Dear Dave & Morley...

I've been fumbling, starting then stopping, and putting off the writing of this letter for a little while, as I'm not quite sure how to write it, or how to say what needs to be said. A letter is both a personal communication and an hierloom that can be revisited numerous times in one's life, kept in a drawer or cabinet and relived time and again.  It's also a story telling device that shares our authors thoughts and feelings, joy - and in my case anguish, over what news I feel I need to share.

Dear Dave & Morley I'd begin, and let the sentence trail-off in my head.  I'd heard Stuart start many stories this way, and always appreciated the depth of character he'd uncover in the telling.

He was good at that - good at using a covering imagery like the history of a town in Cape Breton, or the writing of a letter to a neighbour's son to curl around us, engaging our curiosity into the details that he vividly painted into our ears and embraced our imaginations with.  We were drawn in until we were so deeply sunk into his narrative that we missed a set-up  - until it was sitting on us, smiling down like a cheshire cat and Stuart's voice would deepen and lift at the same time, cueing us to notice the situation, or the character's reaction, or the absurdity of where we'd all gone.  Together. And he'd pause.

People remember that he made them laugh. Hilariously so, about turkey's, a drip from a lightbulb onto our forehead, or even Dave's hypochondria.  They recall the sweet little tears he brought out as he unearthed someone's empathy, kind spirit, or resilience -  illustrating it poignantly, helping us all recognize those same feelings in ourselves. Without doubt he touched many people. Stuart taught us about parenting, our own fears and anxieties, and life in our own communities through his invitation to the Cafe and the adventures of Dave, Steph, Sam and Morley.  The key was his voice, wistful and knowing. Richly rhythmic with stunning timing and the expert knowledge of how to say ..... nothing, drawing out our anticipation in knowing smiles and pre-laughter. Listen yourself to a few stories, and you'll see.  But I digress... Dear Dave and Morley, I have some news.

There are an estimated 400+ stories, about the universe that Stuart created and I can't say that I've heard them all.  There's a great big board the way I imagine it - with names, dates, places and relationships linked all together, probably with yarn.  Otherwise how could he have kept it all straight. As we listened it was those little details, Morley's love of figure skating, or characters from his hometown in Cape Breton when growing up with Annie, or the neighbours running the shops next to the Cafe, like Kenny Wong and his Scottish Meat Pies that made it all come to life.  There's a depth to these tales that binds them together and would have allowed for the next story, and the next one and the next. Only there won't be a next one. Dear Dave and Morley, I have some news. Some bad news...

As I sat and turned over on the ideas of what I needed to pass along, days drew long as I stumbled time and time again.  How do you tell someone that their world changed and they had no future  At the same time how do we share the tremendous gratitude that you deeply feel, that so many feel for the times spent together. It's an end, as surely and completely as an end ever was, but at the same time it's a time to acknowledge the hours spent together, and the moments we were assembled as one in laughter, sadness and life's precious lessons.

Dear Dave And Morley,  I re-started, I have some news. Some bad news.  But you're going to be fine, in fact we're all going to be fine as we still have one another.  It seems that...........

It is I'd hope, all that Stuart would have asked for.

______________________________

Stuart McLean was the host and creator of The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio.  On a weekly basis he created the worlds that Dave, Morley, Sam, Stephanie and countless others inhabited and allowed the rest of us to visit, observe and learn from. Luckily for us, Stuart was prolific.  Stuart passed away on Feb 15th, 2017.

The Vinyl Cafe can be visited still, and it's a worthwhile way to hear how well stories can be told. 

"I Inherited a Mess"

This is a verbatim quote from the President of the United States from last week.  At the time that I heard him say it, and since then too, I've been aghast at the implications of this innocuous statement by the (new) leader of the free world.

Let's start with the the full quotation as there's no fake news here:

"I inherited a mess, it's a mess at home and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. See what's going on with all of the companies leaving. Going to Mexico and other places. Low minimum wages. Mass instability overseas no matter where you go. The Middle East, a disaster. North Korea. We'll take care of it folks. We'll take care of it all."

So he's begun his term blaming the previous guy.  That's actually playbook 'new president' and not objectionable as such as it's been done before over and over.

What galls me here is the idea that this is all a surprise.  It's too bad he hadn't campaigned on keeping America's jobs, or the 'threat' of Mexico, and mass instability in other parts of the world.  What's that ?...He did ? - well then why act if it's a surprise now ?  Because I'd argue he's starting to appreciate the complexity of his role.  That's a good thing in some ways, but a frightening one when you imagine he may not actually have understood the depth of the issues he was ranting about pre-election.  If we acknowledge that, then we just handed the keys to the country to an individual who seems to have lied on their driving test.

