Thank you, stats show: All Time 87,468 - WOW!

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

According to my page, June 2025 was the last article that I published. There is been a huge gap in my publishing of late, perhaps a couple of reasons why. First of all, we have all been in delayed state because of the global virus pandemic, that could account for five years. Second, I have been in a geographical area and part of two seniors groups. This has continued on a weekly basis for the past four years. So my attention has been diverted to weekly activities, and a sense of belonging. If for no other reason, then for something to do twice a week without much thinking or planning.

Maybe it's time to stop coasting, break away from a weekly routine and get back to investing my time in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. The present time realization that I have reached 87,468 on this platform is humbling and indicates a measure of significance. I mention that because many of us experience "imposter syndrome". Imposter syndrome, the feeling that we are never quite good enough to do what we want to do. Many never break free, maybe it's time to step back to realize that the statistics have meaning. So stop procrastinating and do something! One step at a time, it doesn't have to be every day, or every week. Maybe not even once a month, but at least take some steps and do something! Statistics show a reach of between 50 and 100 people on a daily basis. Wow! If that isn't incentive, I don't know what ever would be. Thank you to all of those who have dropped by to read my musings and ramblings.

Stats: 2026-02-22

All Time 87468 | Today 39|Yesterday 84 | This Month 1836 | Last Month 1627

Back in 2020, I created a Facebook page called: 20/20 In 2020

Well so much for that, he ended up with lockdown everywhere, so much for a fresh start and driving forward with enthusiasm. Things didn't get started, so it was not a matter of coming to a grinding halt. It just was the times we were in.

Simply put, there's simply no time like the present. One step at a time, get started at it now. There is no such thing as the significance of the time, it's just doing one small step in the moment. Since 2020 I have not stopped pursuing further understanding regarding human behaviour and social interactions. Always a never ending stream of suggested videos on YouTube. There are many that I have considered a value, and I've saved many in a public folder called "Behaviour".

Back in April 2022 I reached out in another direction and registered another domain, www.calibratemcompass.com. One of those times when you wake up in the middle of the night and think you have a good idea. Much time has passed, a landing page for the domain exists, with a few links that people may find interesting. 

2026, spring is just around the corner. Time to rethink, shuffle the deck, and make some changes. Stop going twice a week to the seniors groups. Stop making it a weekly habit, and just go occasionally. This article being the first step, by opening the laptop! All the self-study and research accomplishes nothing unless the information congeals to a better understanding, and therefore one step at a time, to write and publish.

Stepping aside from weekly habits, to be spontaneous in the moment, and just do something.

So today how is this happening? Well, because I'm a nerd with technology, I'm using what I have accumulated over almost 10 year period. Yes, it's been 10 years of #vanlife, I simply tell people I'm camping full-time. Sitting in the back stow n' go seat. The laptop sitting on a thrift store found lap table. The laptop plugged into 512W lithium power bank. Using a Walmart lapel microphone attached to an over-ear headset. Why? Because! Because I'm not typing any of this, I'm speaking into a piece of software that I purchased close to eight years ago at a significant discount because of a coupon. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Personal Professional Edition. I'm not in a hurry, you can't accuse me of procrastination, were only into our eighth year since I purchased the product, to be finally doing what I'm doing now. This is some kind of a sick joke? I have no idea, but there's no stress, no to do list. Sitting in my van, camping full-time, and talking to my laptop! Sounds like a plan? What plan? There is no plan, do what you feel like doing in the moment. There is no time like the present, and here we are now in the present moment taking a stab at writing. Writing? Well, talking while the laptop does the writing. It's not because I couldn't have my fingers on the keyboard and doing this, Once upon a time I typed 86 words a minute on manual Underwood typewriter in high school, after the mistakes were subtracted. It doesn't matter, if I can get words into a document, we are moving forward. Another tool, ProWritingAid with a lifetime licensed purchased at a discount probably two years ago now. Far more tools than most people would ever dream of, so today might be the day that I get something done. But don't count on it! Just because we got this far doesn't mean we can't have part of this contraption running two wheels on the soft shoulder, and get pulled back down into the ditch with a bout of procrastination!

