Imagine the things you could do
Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with Mack Male (who was down from Edmonton) and Andrew McIntyre. As you might expect the conversation quickly dove into all the local projects each of us are working on and how difficult it can be to balance those projects with an actual job.
Me: “I could do so much more useful work if I just didn’t have to worry about paying the bills.”
Mack: “That might actually be a more useful investment.”
Then the light came on for both of us.
So here it is: a pitch for you and anyone that you might know. It’s an idea for a programme aimed at making the future Alberta an even better place to live. It could be something for EnCana or First Calgary Savings or W. Brett Wilson or the Government of Alberta to take on. I don’t care who wants to pick it up and run with it. If you agree this is a good idea and want to see it implemented, pass the idea around. I’m confident someone within your earshot will make it happen eventually.
What’s the idea?
Each year 5 Albertans are selected, they take a leave of absence from their jobs, a sponsor pays them each a ‘salary’ of $50,000 so they don’t have to worry about paying the bills AND… they work on as many projects aimed at improving the province of Alberta as they possibly can.
Each day, rather than going to the office or the job site they meet with other Albertans who can help make their idea(s) a reality. They work exclusively on their once extra-curricular projects that have made them a valuable Albertan. I can all but guarantee they will work an inhuman number of hours over the course of one year on forward-looking, cutting edge projects that we so sorely need. (Certainly much more that they would have at a the average “standard” job.)
Mack is right, giving someone an opportunity like this is a much more useful, bold, game changing, investment in our future than many of the tasks each of us do daily.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I love the work the company does and I think it is important. (If I didn’t I wouldn’t work there.) But the question does need to be asked from time to time: if money wasn’t an obstacle, or if profitability wasn’t the number one concern, what might I actually be doing with my time instead?
I spend a lot of time doing extra community improvement projects so perhaps that isn’t the most important question we could be asking. Perhaps a better question is: what amazing thing would you be doing if a programme like this existed? How would your community be a better place?
And: isn’t that worth the rather paltry investment it would take?
So go ahead, share this idea with anyone you think could make it a reality. Reshape the idea. It could be one Alberta a year, or 10. It could be a two-year program. It could be open only to young Albertans. Whatever. At the end of the day, all I’m looking for is more people dedicating more time to making Alberta’s future unparalleled elsewhere.
And only you and I can make it happen with ideas like this one.
PS – Check out Mack’s blog for his take on the conversation.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel
On this blog I usually talk a lot about things that are happening in the world and how I feel about them. I don’t often talk about what I’m thinking about independent of the news of the day. But several things I’ve been undertaking have coalesced recently into one moment that I wanted to share, because it has everything to do with what I normally talk about here.
(Note: Bear with me, this might be a post of Enlightened Savage length proportions.)
As part of my Leadership Calgary course I’m currently reading a book called “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”. It’s an eye-opener in every sense of the word. The main premise of the book revolves around “cognitive dissonance”; which, put simply, is the process individuals undertake after receiving information that is contradictory to their belief system. It raises a VERY important point: what do you do when you encounter something that is counter-intuitive to everything you’ve learned to be vitally important from your mother/friends/employer/church/political party/etc. In short it is self-justification, something we all do each and every single day.The examples the book gives ranges from how we convince ourselves the new gadget we just bought is better than every gadget out there and everyone is a fool for not owning the same one; to how our political leaders find themselves in trouble from time to time and simply cannot admit they made a mistake only to find themselves further down the rabbit hole.
I highly recommend the book to everyone. It certainly made me rethink a lot of my rationale for decision-making and made me appreciate the “other guy’s” point even more.
Those who read this blog regularly know that my main point is often “cut through the crap and get to the root of the problem” or “don’t just blindly follow, ask questions”. I consider myself post-partisan and, not being a member of any political party, more able to rise above the majority of the fray.
On Monday I suddenly found myself applying some of the “seek proof” ideology from the book to something Lianne (@prairies) mentioned on Twitter. We had a great short conversation about children and violence and whether witnessing violence causes them to be more violent. The outcome of the conversation doesn’t matter in this context, but it let me leave work at the end of the day with my mind just a little more open (as I hope it did for her too).
The night before, on Sunday, I was immersed in Bob Edwards quotes at a script writing session for Alberta Theatre Projects annual Bob Edwards Award Luncheon. (For those unfamiliar with Bob Edwards he was the founder of the Calgary Eye-Opener in the 1900s. He poked fun at Calgary and Alberta politicians with a goal to open readers’ eyes to the day’s issues. Basically he was the Jon Stewart of his day. And yes, he was HI-LAR-E-US.) At this particular script writing session we – I’m happy to be working with comedian Cory Mack – were focused on writing questions for a panel discussion featuring Peter C. Newman, Catherine Ford, Hugh Dempsey, Jane Urquhart and Lise Bissonnette; all former recipients of the award for their “shit-disturber” writing capabilities.
The questions were the kind you might expect me to be interested: why is the media important, who in politics might you like to call out, why don’t more writers rock the boat, etc. (You’ll have to attend the luncheon on November 2 to hear the final questions and their answers.) As you can imagine, having this kind of conversation with other people rather than just my computer screen got my brain moving a little bit more.
