I can remember snow on some Halloween nights growing up. Having to layer your costume with warm clothing, having it bulge out, all in the pursuit of. free candy.

Oh, the things you would do just to claim your stash.

It would all be worth it when you got home and felt the tingling of your extremities as they warmed up while dumping a mountain of salt & sugar on your floor. Little did you know that your parents would secretly siphon off some of the bounty while you slept.

As a Canadian, it was the one time of year where you didn’t care what the weather was doing. Snow? Rain? Windstorm?

You’d take it all.

Then one day your childhood escapes as you decide not to go out. The weather suddenly seems annoying and while you still long for the free treats, you settle for other things: giving out candy, party with friends, a movie night.

The adult world approaches and it’s time to put away childhood things.

But…

every snowy Halloween, you remember what it was like to be young again.

There comes a point when you must accept when things are coming to an end. For me, I’ve been invested in young people and Religious Education for twenty years, which… I think… is a pretty big chunk of life.

I love what I do and will keep fighting to make it the most enjoyable class I can. I’m proud of the work I’ve done and certainly proud of all my students—I mean, they survived a class with me!

But the writing is on the wall.

I’m in one of the last vestiages of my position in the country and the end is coming. Not for me as a teacher, but for teaching something I absolutely love. There’s no need to point fingers at why because that will just spiral into an extended rant and I’ve moved beyond that at this point.

While there’s still a few tricks up my sleeve, there’s also a need to prepare for what’s next. This is about reinvention.

Age forces that upon us as we become more experienced and self reflective, but the rapid changes in our world also cause us to adapt. My generation were raised by those who prepared us for the thirty-year career and pension. Today, we’re teaching kids to leverage their skills for new positions when their current one becomes stale (or disappears).

The end of the line isn’t really the end, but the final stop on this train before you must transfer somewhere else. And right now, I’m checking all my luggage and preparing for a new train to board.

It may be a few years and I’m going to enjoy every moment of it that I can, but I’ll be ready.

I recently took my son to his first martial arts tournament. As someone who loved the sport, but also permanently injured by it, I’m happy to support him without pushing him. There was a great joy in my heart to watch him stand in front of the judges, speak loud and confidently, then show his technique.

He is not the type to speak in front of crowds, at all, but in this instance, he had the courage to do so.

While it’s been documented people have a greater fear of public speaking than death, there comes a point when we must all confront that fear.

It may be an impassioned to speech to a crowd.
An article for the world to see.
Or a demonstration for judges.

While I’ve always found a comfort in front of an audience (magician, teacher… kind of goes with the territory), my writing hasn’t found the same level. I’ve hidden behind the excuse of improving quality instead of gathering the courage to stand and deliver.

This is a lesson I am now learning from my children.

After all, it’s never too late to learn and it’s always a good time to show courage.

Many moons ago, there was a satisfaction I gained from using my skills as a magician to shatter people’s perception of reality. While no master of the craft, by any stretch, the philosophical underpinnings of bringing awe through illusion kept me satisfied and insanely curious. It kept my mind occupied for years.

Unfortunately, with the commitments of life and saturation of online video content that spoils every magician’s routine, I fear the mystery is gone. The awe has been replaced with the act and the achievement of the illusionist today is to appear on a reality TV show in order to fool people.

Is there still good magic out there?

Absolutely. 

But my worry is people aren’t seeking it anymore because they are happy to build a world of illusion around themselves. In fact, they’re content to actively fool themselves. The worry, and the difference, is you ask a magician to pretend their powers are real. When the show is over, you go back to reality.

And right now, reality is becoming a fleeting concept.

Take, for instance, the online world of pornography. This has become the teaching device for young people today, who fail to recognize none of what they are witnessing is real. Not to mention the numerous other issues that results of it—even preferring the digital screen to real intimacy.

Or the fact it’s becoming incredibly easy to isolate yourself in a bubble, accepting social media posts as being indicative of what’s happening in your community instead of actually going out and being in it.

Recently, I went on an old man rant with my students that Civics is a required course for graduating high school and yet, we’re witnessing the lowest voter turnout on all levels of government and a complete failure to understand how our country is even run. People would rather doomscroll the latest TikTok video on the subject, regardless of its accuracy… or in most cases, inaccuracies.

I know my concerns are also shared by those in the tech industry. I mean, that was the whole reason “The Social Dilemma” documentary was produced.

The question I consider is whether we will continue to build this world of illusion, or swing the pendulum back to some semblance of reality?

I, for one, would rather watch a ballgame with my family and neighbours, building a real community with all its joys and flaws, than live in fear and anger over a world of illusion I willingly put myself into.

