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November 29, 2013

Movember - What do we mean by "Awareness"?

November is nearly over and millions of men will shave off their moustache much to the relief of their women. It all sounds so great. Men getting together to share and help each other. It's the male Pink Ribbon!

But I ask what is this awareness all focused on? It's focused on looking out for trouble. Get that PSA Test. Find out if you have it. Find out how best to treat it.

What younger man has ever had a conversation with his doctor about how to live so as not to get prostate cancer? Do men talk to each other about how to live so as not to get it? Never!

As with breast cancer the conversation is all about early detection and then treatment. The research is confined to finding a "cure". The "Cures" are all invasive, dangerous and unpleasant. And and also expensive and disabling.

The research is confined to "Cures" or more detection. In breast cancer there is a strong known linkage between obesity and cancer. Does this exist for men? We don't know but is this the kind of research that is going on? I doubt it because there is no pill or treatment that we all pay for if this is true. Research tends to be biased to the $ result.

And what about advice when you are diagnosed?

What doctor tells a man with a high PSA that only 1 in 15 diagnoses has a cancer that will kill you? The usual message is that you cannot take the risk and must decide on treatment. What doctor sits down with you and discusses what you can do to reduce your risks now you have it? Each specialty will advocate for their own treatment option. Who advocates for wait and see? There is no money in wait and see, so it is unlikely that no one will advise that.

Cancer is not just a lottery. In many cases how we live, what we eat has a bearing on whether we get cancer or not. Where is the research on that?

Now that Movember has started the "Awareness" please let's have a real conversation.

Why do men get prostate cancer? What are the key behaviours that we can modify to reduce our risks? What can we test years before the PSA to see our deep risk? If we have prostate cancer what are the real risks of dying? When we know that we can then evaluate the real risks of the treatments on offer. I know that with a 1 in 15 chance of having a fatal variety, I would wait and watch before I would endure any of the current options. I also know that aged 63, I am entering the zone where cancer moves very slowly. Most men over 80 have it and die of something else.

Does early detection have any bearing on mortality? We know it has none for breast cancer. What are the risks of treatment? We know they are significant.

If you care about prostate cancer, please have a deeper conversation and please be aware of so much more than I need to test for it.

Posted at 01:36 PM in Health | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 17, 2013

A Backgrounder on the PEI Pension situation - the Figures do not add up

There is no easy fix to PEI' s Public Sector Pension woes. Ethics, good will, trust in the end has nothing to do with the problem. The problem is structural and faces all governments and all citizens. In this short post I will show you the structural issues in play so that you can see what the real problem is. In part II, I will offer up some structural ideas about what might work.

I comment on this not just because I care and that this is important but because I also was once a manager of large pools of money and was also the policy person responsible for a pension fund much larger than PEI's.

This image shows the core problem. There are not enough tax payers to pay for the pensions in the future. For the first time in history, PEI, and all western states, have a population distribution that has more older people than young. On PEI this is more extreme than in many places.

PEI's Public Pension was never properly funded. In the early years, it relied on the pyramid on the left, which had lost of taxpayers in the base to pay for much of the few pensions. This is not a unique position, many pensions did this. All such schemes are in trouble. This is the fundamental flaw.

Issue #1 there is not the time or the money to fund the pension properly.

When last seen the unfunded liability was more than $400 million. To put this in perspective that is about 50% of the total PEI annual tax revenues. The issue that faces all Islanders now is time and risk. Many pensioners will be retired in the next 5 years. Most in the next 10 years. The Province said that it could afford to pay $20 million a year to close the gap. The math does not add up. The gap cannot be closed in time.

That then leaves the issue #2 of risk. There is not the time to take more risk as the pension has to be paying out now to many pensioners.

The fund managers cannot place the funds in assets that carry too much risk. The massive loss in 2008 suggests that the Province was already pushing the managers to be more aggressive than they should have been. The losses from 2008 were much larger than they should have been if the portfolio had had a more conservative policy. An additional risk now is that the Province will again push the managers to take a more risky position. The fundementals for the market are weaker today than they were in 2008. This is not a time to take more risk.

Issue #3, can PEI raise taxes?

As this graph shows, the answer is no to this. And it's worse.

Most of the talented young Islanders have had to leave PEI as there is not enough work. So not only does PEI have too few young but the best have to leave. Worse, many return when they are old!

