One of my projects this summer was to declutter the house in an attempt to reclaim some space and mitigate the excess buildup that inevitably happens when you live somewhere for a while. Sixteen garbage bags and five boxes later, there was a remarkable difference.

This was quickly reversed by my children who saw all this newfound space as an opportunity to scatter and sprawl with what remained of their items.

In any event, there is an emotional satisfaction when things get released and a renewed focus comes into being. Having this feeling while sitting at my cleared out office space led me to look at one area that often gets ignored in any cleaning or decluttering mission:

the digital realm.

Having spent many years accumulating notes and files in a poorly stitched together organization system stretched across multiple platforms, it’s time to tame this beast. While it may seem odd to suggest we can have the same emotional attachment to digital stuff as opposed to physical items, it still has the same pull.

There are many unfinished stories, most of which I have no desire to return to.
Archived emails from a decade ago that serve no purpose.
Random pdf files of readings I thought were interesting at the time.
Backups of school work for a degree program that doesn’t exist anymore.

It just keeps going.

While it doesn’t have the same physical exertion to rid myself of these items (a few keystrokes is hardly laborious), it certainly has decision fatigue. At the same time, it’s quite interesting to see a trail of what life was like over the past few decades.

The thing is, I no longer wish to be trapped there and would much prefer to clear the slate for the decades ahead. It’s time for a new focus.

It’s back to school and for once, it feels as though things are going to be moving in a different direction. Maybe that’s just my misguided hope, but why not start the year with some optimism, right?

I was raised in the 80s/90s schooling system, when the reforms of the 70s found some grounding and education began moving away from knowledge based to skills based. Since the advent of technology was still far off, there was experimentation with different styles as we learned that a one size fits all model wasn’t serving the needs of most students.

However, this was all still rooted in a culture that still felt like education was important and that within these skills, knowledge must still be learned. At least, that’s how it felt from the inside.

But then the pendulum kept swinging.

And the accommodations and exceptions that were provided were suddenly the norm and students quickly learned how to manipulate the system for their ends. They were backed up by a culture who were getting suspicious that the promises of education weren’t on point anymore.

Then came the technologists who promised devices in the hands of every child would be a game changer.

Then the academics who needed to justify their existence by writing essays, books and giving presentations on why schools needed to be completely reformed, yet did nothing more than give us an Orwellian doublespeak of the 70s as a solution:

“We are moving to level based grading: Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 and this is the standard that each means.”
Didn’t we used to just call this A,B,C and D?

Then we removed consequences for arriving late, not showing up, submitting late work or just flat out being disrespectful.

Then our culture moved from suspicious to antagonistic towards anything related to education.

Good teachers who could see right through all this were smart enough to just close their door and keep doing what they’ve always done. Give it enough time, and whatever fad was permeating would eventually disappear and be replaced by something else.

However, last year felt like the final straw from within.

The proliferation of AI generators, and supporting apps that attempt to “mask” or “humanize” generated text, had many get back behind the pendulum and push it back the other way. Classrooms always dealt with issues of disrespect, plagiarism and cheating, but it hit a scale that couldn’t be contained anymore. It became clear that learning wasn’t being had and students were outright miserable.

For starters on the swing back, the province I’m in issued a system wide ban on cell phones. From what I hear for those who started earlier, it’s already been a game changer.

There are also schools popping up such as the Michaela school, which is the strictest school in all of England, in the lowest socioeconomic area and free to anyone who attend, who have absolutely dominated the rankings of the G.C.S.E. Not only that, students are proud to be a part of that school.

It’s going to take years to see the effects, but I feel the push back happening.

Hopefully one day the pendulum will find a balance point.

I took my kids out today to a farm/adventure playground with all sorts of adventures to get into. Since we came closer to closing time as opposed to opening, we were gifted a mostly empty place—which is a rarity for there.

There was one particular slide, that was dug into a giant hill, where the wait time was zero. The excitement of this fortunate circumstance had my kids running up and sliding down non-stop, which pleased me greatly because:
A – they were having a blast
B – they were burning a ton of energy doing it

However, at one point, three parents also decided they wanted to go down it as well.

It was watching their sheer joy and genuine laughter that brought a huge smile to my face. It’s cause to reflect that we can get so caught up in how serious life can be, with all its responsibilities, how easily we can forget the joy of our inner child.

Sometimes, it just takes a trip to a waterpark, a bounce on a trampoline, a seat on a roller coaster or a simple solo trip down a slide to bring it back. Hence, I told my kids to wait up… because it was daddy’s turn.

When life picks up, I often think back to the story of Christopher Knight, a man who disappeared into the woods and became a hermit for decades.

What’s fascinating is what he did with most of his time: just sat and stared out into nature.

Nowhere to be, nothing to do and nothing to think about.

He just sat.

I wonder what it would be like if we all took time every day to just sit?

I gotta say, there’s something untouchable about music in the 60s and 70s. As much as it pains me to say it, I find myself going back to that era more than my beloved 90s comfort zone.

