countablyinfinite's Blog

Nurturing a writing voice for the community

countablyinfinite — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:15:13 -0700

I don't get to spend a lot of time on ChangeEverything these days, but whenever I come back I'm always astounded to see the list of changes I've expressed interest in staring back at me, I come to realize that I've actually been really busy doing the things that bring those changes about.

It's quite powerful, to be honest, and re-affirming to think that this list of changes, which I haven't looked at in over 6 months, is actually representative of what I want, still want, and am making happen.

This change is a great example: "to write more about the things I care about." I did not think of this change, expressed in these words, when I signed up to participate in Blogathon this year. I thought about all the other things around it:

How much I love working with and supporting the cause I am blogging for, the Vancouver Public Space Network
How important writing will become when I start school in September
How much I want writing to become less scary and terrifying
How much inspiration I've gotten from other people's writing
How fun it will be to do something that a bunch of other people that I admire are doing

Somehow, I like to think that perhaps I weaved a commitment to this change into the fabric of my thoughts about everything else I do; and now it has surfaced, as a feat, an undertaking, a putting of my money where my mouth has been.

While the goal of Blogathon is to raise pledges in support of the cause, I know as a feat of endurance that I will be driven not only to see my non-profit succeed, because I know my own success - as a writer, a communicator, a person devoted to a cause - is tied up in it as well.

For 24 hours, I will write about the things I care about, past exhaustion, past boredom, past fashion and past reason.

Wish me luck.

(More information on my Blogathon for the VPSN.)

Have any others doing this change found other ways to renew their commitment, such as through a writing retreat, making writing a ritual, or something else?

Let's make our transit system safer for everybody. SkyTrain Unconference, October 4

countablyinfinite — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:09:37 -0700

The interesting thing about the phrase 'change everything' is that it is active, but its inverse - 'everything change[s]' - is equally true. Our world has altered since I started my account on this site: gas prices are up, food prices are up, the face of the city I live in, Vancouver, hasn't stopped changing. But with this phrase - 'change everything' - we are reminded that we are not simply at the mercy of forces larger than we are. We, too, can be a force that shapes ourselves, our communities and those around us.

I am delighted to be able to say that in the short time since I've started living in Vancouver again (since May 2007), I'm able to report some progress on "changing transit and TransLink." The biggest step in this is what I would like to share with you now: that TransLink will be holding its first "unconference" event on October 4th, around the issue of security on SkyTrain.

What is an "unconference"? It is a chance for members of the community to come together for a day-long brainstorm on a particular problem, and aims to get a diverse mix of perspectives.The focus is on conversations between people who might not have otherwise met, where everyone in the room is an expert on something, and leadership can come from anyone who's there. We are solutions-focused; let's not get mired in complaining, because we need the energy that will move things forward. We can do it, even without TransLink - the stuff of our communities are ours, for us, and our values. We aim to celebrate that, while talking about the challenges and what we can collectively do about them.

The conversations have already started - as of last week leading up to the event on October 4th, I am blogging about security issues on SkyTrainUnconference.ca and what it means to be a rider of the system in Metro Vancouver.

I am really hoping to make it a community effort - so if you have a story (or anything else) about an experience on the SkyTrain that you think could contribute to the thinking and understanding at the unconference and going forward in support of solutions, please visit the site and do share!

And I hope I'll see you at the event on October 4th (venue still to be determined; please check the blog for announcements) for a different kind of transit event.

Just, you know, shrug it off

countablyinfinite — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:29:06 -0700

I'd like to share with some of you a funny story from my recent trip to Hong Kong. It's related to more than one of my changes here (the other being promoting harmony within my family) , and while my experience of it is fairly heavy on personal backstory, I think some of you here might enjoy it just for what it is.

While in Hong Kong, while I went to a lot of places and met some people, there were not many parts of the trip that I got to feel were truly 'mine,' since it is and always will be, firstly, my parents' home. I will never connect with the city the way they have, having grown up there and watched it become what it is now (just as they will never see Vancouver as I do). One day, just before I started getting ready to leave, I decided to make one last effort and took to public transit to go to the Hong Kong City Hall Public Library.

While the library itself was certainly very enjoyable (I lost myself particularly in their "Creativity and Innovation Resource Centre"), I made my way down the stairs of the Library, and passed by the Recital Hall. A piece of paper, printed in both Chinese and English as is the norm there, declared that a "Buddhism Lecture" was happening inside. Intrigued, I followed a woman who was going in to see what was going on.

A monk was sitting at the front of the room, in front of a table with flowers and envelopes, speaking. He wore glasses and his even, quiet voice filled the room, amplified by a simple microphone-speaker setup. He held the audience in the medium-sized room spellbound, hanging by his every word. I made my way to a seat, as volunteers asked me to turn off my cellphone. Monks and nuns in the front row took notes, as devoted followers nodded at his carefully measured statements, laughing softly at the occasional rhetorical question.

