(Okay, it took some time to technically get to this point, but I’m sort of there now and can begin. I’ll probably tweak some formatting things as time
goes on, but we’ll see.)

Now, you can consider all of the above as static like you’re trying to dial in to a particular station on a radio. Now my voice is clear(figuratively) but we’ll be going into some vagaries and ramblings from time to time so it might get foggy and blurred. But the best place to start is at the beginning.

My name is Richard Hurst  I was born in Montreal just over seven decades ago and I’ve lived in Vancouver, Portland, OR., New York, Winnipeg and am now in Victoria, BC. Perhaps that’s enough “history” for the moment. More will come out as time goes on.

(And just a wee disclaimer: I’m definitely NOT “nearly dead”. There’s a phrase said to apply to where I live “Victoria: Home to the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead”. Certainly I’m closer to my end now than when I began this sentence, but I think I might have a bit more to go. Just sayin’.)

It took a while to decide to do this and then I had to decide what to write about. Getting some things down in this format seemed like a good idea. I’ve learned a bunch of stuff over the years, done a bunch of thinking, and even come to a few of conclusions. I promise not to be pretentious (or at least, I’ll try not to be) and maybe, along the way, amuse you a little.

When I was 17 (in 1962) I took a train from Montreal to Banff, Alberta for the first of four summers at the Banff School of Fine Arts. I was in the Opera Division and the School was MUCH different than it is today. The students lived in “chalets” scattered about the grounds. We all ate our meals at the same time at long tables (picture meal time at Hogwarts) and Donald Cameron, the School Director, said grace before food was passed from the end of the tables. I met some incredible people in these years, many of whom are gone now. It was Eden in every way. The physical environment, the mountains, the classes, the faculty, everything so focused on a creative and, dare I say, a spiritual experience. But there were times when I was homesick. I would write letters home and my Mother would write back. At the end of every letter, Mom would write “Be a good boy and act intelligently”, just a sign-off then but, in time, words that became so meaningful. Looking back and realizing that she was only in her late thirties at that point, I’ve come to understand how incredibly generous and considerate a woman she was for one so young, being mindful enough to caution a young son a thousand miles away to think about what he was doing and why he was doing it. Those words were at the end of every letter I ever received from her – and there were a lot of them.  And they are the foundation of how I have tried to live my life. “Good” and “intelligent” are easy words to say but are much harder to put into action.

As the years went by, Mom rose mightily in her career, getting a PhD in Organizational Theory and breaking some, but not all, glass ceilings in the corporate world. I, too, rose in my life in the Theatre. I became the National Vice-President of Canadian Actors Equity Association and our worlds converged because we were both now dealing with organizational structures and dynamics. We had many conversations and, connected to the sign-off in her letters, she often talked about Core Values and Core Beliefs as they related to the people in our careers. When she passed a couple of years ago, all this came flooding back to me – how creating an environment for positive things to happen have their basis in “good” and “intelligent” and in Core Values and Core Beliefs. I wish we had talked more about this. I’ve read a lot about these concepts over the years and  it seems to me that Core Values, the things we use to make decisions, like trust and compassion and maybe honesty, the WHO-we-are at our very center that we need to feel a sense of well-being, can be related to Core Beliefs or the results of what we have learned, what experiences we’ve had, the HOW-we-operate in our lives. The one conclusion I’ve reached is that Core Beliefs without Core Values as the foundation is nothing more than propaganda, commercials and, unfortunately, politics. The past year and a half has been jangling when juxtaposed against these concepts. I wonder what has become of our humanity. Its a quandary to which I can find no comfortable response. Its frustrating and maddening and I don’t like feeling that way. My trust has been eroded and my compassion compromised. I still feel badly when I see a defenseless  animal abused or people herded into camps because they come from somewhere else. But I don’t feel the same way when I hear and see people attacking each other verbally on television (and you all know what I’m talking about). Where are my Values then? What are my Beliefs and why aren’t they meshing with those of someone else? And, perhaps, therein lies the difference. My life experience has been based (as much as I can make it so) in “good” and “intelligence”.  My sensibilities are the difference, all of which have been guided by the Core Values that influence everything else. My Beliefs are BASED in my Values. Why can’t everyone be that way??!! The Community all those years ago at the Banff School and in various other Group involvements during my life has always been focused on the greater “good” and fed by considered “intelligent” discourse, and the chief desire I continue to have is that others may have that experience in theirs. I’m going to leave it there for the moment. I’ll probably come back to this in the time ahead if anything new springs to mind.

So, there it is, the first entry. I wish I had a crystal ball to see where all this is going. But for the moment, I’ll be satisfied that I’ve begun another trek. There’s a lot to write about. But I’ll keep you in suspense.

More later!!!