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1. The oldest person in the world died
recently at 110yrs old, wow, so I'm half way there.
2. I'm 40 years younger than my Auntie
Margaret who while 1 generation away from me is actually 2 generations older
right? My eldest son is 43 years younger than me, he could also be my grandson.
3. I was born in 1963 as the jet
engine was taking off (literally) for commercial passenger transportation. To
emigrate to Canada in 1967 we had to fly from the UK via Gander, Newfoundland
(bless) and then go through immigration at the Port of Montreal and then fly on
to Edmonton in Alberta. (my Mum did this on her own with a mountain of baggage,
3kids under 4yrs old and my brother who was a very helpful 10yr old!) This year
I flew from Singapore to London in one hop on the Dreamliner. Cool right? Yet it has to
be said that jet travel hasn't changed much at all in terms of what it actually
is. Sure it is more efficient in fuel consumption because planes are lighter
and so they can fly higher, further, faster but they still burn fossil fuel in
a turbine driven internal combustion engine. Thing is though they still
transport us in a linear dimension from a to b over a continuum of time. Why is
that I wonder? (hint: big oil)
4. All said, air travel is the
miracle of our time imho, the way planes now fly at over 10,000m, at over 1000km/h,
catching the jet stream, soaring over the poles... its all quite sick. Airports
still suck... been to CDG in Paris or LHR or UIO (Quito) lately? Chinese
airports like in Kunming… sheesh! On the bright side there are airports like Changi in Singapore, the KLM
terminal at Schipol and the new Indian airports which are beginning to help ease the
pain, otherwise they are still like big bus stations and I'd still prefer
teleportation from one couch to the next.
5. Music has gone wobbly, in the '60's
it was fine, there were recognizable genres and some amazing innovations in
Jazz, Hip Hop, Reggae, Rock n Roll, Punk, etc... there has been a serious
splintering a new genre every new album, electronic music has opened up a new
esoteric (psychedelic) world and soon every band playing original songs will be
its own genre if not already... does our understanding of 'what is genre' get
wider or narrower?
6. Access to Music and music storage
has changed incredibly in my lifetime from the radio, to vinyl records 45's,
78's, to 8 tracks, to cassettes to CD's, USB storage devices and now...
you can store your music on a cloud and still play it in your car... what’s the
next thing?
7. Plastic has become the most evil
thing on the planet, and it is really evil. Plastic came into common use in the
60's and every piece of plastic produced then and since then still occupies the
planet... 8.3billion
tonnes https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40654915. This is sick
and it is now entering the food chain in a manner that will shout at us through
our bodies and their illnesses. The consumption of fossil fuels is what will
kill us and the planet.... oh yes, doncha know, plastic is made from oil and
gas... google it.
8. My generation bears the blame for
not waking up soon enough to the excesses and indulgences that we have enjoyed
through our childhood and that have brought on the destruction of our
ecosystem. We (and while we can blame corporations and Keynesian economics),we
are culpable because we have ignored the warnings on global climate change
passed down very clearly from the Earth Summit in Rio in 1990, 38 years ago. We
have known things were going badly awry and we haven’t acted with nearly enough
urgency not on an individual, collective, governmental (dare I say corporate?)
or regional level to stop it. Government, big oil and corporate media
share the same bed.
9. We figure we are the smartest
beings on the planet, and yet we are the only species to engage in activities
that are destroying it, Initially (the agricultural revolution) and later in the
industrial revolution we didn’t really understand the science and anyway the
population pressure didn’t really present our activities as much of a problem…
now and for decades we have understood it and still we didn’t act, how smart is
that?
10. Technological advances in the
computerization (now the digitalization) of everything have been simply
amazing, has it been a good thing? Or has it moved too fast? As we head into
the kind of scary age of robotics I'm not very convinced we are ready for it.
11. Miniaturization has really taken
hold, back in the day at my University the computer was in one big ventilated
room, the work-stations, monitors and keyboards in another with cables
connecting them all. It's a good thing everything has become smaller, carrying
around a desk-top sized computer in your pocket is just not convenient. The
question though is when miniaturization leads to skin and iris implants and the
opportunity for constant monitoring of our everything… have we reached the
moment to stop?
12. Unprotected sex is dangerous these
days, has been for a while, though it hasn’t been like that forever. The sexual
revolution of the 60’s and 70’s changed it all in the Western countries from
whence I come. The condom, well its still the condom after all these years
‘bagging it’ is the same as it ever was. Flavours have changed, bumps, ribs and
dots in various combinations but otherwise, a rubber is still a rubber. And
still it is as disliked by men and women alike.
