Humanist

Last week was a challenge at work. By Tuesday afternoon, my cohort, M and I were questioning why we were working where we were. Trying to be supportive I noted that we were there to keep the bad in check. Even if we fail, at least someone was there to raise the alarm and hold people to account from inside. 

This would play out to be very true over the remainder of the week as we both had moral quandaries come across our desks. We were both in a position where we needed to advocate for vulnerable groups, defend the free media and in one case, protect the dignity of the deceased. It all sounds far more dramatic than it really was but at the same time, it could have become more dramatic if someone hadn't been there to say "Let's reconsider this, I have an ethical objection to this."

To my relief and pride, a former manager who is now a higher-ranking director came by my desk to acknowledge and praise those objections and celebrate the ideas I brought to the table. 

"Jeremy, your strength has always been your ability to see the human impact of an approach and point out the harm we could do. Never stop doing that." I've always held myself accountable only to myself and my morals, but having someone you respect who's also in a place of power recognize and nurture it is a pretty amazing feeling. And frankly, it gives me pride to work where I do, that we can see two paths and the leadership is nurturing us to take the just path, the fair path - the moral path. 

Last Friday, Wikipedia's featured photograph was the WW2 photograph "Wait for me Daddy". The photo shows a seemingly endless column of soldiers marching up a road. A small boy is running away from his mother to the outstretched hand of his father who is marching in the column. 

War is full of horrors, many that only those who fight them see. But these kinds of photos, or those videos of returning soldiers surprising their kids at school, trouble me deeply and really speak to the overall human cost of war. 

In his blog post last week, the Navigator talked about a theoretical situation where the US would invade Canada and what that war might look like. He also discusses some of that nuance about war - and what  justifies military action. I know I would take up arms without hesitation if my family, friends or home were under threat. But I could not bring myself to even consider going to Ukraine - even if the war is just. 

These two things have really collided in me over the past couple of days and have helped me put a label on how I truly see myself. Some would maybe describe me as a socialist or small "l" liberal. But that's never quite fit me as well as I'd like it to. I certainly lean that way but I'm more than capable of seeing how some small "c" conservative values are important. Libertarian just seems loaded with baggage but I feel like if I need to be on the spectrum, I'm somewhere in that area. And in an era where democracy feels like it's failing the majority and causing nothing but government standstill on issues - there's days where I think dictatorship could be more effective in just getting things done - but I'm not an authoritarian - I think fascism is abhorrent. 

This week, I think I'm a humanist. That I care more about people, experiences, rights and life. That we should be building each other up, not pursuing personal wealth or fame. 

Watching the massive political divide in our world today, seeing the differences between urban and rural worlds, I think all of us could come together around humanism. That we could start caring more about how we are treated and how we treat others. 

I don't know for sure. There's much philosophising needed in our world right now because I think the only thing that everyone agrees on is that no one is happy and shit ain't working out for anyone. I've really felt like I want to dedicate my time to making people smile, sing, feel free and be free. I'm tired of complaining, I want to take action. It might not be a protest. It might be helping to push a new Canadian out of a snowbank and offering some tips on how to drive. It might mean showing up at a lonely friends house with a guitar and some cookies. It might mean shutting off social media and going out for a walk with my dog and talking to my neighbours. 

It's time to be human. Again. 

Snow way!

I suppose I should be grateful, we got past mid-November before the white shit came. But I'm not. People in California don't have to blindly accept snow every November, so why should I? I didn't wear the right shoes out today, and I forgot my scarf. Basically dying. 

I'm entering that phase of life where I don't want to go on a hot holiday because it brings status, or it would be a fun outing. No. I want a hot holiday because my joints ache and my skin hurts. I need to lie on a beach, in swim trunks that I have no business wearing - or hell, find a good nude beach - and just soak up some solar radiation. Skin cancer? Bring it. I'm already well past my medieval prime, it's time to stop delaying the inevitable. 

There was a time when I had pride in my prairie resiliency. Today I realize I could write news releases and argue with people on social media from the Bahamas. Or Trinidad. I have a coworker from Trinidad and it sounds fabulous. 

Also - there is no heat at work right now, hasn't been for days and every time we ask Facilities to give us heat they gaslight us and say that it's coming. 

I think I'm ready to retire - to a pot of boiling water. 

20 years

Twenty years ago today I sat in a little corner office on the second floor of a four-plex townhouse I rented with my then-girlfriend in La Ronge. I moved to La Ronge that summer with her - she was pursuing a career in physical therapy and I was just wandering. "Chasing pussy up north," was how someone framed it for me. I tried to deny it then but in retrospect - I spent the year before and after that chasing that particular pussy places I never should have. But that's leaning into disrespectful language and bringing up some dumb behaviour on my part that doesn't really merit waxing nostalgic about. 

Sitting in that room I wrote the first post for this very blog page - Pilot's World. Reading back through that post and a few around it, it's clear that the blog was only part of my plan at the time. I wanted Pilot's World to be a bigger thing - somewhere to store links, blog, put up photos and just generally have an archive and playground to be creative online. In fact, I even found the start of what I wanted that page to be while putting today's post together. 

