At this inflection point in history, compassion has to stand its ground

Put your thinking cap on for this!

Robby Robin's Journey

A recent opinion piece by Eileen Chadnick in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper caught my eye: Humanity, connection, and compassion – the keys to bringing staff back to the office successfully.  It reminded the reader of what we already know – that everyone, staff and supervisors, are burned out from the isolation and stress caused by working remotely during the pandemic and that there are reasons why people are reluctant to return to the office. The article argued for the need to focus on providing work environments that proactively encourage connectedness among employees (a friendly workplace) and prioritize compassion as an important ingredient of a successful office culture. In other words, people-centred leadership has never been more important.  Everyone needs to feel valued; everyone needs to feel that they are part of a work environment that makes them feel part of a team, of a community. Bottom line: if…

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Thoughtful Thursday: Words of wisdom from sidewalk signs

Robby Robin's Journey

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Challenging times

A little something to think about as we swelter in the summer heat.

I can't believe it!

A recent post by Gail Tverberg explains what many of us suspect, that the world economic/resource/technology/political ‘system’ is running into the buffers. She suggests that this is a problem of the physics of the system, and not something that is easily addressed. Her conclusion makes sobering reading:

“We are dealing with a situation that economists, politicians and central banks are ill-equipped to handle. Raising interest rates may squeeze out a huge share of the economy. The economy was already ‘at the edge.’ We can’t know for certain.

Virtually no one looks at the economy from a physics point of view. For one thing, the result is too distressing to explain to citizens. For another, it is fashionable for scientists of all types to produce papers and have them peer reviewed by others within their own ivory towers. Economists, politicians and central bankers don’t care about the physics of the situation…

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How we will fight climate change

And how we will not fight climate change Noah Smith Jul 20 208209 “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” — unknown It is now abundantly clear that Americans are not going to support a big government push to rapidly decarbonize the U.S. economy. The popular urgency simply [...]

You’re astonishing!

Life can be better appreciated when you remember how wonderfully and frighteningly unlikely it is that you exist at all. Timm Triplett is associate professor in philosophy at the College of Liberal Arts, University of New Hampshire. He is the author of Morality’s Critics and Defenders: A Philosophical Dialogue (2014). Edited bySam Dresser Photo by Christopher Anderson/Magnum [...]

Gurdeep of the Yukon: Dancing to spread joy, hope, and positivity

Happiness and joy!

Robby Robin's Journey

I’m pretty darn sure that you can’t watch Gurdeep Pandher do his Punjabi Bhangra dance without a smile of pure delight crossing your face. Bhangra dancing was originally developed for that exact reason, to spread joy.  That’s why he keeps dancing.  And that’s why he’s currently engaged in a cross-Canada tour, doing all he can to spread joy from coast to coast to coast.

I’ll be honest, the first few times I watched YouTube clips on FaceBook of Gurdeep dancing or on the news, I thought he lived in Nova Scotia and this was something regional. That this lovely man was telling Nova Scotians how much he liked being there.  Well, I may have been correct about the message he was trying to convey, but not that he lived there. In fact, I’ve just come to realize that he lives, of all surprising places, in a cabin in the northerly…

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Days of Rage

System change is – and has always been – our only realistic means of defending the living planet. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th July 2022 Can we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You… [...]

Living and dying … and living on in those we’ve touched

Thoughts on life, love and death.

Robby Robin's Journey

We all know that dying is an inevitable part of living.  Knowing it doesn’t mean we are ever ready to lose a loved one; even though we know it’s one of the few constants in life, knowing it doesn’t make it any easier.  We’re told that those people who have made a difference in our lives – in whatever way – will live on in us even when they are no longer here.  Their spirit and their kindness to us has become a part of who we are.  We know this and we experience it, but it doesn’t make the physical loss any easier.

My husband and I are now of an age where we’re reminded of the dying-is-part-of-living reality entirely too often; it goes with the territory of having had the privilege of living a very full (long) life.  Eventually full lives come to an end … and sometimes…

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Willing the End

On both sides of the Atlantic, powerful interests seem determined to trigger the collapse of life on Earth. Why? By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 6th July 2022 It feels like the end game. In the US last week, the third perverse and highly partisan supreme court decision in a few days made American… [...]

A Forgotten Native American

A little piece of US History conveniently missed in their published histories.

Aging Capriciously

I think it is fair to say that Ti-bish-ko-gi-jik or Father Philip B. Gordon of the Ojibwa tribe in Northern Wisconsin was not forgotten since he was never really remembered.  I have lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota since 1965 and I never heard of the first North American Catholic priest who was also a Native American.  A friend of mine told me about the attached article which is a compilation of stories and a short biography of Reverend Gordon written by Paula Delfeld in 1977.  I am always amazed by the lack of history for Black Americans but it is probably true that Native Americans are equally forgotten in our American educational system.  Call me naïve but I always thought history was supposed to be unbiased and objective and inclusive.  I am still waking up to the fact that t never was.  The following link includes some interesting pictures and…

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