Author: catchmydrift.blog

I've had a career as an elementary school teacher. During that time I wrote for newspapers and magazines. Writing is a part of my daily life: It's a way to understand my thoughts, reach out to the world, offer an opinion and record my passage. I take joy in words as other artists express themselves through dance, acting, sculpture or paint. A single word can evoke powerful visions. I see life as a celebration. Like all humans I am complex and curious even while some have called me conventional. I follow my father's belief that everything can be awesome, if you choose it to be. I'm a work in progress, just like this blog, now with 300 postings of thought and ideas. Social media, like pen palling or ham radio connections of yore, can be a positive way to build that great, vast realm that is human consciousness. Leave me a comment if you are so moved or Substack https://mrrobertthompson.substack.com/ or on Bluesky @wh0n0z.bsky.social

Re: Judge

Someone who has an opinion is often thought to be judgemental, now that’s an unfair judgement. In fact I believe the word Judge needs a hard look before we jump to conclusions regarding a person’s intent during a conversation. I think evaluation is appropriate. It keeps us safe from dangerous situations and people who may wish to harm us. Judgement implies sentencing and I’m not for that. Society sometimes has to judge and individuals who are authorized by governments to make judgement must tread carefully, lest their judgement ends up doing harm. In my experience judgement can lead to abuse.

For example, I may be walking in the wilds and come across a bear. I have heard that bears are dangerous, shouldn’t be fed and may strike out when cornered. My personal conclusion is to give bears a wide berth. My evaluation may suggest bears and I have to find ways to co-exist. That would be my preference. It would be wrong to judge, that because of my evaluation, all bears must be killed or be put in cages.

I have been in conversations where someone has said, “Now don’t judge me.” This usually means that the person is not sure how I would feel about their behaviour. I have to reassure them that I’m not here to judge. I might jokingly say that they are in luck because I didn’t have my gavel with me that day. Or I might refer to Sammy Davis Jr. posing as a judge on the television show Laugh-in and uttering what would become one of comedy’s first memes “Here Come Da Judge! ”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hIcKkKID8k . Hippies might have said, “I don’t care about your behaviour, just don’t hurt anyone.”

Polite manners of speech often force us into thinking along the lines of judging or being judged. Too bad, since once an emotional line has been crossed both sides stop trying to come to a mutual conclusion. A threat has been perceived, thoughtful exchange degenerates into shouting or worse. When an evaluation can come about as a result of full participation then no judgement is really necessary, only planning together for resolution of the original problem. No further protest is needed since there is a will to rectify rather than justify.

I’ve been shaped by film as some people are shaped by books or influential mentors. One of the themes of A Christmas Carol (1951, starring Alastair Sim) is judgement. In a memorable scene at a rag shop, characters gather to talk of their employer after his death:

Charwoman, “Why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? …If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him…”
Mrs. Dilber, “It’s the truest word that ever was spoke…It’s a judgment on him.”

This scene is the clincher. Lucky for Scrooge he is given a view of his selfish, misguided life while he still has a chance to change it. He sees the truth in his charwoman’s statement, not in judgement, but in genuine curiosity; “Why wasn’t he kinder?”

Re: Fond

I was gazing out of a floor to ceiling window at a university campus recently and I felt a touch of fondness as I watched students going about their business. I think I was feeling sentimental about my own experience on a campus. As I tried to unravel this fond emotion, I recalled the crunch of maple leaves in autumn, brick walkways that directed me to my morning labs, looking for that red haired girl in lecture hall 320, the bell that sounded the hour from the tower at Convocation Centre. Maybe that red haired girl was an illusion; someone I was destined to meet much later in my life. Fondness might be inexorably mixed with ennui; that restless yearning that comes with pangs of wanting. “When will it be my turn?” is an expression that belongs to similar cries heard in countless college quads around the western world. On my campus it was usually a male voice crying out longingly for “Sylvia!” Those were heady days of freedom for me, the first time I ever felt the pull of the future and its possibilities. Those early journeys of independent action are among the fondest memories I have retained.