There is simply not the tax base to call on to make up the difference. Unfortunately I have not shown you all the bad news that makes this worse. And here it is. The "Elephant" in the room.

PEI's health costs are a product of poverty, lack of control and an aging population. The all in cost of health care has risen as a percentage of PEI's own tax revenues excluding the Feds from 53% in 2000 to 78% in 2010 (Figures taken for CIHI and from the PEI Budget) By 2015, the health care costs will exceed the PEI core tax revenues. Because the growth is exponential, they will double the tax revenues by 2020.

There are 2 main drivers for this. The first is that PEI has more old than young. The second is that PEI has more chronic illness than most places.

These poor statistics do not show that Islanders over 60 will be 60% likely to have Type 2 Diabetes.

It's depressing isn't it?

There is no easy way out of this and there is no way that the money itself can be re arranged. It's way too late for that. One thing is for sure, what was promised to Pensioners will have to be pulled back from. PEI, and many provinces, cities and nations are all caught in the same jam. Pensions will have to be cut. I am not recommending this, I am simply stating a fact of life. There is not the money to pay them as promised.

So is there a way out?

I think that there is but it has to work on the fundamentals and not the figures. I will post at more length in a few days. But here are the highlights.

We have to work on the fundamentals. PEI has to have more young people living on PEI who can do the work and so pay taxes. To keep our young here and to attract more to the Island demands an employment strategy. This cannot be a traditional one of trying to attract employers to open a call centre or a plant.

PEI has to attract many young families to PEI to be part of the new food revolution that is tied into the health revolution. PEI itself has to lead in the health revolution too.

I will make the case that we are seeing a revolution in health and in food that will create a huge demand for Real Food. This can only be grown in small operations. PEI has a great start here and also has, relative to Ontario and Quebec, cheap land. We are already seeing a new kind of "Back to the Land" movement that is based on this new kind of food system. PEI is a long the way to identifying good food with PEI.

These people will not come here to get jobs but to own a small business. They too are fed up with being squeezed out of life in the big cities and want a real life. I will explain this more later.

To stop the health care costs from consuming all PEI's resources, PEI has to apply the principles of the new health revolution to itself. My regular readers will know what I am talking about. Bottom line most chronic illness can be prevented and also cured by better diet and some changes to how we live. It may be possible to reduce PEI's health costs back to pre 2000 levels in 10 years.

Making a big push in the food system needed to do this adds to the value. But I get ahead of myself.

Bottom line PEI has to

Have 10,000 more young families here by 2020
Have most Islanders eating real food as a matter of course
Have a health coaching system set up to facilitate this difficult shift in culture

If PEI can do this, then maybe most of the pensions can be saved and PEI will move ahead to being a have province.

Posted at 10:29 AM in Health, Paradigms, PEI, Pensions | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 15, 2013

Why when we "see" the network - many of our problems may go away

Do you see how things are getting worse for most people and for the rest of the planet and feel helpless? Do you wonder what you can do?

An answer to your frustration may be as simple as "Seeing" the world in a new way. It was the answer to the problems of the Medieval world too. When enough people "Saw" the world anew, human society was renewed and hope legitimately returned.

This is how I see this.

In a small world that was highly local the illusion that the Earth was the centre and that the sun revolved around it was good enough for life as it was lived then.

Everyone today knows that the sun rising moving across the sky and setting is an illusion. We know it is an illusion even though the first time we could "see" this with the human eye was in the 1970's.

Imagine how hard it must have been to get others to agree to this idea? Especially when the most important and powerful institution of the day, the church, had a stake in the illusion. No wonder people who espoused the new idea were burned at the stake or threatened with excommunication.

But the idea took hold because it solved a pressing problem. This new idea enabled people to navigate. Then it enabled people to be able to plan and engineer. After Newton, a huge amount of predictability could be engineered into how things were made and used. We could do so much more after we accepted this new idea.

The idea was accepted because it worked. It made what had been impossible to do, possible.

To develop further as a species, humans have to transition though stages of perception. For do we not evolve as a species as we might as individuals?

As an infant, we are part of our mother. Hence the Earth is the centre of the universe and we are part of it. In the next stage, we have to separate from her and grow our own persona. This is the Newtonian world that we live in now. But the selfish teen has to grow up and have enough empathy to bond with a mate and to put their children first. This is what we have to do now.

To develop as a species, we have to put the teen years aside.We have to reach that stage in our species development that individuals do.

