If you haven’t been here before, welcome to my new website. If you haven’t done so already, do subscribe to it and consider leaving a comment or two, or three or more. Ask questions, stimulate conversation, editorialize. For now, I am quite open, not closed to conversations, so feel free to ‘talk-back’ to me if you read something you disagree with.
And remember to send me your prompts and suggestions — topics you’d like to see discussed here. If I have enough hubris to put my own words out there, being open to the ideas and perspectives of others is, I think, perfectly reasonable way to try to even things out.
Right now, there is no shortage of issues that I want to discuss. The topic I have front of mind right now is the latest weather-related, very Super-Unnatural disaster that happened here in British Columbia on November 15th, but there are many other subjects as well. As a mostly-retired teacher with an extraverted personality, (with strong introverted tendencies), I have a strong commitment to the ethic that there is nothing than cannot be talked about, that most things should be talked about, as long as the dialogue is constructive — until it’s not.
From 1981 I was a teacher in public and indigenous schools in B.C. and Manitoba. I was fortunate to have many different assignments over the years; I met all kinds of unique and interesting people, each of whom has their own story. For most, but not all, those stories continue.
Sometimes, quite rarely, some of these people reach out: either in person, through social media, or through the the serendipity of my own memory. This is not to say this blog is meant to be a warm fire fuels by stories of the past: it’s not. My aim and focus is this time, this place, right where we are, right now — wherever we are.
We are walking the road together.
The daily question seems to be: “Where do we go from here?”
I realize that a blog written by a once and sometime teacher might be one that is easy to pass over, reject, turn away from — so many people have had negative experiences with teachers and schools — but I hope that you might give me — give us, US, — this chance.
Like I ended up almost always saying to students who arrived a half-hour, one, two or three hours late to school during the years I taught in several Alternate Programs: “I’m SO glad you’re here; it hasn’t been the same without YOU!”
What I’m saying is that my abiding hope is this blog might, in some way, be mutually beneficial: helpful to you and to me; helpful in the reflexive moment we find ourselves, individually and collectively, when we are alone and when we are together.
It seems my main interest right now is human energy — where it manifests, how it is applied, how it rolls out, — and what happens when IT happens.
So I guess that means my interest is primarily humanistic; part of me wants to find out exactly what that means now, in the darker months of 2021 and beyond.
At the same time, I arrive empty-handed. I come to you with no book to promote, no product to sell, no self-serving pitch to make about a screenplay, project, or ideology. That might and probably will change someday — nor not — but probably in ways that are impossible to predict. For now, I’m comfortable knowing that change is certain even if I am not. My motivation is to offer you something that might be of interest or help to you in some way.
Right now I’m comfortable leaving that assessment to you.
Since I ‘retired’ from full-time teaching work in 2018 and relocated with Herself to this small village, we’ve been focused on easing-off the throttle, slowing down, and backing off as much as necessary. I’ve often referred to this intention process of change as “pressing the ‘reset’ button”. So far, it has been a salutary experience, one that we have not so far regretted.
Our decision came well ahead of the epochal changes marked by the arrival of the novel Sars-2 Corona Virus, Covid-19, and other events, and the remarkable changes to local and regional weather that are playing out.
But I’ve also kept active in areas that are still interesting and stimulating:
— I continue to teach on-call one or two days, every couple of weeks.
— I continue working in my ‘Sustainability Garden’ as much as I can, but lately, not as much as I should.
— I continue to pursue my evolving interest in politics, but not in the usual way.
— I continue to chase other stuff: lots of other stuff!
I also have a digital camera that I do not know how to use, so who knows, maybe pictures and videos may eventually be part of this.
Until later,
Paul
P.S.
“Confidential to K.L: Thanks for your message today. You’ve made all of the difference. Hold on.”
The Crowsnest Alliance 