“Simplicity is experience pared down to raw essentials, with nothing added on or removed; therefore, it is without deception. When we have lost touch with ourselves and one another, the simplicity of death can bring us back quite powerfully to what really matters.”
My life has mostly been about putting out brush fires and speaking up for those that could not speak. My career saw some real opportunity to make a difference and I was lucky enough to have a benefactor who was not afraid or threatened by my energy. “Bon Bon…here is what I want you to do… now make it happen”. I had an opportunity to see how things work in back rooms and how to talk to many people one on one to sway opinion. My name was on nothing…none of the awards, grants, legislation etc. and only I knew what had gone on to get something done. Much got done because we were a team. A county leader with compassion, a boss with some ideas but no time, and a worker bee that was more eager to see things happen than to be the press release.
Community building is much the same but so fractured by self-interest that it is like trying to tame alligators. It has always been about principles before personality but when a group has not taken the time to set forth principles it is another occasion of a fart in a windstorm and which way is the prevailing wind.
At this moment I see national government blowing against about everything that is my principle – equality, fairness, inclusion and compassion. My community is flowing in the direction of expediency rather than quality and high standards.
Without a base of principles, there is only self-interest.
It is time to sit silently in my canoe and wait out the storms… so the other day I went to a funeral… my foot hit the simplicity ground. Here and Now. Pause.
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