Back to Monday night: as I get off the bus on my way home a song that I haven’t thought about in almost 10 years comes on my iPod. When Ani DiFranco’s “Little Plastic Castle” came out in 1998 I bought it right away. I was in an Ani frame of mind back then: I felt connected to her frantic guitar playing and thoughtful lyrics. As a result one song stuck out for me even back then: “Fuel”. I played it over and over again and it slowly became my favourite on the album. It was this song that came on my iPod on Monday night and everything I’d experienced in the past few days started started coming together. It all started clicking for me.
Before I explain further, I suggest you play the music here and read along with the lyrics. (I’ve posed them below the video.) It probably won’t affect you in the same way it does me, but you’ll get the idea.
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan
And they discovered a slave cemetery there
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon
And we’ve moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who’s gonna be president
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who’s gonna have the big
Blockbuster box office
This summer
How ’bout we put up a wall
Between the houses and the highway
And then you can go your way
And I can go my wayExcept all the radios agree with all the TV’s
And all the magazines agree with all the radios
And I keep hearing that same damn song
Everywhere I go
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb week
For another hum drum hit song to appearPeople used to make records
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It’s about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs
You chooseWe got it rehashed
We got it half-assed
We’re digging up all the graves
And we’re spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipstick on the whores
Cuz we know the difference
Between the font of twenty percent more
And the font of teriyaki
You tell me
How does that make you feel?
You tell me what’s realAnd they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Even when they’re dry as my lips for years
Even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different
Is he different
Has he changed
What he’s about
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie aboutAm I headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do
About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan
And dig deeper
Dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage system and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water main
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all
Beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
I bolded the sections that strike me the most.
In 1998 it was the phrase “we know the difference between the font of twenty percent more and the font of teriyaki”. It amazed me then that, yes indeed, we can recognize the font that indicates a store “SALE” and the kind you would use at a Chinese food restaurant. And you would react poorly if a proprietor used the opposite one for their shop.
I guess this is where it all comes to for me: so much of what we do, or see, or pay our attention to is only scratching the surface. There is always more story than you could possibly know. Yet we are so quick to assume we know the ins and the outs of any given event. (You just have to read the comments on any Globe and Mail or CBC.ca article to realize how quick people are to judge.)
So how do we combat this? How do we, the average person, ensure we don’t leap to any false conclusions? How do we stop ourselves from buying into the convenient to understand, watered down, bite-sized bullshit politicians and media have little choice but to feed us?
The answer is the entire last verse of the song.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel. I am a fire waiting for fuel. And I know you are too.
And there is plenty of fuel out there; we just need to dig deeper into every story to find it. Question everything. Never discourage someone from asking “why?”. Never stop learning and approach everything with an open mind. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. If we do this we can pry open any issue. And that is something we sorely need more of in our politics.
Why Stelmach looks disingenuous today
Let me be clear: I have nothing against Ed Stelmach. Generally speaking I think the PC government of Alberta is doing a pretty decent job. I’m not happy with them all the time, but a lot of the stuff they get slack crap for would come the government’s way regardless of what party was in charge. It’s a recession. It’s tough to keep the public confident in you during a recession. I get that.
I only mention this to highlight how disappointed I am with Premier Stelmach this morning. Ed specifically, not his party or the government. After all, he was the only one on TV last night.
First there was the televised “commercial” from last night that ironically spent a bunch of cash to tell us how he was going to save us a bunch more cash in the next couple of years. As near as I can tell there was nothing in the commercial – and what a fancy commercial it was – that could not have been announced via a press conference. (Please outline in the comments which announcement could not have been if you disagree.) So that confuses me and does anything but instill my confidence in the man. And, I assume, that’s the opposite of what he was trying to do by hitting the airwaves.
Generally speaking, it looks to me like the commercial was meant to calm Albertan’s fears about the future. Meaning it might have been useful a few months or a year ago, but serves little purpose now that the vast majority adapted to the current realities. (And in many cases, appear as thought the worst may be over and a recovery may be beginning.) Assuming this is true and was the actual point, this puts the Premier out of step with average Albertans.
But this morning I have to really shake my head again as the Premier announces he is taking a 15% pay cut and the ministers will be taking a 10% hit. When I first read this I thought it seemed like a good idea. But asking just a couple basic questions puts things in perspective:
- Why was this not mentioned in the TV ad when he announced they were freezing the salaries of 6,500 Alberta employees? To do it now looks like a PR intervention. Like a communications person watched the ad and said, “Do you think those 6,500 people will be mad they are the only ones taking one for the team? Maybe we should have the Premier do something too?” And so they came up with this over-night solution so the Premier can look like a good guy too. Ta-da!
- Too bad the cut is only for ministers.
- Remember six and half months ago? In March after the last election the government voted themselves a 30% raise plus extra for committee work. (I’m not going to get into whether those were justified at the time, that’s not part of my point here.) So, everyone got a 30% raise six and a half months ago, when we were in the thick of the recession, but now 20 or so folks are taking a 10% cut? And we’re supposed to think this is a sacrifice being made by our Government that will help solve the deficit they created? Why not just roll-back the whole thing? THAT would be a sacrifice.
In all, it simply seems disingenuous to me.
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