Human to Human

One of my roles in this life is as a Dad. I like it. A lot.

One of my kids that I get to be Dad with is turning eleven in a couple of weeks. He’s a sweet boy. He’s large in stature. He’s tender in heart. I think of him as a “gentle giant.” He loves to laugh, dance, sing. He hates to make his bed.

My eleven year-old is black. He is African American. His Mom and I were able to adopt him at birth through an agency. His Birth Mom and Birth Grandma encouraged his placing.

My son has not experienced a physically dangerous kind of profiling. I’m grateful for that. This is not true, sadly, for many blacks in many parts of the United States.

It is rather disturbing and absurd that a video such as the one below must be made for a category of people to survive when encountering police and authority. Thank you Christina Baldwin for sharing this.

As a Dad to a gentle giant who loves to sing and hates to make his bed, this brings out fierce protection in me. And a few tears.

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Stop and smell the roses.

Stop and notice the colors.

Just stop.

Or pause.

This picture is from a walk on Sunday. It’s on the Burke Gilman Trail in Seattle, near about 105th. I love it that spring has arrived, with many colors. This yellow, white, and red caught my attention. Enough to put down the dog leash (stand on it), use both hands for the camera, and enjoy the moment.

Had to stop.

One of the writers that I like to peruse here and there is Dave Pollard. I met Dave seven or eight years ago. He came to a leadership conference some friends and I were hosting. We shared a cab together on the way out.

Dave himself has a most interesting story. He shifted from high level corporate work to a level of walking out. Packing up the bags, getting rid of several of them, moving to the west coast. His writing is clear. Often on complex things. Not usually quick reads, but “settle in for a cup of tea” reads, making sure to have a marker in hand.

I read Dave’s post this morning: It’s Not Peak Oil, It’s Peak Affordable Oil. It’s his ability to think systemically that I appreciate. I’m not sure I completely follow all that he is saying, but it takes skill to work with that level of landscape that Dave writes about.

Here’s a passage that caught my attention:

What this conclusion misunderstands is that it’s not about running out of oil, it’s about running out of oil that our economy can afford to extract. If oil cost a million dollars a barrel to extract, we would never have mined most of it, the industrial revolution would have stalled a century ago, and human societies would quickly have reverted to a subsistence local agrarian existence with a much smaller human population and much, much less industry and technology.

Oil was a remarkable discovery. Each barrel replaces the equivalent of about 6 person-years of unassisted manual labour. Our industrial economy and global civilization have been built on the ability to employ cheap oil to do the work of billions of people for next to nothing. We continue to depend on that. Our GDP growth correlates precisely with the consumption of oil, and has essentially nothing to do with innovation, technological ingenuity, economies of scale or ‘doing more with less’. When we run out of affordable oil, the game is up.

Enjoy the full read. But get some tea, or coffee. Or better, book an hour during the day to give it full attention to engage with a friend.

 

 

Some simple wisdom from colleague and friend Ria Baeck, who lives in Belgium.

“In daily life the point is not so much about being present, but the clue is always how to become present (again) when we have fallen into our default way or reacting; or how do we widen our perception and become present to more of what is going on in life.”

It is the “present again” part that really catches my attention. When the wobbles come. When we are late for a meeting. When someone else shows up late. When people disagree vehemently. When outrage is the default game. When triggers are activated.

Thanks Ria, someone whose thinking and presence I often enjoy virtually, and, when we were last together in person, for her birthday celebration with friends on a warm Belgium summer evening in her gardens seen above.