13. Being a man has never been harder,
roles back in the day were well-defined (by other men) until women finally got
involved, now the role definitions in many societies are changing forever, the
process resulting in seeming unending social tumult as we roll from acceptance
to rejection to acquiescence to what?... to embracing a more balanced
understanding of our gender equality and living in peace and harmony? Really?
14. There are too many people on the
planet, and the educated and wealthy few of them use up resources at a
prodigious rate as well as create the waste that is choking the planet and
retain the lion's share of the wealth. There is something deeply wrong and
quite disturbing with this picture that has evolved during my tenure here on
earth. The disparity of wealth continues to grow incredibly rapidly, no end in
sight and no divine intervention to get the top 1% (or 10%) to realise that
unless they spend and spend fast to support those down the line, we are all
doomed. Whether you have an excess of $1Million or $100Million who needs
excess?
15. Transportation remains pretty
similar to what it was post steam turbine invention. Internal combustion
engine, 2 or 4 or more wheels, close the door and broom broom... not very
interesting. What happened to folding time on itself, teleportation, beam me up
Scotty? Very, very unimpressed here.
16. Vaccines were heralded as amazing
and who knows how many lives have been saved because of them, and now as well
clinical treatments became better, and better understood and people are saved
clinically. But things have become carried away and... its not clear how
vaccines are good all the time and everywhere; from the debate about
interfering in natural selection, the debate about their efficacy vs harms
(autism, allergies), the debate as to whether they should be mandatory
(shock/horror) and follow the 'protect the herd' formula. Is it black and
white, or a murky shade of grey?
17. What to say about world peace? Politics
have gone stupid-as. Seriously, led by the USA, the corporate takeover of
politics or shall we just say the dominance of economic interest is very
clear and 'people first' the underlying principle of any good governance...
well you don't see it often. I had considered at one point of going into
community level politics, but these days I am given pause when I see the
nonsense that people engage in for their own self-aggrandizement or that of
their business interests. It simply isn't worth the effort and the stress and
grief. No wonder politicians are generally poorly equipped to govern, they are
not the sharpest pencils in the box, the sharp pencils are running corporations
that run the politicians.
18. Traffic patterns mirror society.
Ever noticed that? How the traffic moves, how people react in their vehicles,
the rules that are in place and how they are enforced are reflections of how a
society functions, how well it is organized, how people treat each other, their
levels of tolerance, etc. From Kabul to Kathmandu, Edmonton to Yangon I've been
checking this out... blogworthy!
19. Taking off is more risky than
landing.... a metaphor for life if ever there was one. How hard is it to bring
about change? Get it off the ground? That is when all risk is taken on board?
How many of us don't make changes because we don't like risk taking? And yet
how many of us need to make the change happen? Landing... pishaw, how hard can
that be when you have gravity on your side ;-)
20. We live in an era where a quick
comeback can land you in a deep pile of doo-doo that you never expected....
people have a bit of a hard time taking a joke in these days of ultra-neo
political correctness.
21. I'm single again! Single with kids
and co-parenting. How does that feel? I don't know yet so new it is. More to
follow but there is a lurking sense of liberty in there somewhere. Perhaps as I
travel from East to West and back again this summer I'll feel it better. For
now the transition isn't easy and finding the right place to be, the place that
fits not an easy ask. For now it is a transition.
22. Back in the day, as a man, you
could compliment a co-worker on her new hairstyle, or something she is wearing
just as an off-the-cuff remark (and maybe even a wink)... these days, well, you
gotta take care with that one... or youtoo could get the label... just sayin',
the remarkable absence of men's voices from the #metoo discussion itself speaks
volumes.
23. In just 3 generations (often only
2) we have forgotten how to grow food; how many people's parents grew some food
of their own, how many don't grow their own food?
24. In just 2 generations (often only
1) we have forgotten how to cook our own food; how many people go out to eat at
least once/day or buy pre-packed ready to cook meals (often re-heated in a
microwave).
25. Food. Don't get me started... we
have to recognize and realise and analyze and accept that the food we buy
whether in the fresh market, in the super market or that we put on our plates
is not what it used to be. Food has been adulterated, it has been tampered with
genetically, it has been sprayed and messed about with and in ways we have no
idea about. As I understand it, the manipulation of food production (glyphosate
spraying, fertilizing, GMO, pesticiding, corporate farming, etc) is in the
interest of producing enough to feed the world, when actually what we have is a
distribution problem, is disingenuous. And we are poisoning ground-water
sources and the oceans It smacks of corporate interest and is symptomatic of
the takeover of yet another industry by the economically powerful and
wrong-minded prioritization of commerce to serve profit not people. How did we
let this happen? In 2 or 3 generations we have lost small holder farming,
naturally organic growing and with it our food-connection to mother earth.