I think that we are at the end stages of our "Teen Age" years as a species. It is why we like shiny things. This is why we seem to be working against our best interests. We are Teens. Teens don't do Complexity!

As Dave Snowden's Cynefin model suggests, we are applying engineering principles to Complex and to Chaotic issues.

So how can we change this Teen perception? I think first of all it may help to see some tangible examples of how nature really does work and how there is so much more to see that what we can see with our eyes.

Here are just a few glimpses.

We think that what we see when we look at tress are trees. But we don't see this. All trees have a local communication system below ground that is part physical and also part funghi. There is also a hierarchy of trees in this system. So when we clear cut, we destroy this part.

The tiny Fig Wasp is the only way that this giant fig can reproduce. It is so small we can barely see it with the naked eye. This huge tree and this tiny wasp are part of an ivisible network that extends above the ground where the other hidden treee network lies.

Here then is a larger part of this hidden network that involves all mammals and of course us.

We are part of this tree network.

We live a mutally dependent life with trees. They are not just lumber. They are essential for life.

And inside us, our lungs are like tree too!

There are like this because this shape does the job of respiration of gasses best in the natural world.

I hope that this tiny illustration has helped you see this one example of the hidden world of connections that make up how things really work.

Once we "Get" this, then we can start to make sense of how the world really works. We can get unstuck.

It all starts with you and me. As each of us "see" this, we bring the human species closer to that Tipping Point when we all "see". In fact maybe only 15% of us have to see this to Tip the system.

This is why I am working on human health. For it is a personal arena where each of us can experience the truth and the effectiveness of this new world view,

I "knew" all of this for years. But only in my mind. When I applied this to taking charge of my health, I embodied this new understanding. It became real to me.

It is hard for each of us to change education, government, bureaucracies, defense etc. But we can take charge of our own health. It is in our own power to live inside the new world view. I promise you that once you experience this change, your life will improve immediately.

Please try it.

Here is how I did this.

Posted at 09:56 AM in Community, Complexity, Health | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 14, 2013

In Pain? Lost? Confused? The "Call" - Please hear it

I write today for some people I know that are, at this very moment, standing on the edge. All their lives to now have been based on working hard to be a success. But now the Call is so loud that they cannot double up on their past efforts. They have given their all and then some.

I offer a message of hope. There is another life. The feeling of being lost is merely the first step to finding this other and better life. The feeling of being lost is the key to the early part of the Hero's Journey.

Image Credit

Dante opens the Inferno with the classic lines:

In the middle road of my life

I awoke in a dark wood

Where the true way was wholly lost

This is not an easy path. For when it is completed, the old Rob, or the old you, the you that was defined by "success" or "failure" in the old world, has to die. No wonder you may have refused the Call before.

The Call gets refused until it cannot. Like surgery in the pre anesthetic era, there comes a time when the pain of the operation is better than the pain of the bladder stone.I was so confused that I had a nervous breakdown. I could not see how I could give up the life that I had devoted myself too with such effort. Others I know have suffered physical health breakdowns. Others have lost their spouse and kids. Some die.

Is this where you are now?

Please don't worry. All that you will really lose by accepting the Call is the illusion.

In his wonderful book, the Heart Aroused, the poet, David Whyte, shows the illusion.

"Becoming aware of this after a lifetime of accepting success as the ultimate healing balm, as something that will give you protection is, declares Dante, like waking in a dark wood. He begins by admitting that the human mind never sees success as "here", but always ahead down the road. He says that the day that you have your desk finally cleared will never arrive. That the level of safety that you are aiming for on the corporate ladder is an illusion. He says that the child you have at home for whom you are making many sacrifices, will be grown and gone by the time you struggle back from the traffic. ....

When you awake you will be lost because you will meet a stranger. And that stranger is you!

When you do awake, you are rousing a different part you, a barely experienced life that lies at your core. Having forgotten this central soul experience, you do not recognize where you are. To that part of you that loved your sleep (in the Matrix), it feels as if it is waking in the dark. It appears to be lost."

No wonder you will feel lost. I had no idea who Rob was. I knew Robert. But Rob? He had disappeared maybe when I was 6. He or she is the best friend you will ever have he and she will love you like no other. This whom I found.

You know who you really are. Reach out to him or to her. Trust him or her. He or she will take you home.

Campbell says this better than I can.

....... we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

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".....The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. "Live," Nietzsche says, "as though the day were here." It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal - carries the cross of the redeemer - not in the bright moments of his tribes's great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair."