Being fond of someone might sound like puppy love; a crush. Yet a crush comes in a rush of emotion. When you think fondly of someone it requires some history to develop a context. I can think fondly of teachers who have left part of their soul with me. I recall a multitude of fond thoughts when it comes to the growth of my sons; how we played and worked together. “I remember fondly the time when…” can start interesting conversations about the joy of growing older together. Like most toddlers, my lads were fond of a special blanket. They each had their own; white manmade fibre mixed with some cotton or wool blend with a border of smooth satiny binding. To settle themselves to sleep they would take a smooth corner and fondle it between their chubby fingers, sometimes tracing it along the side of their cheek.

Some of my elders used to tease me if they found out I was fond of someone. “Do you fancy her then?” they would ask, as though the object of my affection was a mince tart I might crave for dessert. When I told my wife I was examining the word Fond for any meaning in my life she expressed surprise since she knows I’m not fond of food. I’m sure many ‘live to eat’ people could name dishes they have a fondness for or restaurants that keep drawing them back for the food and friendship they find there. Many have told me they are so fond of their pets that they have proclaimed them ‘Family’.

I can tear up easily when I see a young person performing their hearts out at a concert or play. A thread of music can do the same. My fondnesses are not concrete or absolute. They lie in those intangibles that border with thoughts of times gone past.

Re: Inspire

We have the Creator in all of us. My interpretation of those pointy church spires has a creative inspiration. Perhaps they were designed to be the highest point in a village so that the citizens would forever be reminded of their own creation and by extension their inherent creativity. Think of these spires as antennae, reaching out and drawing in all manner of information. If inspiration comes from some mystical place, who is to say that those who are inspired are not just tuned into the correct frequency to receive the message. Imagine a writer working on a play, walking through cobble streets when suddenly catching sight of a pigeon lifting into the air. As the bird is followed, our artist spies the steeple and inhales as if struck by an inspired idea. Perhaps a church spire, with God’s help or not, can be a conductor of what is sometimes called the collective consciousness. Ideas are out there, nothing is really new, thoughts hang in the air like fruit waiting to be picked.

While some inspirations may come from tall manmade structures, artists and scientists are forever having inspiring thoughts in all sorts of locations. One wonders where that inspirational signal comes from to create that seed of an idea. We’ve all experienced, to a greater or lesser degree, that magic moment when you feel as though all your previous ideas and thoughts congeal into a coherent whole. It’s the ‘Aha!’ Or ‘Eureka’ moment that drives the engine of change. It can be an expression of joy for a new way of doing things.

First we are curious: “How is this done?” We look through the cutouts at a construction site and stand transfixed at what is being created. We marvel at the birth of an animal in a farm setting. Lots of experiences inspire us to reach for our own goals. Once creativity starts, it rarely stops. The members of the band RUSH, like other artists, seem to be constantly inspired to do art in different ways. Here they are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Watch for the inspired way that member Alex Lifeson (who is the last to speak) accepts his award. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M7AEi68a20

We can watch moments such as this and be inspired. At other times we may stare blankly out the window or at a proverbial blank canvas and wonder how to find a way to express what we are feeling or thinking. I’ve been stuck like this many times in my life. Sometimes the best thing is just to wallow and wait. Find a place of safety until something colourful flits across your field of vision. Rekindle the ember that was, and still is, the child within. A child is rarely without inspiration. Is that called innocence?

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Roman God Cupid is a wee babe with a skill to inspire love in those it pricks with its arrows. Once inspired, all negative thoughts subside, our eyes are opened to a fresh day, and a new way.

Re: Sort

Carl Linnaeus, considered the Father of Taxonomy, developed a system of sorting plants and animals in the mid-eighteenth century. In university, I enjoyed an Entomology course where 50% of the final mark was to sort hundreds of varieties of insect specimens found mounted and stored in dozens of drawers in the lab. Many features on each specimen needed examining before it could be assigned its proper Order, Family, Genus then Species names. I got my highest mark in this course, where order took precedence over randomness.