26. Travelling by plane is an economic
privilege; some would argue it is a necessity because of where they live and
for their work. But is it? Travelling by plane is also the single best way for
an individual to deepen their carbon footprint and therein lies the conundrum,
stepping into my footprinte would be a bit like falling into a rabbit hole, is
that deep.
27. Where do I come from? Oh, you mean
my Race? Ethnicity? Nationality? Identity? Residency? or do you mean did I just
come from the pub? Please be specific, your question needs to reflect the
intention, what information are you after, what is behind your enquiry.
28. Where am I from? Having not lived
in Canada now since 1997, have visited a few dozen or two times and still
identify as Canadian and am a citizen as well as the UK from whence I sprung
into the world. I am of Indian bloodline yetwas adopted early on and brought up
by British parents. Where am I from? For my sons' that is another question,
they have never had a sense of home identity, never lived in Canada or France
where their Maman is from. Kasem at 11 has lived in 5 countries, where is he
from? He is born in Malaysia but doesn't even have the right to citizenry there.
The trendiness of being Third culture kids pales in comparison to this
phenomenon that of ‘Multi-culture kids’ which is what mine are. Most
importantly is this going to be a confusion as they grow into their years of
establishing their identity or will they simply evolve into being global
citizens of no fixed address and that will be okay?
29. Nothing is as it seems. Never
forget this and you won't ever be disappointed.
30. People are not who you think they
are, they are as complicated or as simple as you give them the perceptive space
to be.
31. The vast majority of International
schools are built on a business model. Be conscious of this all ye who are
seeking one for your children. This is the lens to see them through when
various quirks and twerks reveal that their prime motivation is to make money.
Perhaps I am jaded, where my kids go to school in Yangon this has been clear,
only skillful management can add the depth of quality to this equation without
affecting the bottom line.
32. Once your kids turn 12 they pay
adult fare to fly but on the majority of airlines still have to travel as
unaccompanied minors with additional surcharges. There is something wrong with
that. Either raise the age of paying an adult fare or get rid of the extra
charges. The most important thing for an airline is weight, all their costs are
fixed and it is with the weight that they play with their profit margin per
flight. So how is it that a 30kg 12 yr old with hand baggage pays as much (or
more if unaccompanied) as an 85kg adult with 23kgs of checked baggage and 7kgs
of hand baggage? The whole air travel pricing system needs to rethink around
who they are using as their profit centres.
33. $75 is today's price for 1 barrel
(159L) of Brent Crude oil and the price is subject to global market forces
which as we know affects the cost of petrol, of manufacturing and of goods...
according to this article https://interestingengineering.com/japanese-invention-converts-plastic-into-oil it
takes 1kg of plastic to make 1L of crude oil, quick bit of math.... thats about
$31/L. Some would argue that we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions not
increase them but while we are ramping up and bringing down renewal clean
energy costs, wouldn't this be the way forward? And who better positioned to
bring this one in... than big oil. Government plays a role, for every barrel
pulled from the ground one has to be made from Plastic... or you lose your
exploitation rights. If you agree and if you have stocks in big oil? SPEAK UP,
its the ultimate CSR, or remain part of the problem (see 48 below).
34. Speak up, the silent majority has
to speak up. It isn't enough any longer to stay quiet in the corner nodding. If
you see an injustice, say something, if you aren't actively involved and
contributing to the solution... then you're part of the problem (see 49 below).
35 Balance is the key, at the
individual level and on up through families and communities we have to find a
balance everyone has yin and yang and yang has dominated for so long from
left-brain oriented schooling to decisions based on economics (or politics!)
not people... the state of the planet is the evidence, we bought into Keynesian
economics and 'ran with the ball' and look where we are, loads of indulgent and
wasteful prosperity but much more degrading, unsupportable, poverty. WE ARE OUT
OF BALANCE.
36. Time for change
Men need to change up and accept women
as equals. Salary disparities and unequal partnerships and everything in
between need to be corrected. How long have we been talking about this? Weren't
they burning bras in '66? The shift has to come and it needs to come quickly,
really frigging fast actually. You know I almost want to say, if you're over 50
and in a power position and you still think with your penis and don't know what I'm on about... step aside brother,
you're done. Let us move on.
