Taking a break

I need to leave you for a while. I like to say I’m ‘on hiatus’, because that’s what great writers do when they run out of things to write.

My problem is: I read over the last few columns I wrote. Funny thing about writers: We write stuff, and then everything disappears from the brain. I totally forget everything I’ve written, as soon as I file it. Like you, I say, “Hey that’s pretty funny … that took me by surprise,” even though I wrote it, but can’t remember it.

By the same token, I will read what I said, and say, “I’m not sure that’s right,” and investigate some more. In the end, while checking out my previous columns, though knowing but not remembering I wrote them, I sensed more anger and frustration than is inherent in my life.

I know I’m reflecting the anger and frustration of the community around me. I have felt it too much. Getting angry and frustrated and calling it like it is … is Rick Conroy’s job. Not mine.

I need to reset my brain. Really smart people are already on the job, pointing out things that are going wrong. Back in the day, more than 20 years ago when I started column writing, I felt like I was the watchdog of the County, protecting what we have. Now there are dozens of us—people with degrees they didn’t buy on Amazon!

THE PROBLEM IS …
What’s the fix? Nobody knows. We are angry and frustrated. Decisions are being made we don’t agree with. Others don’t agree with the things others disagree with.

It comes down to politics. We fight, and that’s part of the problem. It’s a fight that can’t be won. Anger and frustration. No solution.

That’s important, but what is more important is remembering who we are. In the turmoil of massive housing developments and a ridiculous plan to move water where it does not want to be—at enormous cost—we are still what we are.

That’s the brain thing again. If you choose a cause to fight for, you will lose yourself in it. Once you lose yourself in it, it changes you. But is that the you that you were? Even the you that you wanted?

DO YOU LIVE TO FIGHT?
These days, there’s lots to fight for: Indigenous rights, women’s rights, gay rights, perhaps the right to control our own future. Council handles some of these well. Our future? Not so much.

Trouble is, no decision on the table has a right or wrong answer. Hence the anger and frustration. I flash back to the Great Windmill debate. Many of us wanted alternative energy, but the location was totally wrong. We get the energy, but the land and wildlife may suffer. Personal power gain for a potential ecological loss? See? Not easy.

PROGRESS IS INEVITABLE
But progress is a weird creature in itself. I’m sure people who bought the Model A Ford wished they had waited until the Model T Ford came out, which was much superior. Progress now gives us cars that cn decide when you should brake, and apply our brakes for us. They can detect other vehicles around you on the highway, which you can see on a console screen, when it would be better if you just watched the road and used your mirrors. New technology may remove us as drivers completely. I’m skeptical.

We used to control our cars, and now they talk to us. It’s like having my mother in the passenger seat: “You’re driving too fast. It’s too hot/cold in here. Watch out for that guy in the pickup truck, he’s obviously drunk.”

My late buddy loved technology. He was always first in on new computers, TVs and sound systems. I warned him not to buy until ‘the bugs were worked out’, and he went through hell trying to find fixes for untested technology. Because the ‘great buy of the hour’ still needed work. Sometimes you need to wait until ‘progress’ is actually good.

STANDING IN TIME
All the decisions we make are rooted in where we are standing in time. Buying a house? Where are your finances standing in time? Planning a family? It’s never the right time, but it’s always the right time.

The thing is, you can’t stop time. And, really, you don’t need to. Most of us wake up in January, and suddenly find it’s February. When did that happen? I don’t live by the calendar, but I clearly see the passage of time. Sometimes slow, sometimes screamingly fast. What day, month or year? It has no meaning to me. I stand in the now, and maybe something I need to do on Thursday. But that’s it.

FIXING THE FUTURE
Having said that, I can’t figure out how to fix the future. For the most part, I try to fix the things that happened today. I look back, as a writer and historian, and I treasure, not only the distant past, but the people I’ve known and the community I love.

I look on what I need to do today. Tomorrow is a mystery to me, and that’s the way I like it. Jeez, I just reread that, and it sounds like I wrote my own eulogy. My doctor tells me I’m okay. Seems like I won’t ever be an Olympic athlete, but that was not a big surprise … I clearly was not headed that direction anyway.

Before I retreat into my personal space for a while, and restore my perspective on the County and its present and future, I offer this:

We are what we are. Things happen. Things have always happened in the County. That will never change. Even today we question things, all the time, and that’s a good thing. Progress will happen and, yes, we do not always seem to be a part of those decisions. Yes, it is frustrating.

LOSING MY PERSPECTIVE
If you read the news all the time, that anger and frustration comes back. When I re-read my last few columns, I saw previous me changing, and I didn’t much like it. News sucks you in until everything going on seems to be bad. But it’s not. It can drive you crazy. Thankfully I started at crazy, so it wasn’t a long trip.

I realized that I was losing faith and respect in our County overseers. Not a good thing for an objective column writer. Instead of seeing Council as a keen hand on the rudder of the ship leading to our future, I saw them more as starry-eyed victims in an Amway presentation, eagerly listening to the pitch and saying: “What a deal! Hey, this could make us millionaires!” But it never does.

Council does ‘engagements’ with the community, and they ask for our vision. I don’t ever recall Council gathering us together to tell us their vision. The two don’t seem to match, and someone should ask, point blank, “Where are you taking us?” Because we don’t know what the Big Plan is.

I see through a glass darkly. I’ll be back when I fix that.

countymag@bellnet.ca