If you stayed with me this far, thank you for reading. Stay tuned, paying closer attention to the platform statistics perhaps is the best incentive. Again thank you for reading this far.

/h

(I'm just going to publish this without running it through the grammar application.)

Reflection: 100 years April 18, 1928 - April 18, 2028

The following is to give you some insight.

The following is "copied" from my personal writing.
/h

_____________________________

Dedication: 100 years: April 18, 1928 - April 18, 2028

This begins a preamble and dedication after much procrastination and, well yes, many many months of procrastination.

The writing is dedicated is to (my Uncle)

Frederick Clarence Titman,

b. December 18, 1905;

d. April 18, 1928, age 23

100 years:  April 18, 1928 - April 18, 2028

My brother told me that, he had been told by our father, that Dad, when visiting a Meacham elderly resident, in the Humboldt hospital on his death bed. was given a confession; “I murdered your brother.”

This is intended to be a, read between the lines, from fragments of what I can recall from long ago things said, and more critical; conclusions arrived at, now in my senior years; turning 70 this summer. (2018).

We can never know the emotions experienced by those in our family over their lifetime. Hurt, grief, anger, rejection, and more...., all the human emotions that are available. People live to experience them all. Many never tell, perhaps due to medical circumstances, or just thinking it best not to tell. Think before you judge and choose to remember only the bad, which has upset and affected your life. They were not all bad, they carried grief too, and with the lens of alcohol, everything is magnified. 

Not until very late in his life did Dad know what happened to his brother, who Grandma Susan said had been his role model.

"This is your father's older brother, he was killed in an accident.Your father adored him, and followed him around like a little puppy." 

My father would have been 8 years old at the time.

2025 update:  Probably April 18th, 1960 Mom and Dad were seen talking about something. Shortly thereafter Mom came from my grandparents old house, on the hill in our yard. She had me try on a jacket that had been kept in the family trunk of keepsakes. I turned 12 that summer, the same age of my father when his brother was murdered. That summer I wore the moss green military jacket, that I now recognize from the picture above.

The following is a summary of our family and conclusions:

My grandfather left Devon England, lied about his age because he was too young, and ran away to fight in the Boer War in South Africa.  Our family is come to understand that he as living with and being raised by his aunt at the time he left.  After the Boer war, he came to Canada, married Susan, and later enlisted and fought in the first world war.

Reflecting back over my early childhood years, I do not recall our family attending church services, I do not recall the Bible being used in our home in any way.  My grandfather, having been raised in England, was the Anglican Church of England as religious affiliation. I have arrived at the conclusion, that because there was no religious indoctrination of any kind in my own childhood, that it is highly likely that my mother and father consciously proceeded on this path.  I also conclude that it is highly likely that my father and his siblings were brought up in the same manner, no religious indoctrination.

To further dive into these conclusions, I, first of all, make the assumption that my grandfather made his conscious decision, after coming to Canada from fighting in the Boer war, to no longer practice his Church of England, Anglican faith.  

I also assume that he made this conscious decision, after what he observed during his time in the Boer war of South Africa, if I may borrow the phrase, “leap of faith”, I will further conclude by my own non-participation in the Christian faith, that I am highly likely to be following in the footsteps in this regard, of my murdered uncle.

I conclude that my uncle was murdered for one of two reasons.  

The first that the perpetrator may have been jealous of in common pursuit of relationship interest.  

The second and more probable cause was that of adherence to religious conviction.  

Rural life during the 1920s and the KKK prevalence in community, had no tolerance for anyone that would question the existence of "the holy spirit", or be observed to be a non-participant in Christian social practices.

