mildly ECSTATIC - "Nov"

November comes from the Latin for nine (novem), the penultimate number in both the decimal/finger count sense and in the counting of months. Does the end of the year make you melancholy? Then this is for you.

Managing means doing

Dr. Joel Klein told budding therapists at The Institute of Child Study that his best advice for managing depression was to keep busy and to be with people (he said he wasn’t big on drug therapy). That’s very clever because those are two things you feel least like doing when you’re feeling down; if you do them, you’re pushing back, you’re more likely to feel a tad in control.

Everyone has their own way of being with people/friends. The “keep busy” part of Dr. Klein’s prescription is more amenable to the sort of advice you might get from a column like this, so here goes.[1] Think of something you might do as if it was a project. After we take a bird’s-eye view of managing a project we’ll look at the three things required for positive outcomes.

The Project Life Cycle

Plan, design, build, test, communicate, execute, review: like the seven shakras from the ground to the cosmos, these steps develop, synthesize and focus your energy.

Your project is certain to involve others (bonus!). As you conceive it and begin to plan, it’s crucial to consider who will be affected—who your stakeholders are. Failure to consult a stakeholder often turns them into a critic: “people support what they help create.”[2] Similar thoughtfulness matters throughout the process, but the review stage is another biggie for stakeholders, not the least because their pleasure in the outcome of your project is a big part of its success, right?! You want to maintain what you’ve created…

The Holy Trinity of Performance

Tools, skills and motivation are all necessary for a good outcome. (Some would add ‘time’ to the list, but let’s shove that under the tools heading.) Note how, even if your project is as insignificant as making a piece of toast, the outcome still depends on these three things! Add complexity, people, budgets et cetera, and the outcome—the performance of the team—still depends entirely on this holy trinity.

Note, too, that motivation is the oddball of the trio, in that you can pretty well put your finger on (count/list) your tools and skills, but motivation has that “woo-woo” factor. This is where we return to the fact that November is under way and we’re unable to avoid The End of 2016.

Believe in spring

Beautiful ceremonies and songs do pop up around solstice time, but essentially and unavoidably here in Toronto we’re in for nasty weather and darkness for weeks and weeks. Travel is out of the question, of course, because We Care about the Planet and know that seven hundred litres of fuel are necessary to lift a plane into flight. (I must remember to tell you about my friend who’s planning her walk across the country!)

Find the beauty in winter. Connect with the beauty in the New Human City conscious community. Kindle your spirit with the flame of love for another or others; lord knows there are many for whom your kindness would mean a huge lift. You will find motivation there, in doing and being in community.

If you are content—at the closing circle of your weekly dance, perhaps—apply that to the rest of the week by making a project of seeking opportunities to be a stakeholder in the project of someone else’s life.

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[1] I’m being too modest, there is no column like this.

[2] anonymous?

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First published by newhumancity on November 1, 2016

mildly ECSTATIC - "Death Paradigm"

Mnemonic

• Consider the death paradigm whenever it comes to mind
• Consider someone you love in the moment they are crushed under the wheels, smashed up into the air into oncoming traffic
• Consider whatever violent, avoidable, sudden death brings to mind
• Consider the death paradigm as part of your life on our city streets 

Reaction

Is any reaction inappropriate? You could blame someone—quick, now, then it’s done—or drive or ride or vote with the death paradigm unexamined; or send flowers or send the children to camp.

You are a flower and your earth, rain, and sun are toxic. You react as you can, or as little as possible.

Consequential cost

The cost of the sudden, violent, avoidable deaths is as unknown as the depth of your reaction. You might break it down into manageable parts, then examine them when you find the time or courage—perhaps on a long walk with a friend, or on a Silent Ride or a Die-In.

If the death you hear of is “not personal” then you are also a victim, because your immersion in the paradigm has transformed your compassion into a token.

Consider what dies in you when your neighbour is killed cycling.

Follow-up Story

Since June 2015 when “Death Paradigm” was written, several victims of street violence—typically referred to by police and media as “accidents”—have created an advocacy and support group called Friends and Families for Safe Streets. Contact: support@ffsafestreets.ca. 

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First published by newhumancity on November 15, 2016

mildly ECSTATIC - "City Limits"

What guidelines does the NHC staff follow when choosing what to publish? How do we decide what won’t work? What are our biases, our goals?

To embrace and protect

There’s a powerful model called Systems of Survival,[1] whereby there are two so-called syndromes that lie on top of the everyday set of decent behaviours (ethics) that glue society together. Here at NHC, we’re putting the two syndromes into our practice: the Guardian stance for protecting our brand/reputation; the Trader stance for embracing strangers and their potentially disruptive influence.

