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Gratitude
My goal is to show up in your inbox more regularly, so I’m experimenting with shorter entries that may sometimes find themselves expanded and developed into a deep-dive down a rabbit-hole or two (to use some current trendy metaphors).
That way you may get to know me better, what goes on in the windmills of my mind (60s metaphor there) – how it darts like a hummingbird from one interest, curiosity and stimulation to another.
Speaking of hummingbirds, and this is the gratitude part, we stood for a few minutes on our deck the other morning watching the robins, steller’s jays and hummingbirds. Fat black squirrels too. It took me back to growing up in Saskatchewan. The return of the robins was a newsworthy event. So was the first sighting of a crocus. They were both reported in the local newspaper.
Do I need to say much more about gratitude for where we live? Watching the robins on the oak tree in the back and hummingbirds at our feeder continue even with the forecast of snow which so far hasn’t arrived in our neighbourhood. Oh, and I grilled steaks on the deck that night in bare feet. On a Saskatchewan January evening? Impossible.
I saw a hummingbird only once growing up in Saskatchewan. And that one time I did, in my grandparents’ crabapple tree, it scared me because I thought it was a giant bee.
Have you seen any snowdrops or crocuses yet?
Empathy and Curiosity
I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb to say we’re faced with some pretty serious problems these days. Dominating the headlines are the global pandemic, the overdose crisis and, certainly not least, the convulsions that have been happening in the US for the last five years and counting.
The one that’s been on the back burner recently. mostly because the other three are so much in our faces, is the threat of the changing climate. It’s without doubt the most serious in an existential way. We need to find the common will, collective action, throughout the world to deal with it.
FIrst of all, I don’t worry about the earth. Talk of saving the planet is off the mark in my opinion. The earth will endure and transform itself as it has for billions of years .through countless cataclysms. It’s been through at least five mass extinctions of its denizens. We’re on track to be the sixth. We need constantly to remind ourselves that the real threat is to humanity and about humanity. Of the six – this one wilI be the first extinction caused by the victims themselves.
(That is unless you’re a fan of The Far Side. Then you know the real reason dinosaurs went extinct.)
At the level of the individual, it feels like we’re pretty powerless to confront a global threat in any meaningful way. Powerless is a word we don’t like to hear, we have a hard time accepting that we are powerless. We would rather follow our impulse to control.
What can an individual do?
Well, instead of wringing hands in helpless fury at our predicament, or worse, denying the reality of the threat, I can’t help but offer this: consider the following quote from Azar Nafisi’s book The Republic of the Imagination:
“Certain basic human traits remain eternal: curiosity and empathy, the urge to know and the urge to connect. These twin attributes are our means of existence and tools for survival.”
I don’t know the source, or the authority of the Ms. Nafiz’s declaration that curiosity and empathy are eternal they resonate as true to me all the same. But these days they certainly aren’t universal. We would stand a much better chance if they were.
Consider this conclusion from Captain G.M Gilbert, the army psychologist who was assigned to watch the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials:
Evil, I think is the absence of empathy.
It seems to me that there is no greater task than to encourage in ourselves, and one another, the growth of curiosity and empathy, and I don’t think saying our survival depends on it is overstating the importance of the task.
It’s my belief that empathy and curiosity are indispensable ingredients for a relational, civilized human life.
Of course the quest is all about how does one develop, integrate and live wonderful qualities like gratitude, curiosity, empathy and kindness? I certainly don’t have any quick, change-your-life answers off the the top of my head. It feels in many ways that my life’s path has been a quest for the sense of aliveness that comes with becoming, and failing to become, the embodiment of these values.
So, here’s the challenge. These writings will be an exploration of the unfolding, the awakening if you will of this path. I hope you’ll hang in there with me. All I can promise is that the journey will be undertaken with curiosity, empathy, and every effort to be kind. Even though there will be missteps and mistakes made along the way.
Some Online Resources
Full disclosure: I like listening to sports talk radio. I grew up playing sports and still love hockey.
My sentimental favorite team in the NHL is the Winnipeg Jets. I was one of the thousands who watched Bobby Hull sign with the Jets on the corner of Portage and Main. I followed them through their WHA glory years in the 70s, into the NHL, and lamented their departure to Phoenix in the 90s. Even though they’re back, in the meantime I became a free-lance fan and hooked up with the Canucks. Now, this member of the ignominious Sad Club is my team.
But that’s not my point (remember the windmills of my mind?). I want to get to the fact that I heard about a couple of really important resources listening to TSN 1040.
The first is headsupguys.org. A website that addresses health strategies for managing and preventing depression in men. As the ad says: Depression affects millions of men every year, and is the leading cause of disability worldwide.
If you’re not a man there’s a page on the site for the friends and family. of someone who is, or might be depressed.
The other important resource is a website called bc211.
It bills itself as the go-to place for for help in BC, where and when you need it. Check it out. you’ll be impressed by how much information is available in this one place.
Time for one last kick
at winter in Canada and the eternal promise of spring. Rick Mercer reveals the truth about Environment Canada and its Seven Day Forecast.
I’d be happy to have your feedback.
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