There will be lots of images that may come to mind when
considering what I have entitled my thoughts today I am sure. As time rushes by
there are changes that come, not matter how hard we may fight against them.
Years ago I watched my Dad changing from a dynamic thoughtful individual to
someone who seemed to struggle with maintaining the connections with the
surroundings that he had known and loved for years. Oh, he still had the
ability most times, to quote from memory tucked away back there, a poem or two,
but he was not the same man that led meetings and made important decision some
30 years previously. Perhaps you have watched someone you have loved or
admired, begin to stand a bit further back from the center of things,
especially decision making opportunities, yet they would cling to their
opinions with a tenacity that was either still admirable or equated a just
plain out of date thinking!
It is so easy to get caught up in the moment of evaluating
others and forget to evaluate ourselves. Take for instance myself and my story,
as I continue to go off to meetings at one level or another. I sit and watch
most times, I listen to the debates, the challenges confronting the committees
and am amazed at the various levels of dialogue that enters the area of
discussion. It becomes easy to identify the various personalities, the levels
of education, the environments surrounding their history and the levels of
experience from which they draw both facts and conclusions. There is also
present the dynamic of age and the presence of “Historical Drift”.
Age can modify our ability to accept change. The strange
thing about it is that we know we are aging, we know that we appreciate what is
and know that change is inevitable. But we are not as interested in having
change for the sake of change, even when it is becomes a necessary evil to
maintain both healthy and growing living conditions for the community or
culture. There can be a fine line of definition here as to the how’s and the
why’s, but for the most part we, as we age, will begin to fight change…
anything that moves us out our comfort zone. It can be as major as a new
Medical Centre located away from where it used to me, to the restructuring of
waiting room with different and less inviting furniture at our accountant’s office.
Historical drift on the other hand is subtle in both its
existence and its debilitating undermining of our ability to see the pitfalls
that begin to appear in both structure and vision. If you want to put a
definition to the label, it might be most easily visualized as a perhaps a boat
sitting at mooring in the harbour. The owner has had the mooring for years, has
sailed to and from that site hundreds of times and is comfortable with it…. There
is no need to move it; yet through the years several things have taken place
that have made it either no longer viable or safe to use. First, natural wear
and tear from tides, wave action during storms and other naturally occurring environmental
stresses have weakened its ability to function as it should. Second, there has
been a subtle movement of the mooring during winter ice conditions, combined
with storm stresses while the boat was moored there, that have moved the
mooring slightly each year closer to underwater dangers, never noticed, never
calculated really, it just happened. Historical drift is like that in our personal
lives… subtle changes come as we get used to doing things a certain way, expect
things to respond in certain ways, handle values, vision and the everyday
issues of life being lived in a certain, unchanging way, that cause us to lose
track of the “track” and the momentum needed to keep the business of living
both contemporary and relevant to the times and issues. There is a difference.
I want to be contemporary, but it is a new playground for
each following generation. Just like I can no longer go to the gym and play badminton
like I did 40 years ago, so I can no longer expect to keep abreast with the
young players in the foreground of industry or commerce. I can still evaluate
the game, but I can’t seem to grasp the need to change the plays needed to get
to the acquired results. I can name all the great players of the past but I don’t
want to leave them dangling while newer, more seemingly skilled athletes dazzle
the crowds and break the old established records of the past.
And relevance is a battle every day. When you begin to feel
that you are no longer relevant to the issues, or even worse the arguments being
proposed are not relevant to the issues at hand, fear creeps in and we try even
harder to make the point that everyone seems to be missing; “That is not what
we have always done!”; only to hear the wisdom of youth retort; “And it didn’t
work before so why try it again!”
My heart cries out with both anxious fear and quiet
frustration lots of days now. I guess I wanted to expect that things would
change. It may seem odd, that statement coming from an aging warrior who has been
considered the radical for too many years. But I have always wanted change!
From an early age I was fighting the Historical Drift that I saw present in
life and wanted to see new growth, potentials that lay dormant for years to now
spring into blossom and make what could be, come to fruition for our
communities, our businesses and our futures. I tried to herald the cry; “Not
just the youth of tomorrow but the youth of today!”, that families now present
could cling to the hope of a better tomorrow, based on the growth seen today.
Frustration with self, boredom with constant division when unity is the only
answer, and too many NO’s! Too often the nay-sayers out-shout the let’s-doers
or how-toer’s… especially when change is pending. I will never forget the voice
of a man who has made millions and told a small group meeting one day of his
key to success. “I got tired of committees to plan meetings, meetings to
establish plans, plans to do research and viability through studies on
viability and sourcing and so I moved to make change myself… I figure that if
you are not motivated to motivate beyond the planning stages you are not
motivate toward change! We can talk ourselves into the next century but what we
need is to stop talking and start doing!”
So today I am wondering if I am caught in my own Historical
Drift and am clinging to an effort that may be better managed by the younger,
more energetic youth who are both contemporary and relevant to today’s needs
and methods. I like my friend and so many others, who chat along the streets,
are tired of committees meeting for the sake of meeting, and getting nowhere. I don’t want to sound cynical, but am I
becoming that way as part of the “Drift”? I have a long list of dreams and
wishes and they all still include change and growth, but am I stuck in a puddle
of broken dreams and becoming what I feared in others down through the years?
Today, at least, I want to find a modicum of relevancy! I
want to maintain a sense of entitlement to speak and if I can muster more than
a futile effort of engagement, I may be able to pull off a few tidbits of
wisdom without a lengthy diatribe on how it used to be, over against that which
it can be, while giving insights on how it can be accomplished, with some
visible level of contemporary input. The key may be, for me anyway, the ability
to listen toward evaluation. I am learning that evaluation doesn’t have to be a
critical process of study and reporting; it most often becomes, when you are
part of a group dynamic, the integration of your personal opinions and
perceptions into the process being developed. It may be simply the further engagement
by the group on your personal insights, when they move towards critical
analysis and into a plan of action. When that is no longer is the case, I may
be adrift in the drift…. Let’s hope I can be aware enough to notice that does
take place and brave enough to step aside so that younger, more energetic
voices can take up the tasks… Or… am I there already and am not self-aware yet?
Hmmm!
So this is another trip towards the edge. Some may think
that these journeys are too complicated, the issues are too deep, but for those
who are living the exercise and who want to know they are not alone or need to
evaluate their own processes a bit deeper, maybe this rant will give you
further fodder to consider. May you be blessed as you stride each day toward
the edge, or like me, for whatever reason choose to live there, and my your perspective find focus away from
the normal to just left of where you are… just outside the box… it may be close
to the edge… but the view from there can be astounding!