37. WATCH the documentary: 'Occupy
Love'
38. VOIP is amazing. Skype was the
early-comer to voice over internet protocol (I know right ;-)) and I was as
impressed then as I am now with all the copy cats... I mean free video
telephony? Here in Myanmar people have gone from no access to telephony to deep
penetration of smart phones with 4G in 4years... it is not clear yet how well
this is going to go over in a society still very entrenched in tradition
including how they communicate with each other and within communities. I have
no doubt it will have far-reaching impacts both positive and negative.
39. WATCH Carl Sagan..
40. I need to recognize the patterns
in my behaviour that do not serve me well or serve well those around me. I need
to recognize them, identify the source of what causes them and change up in
order to move on into a better place. We all have our shadow side, reconciling with it takes work. Do the work.
41. You need to love your work, or do
you? Is it enough to love the fact that you have work? Is that where most
people are at? For any reason besides loving it, they go to work and believe
they are happy. Is it delusional to think you have to love your work because
thats the premise I work off, why else would I spend 40+hours a week of my life
engaged in something I didn't like to do?
42. What is clear to me these days is
that having a job where the work day is more or less defined for you (a regular
job) is akin to a luxury because why, because what could be easier than having
someone prescribe when you should work, how long and even on what. For
some a luxury, for others like a shackle. Hats off to entrepreneurs and the self-employed
to innovators and inventors, you have to figure it out for yourself, lately I'm
discovering this latter is much harder.
43. And then we have to wonder, about
work and how we got to where we are in the world today... are we better off or
worse when we have less time to spend with our families and friends or hanging
out in nature. Pre-industrial revolution and still in many parts of the 'less
industrialized' world, work is around food production and distribution
(including selling and buying), then it became around manufacturing. The
different work ethics that evolved apparently suits the culture, apparently.
But it could be this isn't true and it could be that the tensions in our
societies are rooted in the simple fact that people have to work too much to
support their families. Middle class North America... can't survive without a
double income? Japanese salaryman spends 16hrs a day including their commute.
The poor work themselves to death, often literally.
45. Global circumstances at the time
of writing are sadly grimmer than usual, actually I'd suggest that since what
the Vietnamese call the American War we seem to be spiralling back into an era of
chauvinistic nationalism for which World War II was fought and for which peace
was won and institutions like the UN set up to prevent. What happened? And who
let these idiots out of their cages (don't get me started)!
46. And then again, there is the notion
(is it a Universal truth or a cop out...) that you shouldn't worry about that
which you cannot change and its corollary that if you can change something then
what have you got to worry about, go ahead and change it. The fact is that we
are often in a position to change things or participate in a change movement...
and then decide not to do so for any number of reasons; thing is, and you know
who you are, some of those reasons are not very good ones.
47 Tied in to the above is the
decision not to take in too much world media because of its negativity and its
impact on our psyche and some people make the choice to ignore the world
outside their particular bubble. But if we don't know about issues for example
those around social justice, or around voting and we can be part of changing
things for the better then how will they ever change if we don't know about
them.... hmmm do we live in this world or don't we. Do we have a responsibility
for seeing to it that a dictator who is undoing all the good work and ruining
the environment for us all is unseated? Does voting mean we agree with the
system and therefore we shouldn't vote?
48. If you're not part of the solution
then you are part of the problem, just sayin'.
49. In matters of injustice if you
remain silent then you are complicit in it. This is fact.
50. Have you discovered yet the 'Heart
of Yoga' practice, discovered yet the beauty of the basic Tai Chi Chuan 24
movements, discovered how to move energy with the Qi Gong practice of the
microcosmic orbit? You haven't? I invite you to please do so. Don't delay, find
a conscious movement practice that works for you. Especially if you're over 50!
51. Did I mention finding balance yet?
52. Democracy doesn't work very well
as we are seeing. 'Nuff said.
53. Did I mention balance in the
context of managing our lives? It is all about balance, the framework I
subscribe to is one where our body system can become out of balance, and needs
realigning, rebalancing and recharging. We have to be able to flow otherwise we
invite ill-ness (as opposed to well-ness) and dis-ease as opposed to ease.
Which would you prefer... (please don't mind the following shameless
advertisement).
54. I am at a bit of a loss turning 55
that many people of my age cruise along perhaps happy, perhaps thinking they
are happy, perhaps not happy, perhaps not aware they are not happy, perhaps
unhappy and unaware they can do something about it, perhaps unhappy and aware
that they must do something about it but don't know what to do... whatever the
case may be, the common element is that we want to be well. That is a human thing.
Be well, visit my website and find out how... https://www.elementalwellness.life/
55. Don't ever, ever forget to
breathe: https://imgur.com/gallery/DqK7H0S