The Hero of a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell, 1949

Now the real adventure of your life begins.

Posted at 11:29 AM in Great Disruption, Health, Ideas - philosophy, jobs, Making a Living, Mindset, Musings, Organizations and Culture, Paradigms | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 10, 2013

What if Germany had Won WWI?

As we think about WWI again as November 11th approaches, I cannot help wondering how different history might have been if Germany had succeeded in is spring offensive in 1918 and captured Paris and so won the war?

We can never know of course, but here are some thoughts. I am interested in what you think too,

A Traditional Peace

A German Victory I think would have lead to a traditional European Peace Treaty. No punishment, as was the case at Versailles for anyone. So, no driving force for the sense of shame that created National Socialism. No sealed train with Lenin and so no Bolshevik revolution.

America

America would have played no active role. It's men would have returned to the US without having fired a shot. Isolation might have become even more powerful as an idea.

With no WWII, no American Empire later in the century.

I think that America woudl have still risen. They were the only major power who did well out of the war. But I don't think that the idea of the Global Policeman would have taken hold.

Russia

Hard to say as the revolution was well under way. But with no Bolshevism, no dogma so maybe a good chance of a shift to a constitutional Tsar? It was surely the dogma that made the revolution so cruel?

I see a longer social evolution and no Stalin and WWII. That means more than 50 million people don't die of starvation, war or the gulags.

Britain

Would have still been bled dry of men and treasure but it gained nothing at Versailles and so would have muddled along as it did. It still would have shed the empire over time. It would have lost confidence. Might have regretted backing its traditional enemy France over its traditional ally Germany?

France

The big loser. But what could it do as the nation was utterly spent and exhausted. I see the risk being it wanting revenge. But it had tried this now 3 times and lost each time. It was a broken nation. I can see it being isolated. Here there might have been a revolution. The wild card

Italy

Paid dearly and now would have been on the losing side. But peripheral.

The Middle East

Now things get interesting. France and Britain would have been ejected and Germany and a new Turkey would have been the power.

Romania would have been folded in and Germany might have been the centre of the new oil boom. Not the US.

Britain would struggle to hang onto Egypt and the route to India. I think that Germany would have had to let this happen. That might have been the trade off for Turkey hanging on.

Israel

Likely no state of Israel and so much lower tensions in the world today. No clear divide. No Holocaust either. On balance a better outcome I think.

Japan

On the losing side of the war. Less power for the Generals and Admirals. Maybe less appetite for expansion into China and so less of the threat to the US?

China

No Bolshevik revolution in Russia, no Mao. A different path.

What do you think? It's just a thought experiment. How different would the world have been if Germany had won in May 1918?

Posted at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 09, 2013

Nov 11 - Remembering my Family - What about yours?

At every Remembrance day, I remember in particular my Grandfather and my Great Uncle whom I knew and who served in WWI. But this year, thanks to my sister Diana, who has been doing all the work, I would like to honour the wider family by name who served in both wars. When you see the list - you may also wonder about your wider family. How great was their sacrifice and effort. Diana and I have found this research deeply moving and meaningful. I know you will too if you look more deeply into your family.

The Patersons were part of a close knit group of intermarried Scots families who played a major role in the establishment of Canada. All the sons and many of the daughters served in WWI. Many were killed or wounded. For the women at home - it must have been unbearable. My Great Great Aunt, lost all her children. Some lost their husbands in one war and their son in the next.

Diana and I remember them most of all.

At the centre of the "Clan" were the Allans - who while capitalists of a first order - had a deep sense of duty. The Allans lived on both sides of the Atlantic and family members saw each other often. Most of the Canadian boys were educated in England. Some served in the British Army.

But Canada weeps for them all. For to survive was not the end. Many were scarred for life both in body and soul.

My grandfather Alec, just promoted to Major. He was in France and in every action from Feb 1915 to September 9, 1918. He was one of the few from the 1st Division who volunteered in 1914 to survive. Here is an entry from the Battery War diary that talks to this.

First of all the fallen in WWI.

Gwendolyn Evelyn Allan, aged 17, and Anna Marjory Allan, aged 15, (her body was never recovered) drowned at the sinking of the Lusitania 7th May 1915. Their mother was rescued and stayed in England to found a hospital for Canadian soldiers. Her son Hugh was to die the following year.