Not without coincidence perhaps, my favourite candy as a boy was Liquorice All Sorts. When we first came to Canada they were hard to find in stores. Sometimes my grandmother would send a package from England at Christmas. My sister and I had different favourites which luckily avoided conflict; she liked the black tubes filled with white sugar paste and I loved the coconut wheels with the liquorice centre. I still enjoy them as a treat, my wife loving the colourful beaded ones that look like buttons. No arguments here: Harmony reigns.

An English phrase I recall my parents using was, “Let’s get you sorted.” I’d have a problem with my bike, or something troubling happened at school or sibling rivalry reared its head and Mom or Dad would sit us down to get to the bottom of it. We were encouraged to sort through our problems in a structured way by examining ourselves first.

What sort are I? Like my fellow human, I am a person wanting to be able to express free will. The more you put me in a box with a singular definition the less I will feel free to be me. In the documentary film, ‘Ask Dr Ruth’, Ms. Westheimer rejected being classified by her daughter and granddaughter as a feminist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkZ8Kn3xVO8
I thought about this scene in the movie for days afterward since it seemed obvious to me that she represented in word and deed what a feminist would stand for. She later accepted the label saying she wasn’t ‘radical’. I wondered if her reluctance had anything to do with being sorted, as so many of her generation had been, in the methodical terrorist manner that was the Nazi Germany of her youth. Under Adolf Hitler, people were identified and classified. Once labelled, a person could be discriminated against, legislated against and potentially exterminated.

None of us want to be put in boxes. We are much more than one aspect of ourselves. We are many facetted. We are all a unique combination of our skin colour, our beliefs, our upbringing, our occupation, our thoughts, our daily activities. We are complicated. We are right to reject being classified. We must shout loudly if necessary, that we are a member of the human race. We can say this with certainty, objectivity and truthfulness in our hearts and minds. History tells us that this fact needs to be declared repeatedly so that we remember our common natural classification as Homo sapiens. No further discussion needed. What else needs sorting?

Re: Need

I recently pleaded to a nurse, “I need to be rescued!” Needless to say she paid attention to this call to action and found a way to get me the help I needed. Bless her heart. Most times I think we are individually reluctant to say we need something. We like to be independent in our quest for the things we require. We don’t want to appear as whiners or be left feeling bitter because someone else got what we were needing, so generally we are quiet searchers for the things that will make us healthy, happy and whole.

We can all agree that for mere survival we need air & water. We often band together and demand needs as our rights: affordable housing, a clean environment, education, equal pay. When our side seems abandoned we protest, we argue and literally stomp our feet and bang our drums to right the injustice over the distribution of these human needs. How we define a need from a want can lead to further discord until a unified consensus is found.

Parents have to be wise in differentiating between needs and wants so their children can grow to understand. Very young children may have tantrums when they want something. In the film The Jerk, Steve Martin’s character finds out the differences between needs and wants through a humorous journey. In this scene I laugh at the childlike way he adds to his list of what he “really needs”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSWBuZws30g

Is emotion to want, as survival is to need? I’ve had some insightful conversations with my academic activist son on this topic. He easily lists Education, Housing, Employment, Food, Health Care as needs. He argues these needs must be supported by governments and to a larger or smaller degree they all are. Being a Star Trek fan, I would agree these five primary needs to be free for all, supported by tax dollars. Far from being utopian in scope, once these needs are met then we can tackle other areas of life with full bellies, open hearts and keen minds.

Trouble is, some of us think waging war is needed. Some think we need massive amounts of wealth. Others think education is only for boys or the rich or the white. Still others think the food that we grow, the water we drink must be managed for maximum profit. Information is even being commodified. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” used to be a boast, a school yard taunt or a military pronouncement. Now, in the search for basic facts, the information you need may end up costing you.