Let's the honest, being President isn't a job for everybody.  The stresses, tough calls and incredibly intricate negotiations to keep everything moving must be like dancing on a pinhead.  Politically, you can't screw up your Israeli question or your China policy for fear of what impact it has on trade policy and other foreign relationships.  Everything is linked, and it's not just complex, it's a political-economic ecosystem where only 'balance' works.  To think a domestic matter isn't effected by trade is to not understand the linkages between current account deficits and mortgage rates, amongst other things. Jobs in any country are driven from a myriad of factors including (but not limited to) technology, GDP, demand from your home market and the trade agreements in place with others and these sands are always shifting.  

Is it a mess ?  No it's not, but to an uneducated eye the nature of the layers and movement could make it appear so.  Provided he's surrounded himself with smart people, and he listens to them, he'll get through this learning curve.  He's got a positive economy, no ongoing international troop deployments of size and a degree of domestic security.  Looking at the last few presidential transitions, this is a gift. 

The Cradle We Share

Visiting one of the earliest civilizations and seeing it's technical brilliance, and incredible feats, while learning of the customs and language used back then is a tremendous treat. Catching glimpses of all too familiar human nature in their actions - etched into stone - makes it all come to life.

The areas around modern day Cairo are filled with royal graveyards, typified by the expensive monuments to ego in the life thereafter we refer to as pyramids today. Over a thousand years and almost 30 dynasties, Egyptian Pharaohs ruled what was their modern world.  They changed where the capital was, and built up many areas north and south on the Nile from where Cairo is today.  As impressive as the nice Giza pyramids are (three larger familiar ones, flanked by two sets of three smaller ones each for Queens), what really tells the story of Egypt is the detail inside. 

Depending upon the date of the dynasties, certain trends were in place.  In the all-too-familiar larger pyramids, the burial chambers have blank walls.  Indeed while they may have been packed with papyrus scrolls delineating instructions, these are long gone as the very prominence of the structures made them targets across the ages.  It’s the smaller, less impressive structures near Memphis and Saqqaa (also suburban Cairo) that were constructed more cheaply in later Dynasties that have the stories we have come to know.   Here the stories are told on the walls of the journey to the after-life, complete with supplies and intentions.  While these too were looted down the ages, the stories remained etched in stone for us to piece together a look at the culture and history of this country and it’s individual rulers.

To offer some perspective here, we need to understand that economics came into play then, just as it does today.  A burial chamber was an expensive proposition, and was constructed in one’s life with clear direction, rather than after death as some sort of testament to one’s greatness.  So the costs of regular servicing one’s afterlife had to be financed during one’s life. Decisions around how often post-death nourishment and adornment that should be dropped into a crypt by the priests were weighed carefully.  In tomb after tomb the stories on the walls are clearly laid out, and are quite similar. I imagine there was a standard budget and approach of sorts, just as we have burial standards that are largely the same. 

 In one tomb close to the pyramid of Djoser, a queen’s tomb was adjacent to her son’s nearby to where her husband the King was buried.  Her name was Inefrt. Unlike the typical sarcophagus (empty now of course) alone in a room, this chamber featured an alter, and a bench.  At first reflection, one might conclude she was a caring person, offering a place to rest.  Looking up from the bench however was a clearest set of

instructions (in hieroglyphics of course) you might imagine, of what should be brought, in what quantities, and on what date.  The alter was present to ensure the slaughter (lambs) took place within her prevue.  So, I might guess this was an early ‘type A’ queen, not leaving anything to chance, and not trusting her servants to get it right.  It was this revelation perhaps more than the engineering feats that made the most impression on me.  This were just people, royal or not, and as us, they were individuals.  To be able to gain a glimpse into the person 4500 years later is remarkable and the thousands of as yet undiscovered burial chambers will doubtless help us understand ourselves even more in the coming years.

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Into Danger

The world is actually a pretty small place.  We can fly around it in a weekend in any of a number of ways. While there are 7 Billion+ of us, there are remarkable similarities and what we hold in common is often more striking than what we consider to be our differences. In New York, London, Singapore, Sydney and Nairobi we are bound to find the same shops, foods and outlets in addition to similar working customs and more.

It's not surprising (to me anyway) that the search for the new places and cultures occupies such a large chunk of what we seek at times.  Lately, that means crossing into a 'dangerous' place - one that is populated with those that have very different beliefs, customs and standards.  Because there can be uneasiness about these differences, we often classify them as dangerous - and while I wouldn't suggest that South Sudan is as safe as Northern Canada - it's really the variation in values and our preconceived ideas that sets places apart.  South Sudan has no polar bears for example.

