Watched the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings which was broadcast on CBC-TV today. There were almost 100 calls for action from the Commission.  It was all very moving. 

People talked about Canada coming of age after a loss of innocence after learning about the horrors of the Residential School era.  Loss of innocence usually happens during our teenage years or earlier.  This suggests to me that facing how horrible we have been in the past offers Canadians the opportunity to attain greater maturity.

The Churches, represented by archbishops, were talking about how spiritually arrogant they were behaving at the time.

In business terms Canada has the opportunity to move from unconscious incompetence - i.e. childhood, to graduate from conscious incompetence - i.e. teenage years, and arrive at conscious competence - i.e. early maturity.

For what seems like six months before the election, the Conservatives funded a TV campaign that vigorously attacked, now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as immature (using patronizing words) but with nice hair (male objectification, if that's all they noticed about him).

There is something mature about what Trudeau did, based on compassion, today - wanting to befriend those of us from First Nations and bring about justice by adopting all the almost 100 calls for action.

To become friends people have to earn each others' trust.  There is no trust where there is injustice.

Trudeau showed the essence of leadership - empowering individuals to bring forward the most they have to offer society.  We cannot contribute fully in a social system that we do not trust, or that is not empowering.

He did a lot to combat ongoing talk of terrorism and fear of Islam last week when he looked deeply and with compassion into the eyes of Syrian refugees arriving in Canada, and reassuring them that they has a future here. 

The fear that some of us feel about how the world is changing is very real.  

It seems in retrospect that the Conservatives pushed away at any political opposition for months in an immature manner based on fear.  It is good that we have people able to show us another way based on compassion and justice.

Let's hear it for liberating our minds

We cancelled our cable TV account six months ago.  Suddenly the cable service has reappeared free of charge. 

I wondered about this.  At first I thought that the cable carrier owns a lot of TV channels. Perhaps the cable carrier and its TV media outlets are worried about becoming irrelevant.

Then, today I thought that there cable companies stand to make more money from advertisers when more people look at cable channels and mainstream media instead the internet or Twitter.

We are in a time when so much of what is happening makes little sense when we look at situations superficially, which is all the mainstream news gives us.  People are getting direct information using Twitter, which keeps us more deeply informed and ahead of the news reports.

This way of staying informed continues to develop our minds / discernment / understanding.

Some people seem to think that we need to go beyond the mind - which is true to some extent.  We need linear brain functions for business and science.  But this approach to thinking is heavily over-estimated.  

The Ancient Greeks were right to emphasize logic. But it seems inadequate for tackling the challenges we face today.  Why would we continue to limit our mental functioning to what happens on one side of the brain when so much is at stake?

People in business are now recognizing the importance of insight which requires more than linear thinking.  Insight is powerful simply because it uses more of the brain than traditional logic.

We are realizing just how incompetent we are at tackling everyday challenges when we restrict ourselves to logic.  We are like teenagers becoming aware of our own incompetence for the first time.

We get a lot of symbolic information from dreams. The information is holistic and never literal - which allows us to develop ideas on our own.  So no-one is giving us instructions in dreams - which happens with channeling, or with government policies, for example.

The nature of my dreams changes as my ideas are changing.  Our ideas become more fully integrated and realistic as we mature. 

So let's hear it for liberating our minds.