Even looking at my students, who are on the frontlines of what’s new and popular, still flood my classroom playlist with suggestions from that time.

While I’m sure music buffs and audiophiles can send me a thesis on why that’s the case, I’m going to give a hot take:

That’s when we peaked with music.

Don’t get me wrong, people are still writing and producing tremendous music, but the fragmentation of the industry, reduced capacity of our attention spans, proliferation of mobile devices and competition with many other forms of entertainment have fundamentally changed the way we listen to music.

More importantly, it’s changed the way music is produced. It’s produced to target the attention span of people on the go rather than the few who put on an album to just sit back and listen.

Given that, it’s kind of hard to make something evergreen when you’re only thinking of making it go viral right away.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Humans have this horrendous habit of taking pleasure in watching others fail. We love tearing others down and feeling satisfied at watching them fall. It’s like we feel so insecure about ourselves that our only recourse is to bring misery as our only output.

Case in point—the Internet has been our greatest experiment in anonymous commentary (or commentary through an avatar of ourselves) and we’ve seen what that brings. It didn’t even take social media to bring that out in us because this was happening in the early days of message boards.

However, the level of malice normally reserved for the virtual world is becoming commonplace in public spaces.

It’s become such an accepted part of who we are that we now give advice on how to “block out the noise” or “rise above” or “accept the haters.”

Then we have the audacity to turn around and complain that our communities, and our countries, are in such disarray.

They will continue to be this way until we set a new standard. A standard in which we work towards building each other up, challenging each other to do better, encouraging when we’re down, being honest when it’s required and celebrating our successes.

If we can do that, then we won’t have to talk about building a better society because we will have created one.

For such people, the problem is not that the future holds a new danger, such as a nuclear war, but that there might be no future at all.
-Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

Right now, it appears the sentiment is there will be a future, but there’s a general elation among people who won’t be around for it—and a dread for those who will.

In other words, you’ll be hard pressed to find those who see a brighter tomorrow.

However, we’ve been here before and the question we should be considering is this:

What’s the timeframe we need to make our future bright again?

I’m sure it was on the minds of those living a hundred years ago.

At my home growing up, we always had treats and drinks ready in case people suddenly showed up, which was often. The house was always kept clean and (aside from the drawers and closet in my room), tidy.

My friends used to joke that they sometimes would throw food on my floor to eat off it just because they could. These same friends would also knowingly show up at my house when I wasn’t there to eat the leftovers out of my fridge. My mom was happy to oblige because I was such a poor eater.

Whatever the case, my home was always ready to receive people.

This was the baseline I had for my own home, which set an expectation, to be honest, that’s been driving me crazy. Failure to reach this level resulted in feelings of constant embarrassment because I never felt like people can just stop on by. If they did, I felt apologetic the moment they came in the door.

That was until I finally understood a distinction and recognized an issue.

In the world of constant comparisons with others online, there is a feeling of inadequacy that your home can never measure up. While I still strive to keep a somewhat clean home (I’m told trying to clean with kids is like trying to brush your teeth while eating Oreos), these perfect setups online are only good for the camera.

Which helped me finally make the big distinction between hospitality and entertaining.

When you’re entertaining (e.g. birthday parties and Christmas dinner), you set your home up in a certain way to accommodate the event. Everything needs to be in its place.

However, hospitality is very different.

If you come into my home, I can easily make a cup of coffee, put together a few snacks and pull up a few chairs.

If you bring your kids, I have toys scattered everywhere and assure you, nothing is precious around here that they need to tiptoe in every room.

I got popcorn if you want to watch a movie, blankets by every couch for you to be cozy and a cat that might show his face when he wants attention.

Sure, you might not be able to eat off my floors (yet) and I might not always be ready to entertain, but you are always welcome to come on by because I will always strive to be hospitable.

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
-Thomas Sowell

Of course, this is all predicated on people willing and ready to hear the truth.

And actually accepting it.

When pressed to remember the happiest years of childhood, many will recall memories from the ages of 9-12. There’s been studies to suggest this is also the point of peak happiness in life that you don’t achieve again until your mid-sixties.

It doesn’t surprise me that people often look back at those years as the golden era of humanity.

My typical summer day during those years involved waking up, having a bowl of sugary cereal, getting some pocket change from my mom and taking off on my bike for the day. Sometimes I would bike alone, but each day felt like a new adventure to somewhere in the city. Provided I came home to eat a proper meal at some point, no one thought any different of it.

Yet, despite this being my own childhood, I hesitate to do this for my own kids. In fact, in speaking to my mother, even she remarked she wouldn’t have allowed me to do this as a child today. Part of me feels torn on this as it’s difficult to reconcile my protective instinct as a parent with the carefree memories of my childhood.

However, I can’t help but think younger generations will think of different reasons why their “golden years” shone so much. Maybe their golden time wasn’t marked by taking off on a bike and ending up halfway across the city, where they would eat a popsicle at a convenience store and ride back, but by something different.

After all, the golden era for me, is different than the golden era for my parents, and it will be different for my kids.

My only hope is that it will continue to exist for all of us.