Through my investigation of that time, I have found that in the University Archives of Saskatchewan website, that during the 1920s, the KKK had their headquarters in Biggar, Saskatchewan. I have also been told by a close community member of the community, Colonsay, Saskatchewan was also a hotbed of white supremacist activity during the decade of his death. Murdered for not joining and participating in KKK events?

Your Simply Can’t

It's not your fault. There's nothing you can do about it. 

What am I talking about? I'm talking about you and your personal mental health. You need to step back; you need to analyze. But first, you need to be capable and understand your placement in society relative to those around you. Are you one of the crowd? Are you part of the social ambience that exists? If so, there's no need to read further. 

If you continued, you are different; you are reaching out perhaps, to know more. I don't have perfect answers. I only have my life experiences over the past 60 years. 

Perhaps I will begin with my conclusion of the day, and then work backwards through time, attempting to describe the circumstances that brought me to this place in time.

You are alone; you are alone and feel displaced, misplaced, rejected, along with any other descriptor to describe your emotional state. 

Let's flip this around: your personal circumstance is simply your uniqueness. This uniqueness is a sense of accomplishment, and you've made it this far. Others will see you as arrogant. It's simply their jealousy. Most people make involuntary responses at the moment. Their subconscious provides the context for their response. If they sense fear, the response will be defensive. Perhaps the most difficult thing to understand in this situation is that you are not at fault when faced with this emotional response. There is only one option: walk away, do not engage further.

To be continued…

There is hope

It's possibly over a month since the discussion took place. One of those casual meetings with another customer at the storage facility. Casually talking about each other's life experiences, he in his late 50s. His words of encouragement, that there is hope for changing the future. Hope for change that deeply held religious convictions can be shed, replaced by a new understanding of the natural world. 

His words were: 

"My father changed from his deeply held religious views at age 93, there is hope."

My personal conclusion is that it would take perhaps 500 years for society to gradually change where the majority views the natural world as I have come to see it. His statement is reassuring. As the baby boomer demographics changes, those that are left and seek social interaction, a sense of community, are simply forced by their diminishing numbers to seek knowledge outside of their hereditary held beliefs. Some will come to realize that what they once asserted to be sacred, was simply their personal State of mind. Their own personal opinion, based on doctrine and ideology passed on from there ancestors, and their family. These states of mind do not represent the world as it actually is, they are simply a bias, a lens through which everything is interpreted. When the only reference material in many social groups is the sacred book, and everything else is labeled as lies and deception, and fake news, little will ever change. 

Only they're loneliness as a result of diminishing numbers will force the encroachment of new knowledge and new understanding. Such is the reassuring words of this individual, "My father changed from his deeply held religious views at age 93, there is hope."

Scaffolding

A simple but interesting title. I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. Where to begin? Let's begin by going back, going way back, going back to the beginning. The beginning? The beginning of you! When did you begin? You began long before you realized you were you.

What brought about this morning of mental exploration? Perhaps a mental rewind, remembering a response during our conversation. Perhaps a pivotal point for this moment’s observations. Quote: “I don't need to clutter up my mind with things like that.

What do I find most disturbing about this response? I might add that this response was from a senior, well into their eighties. However, this would be a common response from perhaps just about anyone. Probably the response from most of those in our social networks. Most disturbing about this response is the individual denial that life, regardless of your place in it, is a learning experience. For an individual to have the default opinion that knowledge is clutter, describes a far deeper predicament in our social networks.

Back to that statement that I made earlier: “I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.“Perhaps we can make this extremely simple by dividing individuals into two camps. Why only two? Well, maybe not precisely two, maybe a spectrum? Perhaps people are somewhere between the two extremes.

Two camps: 1) Conformity 2) individuality

Conformity, probably the easiest to describe. A social network, an organization, a cultural practice, ethnic, and many more. Anywhere that we observe clusters of like-minded individuals. The term populism would describe perhaps one of the most common.

