too late. Baby steps, one foot in front of the other, and some gaps will slowly disappear… but more knowing/doing gaps will always appear. If they didn’t, life would probably be pretty boring.

Recycled and Reused

Recently on social media I’ve seen a lot of ideas reused and reshared. Jokes from my childhood are showing up like they are new. Platitudes are being repeated. And stories are being redone. This isn’t new, but it’s a growing pattern. Look at how many movies are being redone as a perfect example. The same story with new characters.

It’s not just about bringing back the classics. Rather it’s about the constant demand for new content. There just aren’t enough ideas to feed the content machines so riffing off of past content becomes an easier option.

A perfect example is that I’ve seen a couple different reasons of this video recently.

I first saw this go viral 12 years ago and here it is making the rounds again. But it’s not this version, it’s completely redone. Old ideas recycled with new content. There is going to be a lot more of this old content redelivered in the coming years, because the algorithm for engagement is all about putting new content out there fast and often… and new ideas are harder to come up with compared to something that already had success. The old is new again.

Community of Learners

Yesterday we had the incoming Grade 8 class join us for the day. Our Grade 9’s, under teacher supervision, organized the day. We welcomed our nervous, shy Grade 8’s with some icebreakers and a challenge to work in groups to do maximum 3-minute a skit that showed a challenge of working in groups. Then a 1-minute solution.

One example of a skit students came up with was a team worked hard to get a presentation ready and then the day it was due the person responsible for building the PowerPoint was away and didn’t share anything… and hadn’t actually done what they were supposed to do. The solution the students came up with was asking for a one day extension. The other things our teacher and other students suggested as a solution included:

How could they share their knowledge without a PowerPoint? Could they come up with about 5 slides in 10 minutes that would be a good backdrop to their presentation? And going further: What could they do to ensure that this student does more visible work before the presentation next time? And/or what would be a better role for that student next time?

The skits were not judged on how good they were, they were about a team facing a challenge and seeking a solution. They were dissected to learn, as a community, how to work effectively in a community. The skits were humorous, and often included things like dealing with tyrannical teachers with unrealistic actions or expectations. One skit had a teacher that threatened to beat kids up with a ruler. But even in this silly scenario, there were lessons to be learned.

Our Grade 9’s made sure everyone felt welcome. Our teachers made sure students worked together and shared what we expected from learners at our school. And the Grade 8’s moved slowly from nervous visitors to members of our community. After school a few students stuck around for an hour waiting for their parents to join us for our PAC (Parent Advisory Council) pot luck and then AGM Meeting. During that wait, the Grade 8’s mingled with the Grade 9’s that were also waiting, and it was great to see them all in cross-grade groups chatting and laughing.

We will continue the community building in September, and the beautiful thing about hosting a visit like yesterday is that there is already some momentum built. We won’t be starting from scratch, and our new students will start in September excited to reconnect. It’s so much easier to build a positive learning environment when a strong community of learners is established.

Frame of mind

Yesterday I didn’t work out. I planned to but things just got in the way, including my lack of motivation. I don’t need motivation today because weekdays I have a habitual routine and I know that I’ll be working out after I publish this. But weekends are often off schedule and motivation is required. I didn’t have it yesterday.

That said, I’ve only taken one other day off in about a month, and two days are not a big deal to miss out of 30. I intellectually know this, missing my workout wasn’t a big deal. Yet because I intended to work out, I didn’t have the right frame of mind about my missed workout. If I woke up feeling awful like I did last week, head pounding, and needed a break, that’s ok. But waking up with full intention to do my daily exercise and then not doing so feels like a failure.

Yesterday I had to help my wife with a task on her computer. It’s something I’ve done many times but the setup on her computer was different and this simple process took 3 times as long as it should have. I was frustrated. I was speaking to the computer as if it was an animate object that could hear me. I swore. I got angry. I wanted to throw the laptop across the room. It was stupid, and worse yet the whole thing still only took about 5-6 minutes to do. I should never have let this minor slow down get to me, but I wasn’t in a resourceful frame of mind.

Yesterday I ended the day with a meditation. I lay down with headphones on in the spare bedroom and woke up 50 minutes later not having heard any of the last 1/2 of the 20 minute session. I didn’t even realize I was that tired, but the meditation was actually just a nap. Instead of accepting this, I was upset that I chose to lie down and allowed myself to fall asleep. I went to my bed but rather than falling directly back to sleep, I was up and disappointed about missing my meditation, and then was missing sleep as a result. That’s far from a meditative frame of mind, and certainly not why I meditate.

Each of these minor things could have felt different if I was in a different frame of mind. Each of these were unnecessary stresses that I allowed to build up in me. They really weren’t reasons to be upset. They weren’t moments that I needed to fret about. They were not things that needed to set a negative mood or to perseverate about.

Sometimes resourcefulness takes too much effort. It’s easy to beat yourself up rather than to frame things in a positive way. Sometimes the frames around your thoughts are rigid. Cold. Unkind. You would give anyone else a break, give them an opportunity to slip up, or not follow through… but yourself, no, you don’t give yourself the opportunity.

Get it right, or be disappointed.

Failure is not an option.

Mistakes are something other people can be forgiven for.

Results are required. Now.

This is not a healthy frame of mind. It does not provide any benefits, and it steals joy. It’s better to be gentle. All it takes is seeing outside the frame. I’ll push hard on my workout today. This morning I already redid the same meditation I slept through yesterday. And I see the futility of being upset at my wife’s computer. The poor framing is easy to see today, the trick is to see it in the moment, and to be kinder to myself when I don’t have the right frame of mind.

Pools Out for Summer

It took a good part of the weekend, but I got the pool set up for the summer. The water pump driven solar panels are up, but as you can see in the image the pool is not quite full yet and so I still have to test all my pluming connections for leaks… but the hard part is done.

For the past few years the ritual of getting this pool ready has marked the start of summer for me. While it will be at least 2 weeks before it gets warm enough to swim, having it up and spending more time in the back yard makes the last few weeks of school a lot more enjoyable. It certainly helps that it’s also bright out a lot later.

The funny thing is that I really don’t go in the pool much. My wife loves it and gets in regularly, while I mostly go in to vacuum it. I might sit on an inflatable seat a handful of times at the most, but I love the hot tub and would rather sit in it than the pool. For me the pool isn’t a destination, it’s a symbol, a symbol of summer.

Naturally Funny

I mentioned yesterday that I was introducing one of our Principal retirees at a dinner last night. It was about a 4-minute bit, and it went well. I know my friend appreciated it. It was heartfelt and struck a good cord with him and his family. I knew it would because I know him well enough to get it right.

What it wasn’t was funny. I have a good enough sense of humour with family and friends but I’m not naturally funny. The introduction before mine was absolutely hilarious. It wasn’t only funny, it was completely respectful and relevant to the person he was introducing. It was absolutely delightful to listen to.

I love how some people are naturally funny. It’s a gift. If I tried to pull off half of the things that were said in this humorous introduction, they really would not have worked in the same way. But also, if that’s what my friend wanted, he wouldn’t have asked me.

I don’t know if it’s a natural gift or if people genuinely work at it, but I love listening to someone who can get a whole crowd laughing. What I do know is that’s not me. I’ll throw a one liner in here are there but I fully recognize that I’m not naturally funny, and I stay in my lane and don’t try to be. Just like watching a natural entertainer is enjoyable, watching someone try to be when they are not is painful. I’ll leave the jokes to those who know how to deliver them… and get the laughs.