Listening to him was nothing short of amazing. I felt childlike in my attempts to understand what he was saying, my mind darting for possible interpretations, because my Cantonese is very limited. I could tell, at times, that he was quoting from Buddhist writings - my meagre Chinese reading was even able to follow a verse in the book held in my neighbour's lap, and the stories leapt out at me. I was moved to tears at times - not necessarily because I fully understood what he was saying, but because he represented something I had started to doubt existed: supportive, respectful, mindful speech in Cantonese. (After all, I only speak it with my parents, and even they say that speaking loudly is just "what people do here".)

My relationship with the words is so strange: I know the words because I've heard them before, but they aren't seared into my neurons like English words, especially when it comes to complex ideas like attachment or suffering. But sometimes the words are compound words made up of concepts I do understand, and the clicking of the lightbulb practically rang in my giddy ears when it all fell together.

By far the most charming moment came about an hour into the lecture, when someone's cellphone chirped. The speaker continued, paying no attention to it. Within a minute or two, it chirped again; this time he asked, without missing a beat, he asked that they turn it off. There was some head turning as we started trying to figure out who it was and hoping they had reined in their technology. But not five minutes later, it chirped yet again! Who was it and why were they persisting in interrupting the speaker? Surely, in the highly mobile-conscious Hong Kong, someone wouldn't be that disrespectful to this distinguished speaker?

The oldest nun in the room, head bent heavily over with age, passed her phone to her fellow nuns to see if they could turn it off, and, when they couldn't, got up to leave the room to stop disturbing everyone. In jest, the speaking monk told her to take the battery out as she made her way to the door. His voice reflected nothing untoward: no frustration, or anger; no admonishment, whatsoever.

Could we all be that chill and remain reverent? Could I? Of course. What keeps us from being able to do so? What feeds our road rage, our frustration towards drivers (if we're cyclists), our anger and wounded indignance? Could we put it aside, to stay focused on what's actually important about living and being with each other?

Of course we can.

Get Basic Recycling in My Apartment

countablyinfinite — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:11:10 -0700

I'm putting this under the change for spreading awareness of different types of recycling, but this is actually much more elemental than even that change. While Envirowoman is pushing the limits of what she can do in her personal life, at my low-rise apartment building here in Vancouver, I'm having trouble getting just basic, bare-bones, standard, newspaper-plastic-mixed paper service. Yes, in the city of Vancouver. Yes, in 2008!

You'd think this is the sort of battle suited to 1988. This isn't the first time I've done this either - when I was living in Toronto in 2006, my building there didn't have recycling either. At least this time, there are some bins across the lane that my roommate and I have been using sneakily under the cover of darkness - but that's just dumb. How can my place and my previous place get away with not having recycling in two of the largest cities in Canada? More importantly - what can I (or, if my neighbours are likeminded, we) do to correct this grave injustice?

I'm already dreaming up my plan of attack... but first, some background, straight from Jessie at the Recycling Council of British Columbia who kindly let me know what I can do about this:

Apartment buildings which are not serviced by the city do have to pay
to put a recycling program in place. Usually, the cost of the recycling
program is offset by the money saved on garbage (as the waste is
significantly reduced by omitting recyclable items).
Recyclables are now banned from the garbage. Fines for dumping this
material are levied at the landfill or transfer station level, so it is
the garbage disposal company which would have to pay any fines. These
costs are usually passed on to the apartment building, or they can
simply refuse to pick-up garbage from a particular building if there is
a refusal to implement a recycling program.
[Our] neighbours' bins may be privately owned as well, in which case [our]
dropping off our recyclables could be costing them money.

Where's our landlord in all of this? I spoke to him and one of our other neighbours, who both insist that in order for us to have recycling, we have to pay the city in order to have a bin in the lane. This was apparently a problem even with the previous landlord.

This is not the part that disturbs me the most. The part that is most frustrating is how the landlord seems to be opposed to putting any effort into pursuing a workable solution at ALL. Aside from his claims that it would "cost more" and him acting that was a legitimate excuse for not having any recycling service at all, he even tried to tell me that if I put my recyclables by the laundry room, he would bring it home and put it in his own recycling. My roommate and I both cynically concurred: if we did that, he would more than likely just lob them into the trash bin.

Perhaps we're going about this a little too baldly - but to me, this is fundamental. Why is that because I live in a smaller building, I have to take time out of my life to bring my recyclables to a depot (without a car, I might add, so I'd be biking or busing it over), when my neighbours not 20 feet across the lane get to do this completely hassle free?

