38

Obsessions

La Incondicional, de La Dame Blanche. En boucle depuis 24 heures. Over and over and over.

Certains morceaux me touchent droit au coeur. La dernière fois que j’ai ressenti ça, c’etait en écoutant Beautiful You, de Bumcello.

En remontant le fil des ans j’ai retrouvé MC Solaar, Caroline

Je me suis souvenu avoir enregistré Love Street, des Doors, cinq fois de suite sur une cassette. Les obsesssions a l’époque c’était beaucoup de travail.

Après, bien sur, on pourrait parler de Renaud, Brel, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, Mickael Jackson, Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti et tant d’autres, mais pour une raison ou une autre, ce sont ces trois morceaux qui me sont revenus aujourd’hui.

L’avenir nous dira si La Incondicional passe l’épreuve du temps.

Time will tell.

37

The Disengagement Divide

“Here’s my theory: Disengagement is the issue underlying the majority of problems I see in families, schools, communities and organizations and it takes many forms, including the
ones we discussed in the “Armory” chapter.

We disengage to protect ourselves from vulnerability, shame, and feeling lost and without purpose. We also disengage when we feel like the
people who are leading us -our boss, our teachers, our principal, our clergy, our parents, our politicians aren’t living up to their end of the social contract.

Politics is a great, albeit painful, example of social contract disengagement.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are making laws that they’re not required to follow or that don’t affect them, they’re engaging in behaviors that would result in most of us getting fired, divorced, or arrested.

They’re espousing values that are rarely displayed in their behavior. And just watching them shame and blame each other is degrading for us.

They’re not living up to their side of the social contract and voter turnout statistics show that we’re disengaging.

Religion is another example of social contract disengagement.

First, disengagement is often the result of leaders not living by the same values they’re preaching. Second, in an uncertain world, we often feel desperate for absolutes. It’s the human response to fear.

When religious leaders leverage our fear and need for more certainty by extracting vulnerability from spirituality and turning faith into “compliance and consequences,” rather than teaching and modeling how to wrestle with the unknown and how to embrace mystery, the entire
concept of faith is bankrupt on its own terms.

Faith minus vulnerability equals politics, or worse, extremism.

Spiritual connection and engagement is not built on compliance, it’s the product of love, belonging, and vulnerability.

So, here’s the question: We don’t intentionally create cultures in our families, schools, communities, and organizations that fuel disengagement and disconnection, so how does it happen? Where’s the gap?

The gap starts here: We can’t give people what we don’t have. Who we are matters immeasurably more than what we know or who we want to be.

The space between our practiced values (what we’re actually doing, thinking, and feeling) and our aspirational values (what we want to do, think and feel) is the value gap, or what I call the disengagement divide.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

.

.

.

And this, too.

34

We spoke for ages about retrofitting an old dishwasher in my pastry section at work.

All along I was reticent to the idea.

It finally happened, this morning.

I really didn’t like it, then I really loved it, then the machine broke down. All within my five hours work shift.

Here’s from R. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, on machines and peace of mind:

“Peace of mind isn’t at all superficial, really,” I expound. “It’s the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind.

The ultimate test’s always your own serenity. If you don’t have this when you start and maintain it while you’re working you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.

[…]

The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine’s always your own mind. There isn’t any other test.”

A pretty fitting take on this story, to be continued.

28

Friday night footy

What this doesn’t show is the effort every single person put into making a junior football game happening.

The coaches, the families, parents, siblings, the driving, the organising, the waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

This is a new world to me.

It feels quite daunting to be honest. I always struggle with new things.

I will love it, eventually, as much as they do.

Sid is number 13.

27

Women’s march.

En réponse à une succession d’abus & aggressions sexuelles au sein même du parlement, et de la réponse, ou plutôt de l’absence de réponse appropriée, de la part du gouvernement, les femmes australiennes ont marché à travers le pays aujourd’hui, notamment autour du parlement, Canberra.Pour exprimer leur ras le bol du déséquilibre du pouvoir, toujours en faveur des hommes. Pour revendiquer un ensemble de réformes, allant de la parité, égalité salariale, réforme du code pénal pour faciliter les investigations relatives aux aggressions sexuelles, entre autres.En réponse, LE premier ministre offre une audience aux représentantes & organiatrices de la marche dans son bureau, si elles le souhaitent. Mais refuse l’invitation de venir à leur rencontre, juste dehors, à l’exterieur de l’assemblée.Puis à l’assemblée, se réjouit de vivre “dans une vibrante démocratie libérale.” Puisque, “pas très loin d’ici, de nos jours, de telles manifestations se font tirer dessus, mais pas ici, pas dans notre pays. C’est un triomphe de la démocratie.”Ambiance…