The Practice of Your Life

Death Sentencing: the expedient non-solution

(First published in the Trinidad Express on 25 jan 2012) The current debate about the resumption of hangings in this country is a distraction that we can ill afford, simply because it diverts us from the more pressing and relevant issues to what we really care about i.e. the drastic and sustainable reduction in crime. Here’s a minority view of why we shouldn’t be wasting our time discussing the…

The lie about lies

Lies have a bad rap. We were taught that lying is a bad thing, morally wrong, and corrosive to trust, yet we find ourselves lying and lied to every day of our lives. The hypocrisy leaves us struggling with our declared honesty and waning voice of conscience. But lies play villain roles less because of any inherent evil, and more because of misuse. A lie could be used for good, as easily as for…

There’s a common local practice of beginning a formal speech by saying “All protocols observed,” (APO) and then getting on with the speech. It’s so commonly done that you’d think it was protocol, but it’s not. Protocol is the accepted practice or rules of behaviour in any group, organisation or situation. Protocol exists to help us agree on what is required, allowed and forbidden in formal…

The scientific consensus, and why it won’t change anyone’s mind

No doubt you have strong views on something; say genetically modified foods, Crooked Hillary, legalizing marijuana, radical Islam, or dogs are better than cats. You are convinced that you’re absolutely right on the issue, and get worked up talking about it. But maybe you should step back, and for whatever it is that pushes your button, look at why you feel the way you do. Scientists agree we are…

Fool me … Shame on who?

There’s a famous quote that goes “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” It’s attributed to a Randall Terry but we’ll never forget—and always be grateful for—George W’s mangling of it. (Video below.) It’s an important quote because it implies that individual responsibility for the truth is as much the listener’s as it is the speaker’s. Said another way, if I discover that you…

My scientists smarter than yours

Not two weeks ago, I was floating on a noodle, beer in hand, life and conversation good, when the topic of climate change came up and suddenly the world seemed full of short-sighted ignorant people. It started when a new friend seemed untroubled that 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record, making it the third year in a row to set this record. When I asked if he believed climate change…

The half-life of a grievance

Every now and then, an old grievance comes to mind. There’s one about a guy who accused me of something I didn’t do, and whenever his name comes up, the grievance is right behind. Sometimes from out of nowhere the grievance enter’s the spotlight of my mind and a variation of the incident replays —one where I say something witty or clever and win the day. Sometimes the spotlight is on a completely…

Take care who is feeding your bad wolf

Every day we’re in a battle for our attention; a battle we don’t realize we’re in and so every day we surrender much of it to a media army bombarding us with stories of fear, incompetence, corruption, natural disaster, war, terrorism, human tragedy, injustice, failure, prejudice., oh, and a sprinkling of cute pet stories; you know…for balance. They paint us an ugly picture of the world by filling…

What if I don’t want to do anything big with my life?

Why don’t more of us take on the tough questions like, “What do you want to leave behind?”, or “What difference do you want your life to make?” One reason is mainstream education was specifically designed to train us for factory-type work for the top 1%, and the last thing the one percenters want is us questioning our life’s purpose. Another much less sinister reason might be that many of us may…

What kind of person are you?

When directed at yourself, this is perhaps the most profound questions you can ask.  “What kind of person am I? It’s a question that has no answer like 2 + 2 has an answer; we either create our own, or adopt one given to us by society or religion. Then it’s up to us to live consistent with the answer we chose. But how do you go about answering that question? Well, by asking yourself more…

The moon-shot speech of our time

For sheer audacity, nothing beats Kennedy’s speech to “…land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to the earth.” He could have said, “We will make the biggest pizza pie the world has ever seen and have every American eat a slice with the Soviet Union watching on live TV,” but that wouldn’t have fired up quite the same fires of passion and imagination, or unleashed the tremendous wave of…

What is the “I have a dream” speech of today?

What is the inspiring, galvanizing speech of our time? What is the “I have a dream” (King), Gettysburg address (Lincoln), the “We shall fight on the beaches” (Churchill) of today? Did I miss it? I think great speeches are out there, but no single speech is having the lasting mass movement effect of any of the greats in recent history.  Here’s why: We can’t agree on a unifying crisis I think…

The problem with “Back in the day” thinking

Boy do we love the good old days. When life was sweeter and had meaning. Now everyone’s fond of saying “back in the day” (BITD). “BITD” really works to glorify the past doesn’t it? Perhaps because it implies that we’re not “in the day” now; that now we’re in the night or some cloudy, overcast time, and BITD conjures up a time when all was brighter and better than it is now. Seems harmless enough.…

Trump’s success formula and what we can emulate

We all know the risk of being insensitive, rude and politically incorrect. We’ve felt the sting of crossing the line enough times to know it’s not socially acceptable. How then to explain Donald Trump, who attributes his success to crossing that line? What is the Trump winning formula and is there anything about him to emulate? Know your audience Trump’s success is not due to some new charismatic…

We live with a curious irony: everyone makes mistakes, except you.  OK, maybe you’re one of the few that admits theirs, but most people are as unwilling to admit their mistakes as they are to draw attention to the piece of lettuce stuck between their teeth. That’s curious isn’t it?  I mean since mistake-making is inevitable and drives the learning process. The reason we don’t like to admit…

In the Princess Bride, one of my favourite movies, a gang of comical villains kidnap a princess who is then pursued by her handsome young suitor.  The midget villain describes the hero’s every brilliant act of pursuit as “ Inconceivable!” until one of his compadres remarks “ You keep using that word a lot. I do not think it means, what you think it means.” I wonder…are we making the midget’s…

What you’ll almost always regret

There is no pill to stop you from doing or saying something stupid, but you can reduce your chances of doing something you’ll regret if you pay attention to the mood you’re in. There are two moods that promote actions you will almost always regret: anger and fear. Acting from anger I’ve regretted almost every action I’ve taken in anger, or in related moods like envy, impatience, indignity, hurt,…