Online and In-Person Relationships I'm struggling with how relationships function in a digital world. I think I could summarize my thoughts with this: Online, I can multiply them. In person, I deepen them. I was trying to avoid the downpour, rushing between awnings, trying to stay dry. I was meeting an old friend for coffee, for no reason. What I mean, is there was no purpose to our time; no network building, no strategy to advance. I saw him standing at the Breka counter, and firmly clamped...
8 days ago • 2 min read
The Slow Creative Work AI Can’t Do “What a waste of time!” I mumbled to Google. When it comes to fashioning new ideas, my relationship with Google, or AI is tenuous. But this isn’t a post about AI or online searches. It’s about outsourcing my creative thinking, and how it bites me in the end. Impatiently I type a couple of questions into Chat GPT’s search bar: “Are you trying to make me feel smart right now? Why do I feel you’re trying to be my friend?” And I got a smarmy response: I’m not...
15 days ago • 2 min read
“You Go Elsewhere.” “The family went to the pool for a swim. I’ll take a break…just decompress a bit,” Then I would justify these thoughts with, "Maybe I’ll learn something new while I scroll.” We had just finished an excellent dinner, and someone had made a comment which ended in a chuckle. I was physically present, but one of my family looked over at me and asked, ‘Grayson, where did you go?’ I was on my phone, keeping up with current events. I looked up and smiled, “I’m here, I’m...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Mental Calories and Cheezies Cheezies are designed to be addictive: corn, oil, salt, and crunch. At least I know how to balance my passion for them with good nutrition. What takes more effort is managing the ultra-processed algorithms I consume each day. There’s no list of ingredients but they’re engineered to excite, agitate, and keep me chewing. The hours I spend resigned to screen time are like eating salty snacks for my brain. I often want to check my phone, without stopping to consider...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Doubts Instead of Quick Decisions I used to lead from certainty.Now I’m learning what it means to lead while staying in doubt. Years ago, I secretly enjoyed comments like these from business leaders: “When you speak, everything changes for me. So I don’t speak to you very often!”“I feel you are so persuasive, I have to do what you say, or else.”“You’re intimidating; you make pronouncements and you’re never in doubt.” I’m not proud of those years when decisions felt easy, when I was...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
What Wisdom tells Me Cleo, our 9 year old River Engineer, grabbed my hand; “No Papa, it’s got to go that way!” I was trying to remove one of her diversions. “But it will just get stuck and stay over there!” The Engineer was adamant; “Papa, it will just have to wait its turn!” Buoyant coloured balls and lots of dams and diversions dotted the “river” at Vancouver’s Science World. My granddaughter was engineering downstream operations, trying to block the progress of the blue ball as she wedged...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Living in Between Certainty and Uncertainty A wan winter sun rested on the roof of the shed, spilling down in cool sheets of light that stretched shadows across the yard. There was no warmth in the morning sun, no real sense of progression; just this long pause between night and day, as though the world had forgotten what came next. I was behind the shed, breathing frustrated fog clouds into the air while trying to coax an old light fixture back to life. My thumb was frozen to the metal, so I...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hopeful and Hopeless, at the Same Time. I’ve been staring at this page not knowing what to say. Yet I know no one’s telling me I have to. I stopped for a month, but without writing the hours feel like a weight, a burden. “What do I do now?” It’s gnawing at my insides. When I don’t feel there’s anything else out there to do, and start doom scrolling, or falling asleep at my desk, I feel resigned to it; “I’d better write.” But wait, why write if the investment of 20 hours per post isn’t getting...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
What the Restoration of a ’56 Chevy Taught Me About Friendship My dream was to restore an old Chevy. What technical skill I lacked, Ivan had as a mechanic and bodyman. We hunted for vintage cars and found our ‘56 Chevy 4-door on a farm east of Edmonton. We rented a garage with heaters so we could work through the Edmonton winter. It felt like it was going to be an interesting and profitable 50/50 partnership. Under the careful instruction of Ivan, in the early days we made good progress in...
3 months ago • 2 min read