Think about what you're trying to do to me
Think
Let your mind go, let yourself be free.
Aretha.
With Park
City developers telling us lately that their ‘Scaled Down,’ up-zoned, compromise
development will actually MAKE TRAFFIC BETTER or that a proposed golf course
will actually USE LESS WATER than the worst-case development scenario, or that
another proposed zoning change will MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR EVERYONE, it makes
me wonder. Do they think we are
stupid? We have all heard these kind of
Pollyanna negotiations before. If
something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t.
I read
recently about the 4 primary mental health components of our intelligence :
1) IQ which is standard school-type
intelligence and learning, 2) EQ is
emotional intelligence, happy/sad sensitivity and how you read and react to
people, 3) SQ is social intelligence on
how you make and maintain friends and lovers, 4) AQ is adversity intelligence with the ability
to stick with things when the chips are down and to get up when you fail. Number four is new, and a surprise to
me. Resilience is intelligence. Who knew?
We might need it.
But I would
still round out the list with these secondary intelligence components: 5) PR which is practical intelligence on the
day-to-day workings of the world, 6) NB
which is nuts and bolts intelligence on how mechanical things work 7) PY which is physical intelligence on
athleticism and how to ski, ride or play Pickleball, 8) CR is our creative side
9) EM is empathy for others 10) HW is holistic understanding and general wisdom
that you gain with age. We are all
different combinations of this spectrum of intelligence. Everyone is smart, in their own way.
So I wonder HOW
developers and regulators are thinking when they propose these preposterous
ideas and solutions to our first world problems in Park City like; development,
traffic, water, and powder skiing. We should
all be involved in Critical Thinking to define and solve problems and priorities. I’m not sure what Critical Thinking is because
I have not seen much of it lately. I think it is the ability to tell if someone
is blowing smoke up your butt. Believe half of what you see and none of what
you hear. Trust but verify.
So when crazy ideas like a 50 million dollar art
district or a 100 million dollar railroad to Salt Lake City, a 500 million dollar
gondola up Little Cottonwood Canyon, a $5 billion dollar pipeline to an empty
Lake Powell or 100 billion dollar pipeline to the ocean for the Great Salt Lake
are proposed, I have to ask, ‘WHAT are you thinking’? All this is proposed using ‘other people’s
money’, but in the end we all pay for everything. For everything you do, there is something you
don’t do. You can’t do it all and you
don’t get something for nothing.
As the Corporate
Industrial Ski Complex ostensibly ‘improves” our town and local alpine skiing, proposed
upsized developments create less traffic and use less water, our nepotistic
State Legislature meddle in local approval affairs and pay lip service to the shrinking
Great Salt Lake while the Fed ‘s ignore the climate and drought at the peril of
the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, it is not enough just to sit back and
wonder. It is time to personally research
and think seriously about this process, then stand up and be counted with your
best opinion and options, solutions, and priorities. Follow the facts, data, science and economics. Use
your personal combination of intelligence components to develop your own
Critical Thinking capabilities. Participate
in this process as thinking and knowing constituents. Think for yourself but think about
others. Don’t let them blow smoke. Just Think.
