Yesterday I arrived home at about 5:30pm MT, from my trip to Vancouver Island, which started on the fifth this instance. I spent two days on the road either going or returning and five days with Derrick in Victoria and the remaining five with Howard and Rea in the Courtenay region.

We renewed family ties and friendships, blessed with good weather and enhanced with many activities celebrating each other’s company. I took many photos and plan to make a trip report in the next few days, for which I’ll save my more elaborate comments.

My car did very well, but I may have the right wheel looked at, because it was talking to me. I also made an oil change while on the road, before returning home and bought quite a few presents, something I have not done of late and even a few books!

Maintain your good habits and shed the poor ones.

I was contemplating this morning whether I should start my daily entries right away. I considered holding back on this habit and kind of observing it. But, from my travels - which have made notes - I realise that it helps me to write about my daily activities and as I do my typing now, I notice I am a bit out of practice.

Hence is my conclusion: “Maintain your good habits and shed the poor ones.” And for that reason I am now making my daily entry.

I do have a sort of philosophical conclusion that gelled during the first day of my return trip as leisurely drove the ole and renewed Number One highway from Hope to Kamloops.

During my days on the Island I worked with the idea of consciousness as we humans practice that. As such, it is a work in progress and I concentrated on the need to resolve conflicts in our world in a non-violent manner. While driving it occurred to me that conflicts often center on identity, which when the turning into power matches lead to violence. Such an identity conflict existed between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but was also a class conflict.

I use these two as an instance of violence that dissipated with time. What was the cause then, I asked myself? I suspect it is what is called ‘interference’ in learning psychology, was my answer. When you are learning two series of letters that are very similar in spelling, you tend to mix one with the other. This prevents you from getting to remember either one correctly.

My hunch is that the Protestants were learning to acquire a new identity that was similar to the prevalent Roman Catholic one. They remained each other’s bad guy for a long time, because the identities were difficult to separate from each other, both being based on the teachings of Jesus and the early Christian heritage.

I contend, that with time tolerance increased as experience showed that the two identities could function side by side, without the high cost of violent conflict. This is a learning process that can be taught, once the various relevant components are identified and tested in practice by making rules.

My thoughts, while driving were not as explicit as the above description, but the idea of interference, which I recalled from my Educational Psychology classes, was the central thought that I kept in mind and mulled over while rolling along Number One. The above wording is my attempt at bringing these few ‘rolling along thoughts’ into a reasoned and objectified expression that is communicable.
<11:34am~

P.S: The huge storm that I photographed over the Calgary region yesterday aft, while driving home, is only now shedding its water, lightning and thunder.<11:44am.