My rent is going up next month. If I find out that one penny of that is going to pay for fines as a result of not recycling, there's going to be hell to pay. I'm already drafting petitions in my head for if the landlord doesn't start moving on this. I will not be made an accomplice in filling up landfills unnecessarily!

Vancouver Transit Camp - collaborative conversations about public transit

countablyinfinite — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:08:15 -0800

It's been a while since I've touched bases with the ChangeEverything community, but I realized today that what I've been busy with is exactly what this community is for, and I feel silly for not coming back here earlier.

I've spent the last almost 3 weeks putting together an event called Vancouver Transit Camp. It's based off a tech event called BarCamp, and it's an all-day event to gather citizens from all walks of life, to sit down with staff from TransLink to have collaborative, creative conversations about how we can improve public transit in Metro Vancouver. It's taking place on Saturday, December 8th, at WorkSpace in Gastown (21 Waster St, suite 400) from 9:30 to 4:30.

Participation, respect and positivity are the key foci for the event. We're not going to pay for a keynote speaker to come lecture to the attendees - instead, we think everyone who comes to this is an expert at something, and that everyone deserves the chance to speak and be heard. We want to hear what the community wants to get passionate and excited about, so the participants are going to create the schedule for the event using open space method. It's not as easy as just showing up, but it's actually great fun once we get into it.

Above all, this event is a celebration, not for airing out complaints. Our city is full of amazing, creative, imaginative people doing cool things to get around, to help others get around, and to make that experience quirky or interesting. We want to help others to recognize how much awesome stuff is happening in our own backyard.

Organizing this event has been a real trip thus far. I'm looking for better ways to put my intention out there and to have people who understand this to sign up to come to the event. I've run into a roadblock or two which I've blogged about, having to do with the fact that transit is a politically polarized and important topic in this city at the moment. But I've realized that I'm serving a community that doesn't necessarily speak to me as a single cohesive voice, but is definitely there: people that are looking to converse about transit outside the language of board meetings, news releases, or transit advocacy, who want to be able to relate their personal or career experiences with what they see in our public transit system, and who would like to be able to interact with TransLink staff members outside that of the service provider-customer space.

The big struggle right now is that we're still looking for sponsorship, and I'm utterly new at this and trying to email whoever I can think of and to learn how to ask, which I've never actually done before.

Please take a look at the Vancouver Transit Camp wiki and see if this event sounds like your cup of tea. We'd love to have you.

Rumba and Waltz

countablyinfinite — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:07:56 -0800

I took up ballroom dancing (cha-cha and rumba) with a partner a few months ago, and despite a little unevenness in scheduling I had a wonderful time. It was interesting to see that it was very common to see men without partners at the lessons week after week - or maybe I just knew about them because I switched off now and again. I wonder if I could muster the courage to go without a steady partner - it being such an old-world activity, the old-world prejudices aren't far behind, though I would be in the running for the youngest spinster in the room. I do so love waltz music.

Live for more

countablyinfinite — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 07:57:07 -0700

I realized upon waking yesterday morning that I have been caught up lately in what Buddhism would call the world of Hunger.

What is a Buddhist world? I hesitate to say I have any definitive grasp on it, but my basic understanding is that it is essentially a breakdown of the states of mind in experience. In the Buddhist construct, there are ten:

hell, the state of suffering
hunger, the state of base needs
animalism, the state of beastly power
anger, the state of loathing
neutrality, the state of ... neither one thing or another
rapture, the state of joy
learning, the state of being mentally open
realization, the state of receiving / living wisdom
bodhisattva, the state of compassion
buddha, the state of perfection

Religions love lists, I think, because they're like little mnemonics; Buddhism doesn't lack for them either (four noble truths, noble eightfold path, etc.). What is unique to me about the concept of the worlds is that contained within each world is the other nine worlds. In this way, the bodhisattva world contains within it anger and hell, just as the world of hell can contain learning. This concept of "containing" is actually what constitutes the flow of experience; that we're constantly transitioning from world to world, and the challenge is to try and cultivate one's self by flowing upwards (i.e. to the end of that list), rather than staying down in the first four, which lead to the "poisons"--anger, ignorance and foolishness (or something like that).

The worlds don't sound quite as prohibitive as sins, and I really like the idea that no one, as a condition to being human, is immune to falling victim to the "evil" worlds. I have recently found it very difficult to get beyond hunger and neutrality, as I have fretted about what I need and want, to the point that I have been unable to enjoy the things I love beyond the fact that I feel I need them. I had the rare opportunity yesterday to walk around downtown Toronto trying to do A Good Thing. Aside from realizing that compassion is nothing but hard work and never seems enough, it made me realize that it is immersive--it's not something you do on your way to doing something else. It's only real when it is the point. And there is so much more than staving off fear and appetite, if only I could come to remembering how to do more than just that.