It’s Thanksgiving in Canada, which means the usual rush of a weekend with frantic schedules that you attempt to counterbalance with relaxing activities. On the other hand, it is a weekend that should call us to express our gratitude.

While I can list a litany of things I am thankful for this year, and my life overall, there is one thing I am truly thankful for above all else:

Time.

It is often said that time is the great equalizer, but that doesn’t go far enough. You can’t earn, bank, save or trade time—you can only spend it. And the problem is none of us know just how much time we have available… or that of those around us.

There is no guarantee and no bargain you can strike with time.

You can study it, but can’t manipulate it.

It’s not an equalizer, but rather the very thing that holds our existence together and gives meaning to our entire lives. And it’s with that notion in mind, that I give it thanks.

I am thankful for the time I’ve had so far to learn about the universe, to spend time with family, to have fun with friends, to enjoy good meals, read good books, reflect, celebrate, mourn, laugh, cry and even write in this silly little blog.

Even the difficult moments, those that have passed and those that have yet to be, I am thankful because, let’s be frank, there’s never enough time for any of us.

What a limited and wondrous thing it is for all of us to have.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is a hard post to write because the tone will come across as someone who is immune to what I’m writing about, which I’m not.

I mean, I’m the person who put a styrofoam container of chicken wings in the oven to warm up for guests at a party and spent his entire life wearing my pants around my hips thinking that was my waist. And while I can laugh at those blunders, chalking them up to being nothing more than a doofus, I’ve also been taken in by dangerous presentations of information.

Why dangerous?

They were wrapped up in a way that seemed convincing enough for my personal bias at the time, leading me to believe things that just weren’t true (or a very massacred version of the truth).

However, my training in theology and philosophy has given me enough grounding to reconsider and critically think about the issues. It also helps that I’m a huge fan of Harlan Ellison who says it in a more direct way that his bar for bullshit is incredibly low.

And this is what is concerning me today is whether people even have a bar for bullshit?

While my generation and older want to blast the younger generation for a multitude of sins, I have to say they are doing much better at sifting through the cacophony of noise. I hear them in my classes laughing at the news stories and especially the groups of people who are apt to believe whatever a social media feed tells them.

Take, for instance, the idea of fifteen minute cities. The basic argument is every person should live no more than a fifteen minute walk or bike away from all their necessities (groceries, health care, restaurants, community centres, libraries, etc.). In other words, move away from dense residential development and build self-sustaining communities.

I currently live in one and it’s wonderful. As a result of the pandemic lockdowns, a lot of money went into our local economy allowing even more businesses to pop up nearby.

Yet, you have people convinced that fifteen minute cities means a complete lockdown of areas where people won’t be allowed to leave unless they have government permission.

Let me be blunt—have you tried using your brain on that conspiracy theory?

Police departments are already underfunded, making it difficult to respond to crime already in place, and you think that somehow they’re going to BARRICADE areas at all times? We’re already having difficulty keeping national borders in check, yet we’re somehow going to get enough people to surround communities.

And yet, the cognitive dissonance is so strong that a presentation of common sense will cause a person to venture into even more insane ideas.

So what’s happening here?

Why is this occurring?

Why are people failing to take the minimum number of steps to confirm whether what they’re being told has any grounding in reality?

There’s no simple answer and any attempt to reduce it to one is ignoring the complexity of our society today.

For starters, let’s take a look at our media. I used to love reading my local newspaper, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Globe and Mail and even dip into the Wall Street Journal. Not anymore.

Media has become such a commodified resource that private interests are only concerned with profit at the expense of anything like ethics, or even truth. Entertainment, sensationalism and speculation take priority over actual journalism.

Sure, media sources always had a bias to them and could easily be manipulated by power players in society using them as an outlet for propaganda (Ryan Holiday wrote a book about this very topic and Robert Moses was a master of it) – but as Mark Twain once said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”

Well, it feels as though consuming media today makes you both mis and uninformed. I may look at headlines a few times a week (my current service I enjoy is 1440 that does its best to deliver a variety of neutral stories, but still not perfect), but I’ve stopped consuming and feel I’m better off for it.

Another point is to be critical of my own bias.

My worldview was first shaped by my parents (politically liberal with very traditional conservative values), before going very conservative, then very liberal and now somewhere in-between. It always hurts to admit when I’m wrong, but I’d rather walk a more honest path than live a lie and having others keep me concealed within it.

A lot of that, of course, is also influenced by age and environment. So I have to be critical of those two as well—not to mention the political terms above have changed significantly over the past thirty years.

