Covid reflections and the exploding toilet: What have we learned?
What's buzzing hive!
I had some winter pictures from the Icefields Parkway left over from our Jasper trip, I wanted to post them but never really knew what to say about them because all my excitement for that day went towards Lake Louise and the ice sculpture festival but also this day reminded me of those photos. I wont be talking too much about the trip but as a society, we have all been through a rough patch, as a steem community we all woke up one day an packed up to leave a toxic relationship just to be on our own being more concerned over our core values as a community, as humans, along with all the other factors that impacted our personal life. It reminded me of many moments in my life to be honest. In our times of difficulty is where we grow and learn. Just like winter, the greens fall, everything looks stormy and bleak, probably a little messy and it takes time to find our way back and then the sun shines again and comes spring and rebirth.
So what prompted me to think of these pictures? Well, I mentioned in a recent post that during this trip our hotel room flooded in the middle of the night, it was on this day. We were due to wake up early to get an early start to Lake Louise for the festival. After like 2 hours of sleep, we got woken up by loud beeps, the fire alarm and water gushing out of the ceiling and every crevice. Like I said it decommissioned the entire wing of the hotel for the entire week we were there. My lap top and camera gear, all our luggage was in there, like everything. Luckily we were able to save it all.
This morning, we woke up at home to the exact same scenario, after only getting a couple of hours of sleep except this time, our toilet tank exploded and water was gushing out everywhere. All over the kitchen, all over the bathroom, under the living room floor and into the ceiling and every crack and crevice below into the basement. It leaked all over the furnace, the water heater, some electrical, into the vents. It was like a bad deja-vu I didn't want to have. I seriously couldn't do the mental gymnastics required to wrap my sleepy brain around this. Should I pinch myself? Maybe I'll wake up? LMFAO...Nope...Not today ladybug...Not today. The irony of it all, the day before I found a meme on fakebook and shared it. I don't normally post fakebook memes here but I'm sure you will see why it belongs. I thought to myself, today was my warning not to temp fate, like a bad omen or payback, if you are an 80's or 90's kid, you'll get it.
As a kid I used to be terrified of them and a friend of mine where I would have sleep-overs was a boy and he had curtains with gremlins and a creaky old tree just outside the bedroom window. I would sleep in his room and he would sleep in his mother's room. In the fall nights, it would get really windy and the tree and it's flimsy branches would wobble back and forth in front of the moon making the gremlins appear to move and circle around me like vultures. All I remember from the movie is them multiplying when wet and turning bad destroying everything. I would end up having nightmares and waking up in the hallway crying and terrified, I was like 3 or 4 years old. It kind of traumatized me and I could never actually watch the movie again, I hate them creepy things. You can see how maybe it was bad ju-ju to post it and the next day the toilet tank explodes! So back to today's events, I can so ever thankful that we rent so we don't have to pay for any of the damages and we were just out of town not too long ago, this could have been really bad if it happened while we were out of town for a week. I'm an over thinker by nature, maybe I have too much time on my hands lately perhaps my imagination takes to places I prefer not to go. One meme and one event and that's what it led to, fucking gremlin memories.
Each month since the covid thing, I keep making jokes of welcome to Jumanjii level...(insert #), I should have known better, Haha. What a year 2020 has been, if an asteroid could hit us into 2121, I probably wouldn't be that disappointed. Work has been messed up with a delayed season, being a seasonal contract worker in the oil field and oil crashing -$40 a barrel...ouch coupled with all this insanity going on around the world right now, the worldwide lockdowns and disputes from riots to looting and violence or to talks about forced vaccination for the rona, the sand storm going around, murder hornets, last but not least the book 1984 from George Orwell is looking more like a prophecy than a work of fiction how governments have been acting thru it all. Like really? No app to track rapists, murders or other violent crimes but we track a cold and everywhere we go and where it might spread? It was always the case but it's really apparent now, conspiracy theory doesn't sound that crazy anymore does it? If you have ever watch The Handmade's tale, this is almost like a pre-cursor to their story. It's like 2020 is all our horror movies blending into one and big brother is watching.
