Back in the ‘Saddle’
For whatever combination of reasons, lame and legitimate, I haven’t written a blog post since early Summer 2017.
It’s not that I haven’t intended to. I have started writing posts en route back from some work, educational and volunteer trips to various places in the world, or across North America.
So much has happened in my life and work since 2017. Much of it worth writing about, although lots of the temporal impetus having now passed the increasingly-short attention spans we seem to have afflicting us these days for timeliness.m, it’s fallen by the wayside.
I will get back to blogging more regularly now; both as an outlet, as a form for connection and for sharing what will hopefully sometimes be interesting and topical.
I have the great good fortune of traveling for work and volunteer commitments, and our family makes a point of taking our kids to expose them to the world. I am acutely aware that this is still a rare privilege, notwithstanding how “small” the world often feels.
Many of the places I’ve been in the last few years are back “in the news” these days for various and often dubious reasons. For example:
– South Africa has pivotal elections coming up in a month;
– New Zealand is still reeling from the Christchurch shootings;
– Northern Ireland and the UK are spinning dangerously close to revisiting some of the chords of The Troubles as “Brexit” swirls;
– Ukraine just voted in the first round of its presidential elections, handing a comedian (who plays the President on TV) a first round lead that doubles that of the incumbent president, amidst a backdrop of a simmering military conflict with Russia and torn between a Europe whose identity is shifting in uncomfortably murky directions and the old Soviet totems;
– Northern Canada grapples with climate change, food insecurity, energy prices, suicide, housing and many other compounding challenges;
– The U.S. grapples with a “very stable genius” running the country and the opening-up of fault lines ; and,
– Right here in Canada, well, there always seems to be a lot going on in our politics and society.
Expect me to offer my anecdotes, experiences and – perhaps most importantly – my learnings and overhearings from those living those various realities full-time.
I’ll start with what’s most fresh, the Ukraine, and work and wend my way through threads that feel or seem relevant or interesting.
If you think others might find interest in these musings and sharesies, please encourage them to sign up here: http://fisherwick.ca/thoughtsndots/ (and scroll to the bottom).
Paul