Imagine getting shot with a poisoned arrow.

The poison will kill you, but there’s an antidote.

However, rather than sprint immediately for it in order to save your life, you instead do the following:

Speculate on who shot the arrow
Get angry at those who you think shot the arrow
Debate whether the antidote is effective
Argue about other potential antidotes
Put a band-aid on the wound to hide it

In other words, you do everything but take the antitdote and give yourself a fighting chance.

Pick any issue our world is facing and this is what it looks like.

(poison arrow example adapted from a classic Buddhist parable)

There’s been a long standing trend with people not knowing (or wanting to know) their neighbours. It may have been when we adopted the idea of moving into a house instead of a community.

A kind of paradoxical conundrum of wanting to move into a “good” neighbourhood and have “good” neighbours without caring about what makes it good and how to contribute to it.

In any event, two years of isolation has us scrambling to figure out how to be social again. During that time, we did witness people reach out and find ways to be supportive of their community.

It was heart-warming and now it’s time to take it a step further.

The past memories of borrowing a cup of sugar are kind of moot in a world where you can get groceries delivered to your door within an hour. And while many community associations are popping up to organize events as a way to meet, what happens afterwards?

Start by being a catalyst.

Grab your BBQ and bring it to the front yard and let the smells invite conversation.

Grab some lawn chairs and beverages, put them on your driveway and offer to anyone who asks.

Buy, or borrow, a telescope, set it up at night and people will want to take a look.

Go for a walk without headphones, or agenda, and greet people as you meet them.

The goal isn’t to create a utopia, but to move things in a better direction. Better, not perfect.

If we can show how to be a good neighbour, others may want to show how they can be good neighbours as well.

I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong.
The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy—and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don’t know how to do that.

Gus Speth

I’ve been thinking hard about a spiritual revolution for the better part of two decades now.

What does it look like?
What does it entail?
Who will lead it?

What I do know is it starts with a new story.

Our ancestors, I think, had a better way of being when it came to the narrative that ran their lives. If the narrative no longer worked, they abandonned it for another. Not always a better one, but still different.

The stories that run our world are so deeply entrenched that we’re trying to solve problems within it—rather than thinking outside of them.

Carl Sagan tried with a story of the pale blue dot (still one of my favourite reflections).

Pope Francis tried nudging the Catholic Church with his encyclicals, especially Evangelli Gaudium and Laudato Si!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brilliantly identified the power of a story, especially when it’s only told from one perspective.

And yet, we’re in desperate need of a story of spiritual revolution and have nowhere to turn but viral TikTok videos and pissing contests with those in power.

We don’t need to walk away; we need to walk a new path.

But it’s a matter of finding where that path starts.

From the moment I got my license, you could say I had a heavy foot. Lead foot? I drove fast.

My driving really reflected my attitude towards life: carefree and get there in a hurry. Take some time to explore some new sites along the way.

Don’t even get me started on highway speeds. I’ve made a few speed records I’m not entirely proud of, nor will I brag about… anymore.

To this day, my biggest pet peeve are people who don’t accelerate to highway speeds on the on-ramp.

However, as I get older, it’s clear the rhythms of life are shifting. There’s still plenty to see and do, but there’s so much to be missed by rushing to get there.

Why rush to see something when you can slow down to see everything?

It’s a new pace of life and it’s rather enjoyable…

except, of course, for those on-ramps.

There’s a fog of nonsense dictated to us by society that has fed us a script of being woefully inadequate. Who we are, what we do, what we’ve accomplished, how we’ve lived… all not good enough.

Always more to be had and always more to be done, but we aren’t the ones capable of doing it. Here’s a few motivational speeches to make you feel even worse about the person you could be, but aren’t.

Lifting the fog involves recognizing that who we are is adequate enough to get going.

And moving, no matter how much, is infinitely better than doing nothing.

I’m a bit dumbfounded by the exorbiant amount of “vegan alternatives” on the market right now, each one vying to capture the attention of “health conscious” consumers.

Those who choose the vegan route as their modus operandi (to be clear, I don’t) have a great base message: eat more plants.

We could all benefit from more plants in our diet.

Somehow, in the mix of that, other messages have surfaced around the themes of meat being evil and going vegan to stop climate change. Those arguments are way too simplistic, but whatever. It’s the “alternatives” being developed to either sway others or capitalize on a market trend (possibly both, but I’m going to lean more towards the money on this one) that need addressing.

The alternatives (burgers, cheese, etc.) are really just glorified junk foods and completely miss the mark on getting your body to live off and develop a taste for plants. It’s a smokescreen, not a gateway.

Eating burgers, cheese and what not all day is still an unhealthy practice—even if it has the word ‘vegan’ in front of it.

This is just another example of corporations trying to have their cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last time this happens.

Thanks to our phones and social media, people can wake up and have their whole day ruined before they even get out of bed?

As a society, we are literally driving ourselves insane and yet, can’t turn away. While it almost makes me envious of those who live in those Antarctic research bases, this points towards something really needed right now:

A renaissance in finding meaning in our lives.

“It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”

Marcus Aurelius

That quote is the background of my phone as a reminder of many things:

• Truth is multifaceted
• It can be painful to face
• No one person, subject or discipline has the fullness of truth
• There’s always more to it
• And sometimes it’s simple and we overcomplicate it
• We can never fully know it
• But we can make steps towards learning it

The path to truth is a long, slow process that requires us to be open to it, abandon ideas that conflict with it and always be ready for surprises.

This isn’t an all-or-nothing argument, nor is it a siren call of nostalgia. It’s simply a defense of our most versatile thinking resource, which is good ol’ paper.

I think back to grade eleven when my Communications Technology teacher advocated for technology as the catalyst for a paperless future. And it made sense at the time.

Paper had some serious limitations.

Its production required precious resources, specifically trees. More paper=more trees and you either get that by destroying forests or creating forest farms. Not to mention the energy intensive industries required to process and dispose of it afterwards.

It could also be easily lost, destroyed and takes up a physical space that isn’t always convenient.

Yet, despite its limitations, it is the ultimate free form for expression. You can write, scribble, sketch, draw, fold, colour and use every corner to your liking.

It can be organized in any way you see fit.

It requires no battery or power source to use.

But my favourite is it requires your full engagement to use it. It doesn’t do any creative thinking for you, but can be a catalyst to get you thinking deeply.

Unlike technology, you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues with paper. There’s no file format to consider when handing paper over to another person. Preserved properly, it can last for generations.

Perhaps the dream of a paperless future hadn’t considered the limitations of technology itself. Or maybe it couldn’t foresee a future built upon a handful of corporations desperate to keep one addicted to their services.

While it has been an overall boon and I certainly appreciate the ease in which technologocal advances have improved our lives, touching paper resonates something deeper within us.

It can get us to think and be free in ways that technology simply cannot.

Let’s not rush to get rid of it.

It’s the excitement.

The joy.

The eagerness to share during a moment of epiphany.

Say it, write it down or find a way to record it because ideas build on each other… and you can’t build on nothing.