Planning and Acting

“The best laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft agley.”    ‘To a Mouse’ by Robert Burns.

Sorry, Dear Friends, but anybody who knows Davidson must realise that at some point they are going to be hit by the poetry of Robert Burns.  This occurred to me recently because I have just come across the Ancient Greek word,  ‘medomai’ which means ‘I plan, I act’ The reason I was struck by this meaning is because, like you, I understand that planning and acting in our society are two separate things.  But the way I read this ( possibly wrongly!) is that in the ancient world planning and acting were the same.  It was impossible to have one without the other. It was an assumption that those who sit around a table and discuss ideas for, let’s say, the building of the Parthenon, will only rise when dates are set for construction and the building is begun.

Here in British Columbia, I often hear about committees, inquiries, assessments, boards and so forth. The cynic within me believes in years and years of boondoggles where nothing ever gets decided.  This goes someway to explaining why in town squares there are no statues honouring committees!  There are no stone sculptures of boards sitting heroically around a table, snoozing or checking their phones. Perhaps there should be because nothing becomes a statue more than pigeon shite!

Like many of you I continue to be appalled that there are Native Reserves with no fresh water. Last time I looked there was no shortage of water in this country. How can this be? Here in North Vancouver if we have no water for a morning, it will be fixed by the afternoon. Also here in North Vancouver we are having a new sewage plant built which local government messed up so we are now paying for their mistakes through our taxes.  There are incompetent politicians who make decisions with no insight, draw conclusions outside their wherewithal with no consequences to them. So there are no engineers, hydrologists, politicians, companies who are practising medomai,  because the hot air and waffle of committees produces a skeleton of a plan with no action.  The Greek Empire, along with every other great empires of the world, was built, I believe, because people planned and acted.  Of course, empire and colonialism are not good actions. But, Dear Reader, nobody can say that empires were built without a plan and an action, exploitative though they were.

Hmm, pals o’mine, like most of you I love the fact that I live in a democracy. But I don’t love bureaucracy and red tape. But it seems that we can’t have one without the other.  Authoritarian governments do plan and act but in the process run roughshod over their own people. No doubt that if China decided to build the Belt Road through North Vancouver, there would be a great deal of unhappy residents who would not be adequately compensated.  The dictatorships of the world are not renowned for their plebiscites, referenda and delays. Meanwhile in the UK millions are being spent on discussions about the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

All of us have to plan at some point. There is always a deep sense of satisfaction when a Davidson plan works because so many of them haven’t. But those of you who have read my drivel over the years will understand that I have an out of proportion respect for the wisdom of the ancients.

For example, I have camped at the oceanfront campsite of Glencoe Village on many an occasion. It is near the site where the Campbells massacred their hosts, the MacDonalds, in 1692. About 200 yards offshore there is a grass-ridden island with a couple of trees on it. There is room enough for about two people to sit and chat but not much more. Legend has it that if two MacDonalds had a dispute they were to be rowed out to this apology of an island. They were to come to a mutual decision which was binding and only then were they picked up.  Knowing the midges that appear out of nowhere, or the rain and wind that can come in from the sea loch or the winter snows,  sitting around debating for hours would not have been pleasant.  Shaking hands and getting away would be the order of the day.  To me this works.

I used to have a colleague, Dr. Len Sampson, who as a school principal used to conduct staff meetings with nowhere to sit rather like, I believe, the Privy Council in England.  Winston Churchill once said,

“Jaw, jaw is better than war, war.”

So I suppose that is the counter argument, If we can keep people talking then at least they are not beating three bells of wotsit out of each other.  Maybe then a way can be found that defies death and destruction.  There is, I believe, almost always a non-violent way to solve a problem. If one discovers a scorpion poised on one’s genitalia, one is going to think very carefully about a non-violent solution.

Oh dear, Dear Reader, I am in danger of countering the premise with which I began.  Filibustering a motion can almost make a bill die in the water. It often seems to me that getting a project off the ground in Canada is like a walrus giving birth to old farm machinery.  It is painful, it is long and when it is completed nobody has a use for it any more.

I believe, Dear Reader, that not only do we have a wonderful education system in this country. We have created a population that shows initiative and innovation. We have given them the freedom of speech to express themselves in a diligent and forthright manner.  We do need to be aware of people’s sensitive issues, we do need to protect the environment and we do need to employ excellent Health and Safety.  But please, oh please, set deadlines for completion. We cannot expect an Olympics or a World Cup to be ever present, outside agencies setting closure for a project, but we can be better than we are.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bush was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”   Anaia Alia

It is time, Dear Reader, for Canada to plan and act, we need to blossom.  May all of your medomai be successful.

Thanks for reading.