This weekend I'm venturing into a dangerous place, one that my country's travel advisories suggest I shouldn't under any circumstances go to.  I understand that - it falls into the same thought process that now requires us to label the package of peanuts with the "May contain Nuts" warning.  You don't want someone stumbling in unprepared.  But I believe that if we're careful, and respectful, and we have an open mind, it's these dangerous places that help us broaden our horizons and inform us about the greater mosaic that is the beauty of our species.  And yes there is violence there, but there's also violence throughout the world now, and the old way of looking at 'bad neighbourhoods' simply doesn't apply when it can happen in Paris, Brussels, Quebec City or New York.   Travel bans affect the innocents, not the determined. So into the valley I go.

And for a Change, let's talk about Work

I was flattered this past week, and it felt good.  I took some work on that I had thought was behind me, and it was fine - not special, or insightful except that it required a degree of focus to do well.  That in itself was a nice change from what I’m doing normally, but what will stick with me is the discussion around some original future work ideas.

A colleague and I discussed what a 2.0 version looked like for something we both knew well.  I had some ideas that I’ll admit must have been latently pent up in my head, as I’d certainly never given them voice before.  But once the cork was popped, it kept flowing. And that “original thought’ was stimulating.  It was a needed intellectual release, and to be recognised for it by someone I respect was very nice.

I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but lately my brain has been tied into spikey little knots by the ‘trumpetting’ than seems relentless in the news cycle.  It’s the oozing sore that will be with us for a number of years I fear and like any well designed reality show, it’s hard to take your eyes and ears away.  So the chance to do that, to think deeply about matters that are not politics and are complex was viscerally satisfying.

We don’t often gain fulfillment from our work, but when it does happen -  it’s quite good isn’t it ? Sure beats reading twitter lately.

Yoda was Wrong

As a young person, I had few hard rules.  One maxim however gleaned from the imagination of George Lucas was that "there is no try, there is only do, or do not'.  I felt I actually believed this, as unforgiving as it is.  As time has gone by and I no longer look for philosophies to live by from a galaxy far far away, I've come to understand that often all we have is 'try'.

We after-all are imperfect beings working in systems that are biased, and dealing with economic, political and socials pressures that are at times beyond our direct control.  To succeed at anything is due to a combination of factors, not the least of which is trying, but our level of try is virtually never the only variable.  If I say this another way - my level of trying doesn't on it's own guarantee success, but it does figure into the success equation, in some as yet undermined way.

All of this came to mind recently, as someone in my life has been trying really hard of late, and soon finds out if the efforts taken were successful or not.  There's an implied celebration or consolation coming up.  It struck me though that that's the wrong thing to look for.

What we should be measuring to acknowledge and feel good about is the level of 'try'.  If any of us give something our best, then pass or fail, win or lose we deserve to be recognized and celebrated.  The outcomes themselves are nice, sure but they're the icing on the cake - not the cake itself.  And icing doesn't really happen without the cake, does it ?

When you see someone really put their heart into something, and push themselves to new levels of performance, then the trying itself is worthy of our praise.  The outcomes will come their way - or they won't  - but the supporters need to recognize that the passion, focus and commitment are what we want to see.

So - well done - you couldn't have tried any harder.  I'm proud of you whichever way this ends up.

Vegas in Arabia

If you ran a city/state, what would you aspire for it ?

Would it be a model of equality, or perhaps the greenest, or cleanest or world renown for...something.  Or would you go for biggest, loudest, and try to out-Vegas, Las Vegas..?

Dubai sadly has aimed for the latter and while it is certainly impressive it strikes you more as an exercise in excess, than a noble pursuit.  Sure having the world's biggest X is interesting, but really in a carnival sense more than a practical one. As impressive as it's engineering feats are, it's notable that the entire service industry seems to be manned by expat immigrant labour that while treated fairly, are not by any means equal to the local Emirati.

Perhaps aiming for world's most inclusive health care, (everyone's covered today, but via mandatory private scheme's), or the best educational system might be more in order.  It can't be the greenest as the cost of watering that piece of the Arabian desert would make your eyes hurt.  Water is more expensive than gas remarked one individual I met recently.

Now, I'm a realist and understand that while Dubai is perhaps the most renown of the UAE's seven different emirates, unlike it's sister states it does not have oil riches, so it needs to develop other industries. Tourism plays a significant role in that development with the emergence of the hometown airline as a global leader and the marketing of Dubai as a destination  in itself.  But I can't help but wonder what a desert paradise means having just spent a week there.  Real contrasts popped up everywhere, in almost any way that you looked at the place. Their investments of trying to be some version of 'best' might show more productive long term returns if placed in other areas.

Dubai is absolutely worth a visit to see this for yourself.  If your own budget does't allow for that, then grab a cheap flight to Las Vegas and imagine what it would be like it they added more bling and made it bigger.