Maybe there is a conspiracy theory to purposefully keep the population woefully lacking in critical thinking skills while simultaneously bombarding them with distractions. I mean, that’s exactly what happened in the Roman Empire before it fell. Or maybe we’re just doing this to ourselves.

We lack the training needed to understand that what we read on the Internet is not information, but rather data; and data needs to be interpreted correctly. We also lack the training to avoid being swayed by social influence and charismatic figures.

Philosophical training in thinking may help, as would a resurgence of some vestige of a classical education.

But perhaps what we really need is a renaissance of celebrating the enlightenment ideals of rational thought, harking back to a time when an explosion of literacy emboldened a population to not accept the narrative they’ve been fed for generations. In the intermediary, I’m concerned.

I always have a naive hope for humanity and the people in it. It may be misguided and it may wrong, but I still have it. For right now, all I hope is that in the future, my current concern will be of no consequence.

A few moons back, I got into one of those fun, yet inane, online debates over whether soft or hard pretzels are better. I honestly didn’t think there was any debate on the matter as I always felt soft pretzels were infinitely superior.

Nothing against hard pretzels—they are also a great snack. Just not enough that I’m salivating every time I walk by them in the grocery store.

Everything was going along as goofy you might expect it would (and surprisingly polite), when someone in the hard pretzel category commented:

“People who like soft pretzels are really just craving a bagel.”

That one, single comment has burrowed into my mind and hasn’t left.

Side note, apparently my other issue is I haven’t had the hard pretzel brands from Pennsylvania, who have the “best” ones. I’m on it.

It’s amazing. You go through your whole life having a strong opinion about something, even feeling a personal preference for it… and along comes a single comment for consideration that shatters it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had more of these moments?

Lately, for whatever reason, I’ve been inundating myself with videos about people describing their near death experiences (NDE). While holding a candle of critical thinking (or skepticism) towards it, I am taken in by the sheer amount of love and empathy they share when describing it.

While the details always vary, one thing consistently stands out:

An overwhelming sense of peace and love, beyond we can ever feel in our physical bodies.

Even more specific, the number one word that pops up in their experiences is love. Always love.

And I think… wouldn’t it be nice if we could strip away our anger and run the world on love?

Not the nonsensical persuasion of love you find at Burning Man (that kind of love we can artificially induce by drugging our water supply), but a genuine, real love for all of creation. One that allows us to be patient, kind and challenging (basically, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians).

The kind of love that wouldn’t have us feeling road rage every time we got behind the wheel.

A love that would allow us to vehemently disagree with each other, while still allowing us to stay friends.

A love that would make rules of society that show love to each other, even when that love needs to be tough.

Understandably, this is ultra-idealistic and would require all of us to work through our inner demons in order to let them go. It would also require us to look upon those people we absolutely hate, wish horrible things upon and see them differently.

But, if we have to let it go when we die anyway, why not start right now?

We may never get to where we need to be, but the world would be far better served by a person who lived their life with love and got one more person to do the same.

I always consider the first day of school to be a preliminary New Years because that’s when all the resolutions are made by students and staff alike.

It’s always fun to watch students make promises that this is the year they’re going to get organized, stop procrastinating, get their work in… you know… all those good habits we’ve been promising ourselves for decades. Sometimes they can get it together enough (especially seniors as they know their marks matter for post-secondary admissions), but often enough, the slope is slippery and moves quick.

By mid-October, we find out whether old habits die hard or whether there’s a concerted effort to really make things different. The likelihood of slipping into the same old routine is significantly high, so the year tends to end just the same.

However, it’s the hope of a new year that is needed.

Regardless of what our circumstances bring, a fresh start is necessary—a chance to do things different. To be different.

To put away what once was and to move towards what could be.

My contention with today’s world of holding everyone under a digital microscope is we do not allow people to move on from their mistakes. Sure, we can hold them accountable (and that’s important), but we don’t allow them to move on when they truly desire it.

Even if things don’t change in the end, there should be an opportunity to try… whether that date is September 1st, January 1st, or next week.

And if it doesn’t work; then we try again.

It’s the first few moments in the morning.

When you just wake up and you haven’t fully registered that you’re awake. There’s a convergence between your sleeping life and waking life, which will eventually resolve itself.

It’s the time when you’re not thinking about the day…

what has been…
what will be…

and there’s nothing to get worked up about.

Your body hasn’t had time to tell you how it’s feeling.

The world hasn’t been able to bother you.

You are

in those moments

truly free.

If you just take the next few moments to be grateful for that feeling, you will always have something in your day to appreciate.