Individuality, the most difficult to observe. Go to the individual level in society, perhaps looking for black sheep. More specifically, look for those that appear to be achieving their personal goals despite public opinion. By this I mean they base their daily decisions on the best information at the moment, because of a lifetime of observations and experiences. Their daily path through life is a continuation of friction with those around them. Differing opinions, different methods, not a path for the weak, a liberal requirement of a strong sense of determination, with an overabundance of logic and reason.

Why these two camps? Because they are observable in our general population. Why do we have this observable division?

Examining the why. Sometime ago I came across information that stated, the “self” that people become, comprising two sources. The average population is about 50% from each of the sources. Individuality, therefore, is 50% inherited, 50% self-development and environment.

The scaffolding changes throughout your lifetime. There is little you can do about your inherited traits, such as certain behavioural characteristics. There is also little you can do about your ability to observe and analyze. However, inheritance establishes a starting point, although you can develop your perception further. That which is further developed as life proceeds, your environment influences. Your environment has a direct correlation with your ability to develop individual logic and reason, or to adhere to environmentally biased conformity. History has shown us that offspring from families distantly related genetically produce a lower level of cognitive awareness. We can do little to improve this circumstance. Perhaps, conversely, we can say that the greatest genetic diversity produces the highest degree of cognitive self-awareness.

A vicious cycle to the bottom, perhaps?

Well here's a late evening thought for some to contemplate! 

-------

So we are all aware, of class action lawsuits against tobacco companies to recover healthcare costs in our current time. 

So let's take this precedence one step further?

There are many whom assert we live in a Christian Nation.

We have established laws, to allow consumption of addictive substances. 

We currently have a large part of our senior population that have succumbed to vital organ conditions as a result of these addictive substances. Healthcare costs are going through the roof, discretionary income in the general population has almost vanished. 

Those that have failing health, become hopelessly seeking something better, and turn to these religious institutions. The very institutions that legalized he addictive substances which led to their health condition.

Where is the community and political will, to bring a class action suit against religious denominations, historically obviously complicit in our current health circumstance?  Go after the companies that produce the substances, go after the people that legalized it. As a whole, the citizens identifying as Christian , are responsible for its current circumstance. These good Christian people, have invested in the corporations, because they expect a future nest egg for their eventual retirement. Perhaps seizing of assets derived from the investments in the addictive substance supply chain?

It's not likely that we will achieve our financial goals, and reduce public deficits, by legalizing more substances, for future taxation revenue streams. You're simply adding to the addiction cycles, and the future health of the citizens. 

Legalization of marijuana has led to a segment of our population incapable of the cognitive abilities and dexterity to maintain consistent employment. If they're not employable, they're not going to pay any taxes and contribute to the healthcare costs. A vicious cycle to the bottom, perhaps?

Perfection and Procrastination

 

And so, "perfection" has finally brought me to a point where I am sitting this morning. First coffee done, fist done, and set up my laptop to begin. Am I too late? Too late for what? Good morning, people! And so it is you stumbled across this page. We all expected to see better, 20:20 in 2020. It doesn't appear that turned out as planned. Where do we go from here? The more I observe, the more I understand. The more I come to know my conclusion is I do not know. I guess we'll just all make it up as we go along. One day at a time! As you can see by the creation date of this post. It is October 21, 2020. We are well into a new season, this morning's temperature is only +8°C. Today begins my second morning with my kerosene heater. The season has changed and by the end of this week. The temperatures will be near freezing. With the seasonal change. I've cleaned out items that I have seldom used, and put them in my storage locker. And so begins my sixth year of "Van-life". Learning and growing and refining what is around me. "Perfectionism", aha there it is! The creation of this page, and the registration of the corresponding domain name. Aha, there is the "procrastination". Overthinking and rethinking and rethinking again because I might have missed something. Not bothering to put thoughts in place, why? Because tomorrow or the day after, those thoughts will be out of date, anyway. Sounds like a good excuse! "Are we there yet?" Am I too late?