Great Expectations

If you lived your life through expectations, there is no doubt, things would never work out the way you expected it to. Life doesn't follow a path as if guided by the light of inner self determination and predestination, no matter what those late night ads on TV proclaim. Life truly is a road full of potholes, diversions and detours, some good, some wonderful and some very, very bad. It is how we deal with those roadblocks that truly define us.

But as misleading as expectations can be, our lives are inextricably tied to them. How many times have we uttered the phrase, "Well, that was not as bad as I expected.", or heard, "I expected more out of you." (I got that one a lot).  Reaching back to my school days of reading Dickens, we found that Pip was dealt repeated blows to his plans and ultimately realized that the life of a gentleman was really not that great of an expectation.  There is probably a lesson in that for all of us. I have reached out and failed a few times at various things, but as some of those aforementioned late night huskers claim; failing to reach out is failure in itself. Now please send me $24.95 in two easy payments and if you act now I'll send you a free set of steak knives.

As a child your life is seemingly a series of expectations, perhaps because there is nothing in the past to guide you along. Among them are the expectations that you will be loved and cared for, that all adults are tall, serious and old and the year is divided into two important dates; your birthday and Christmas.

Of course the reverse is also very true. As a parent, you don't know what to expect. You and your spouses' life will forever be divided between two periods; life before children and life after children.  Will it be "Married With Children" or "Ozzie and Harriett"? On second thought, "Ozzie and Harriett" is a pretty scary premise as well. "Cosby?" Oops, no. Not a good example either. But, you get my drift, whatever your life was as you knew it, it would be forever changed.

We all have expectations for ourselves and our children. As long as expectations do not devolve into disappointment, life can be, and probably is, a series of unmeet or unfulfilled expectations. There is always the sunny horizon of 'maybe' and what tomorrow might bring. Give me optimism over disappointment any time.

Of course, once you have passed through the firestorm of child rearing, the reality of becoming a grandparent smacks you in the face.  I always thought that the label of Grampa, Grandad or the ever exquisite Grandfather, would make me instantly older, greyer than the white hair I already have and somehow wiser beyond reason. My Dad, in his role as a grandparent, would always be able to string together words that would make even an infant sit back and think, 'Hmm. Now that is an interesting conceptualization of the human condition, especially from the perspective of an infant, such as I am, who cannot verbalize beyond screaming, crying and the odd gurgle or two.'

None of that happened to me, especially the wise part. My bon mots usually take the form of, "Buttons... make sound!"  But yet, it is one of the most unexpected of realities.  It really is true that being a grandparent is wonderful, yielding and bringing forth yet another life changing phase. Not only because you get to hold and gaze into the eyes of another iteration of your own genetic pool. You get see into the eyes of a new soul which reflects wonderment, trust and love.  But perhaps the most precious aspect of being a grandparent is that the child goes home with the parent at the end of the day. All the pleasures and none of the pitfalls. You can have a baby and still have sleep.

Expectations are not only present in family dynamics. They pop up in almost every facet of existence, from work to entertainment. Comedy itself,  creates a narrative that almost always ends with the unexpected. The telling of a joke sets the premise. The punch line, to be good,  has to be what was not expected. The holy trinity of comedy to me as a child were Abbott and Costello, Red Skeleton and Looney Tunes. I now know that basing your outlook on life on the comedic antics of a fat guy, a skinny guy, a clown and some animated anthropomorphic animals provides the basis for a pretty strange sense of humour, let alone what to expect out of life.

When I first heard the famous baseball sketch "Who's On First", it was a series of totally unexpected answers to simple everyday questions.  With every advancing step forward the circle of questioning fell back to the beginning. To this day, a half a century after first hearing it,  I cannot resist cracking a smile when I think about it.

Some of the most memorable movies provided that twist at the end to totally uproot our expectation of what would occur. Psycho, The Sixth Sense, Planet of the Apes and the Usual Suspects are some of the films that caught us all off guard, causing screams of 'whaaaaaat' to be bandied about movie theatres across the world. Upended expectations are the reason why these films still talked about today.