Have compassion when changing everyone else

countablyinfinite — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:56:22 -0700

My brother and I, for one reason or another (probably some combination of our upbringing and the environmentally conscious teachers we had at our elementary school) are both resource conservation hippies, so we both fixate sometimes on questions like, "Why don't people give up their SUVs?" or "Why do people insist on consuming so much energy and resources?" In line with the fields of questioning we each entered (his as an Electrical Engineer, my own as a major in Communication focusing on Information Technology), he sees it as a question of convincing people.

My perspective differs a bit. I've been fortunate enough to have been exposed to things like the differences between social marketing and initiating genuine social change, and what precisely it means to do so. In line with my readings in Buddhism, as well as some things I've been exposed to in university, I'm of the mind that it is always, above all else, respecting the autonomy of the individual to make choices and decisions about their situation, their comfort level, their abilities and their values as they are. The rightness of wrongness of either of those things cannot be the start of the conversation, because that's a judgment; instead, it should be a question of creating value for you and others, and its converse--whether your life is taking value away from anyone else's. While arguments based on numbers - like the economic-based arguments that my brother prefers to use - can appeal to specific mindsets such as one rooted in economics, the interaction that a lot of people have with the institutions of consumption are rooted in emotion, notions of convenience or conceptions that there's just no other way to do certain things.

Those kind of feelings are not easy to get over. They strike to the heart of questions like what kind of world a person wants to live in, not just the one that they already do (and justifiably find it a challenge to do). I'm currently living in Toronto until April of next year, and the individuals that I see stuck on the clogged highways of the daily commute are no doubt like many of the other drivers I have gotten to know, who have kids or homes out in suburbs with neighbourhoods optimized for cars (quite possibly built by family members in automotive plants in Ontario) that can carry their above-average-number of kids instead of public transit, and certain ideas about what is efficient, what constitutes personal freedom, what is acceptable, and what the lifestyle of a person at a certain income should be.

The first problem is a community planning one; the second one is a tougher nut to crack, because it requires that one acknowledge their accountability, but also that others offer viable alternatives to solve their unique problems. Furthermore, the values of those individuals are not conceived of in vacuum--some of them may be social in nature, and social change requires a community that is supportive, not judgmental. Thus, engaging a lasting social change, that is genuine, ethical and has total buy-in needs people that are committed to engaging earnestly and personally in empowering those who may not yet know why a change is needed, or do not see themselves as being in the position to live the change.

Then there are those dreaded personal values--some people just want to go really fast, need to feel bigger than others, need to feel like they can run to another State or Province at a moment's notice. Some people I know would probably throw their hands up in the air and consider those people "hopeless" or lost causes. They're the ones that need the relationships the most--because it means their sense of self is being defined by something external, and terribly finite in its existence. Looking lucidly at one's desires and definition of needs is no small task.

That's why the bottom line must always be compassion.

Thanks to Michael Markwick and his Communication 425: Applied Communication for Social Issues course.

Pass it on

countablyinfinite — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 14:36:42 -0700

On July 8th, 2006, at 4:50pm, I narrowly missed being able to change my life. It's the little things like this that make you wonder about coincidence, and just what it really means when one's life is indiscernible from many delicately-strung coincidences.

The week previous had been the long weekend, and the usual civic disarray that occurs around a long weekend meant that I was not notified that I had a book waiting for me at the library until July 3rd. Days of promising myself that I'd pick up the book at the library and telling myself that I had "plenty of time" turned into me globbling down my late lunch at 4:30 and running to the nearest subway station to get to the library before it closed at 5:00. I cringed as I passed by the transfer-issuing machine at the College TTC train station as it showed me that it was 4:53 (meaning it was really 4:49 because it's four minutes fast). I tapped my foot in anticipation as the train pulled in to take me to Bloor and Yonge, two stops away, and hoped I wouldn't lose the opportunity to get this book that I'd been looking so forward to reading.

The Toronto Reference Library was already closing by the time I made it to the doors, but I told the security guard that my book was on the hold shelf and that it was the last day I was allowed to get it. So he let me in, and I checked it out with a relieved sigh.

In the three weeks since I took that book out, it has changed some things about me - my mind, my words, my perspective, my ideas on how large and small changes occur - but whether it changes my life is still up to me and how well I can keep to my commitments, and how well I can pick myself up and keep going when, for any reason, I don't.

I'm assured by the possibility that the impact of this one goal, even if it flounders in me, has already gone beyond simply me. I've renewed the book at the public library because I've passed it onto a friend of mine to read; and knowing how thoughtful my friend is, I doubt that she will walk away without gaining something helfpul. That feels nice. That sometimes, I can cause a change without even meaning to; without being anything but myself.