I know the idea of journalling was attractive to me - a very interesting full-circle moment considering my recent post where I mentioned journalling. I am glad to have those posts and entries now. Some are hard to read - they're cringe, depressing, or badly written. But I do enjoy being able to look back and remember some older times. 

Now, obviously, I did NOT blog on here for the entirety of those 20 years and it's only been in the past 6 months that I've even started blogging again. I outright missed celebrating the 10 and 15-year anniversary. But I am proud to have something that's been around for two decades and I'm very happy that I've found a newfound use for the blog. 

But writing this blog has had a major effect on my life. Certainly that young naive 23-year-old who started this blog had no idea that he could write for a living - let alone that 20 years later he'd be employed full-time doing many of the things he was practicing on this blog. I write, do social media and manage communities just like I did on Pilot's World in those first 8 years of this blog. Communication and creativity have always been my strengths. I just don't think I had the people around me to recognize it when I needed them to. 

And MY HOW I'VE GROWN. I've learned to proofread and edit - and not just like begrudgingly doing it either. I enjoy editing and even being edited. The finished product is so much better than the raw flow-of-consciousness work I used to do. It's bled into my personal projects and I enjoy making raw ideas into something that sparkles. 

And MY HOW THINGS ARE THE SAME. I still have that feeling in my gut that I haven't done my life's work. I've built a family, bought a house, put 17 years in with the same company, performed on albums and stages, hosted my own radio show - and yet I still don't have what I want yet. I haven't given up by any stretch but some days it seems like I'm more inclined to fade away than burn brightly. I dunno. Happy to have some things I can call my own, water them and watch them grow. 

So yeah. 20 years. I'd say that maybe I won't make another 20 but I didn't think this blog would last a week and here we are. Maybe in 2042 I'll be like "jeez it's been 20 years since I posted, I should put something up." Who knows. But until then, a toast to blogging, a toast to growth and a toast to the future. 

To everything there is a season

Last week as I was preparing supper I discovered a non-problem that I was making a problem. And the realization has become something of an obsession in the days since. You see, I had most of a nice meal planned. Some nice pork chops, a solid macaroni and cheese and... what for a vegetable? This is where I made a problem where there wasn't any.

You see, I had a big bag of carrots in the fridge that I knew I needed to use up. But there's this little gremlin in my brain - placed there in my youth - that says, "You can't make cooked carrots." Don't get me wrong here. I like cooked carrots just fine and the recipe I had in mind would pair quite well with the rest of the meal. But Dad didn't (and still doesn't) like cooked carrots when I was growing up so there's this weird GOTO routine that just goes around cooked carrots when the option is right in front of me. To make a long story short - I made the cooked carrots, they were excellent and I need to make them again. 

Re-examining some of these old rules and misconceptions has been a pretty big trend for me lately. I talked a few weeks ago about how I'd convinced myself I couldn't go solo, couldn't be a lead singer or that I couldn't finish a song. As soon as I challenged those conclusions, it became clear they weren't founded.

There are a few others there that have been important too. I always thought I needed to write my lyrics in a nice notebook with a pen. No sir I do not. In fact, lyric writing is very fast when I do it on my phone. I don't need a studio or expensive equipment to demo songs or record ideas. Again, my phone has been invaluable. In fact, as an overall music career tool, my smartphone has been an enormous efficiency. I've recorded videos, researched venues, kept track of my goals and managed my emails all through one device. 

In response to last week's mental health struggles, I visited my counsellor for a chat. Again, the misconceptions came up. For most of them, it was more "It's not that this didn't work - it just didn't work yet or it didn't work this time." I also found that while I was dismissing some conclusions about my own behaviour, I was finding out very quickly that maybe I should look at that closer. At the end of the session, we talked a bit about journaling. I mentioned how writing out what I wanted to talk to her about helped me put everything in perspective. The counsellor gave me some tips on journalling like how it could be one line. Like, "I feel depressed." 

But for me, the real epiphany was - it doesn't need to be in a notebook. Like with songwriting, I've convinced myself these important thoughts should be on pen and paper. Maybe some of that is my age, when I learned to write songs and journal - you did that on paper. As the internet reared its head, I moved journalling into this humble blog. But that proved to be very public and when you're writing a new song or talking about your depression, sometimes you don't want that public. So since last Thursday, I've just added to the original document I wrote with my discussion checklist and done exactly as suggested: Friday: "K made me feel anxious," Sunday: "Feeling depressed," and so on. The challenges for that will be to keep it up, occasionally journal the good things and include my body health stuff too. Rhonda has been trying to get me to journal my gout attacks and other health complaints. I can use the same document. 

The counsellor and I discussed the "seasons of life" at our session - how sometimes things start to change, we change and we need to adjust our behaviour accordingly. It's given me a lot of food for thought and I have about 3 weeks before our next session to ponder that, figure out what I want to make of it and then execute on that. But until then, I think I'm just going to spend time challenging myself whenever I say no. But also - I'm going to challenge myself when I say yes. Because there have been more than a few bad situations over the last decade that could have been avoided with a "no."