My personal needs for optimum emotional health include safety and love. Sometimes what you need has to actively pursued. Sometimes it’s a matter of seeing what has been there all along. The song, ‘Without You’ written by Pete Ham & Tom Evans of Welsh rock group Badfinger plaintively captures the universal need for love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPco24LS31A

Re: System

I find comfort in rules. Rules are part of systems. Systems attempt to address randomness. Right now the systems that have been a large part of my life are breaking down. I welcome the possibility that with this breakdown will come new systems that better serve those who have so often been marginalized in society.

Natural systems are based on science and the physical order of things. For example our bodies have a circulatory system that makes sure our cells are fed and waste products are removed. Photosynthesis is a system in nature whereby plants use carbon dioxide to produce oxygen. Our planet is part of a Solar System that exists as a result of a systematic progression from events beginning with the theorized Big Bang. We are in a climate emergency right now. Humans have interfered to such an extent with natural systems, that problems around the world have become systemic. Radical change in our cultural and governmental systems is required for our planet’s very survival

Human constructed systems are created to keep things moving. They are often based on what is considered the norm. Human behaviour is often considered when constructing systems: Picture a Bell Curve. The majority of the population will be in the middle hump of 80%. Some of the best systems are the ones that have a plan for the fringe elements of the ten percent on either side of the hump. Rules must be kept flexible if the outliers are to survive. This group of people suffer the most when human systems break down. There’s irony here since economically the richest one percent is technically in a fringe zone. The obscenely wealthy hardly need protection from the slanted economic system from which they profit. These folks own and control so much that I would argue that some sort of equalization rules need to be established. Let’s call these rules, fair taxation.

My local hospital recently initiated a system to deal with people entering their emergency wing. They called it a Rapid Assessment and Discharge Unit. This particular system, as in many others, relies on professionals being efficient. My recent experience proved the opposite of the Unit’s intent as the rules were so strict that my assessment depended on a cavalier doctor. My recovery ended up taking longer as a direct result of this medical system failing me.

I once volunteered with my wife as a coat check for a local charity event. We arrived early to the function only to find no system in place to accurately account for the coats. Quickly we made up duplicate tickets from a wheel of paper stubs, organized the coat racks to visually track times of entry, found more hangers and created a secure perimeter. We were ready! We had systematically created and ticked off all the required boxes to success.

We are all responsible to some degree for system failure so we must all find a role to play in resolving issues before they become systemic. That can mean speaking up, acting out or voting in. It’s our world too and we have a part in protecting it and defining it for ourselves and for future generations.

Re: Surgery

My first experiences with surgery came before I was seven years old. Back in my early years it was routine to have your tonsils out before you got too long in the tooth. The idea, as I remember being told, was to reduce the risk of illness in the throat. As a bonus the surgeon would often yank out the adenoids. Now, more than sixty years later, whenever I think of hospitals I recall the smell of ether.

On the best advice of the day, my parents chose to have me go under the knife for the tonsillectomy. Just a year later, near my birthday, I was exploring a barn and a large iron bar fell across the toes of my left foot, smashing several bones. I had a bit of emergency surgery done and a cast was placed on my leg up to my knee. It became this young adventurer’s point of pride the following week at his birthday party. Every guest signed their name to my plaster of Paris leg as a tribute to my survival.

Surgical procedures have no doubt changed in my lifetime. Rich folk are choosing costly cosmetic surgery in the hopes of drinking at the well of eternal youth. New advances in prosthetics and bionics are also enabling greater mobility after corrective surgeries. Whether the surgery is elective or needed as a result of illness or accident, recovery times have been reduced since my tonsil days when ice cream was prescribed after the first night in a hospital ward. For example, it amazes me how quickly women are sent home after delivery of their baby, even if complications would suggest caution. I recently had prostate surgery which went according to plan, but then I was discharged too early only to find myself back in emergency and recovering from that ordeal. Perhaps our medical system is becoming too intent on freeing up beds as a cost saving policy, even when further monitoring is warranted. Aftercare is surely as important as the original dramatic diagnosis of the need for surgery.