They say walk a mile in someone's shoes before judging a person. Walk a mile in my shoes and you will be taking a hike in the Rockies towards some spectacular views. Try spending 5 minutes in my mind, now that's scary! Having all this time on our hands, I couldn't help but reflect on many things like what is happening, the way people are behaving online, what needs to be learned both as a society and individuals. How did we get here? Where do we go next? Can we fix it? Hopefully this worldwide down time has allowed many to analyze the current events and reflect on themselves. Times may seem complicated but as human beings we grow wiser during our trials, not our good times. Good times makes us complacent. Online, I saw the bad and ugly but also a lot of positive and solidarity as society adapted to our current reality, depends where you look I suppose.
You can say similar things about our little community on Hive, I see many disagreements still. At one point in the not so distant past, we all joined together and left our home and comfort zone for a new horizon. WE ALL AGREED ON ONE THING, we valued FREEDOM and DECENTRALIZATION more than anything else at that point in time. The right to have a say in the operations or to be uncensored. Chose to keep our powerful collective voice and maintain our integrity even if it meant starting everything over again, that's bold and I'm proud to be part of this crypto historical moment sink or swim, I'm in. We might still find different opinions on hive but the fact is, we are all here just the same together , like building back our community after a natural disaster or dealing with the damage of an exploding toilet, like just another bump in the road. Was it messy? Indeed but now we get to rebuild things we may have gotten wrong the first time, a chance to be better to each other. If we can do it here maybe there is a chance for the world, after all we are the product of our environment. Be the change you want to see.
What can we do to be better people? Instead of asking what we can get from the world we should be asking what can we give the world? Kindness and understanding is what everyone needs. Knowing we are all going thru messed up times together. Why so divided? Why the fighting? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Hopefully we can grow more empathy, try to see the bigger picture instead of focusing on small details and realize there is more that meets the eye to every person, every situation. I see many disagreements on rewards and now bloggers surrounded by great relationships made over the years is not posting as often because he doesn't want to upset anyone with the support he gets. My thoughts is it's a bit silly to even have to discuss such. Instead of complaining or fighting about rewards, how can we maybe see an opportunity for growth, what are they doing that you should be doing more of to get the desired result instead of judging? Value is subjective and we all have a different definition of what we find valuable, sometimes it's as simple as a the interactions we have. Are we spreading positivity or are we spreading negativity? How do our words and criticism impact those around us?
Instead of focusing on who gets what, maybe we should just be ourselves and have fun with it as intended. Live our lives and document our journey, something to look back on in a few years down the line. See our own personal growth, our adventures might they be good or bad, Sharing our memories with who ever wants to view, our digital footprint, our legacy, the time we decided that our data, our skills and our thoughts has value to someone just like us living god knows where across the world. A place where your content can never be fully censored, sure it may get flagged, worst case scenario it get's grey'ed out but anyone is still free to look at it. Does that hold any value given the current media and AI manipulation we find on other popular sites? I think to have such a tool is a wonderful thing. I'm sure many from developing countries where banking might be harder to access have benefited from taking their skills into their own hands, given an opportunity to thrive like the sunshine after the rain. What if 2020 is just the rain and the sun will shine again?
In a world where instant gratification was our virtue, will we learn to slow down and appreciate the little moments in life, even the mundane ones. After 2020 an uneventful day sounds like a good day. Maybe in our chaos we will find peace, a new beginning for society. During this downtime, I see many trying to garden, myself included, showing off our covid gardens on Hive or fakebook, it's refreshing. Finally the world is remembering to stop and smell the roses, quite literally, one soul at a time. Re-connecting with nature, where we came from and where we always belonged. Relearning not to bite the land that feeds us, take better care of our planet, how we consume or live. There is a way out from the madness that surrounds us and it's never to far away, just depends where we look. What will you find, the bad of society or the good? What message will you spread? What kind of seeds will you be planting on social media? I saw an article earlier worth reading about planting seeds written by 
I get to laugh at the fact that in the future, looking back I'll see 2020 as the year the world ran out of toilet paper and our toilet exploded, just can't make that shit up. How about yourself? Have you dealt with a difficult situation during these uncertain times?How has covid affected you? What have you learned? Where do you see us going in the future? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section. I would be interested to see what we all went thru and how we dealt with the external and internal chaos 2020 has brought. Is it a cleansing like a forest fire? Destroy the old so the new can take root? Or will we just continue down a selfish path further into degeneracy?
All images were taken with Nikon D7000 and Sigma 18-200 mm lense unless otherwise stated.
It's been a long day, Cheers my friends! X馃悶X