Sometimes, in the dead of summer, we forget that in a few short months, the heat will be replaced by icy winter paths – shivers, tingling faces and a chill wind blowing around the ears. What does this changeable environment mean? Being cold reminds me that I am alive. Today I was in Ottawa, walking along …
Author Archives: admin
On illness, loss and identity
We begin life fresh and surprised at the sensory assault of even the limited confines of the birthing room. After that initiation into chaos, followed by the first reassuring embrace from our mother, we linger through the slow days of childhood, looking forward with anticipation to our adult years, which we think may signal freedom …
My faith in humanity is renewed
Last Friday I did an intensely stupid thing and left my wallet on he GO bus from Pearson Airport in Toronto to Hamilton. Wow I felt so dumb and hapless. I spent the weekend worrying about all the applications I would have to fill out to replace all the cards in the wallet. Plus, it …
Beauty of the moment.
I walked past a homeless man today in Hamilton, who stopped me and told me a story. He was old, smelled of cigarettes and looked as though he may spent a little too much time indulging in the juice and maybe even some smack. His eyes were grey and vacant, ringed like an ancient tree …
Digital and physical life?!
So I was thinking about social media and social networking and how difficult it is to get a handle on the different ways people understand them. It’s a big mashup of old school and personality and metrics that don’t mean anything and bots and fake news and broadcasters and networkers. What’s a social media strategist …
I don’t like flying
There is something strange about taking a commuter flight. Just as when you are a child you get used to going into a rolling box which takes you somewhere fast, you can get used to a claustrophobic tube with two giant seething jet engines balanced on either side of it slipping through the air like …
Alternative facts, social media bubbles, assortative mating/friendships and diversity
We all like to think we have a handle on what’s real — it’s natural. However, with the pervasive nature of opinion media broadcasting 24/7 on television and now on the internet, it can sometimes be hard to get a handle on the situation. This is compounded by the echo chambers of our social media …
Glamour oh glamour
Whilst I have spent much of my career as a professional communicator building shimmering images of glamour and desire I have to say that the idea of glamour actually repels me as an idea. I love the chase of an idea or image, a concept distilled down to its simplest form and then adorned is …
Language and dimensionality: The movie “Arrival”
I watched the film Arrival last night. It was an interesting exploration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which has two versions: Linguistic Relativity — claims that language shapes and colours our worldview (i.e. if you don’t have a nuanced set of words for different types of snow, you are less likely to see the different varieties …
Continue reading “Language and dimensionality: The movie “Arrival””
The pain then is part of the goodness now
So sometimes we are confronted with the pain of others and its raw and its hard and it hurts, both them and us. You know, we make choices in our lives and sometimes, I think about those choices and it’s hard to see the path linking them through time… that golden filament weaving through the …
Continue reading “The pain then is part of the goodness now”