Reading about the gold rush days of North American I am amused to discover that surgery and dentistry were often practised by the same person as indicated by their shingle hanging near a saloon on the boardwalk of a pioneer town. In those days a surgeon might have been called a sawbones in direct relation to the nature of their work. The early rudimentary nature of this medical profession is visually apparent in this opening scene of Dances With Wolves.

Which leads me to segue to military surgical strikes: Where the intent is to precisely remove a foreign threat by using an assassin, a tactical team, a smart bomb or a drone. Like bodily surgeries the objective is to get rid of any threatening or unnecessary bits before they affect the smooth running of he organism. In the case of limited warfare, the organism at risk is deemed to be the free world. Send in James Bond! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PM5I0jKxb8

Re: Pain

Recently I opted for some elective surgery. While in hospital, the most frequent question posed by the nurse was, “Are you experiencing pain?” This question was clarified with, “On a scale of one to ten.” Aside from coping with the real pain, this question caused stress pain. I couldn’t identify the pain level, since it varied from moment to moment. The consistency of the pain was also a factor: there was dull ache, sharp spasms, performance anxiety, all over ague, perpetual angst, stiff muscular knots and constant ringing in my ears. It was impossible to assist the nurse’s valid question because I clearly couldn’t un-sort my feelings.

When it comes to pain, I’m a baby. I can take the sight of blood or a nasty bump but when I feel a low grade headache coming on I run to the medicine cabinet. I keep all the brands of pain relievers so that I can cover all the bases when pain strikes. I think of pain as discomfort, not the, ‘Oh God I’ve just been shot!’, sort of experience. Lucky me. I’ve never had an extreme level of pain. I’ve only been in one fistfight in my life. My sparring partner proclaimed to the grade six class one day that he was going to bring ‘A whole lotta pain’ my way. My classmates witnessed the choosing of the location for the fight later that day and some even showed up to see the result. It was over in a few minutes; blows were struck, noses bloodied, honour restored. I went home after feeling manly yet bruised. I was offered an ice pack and a hot cup of tea.

Recently I’ve been enjoying the drama of a British TV series, Call the Midwife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tY0eUynAOY . The episodes have renewed my respectful belief that I could never give birth to a child. In reality, I’ve been a father to three sons, watching my wife handle the painful moments of childbirth. Now each time I saw a mother crying out to the television midwives I’ve moved into the room with them, almost becoming them, as though they hold a painful memory. Yet after the TV birth there is joy! How can this be? I’d picture myself immediately asking for knock-out drops.

We use the word Pain in our language frequently. Someone at the office is a ‘Pain in the Neck’ or worse, ‘A Pain in the Butt’. When we were bringing bad news we used to lead into the announcement by saying, “I’m pained to say this…”. Most country songs are about painful breakups or loss. This kind of emotional pain is surely at the heart of the OXY crisis.
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/contributor/marilyn-bulloch-pharmd-bcps/2018/08/how-oxycodone-has-contributed-to-the-opioid-epidemic

Even though I am British born I find it hard most times to offer a stiff upper lip to discomfort. I will take an easy fix, just as long as it comes over the counter and is medically tested. I hope I never know what real pain is.

Re: Mission

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it.” Says the self-destructing audio tape given to agent Jim Phelps at the beginning of the television show, Mission Impossible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TiqXFssKMY. It was one of my favourite shows as a kid. I loved all things relating to adventure. I loved drawing detailed maps in elementary school of early explorers: Magellan, Vasco de Gama, Shackleton, Cook. I remember being fascinated by the twin tales of Stanley and Livingston: Reporter Henry Stanley was sent on a mission by his newspaper, The New York Herald in 1871, to find the presumed missing missionary David Livingston.