Here are the two girls and their mother, Aunt Marguerite, who survived.

Her son, Flight Sub Lieutenant Hugh Allan, son of Lt Col Sir Hugh Montague Allan - the then patriarch of the family - killed on his first mission aged 20 on July 6 1917.

Captain John James Allan Liverpool Scottish killed 27th April 1916. His mother, Edith, had taken him to sign up on 15th May 1915

Allan Routledge killed 23rd Sept 1916

Temp Major - Captain Montague Claud Gribbon died 8th December 1915 at Kut el Amara in Mesopotamia - left his widow 389 pounds

Major Charles Napier North, Montague Claud Gribbon's brother in law, shot in the head by a sniper while inspecting wire near Zonnebeke Loos Nov 1st 1914 - left his widow 224 pounds 2 shillings and 3 pence.

Captain George R Houston Boswall of the Grenadier Guards, died Loos 27th September 1915 aged 38!

Alexander Young, son of James Allan ( all we know right now)

Those who survived WWI

Major Claud MacFie - Seaforth Highlanders - DSO Gallipoli

Major Hugh Earnest Spencer Milburne

Major Claude Edward Allan Milburne

Lieutenant Ellice Allan Mackenzie Royal Canadian Artillery

Major James MacFie - India

Lt Col Bryce Allan DSO Gallipoli

Lieutenant Duncan Charles Allan son of Margaret MacFie - daughter of Sir Hugh Allan

Major Alexander Thomas Paterson (CFA) DSO and Bar - Served in France from Feb 1915 to September 9 1918 when he was gassed - My paternal Grandfather

Lieutenant Hartland Paterson lost a leg to wounds in his first action on September 12th 1918 - Alec's brother and my Great Great Uncle

Captain James Blackwood Paterson - Paymaster for the Canadian Black Watch and lender of last resort to all Canadian Officers!

Lt Col Charles Ballantyne - personally raised 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards (Canada) - My maternal great grandfather

Charles Bridges - It's complicated!

Major Charles Hope (CFA) My wife's Grandfather

The Fallen in WWII

Bill is 4th on the left in the 2nd row

Flight Lieutenant William Hope - 1944 Killed testing a Typhoon - Charlie Hope's eldest son and my wife Robin's Uncle

Captain Hugh Ellice Mackenzie Canadian Grenadier Guards - we have not found out how he died yet

Second Lieutenant George Cleeton Houston-Boswall Royal Scots regiment in December 1941 at Hong Kong

Served in WWII

Commander Robert Alexander Allan - RNVR - DSO Crois de Guerre, OBE

Col Alexander Thomas Paterson (yes my grandfather served in both)

Midshipman James Alexander Paterson CRN (my dad) invalided out of the service

My father is on the right - in the centre his aunt Elspeth who looked after the boys while their father was away at war for the second time. My Uncle Robert is on the left. I was named after him.

Cpl Francis Hope, my father in law

Posted at 11:45 AM in Family, Military, War | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 03, 2013

Life, disability and death in the age of chronic illness - Our Choice

In the last 5 weeks I have lost four close friends. One has had a full life, the others died in their 50's or early 60's. I have another tier of close friends and family who have been diagnosed with cancer. Another tier with heart disease and many now with Type 2 Diabetes. I am 63. Maybe 50% of those that are close to me are in this category of dead, dying, disabled or seriously ill. I feel that I live in a war zone. The dead and the wounded are all around me.

Of course when you are 30 or 40, dying young or being disabled by chronic illness seems impossible. So we don't care. We are driven by the modern culture. We don't have time to cook. We are rushed. We don't sleep enough. We worry about our career. We tell ourselves that when we get older we will slow down.

I telling you today that this is a vain hope. The average Canadian man today will be disabled by chronic illness by 65. He will live disabled for nearly 10 more years. If you are 30 or 40 today, then it is highly likely that you will be one of the average.

But you don't have to be.

The time to avoid this fate is in your 30's and 40's. It's simple and also so hard. Eat the right food. Sleep well. Be active. Have time and space for friends and family.

We surely owe our kids not only the best start but also our best old age. For many now in their 40's look after kids and a disabled parent. In most cases this is avoidable. Do you care enough to avoid this?

Do you really love your kids or do you just use the words. It's up to each of us to make the choice. You can do this. If an old fart like me did, so can you. Go for it.

More here in my book - You Don't Need Medicine to be Healthy