When people ask me what it was like living and working in Ghana for two months with my young family, I describe it as a victory. Then usually, jokingly I make light of my own response and say the victory was we survived, and all made it home. In truth the victory was survival, but that means so much more than I let on. We survived, my family continued on and developed in a new environment, my children learned and grew, my wife developed professionally and re-energized relationships, and I was effective work wise and broke personal boundaries. Life went on and we were enriched by it. A vacation is to pause life, for relaxation or a new experience, this wasn't a vacation, our survival was we went away and we went on, life continued in earnest. I apologize in advance for my play with English language, but regardless here I go, our victory was not making it home, it was making it home.
We have all been told that as humans we use less than 10% of our brains, I can remember reading at some point that learning a new language was a way to expand on that 10% number and use more of our oversized brains. When I look at my family's experience living in a new place (albeit for a short time), I feel my capacity to live and to love has been expanded. I love Ghana more than I ever did before, I can tangibly imagine a life for me there, but I also love Toronto now more than I ever thought possible, I am now intimately aware of the city's genius, how it affords us special realities and how it has formed who I am. At the same time, our time away has built love for friends and family in Accra, and deepened love for friends and family in Toronto.
I spent much of my early school age years being tested for intelligence and being pulled in and out of classes shifted from school to school as the Peel Board of Education tried to determine what to do with nerdy and often troublesome kids like me. What I remember from all that testing was intelligence was not measured by how high I could count, what words I could spell or random facts I could remember. It was all based on pattern recognition. Number patterns, visual patterns and word associations that was how the school board quantified intelligence in young children. That stayed with me and now I train pattern recognition in my children with music, art and building connections in all they experience in life.
As the US war machine winds up for what looks like yet another conflict in the Middle East, we all recognize the pattern, it occurs to me that if recognizing the pattern is intelligence, breaking the pattern is genius. Like Jazz music, its genius is establishing patterns of rhythm, melody and harmony, systematically breaking the patterns but maintaining the fabric of the song. Two months in Ghana smashed some patterns, but its still the same song.
I have a saying that I try to make a manifesto, "... There is no box!", I added irony to the phrase and had it engraved on a small metal box as a reminder, its a joke that only I seem to find funny. I coined the phrase in response to being told by a fund manager they appreciated my out of the box thinking. I had quipped back thanking him for finding a nice way to say I had a crazy imagination. Recounting the conversation I realized the only thing imagined was the idea of the box, a construct of norms of life and thought we generally adhere to, and constrict ourselves too. An imaginary box, that doesn't exist.
Its my saying, its my little box its printed on, but usually its my wife that is that catalyst for breaking the imaginary box, I am miming my life within. The victory of two months in Ghana is passing through the imaginary walls of what I thought feasible, and recognizing the limitless potential of what is possible. To quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the places you will go..."
This is Us, This is Fresh, This is Nous
We have all been told that as humans we use less than 10% of our brains, I can remember reading at some point that learning a new language was a way to expand on that 10% number and use more of our oversized brains. When I look at my family's experience living in a new place (albeit for a short time), I feel my capacity to live and to love has been expanded. I love Ghana more than I ever did before, I can tangibly imagine a life for me there, but I also love Toronto now more than I ever thought possible, I am now intimately aware of the city's genius, how it affords us special realities and how it has formed who I am. At the same time, our time away has built love for friends and family in Accra, and deepened love for friends and family in Toronto.
I spent much of my early school age years being tested for intelligence and being pulled in and out of classes shifted from school to school as the Peel Board of Education tried to determine what to do with nerdy and often troublesome kids like me. What I remember from all that testing was intelligence was not measured by how high I could count, what words I could spell or random facts I could remember. It was all based on pattern recognition. Number patterns, visual patterns and word associations that was how the school board quantified intelligence in young children. That stayed with me and now I train pattern recognition in my children with music, art and building connections in all they experience in life.
As the US war machine winds up for what looks like yet another conflict in the Middle East, we all recognize the pattern, it occurs to me that if recognizing the pattern is intelligence, breaking the pattern is genius. Like Jazz music, its genius is establishing patterns of rhythm, melody and harmony, systematically breaking the patterns but maintaining the fabric of the song. Two months in Ghana smashed some patterns, but its still the same song.
I have a saying that I try to make a manifesto, "... There is no box!", I added irony to the phrase and had it engraved on a small metal box as a reminder, its a joke that only I seem to find funny. I coined the phrase in response to being told by a fund manager they appreciated my out of the box thinking. I had quipped back thanking him for finding a nice way to say I had a crazy imagination. Recounting the conversation I realized the only thing imagined was the idea of the box, a construct of norms of life and thought we generally adhere to, and constrict ourselves too. An imaginary box, that doesn't exist.
Its my saying, its my little box its printed on, but usually its my wife that is that catalyst for breaking the imaginary box, I am miming my life within. The victory of two months in Ghana is passing through the imaginary walls of what I thought feasible, and recognizing the limitless potential of what is possible. To quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the places you will go..."
This is Us, This is Fresh, This is Nous
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