In the Kama Sutra of sexual positions, ‘missionary style’ (male dominant facing female) is reported to have been promoted by white African missionaries as the acceptable way for natives to procreate. This sexual act offers the promise of creation; a mission by two people to provide an individual to further the continuation of humanity. A lofty mission that has had many motives and several potential outcomes.

Most corporations, of the business sort, have well defined mission statements. The intention of the mission mantra is to focus investor imagination and provide a set of achievable goals. I worked with school principals in the eighties when societal managers were hungry to adopt a business model of operations. We were advised to see an educated student as our product so therefore could create a mission document focussed on that outcome. I fear our children’s education will become even more like an assembly line process as we move ever closer to the merging of biology with AI technology

During my career, I met many colleagues who considered education as their mission in life. For me, however, my job was not the singularity of my life. I would never have referred to my work in schools as a calling. Some people do seem born to do what they do. Recent films about Fred Rogers suggest that his teaching about love and acceptance rose to the level of a mission. In the final scene of A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Mr. Rogers is shown at a piano while other crew members of his children’s show are packing up to go home, their job finished.

Missionaries bring a message to the world. Their prophet-like work needs support and accommodation from the rest of us. Many individuals throughout history have been heralded as innovators; their missions lauded yet doomed to fail when public opinion has swung the other way. I don’t believe that any individual with a creative vision can succeed alone. I’ve been supported when I’ve had an idea. I suspect those who support great leaders feel their role is to enable the mission: They become Sanchos to their Don Quixottes.

A timeless film, The Mission, tells the story of several characters on personal, political, military, corporate and religious quests in eighteenth century South America. Their chosen missions come into serious conflict. They discover for themselves how missions are huge burdens that come at great cost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui91q7Y9xPk

Re: Cast

The toys I remember having the most fun with as a child were die cast. I had trucks, cars, army guys, planes. I have kept one: A wheelbarrow. Go figure. When I was eight I broke some bones in my foot. Back then the affected parts were encased in a plaster cast to immobilize the area. Suddenly I was famous! My schoolmates had heroic sympathy for me. I was cast in a whole new light. Children who I thought hadn’t even noticed me before, were happy to write funny sayings or well wishes on my cast.

In my adolescence there was nothing I liked better to do than to go fishing. With little allowance, I considered the purchase of my equipment carefully. I had a Mitchell 300 spinning reel, not a baitcast nor a spincast variety. My friend and I would spend many a lazy summer on a river or creek casting into small pools and eddies, hoping for a strike. During those blissful moments of singular concentration all other thoughts of teenaged angst were cast aside.

My parents cast my sister’s baby shoes in bronze. This was my mom’s idea as she was trying, I’m casting about for a reason here, to shed her lower class English roots. WWII had cast a long dark shadow over her adolescent experience. She refused to believe her die was cast so , while my sister was yet to be born, she persuaded my dad to immigrate to Canada. People of the Downton Abbey set will appreciate how the British Empire spread this idea of your place in society. Consider the Caste system which still exists in India. It is as if Shakespeare’s pronouncement ‘All the world’s a stage…’ was taken so seriously by government that each citizen was given a clearly defined role to play. Peace, Order and Good Government eh what?

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go to a casting call to audition for a part in a play or film. My favourite stage or television productions are always ones with a varied cast of characters. Due to the technological advance of green screen computer enhancement, you don’t get too many movies these days advertising a ‘cast of thousands’, but for my Sunday matinee viewing pleasure as a kid, there was nothing to compare to Ben Hur or Around the World in Eighty Days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjiCO8k6Jhg

During Shakespeare’s time, ruling British monarchs waffled over rules regarding the casting of female roles. The underrated film ‘Stage Beauty’ examines this political dilemma. One of the best lines in the film is, “Who are you now?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLlKmqH_5ak. This film alludes to the challenges of defining oneself. A current phrase used in self exploration is, “I identify as…”. Part of becoming mature is being able to be comfortable with your individual nature. Looking into that metaphorical mirror we must be able to see ourselves as the one who will play the most important role within that play of a lifetime.