We just love stories, don’t we? We’re such great gossips, truly. Recently, I was in the city of Vancouver, and I took several Ubers and a taxi. So I’d like to share some stories, and you tell me what you think. I was picked up by a man who claimed that he wasn’t actually a taxi driver, he was a financial planner.
He was using the taxi system to gain clients, and I thought it was rather clever to be honest. And he told me he was going to try it for 1 month, and then if it didn’t work, if he didn’t build his client base, he was going to quit and find a new way to gain clients. Clever, I thought once again. The next man was actually a farmer from the Punjab in India. He lived 8 months a year in Vancouver and he migrated supposedly for his children for a better quality of life.
So 8 months a year in Vancouver and 4 months a year on his farm in India, in the Punjab. Now he had 70 hectares of land, which is a lot of land in India. So effectively, he was a wealthy man. Now I thought to myself when my grandparents came to Canada, they devoted everything to Canada and they left the Austro Hungarian Empire which became a part of Poland which is now part of the Ukraine, but they were devoted to Canada. And I asked myself, was this man truly going to give his all to Canada?
I don’t know. You can draw your own conclusion. But the final man truly was the most interesting. I was at the airport, and I wanted to go and visit my old friend, Keith. We’ve been friends for, gosh, 45 years, and he’s getting on in age.
So I wanted to see how he was doing. So I got in the taxi, and I told him it’s just a short drive. I’m sorry. And the man bemoaned to me, oh, gosh. The whole day has been like this, but, oh, well, what can we do?
So we were off. So we’re going along, and I’m sitting in the front seat. And so I asked him, how long have you been driving a taxi? And he said, probably over 20 years. And I said, well, how do you like it?
He said, oh, it’s not bad. I like it a lot. But in reality, I’m from Somaliland. And I thought to myself, Somaliland. Wait a moment.
Where is this? I know Somalia, but then I remembered Somaliland is effectively a rump state that’s not recognized by anyone in the world. I think it has an embassy in Taiwan, for instance, but it’s not recognized by anyone. But it still produces its own passports, it has its own parliament, etcetera etcetera. But wait, the taxi drive gets more interesting.
He then tells me that he was in the Somaliland CIA, the secret police, if you will, and they had a relationship with the CIA. Okay. And I look at this man. He’s around my age. He’s missing several teeth, you know, and I’m kind of doubting this story a little bit, but it gets better.
He then says, you know, there’s soon going to be an election, and my uncle is going to be elected president of Somaliland. I said, well, congratulations. Fantastic. He said, yes. And when he’s elected, I’m going back home and I’m going to be on his team.
And he said, I invite you to Somaliland. You don’t even need a passport. You only need a driver’s license. So I said, well, excuse me, sir. What is your name?
And he said, well, my name is James. James, my name is Leon. He said, well, you’re welcome to Somaliland. Fantastic. So we arrive.
I shake his hand, pay the fare, and get out and go see my friend. And my friend is long in the tooth and clever. He’s traveled a lot in his life and he knows people. So I tell him this story, and he says to me, as opposed to saying, oh, this is total nonsense, etcetera, etcetera. He says, what imagination?
What imagination? We must be more imaginative in life. And this man, whether it’s true or not, is filled with imagination. And I immediately thought of sir Ken Robinson who passed away last year, the great educator. He’s on TED Talks quite a lot, so look him up, sir Ken Robinson.
But he says that our school system effectively in the modern world is killing imagination, destroying it, and we must be careful of this. Now, you think to yourself, I was in a restaurant this evening and I noticed there was a good looking couple. I think I’ve mentioned this before. A good looking couple beside me, and this is a different instance but the same idea. Good looking couple, a couple of nice looking children, no one talking, no one discussing the day.
They’re only on their cell phones. Now what can a cell phone provide me but information? It gives me knowledge, but it doesn’t give me wisdom, of course. Wisdom is a skill set that I must practice myself. I must learn from my mentor.
In this case, my parents. But my parents aren’t responding because they’re also on the cell phone. So in this family, no imagination. You go to school, the teacher wrote learning, no imagination. We go to university.
Why do we go to university? Well, what a foolish question. We only go to university to get a job. No imagination. So once we get a job, we go along, we have some relationship, get married, children, no imagination here.
And at 40 years old or so, I’m deeply unhappy. Huge increases in addictions, alcohol, drugs, etcetera etcetera. Why? I put it to you. No imagination.
Because when we have imagination, we realize that my life, this life is extremely precious and I’m honored to be given my life, my life. And I must do something with this life. And if not, I obviously will be sad and unhappy. So those are my three stories. The chap at the beginning who’s doing his for his financial planning, the next fellow who’s driving taxi, really as an aside because he was actually a farmer, and the third man who is going to be on the team in the next Somaliland election.
And you know what they say you know what they say critical thinking is necessary, certainly for great imagination, and critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.