Like pulling a rabbit out of a top hat or a coin out of an ear, it is sometimes magical to watch the faces of people met by the unexpected. Surprise followed by befuddlement followed by wonderment.

Almost like life itself.

IMHO

Opinions and perceptions are the way many people colour the world we live in. How a person perceives events, people or attitudes profoundly affects their lives. Being opinionated, however, only seems to raise hackles in all those around them, but never in themselves. Most people live comfortably in their opinions. When it comes to the dangers of offering up an uninvited opinion, the only parallel I can draw is going for a leisurely stroll in a minefield while blind-folded. 

To borrow a phrase, opinions are like a nose (or fill in your choice of body parts).... everyone has one.  Quite often they have more than one and in general, people are not shy about disseminating them to anyone who wants to hear them. Sadly enough, they are also imparted to those who don't want to hear them. Many a peaceful family get together have been disrupted with a drunken opinionated rant of one kind or another.

Opinions do not have to be fact based; in fact they rarely are. They can be uninformed, uneducated, unbelievable or unwavering, but yet they are still put out on display and held up as a shiny example. On the other hand, opinions can be well thought out, unimpinged by emotional or moral convictions, well balanced and reasonable in logic for all. Of course, these opinions are about as common as fairy dust.

Even the internet has its IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) which finds its way onto newspaper comment boards and newsgroups. It appears to me that by just prefacing their comments with this acronym it allows the poster a carte blanche opportunity to opine about anything at all. If  you have read any of these, there is rarely anything humble about their opinions.

Historically, Kingston certainly has had a fair amount of raging public opinion. When our present day City Hall was constructed in the 1840's, the general opinion of the day was that it was a little too grand and a lot too expensive to build for such a small town. It was felt that the tax burden would be too much for future generations to handle. Does that sound at all familiar?

It was a huge gamble thinking that by erecting such a grandiose building that the government would decide to stay put and keep the capital here. As we all know, it was decided that Kingston was far too small, not cosmopolitan enough and didn't offer enough amenities for those political folks and off the capital went. Still, in hindsight, imagining Kingston without City Hall and its cupola would be like imagining Paris without the Eiffel Tower. If opinion would have ruled the day and the naysayers won out, then that limestone edifice might never have been constructed.

The list of conflicting opinions on past and present local issues goes on and on.... the Teron Project, Block D, the Hendon Hole, the location of the KRock Centre, the merging of high schools KCVI and QECVI, the third crossing,  right down to today's opposing opinions on high-rises in the centre core of Kingston. We never seem to be running short of expressing conflicting opinions in this town.

Worldwide events, specifically the Brexit Referendum is a perfect example of asking for public opinion, getting it and then asking what the hell were they thinking.  There are historic reasons why the general public is often referred to as the "great unwashed".  Referendums are a wonderful way for the elected politicians to be absolved of any controversial subject and declare that, "the public has spoken". Forgive me, but I thought that was the general underlying principle of elections. We elect people to make informed, educated decisions that affect our future. If every time an important decision is needed to be made and the people we elect to make decisions for us throw it back at us (and at considerable expense) then what is the whole purpose of electing these people in the first place? 

Here in Canada, do we really need the public's input by holding a referendum on changing the electoral process? I would bet the majority of Canadians don't understand or care about the entire process of today's system, let alone giving them two or three other options to chose from.  Just getting them to vote in the first place is a big enough challenge. In the case of the United Kingdom, we have to remember this is the same group of people who voted to name the Arctic research ship, "Boaty McBoatyface".  You leave the economic future of your country in these hands?

A glance south of the border only reinforces where public opinion will get you. While the Democrats have followed along on a predictable path where general opinion seems to have fallen in line with expectations of the party, the Republicans have been asking the same question as the Brits. What the hell were they thinking? The right has spoken and it seems to be in a language that the G.O.P. hasn't translated yet.

Where does this all lead? Everyone is entitled to their opinion just as everyone is free to express their opinion. As George H.W. Bush once said, "I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them". Well, if the past leader of the most powerful nation in the world can't agree with his own opinions, then where does that leave the rest of us? 

Of course you must take note, this is only IMHO.