As I sit here writing this inaugural posting to our new website/project, I'm reminded of the mid/late 2000's when blogging first became a thing. I do recall trying to write a few posts, but the material written wasn’t anything remarkable or readable. Fast forward another 15ish years and I'm ready to give it another go. This time with a little more life experience under my belt and some interesting context to provide. This old dog has some wisdom to share and it’s certainly a new experience telling my story as I never like to ‘toot my own horn’, so to speak.
Since those initial trials writing blogs in my university days, a lot has happened. The world went through a financial crisis in 2008 just as I finished my post secondary, I moved away from my hometown, I’ve had several career/job changes, I got my hands dirty on renovation projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone, I solo traveled with very little planning, I went back to school for heritage conservation, met my future partner (Renée) while supporting cycling trips across Canada, traveled the world with my wife (40 countries in 15 months) and purchased a fixer upper homestead property in Nova Scotia which will keep us busy for the foreseeable future.
These past 15 years have gone by fast but when I stop to look back, I’m in awe of what has happened and who I’ve become. I never could have fathomed the life we have had and are going to have going forward. It’s a testament to trusting yourself, taking the opportunities that are given, being okay with failure and understanding that the risk is worth the reward. The incredible things that have happened were not meticulously planned out, they were crafted on the fly one day at a time with the overarching idea of where we wanted to get to.
What is the purpose of the site and why are you doing this?
Over the past several years, Renée and I have had some incredible life experiences. Many of these have been positive, however there have been some challenging times faced that most are not privy to. While we try to keep those interested in the loop with social media posts, sometimes there are limitations on how far we can go on these platforms. These postings almost always will skew to the positive light leading to misconceptions about our life. In talking to folks one on one, we realized there may be an appetite for us to go more in depth and discuss what we're currently up to, reflect on some past experiences and where we hope to develop.
As mentioned earlier, there is much to reflect upon in our lives and I’m looking forward to re-hashing some of these memories. We also have a busy summer ahead of us on the homestead renovation project in Nova Scotia, as the house should be close to liveable before years end (if all goes well). Mixed in with this is our desire to prepare our future beyond the renovation which include preparing our soils, planting trees and slowly becoming more integrated into east coast life.
We're hoping for this to be a great therapeutic exercise (not unlike our podcast recorded post world travels or live journal) and perhaps this can develop into a spot that will host more than just a weekly blog. I’m hoping to re-kindle my love of writing and improve this creative aspect of my life to see where it might lead.
Why have you used the name Root-Cause?
While in many cases, this term is used in a negative context to describe the reasons behind why things happen. I like to view it in a more positive light as helping us become who we are meant to be. The roots are the internal foundation of what we show to the world. Understanding and addressing those foundational issues is important to what eventually appears to the outside world. There is also the idea that as our modern society evolves, we move further and further away from that connection to our roots and what our ancestors did. Technology is a wonderful thing and am happy to have such conveniences in my life, but I don’t want this to be at the expense of a life of meaning and connection. It feels strange to say in this connected world we are all feeling a bit more disconnected both to each other and nature. You’ll be seeing way’s in which we hope to address this disconnection in our own lives.
Another reason for this name is our desire to set roots in a new community and eventually try our hand at growing (vegetables and orchard trees) both for self reliance and community. While our renovation project in Nova Scotia is entering its second year and very challenging, we are also looking beyond this goal for a long term vision. We want to share our successes and failures as we try our hand at something relatively new to us.
What Do you Plan on covering in the Blog?
There are a few areas that we will likely cover - obviously the previously mentioned themes of past, present and future will loom large, but we will also not limit ourselves there. We may even have some postings going over a favourite plant based recipe that we love - don’t worry, we’ll spare you the usual 20 page life story before getting to the ingredients! Our aim is to inspire, motivate and get deeper on topics that we normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to mention in a quick interaction or social media post.
I certainly hope you enjoy our future postings here at root-cause and am looking forward to integrating this beneficial habit. Please feel free to provide us with any feedback and feel free to comment or share our stories.
- Nik