It’s sometimes difficult to agree on an editorial choice that challenges either our guardian or trader roles. As Jacobs warned, the greatest evils in society (corruption, unfettered greed, oppression, white sugar) flourish when the two syndromes are blended—as they are in organized crime, for example.

Whoa!

Ok, we’re really not about tackling the evils in society here, nor will finding a workable balance between protecting our rep and being open to sharing this site with myriad voices from the conscious community contribute to said evils. It’s not very hard for us to stick to the NHC vision a) because we like each other and communicate well and b) we are humble (smart?) enough to recognize that the vision is as delicate as our individual hopes for it are.

The path to world dominance through cosmic harmony—our goal—recedes eternally into a future defined by the outcomes of billions of choices made by billions of people. Our faith in the existence of a unifying power, a faith based on our experiences in the conscious community, defines our biases and guides our choices. Moreover, the “our” theoretically signifies the high goal and humble biases of not just the NHC staff but of the conscious community that NHC exists to encourage.

Break, mend

Despite humanity’s potential for good, humanity always builds on what came before (even when trying not to… communism, anyone?) Humanity has never before come to see the cliff (wall), the looming end of the road, the fact that we will not survive unless we change—all of us—radically and quickly. Now we’re starting to, so it’s very cool that humanity includes a lot of people who have faith in aspects of humanity that have not been universally embraced. “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?”[2]

The New Human City can express that faith because the conscious community is real, active (oh, YEAH!), broad-based and very very powerful. Editorial choices made in this little online mag are as easy as pie—there’s so much out there that’s right on…

It must be said, though, that the driving bias for this mag is for a break with the past and a mending with the tools at hand. Nobody has a corner on that grand scheme; nobody has a corner on our attention. After every edition of NHC, we’re all left with the question, “How do we get there from here?” and we all continue to depend on each other for answers.

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[1] Jane Jacobs, Systems of Survival, A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (1993/Random House, NY)

[2] The Other Elvis

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First published by newhumancity on November 17, 2016

mildly ECSTATIC - "My Friend Tom"

My Friend Tom

The law, and the truth

Tom, who was killed by hit-and-run driver Miguel four years ago this month, lived three doors up my street. Correction: Tom died when Oliveira hit him—the story has to fit the law and the finding of the court…

There’s no ecstasy in this piece, but there’s hope in the story because of the will-power of Tom’s widow, Kasia, who banded with other victims of street violence to create a support and advocacy group you might not have heard about, Friends and Families for Safe Streets. So tragedy can unite people in a high level of determination and vision, bringing unexpectedly powerful consequences.

Toronto’s prevalent paradigm

As pleasant a city as this is, we have far to go. Paradoxically, the same human scale that feeds our conscious (art/healing) communities makes change painfully slow: Toronto’s a very busy, rich place evolving from the prevalent paradigm of competition—winners and losers. To lots of people, “it ain’t broke.”
But street violence of the kind that kills our neighbours and friends is no accident, it’s what happens when people accept the status quo: the laws that make the pedestrians and cyclists guilty; the intersections, signage, speed limits and rights-of-way that prioritize haste and obscure or constrict the coming and going of two-legged travellers.

When the losers die—as they are in ever-increasing numbers—then the street race becomes a paradigm of death. It’s in the nature of paradigms to be unexamined, taken for granted; for the people in it to accept its consequences. Tom was the 39th victim, felled late in 2012; this year, we passed that count months ago. Toronto Police Services does not have a methodology for measuring street violence perpetrated by drivers. Why would they, when the prevailing paradigm guiding the law and our society place the blame and burden on cyclists and walkers?

“After such knowledge”

So no ecstasy this week, only a bit of advocacy, founded in optimism that New Human City is anti-paradigm. The consciousness we seek is never at rest. The doors we open together will not be shut. The plateaux to which we ascend lead us beyond any paradigm we find, any comfort zone we reach.

To a great extent, the path of consciousness is an individual one. We find encouragement in the knowledge that we’re not alone, but reflection/meditation/inner change calls for delicacy and sensitivity. Stillness in meditation brings revelations that we release to make way for more; we emerge with wonder at the superficiality of much of our (often automatic) behaviour.

Scouts

“Be prepared”. Go carefully among the heavy machinery that surrounds our city blocks with deadly force. Survive and allow your compassion for victims to thrive so you can be aware of the moment that brings you the opportunity to deny the death paradigm with calm certainty.

The conscious community includes the city’s healthiest, sexiest, most persuasive people (let’s flesh this out!) Let’s breathe deeply if we’re threatened, knowing that anger is most often counter-productive. Power shifts. 

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First published by New Human City on November 22nd, 2016