I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Blink,"
Tag-lined "Learning to think without thinking."
I have to say, this was a necessary read.
Often i can get bogged down with the details.
With every aspect of analysis.
Tirelessly debating the pros and cons.
Example:
A few weeks back, I went to Target with the intentions
And the cash to buy a TV.
With Sonja by my side,
And a movie picked out for the new screen,
I managed to talk myself out of buying the TV
And into buying a pizza.
Gladwell's book is not so much about not thinking.
But more or less about training your gut instinct.
He provides an example in the first pages of the book:
A museum was presented with a rare statue.
Pre-Roman Empire, unknown artist, beautifully made type of rock.
The museum was skeptical.
There were less than 20 of these statues remaining.
And none in this condition.
But the museum was curious. And they needed a show-piece.
So, because of the rarity of the statue, the museum had every aspect inspected,
Every dimension analyzed,
Every detail looked over.
It was compared to other works.
Its history was learned
Its insides were tested.
The geologists, historians, and scientists agreed.
Everything checked out.
The museum bought the piece.
They then took the piece to the art experts to show off their purchase.
All the experts hated it.
They said, "Something is not right."
"I hope you didn't buy it."
Turns out, the statue was a replica.
Because the museum ignored their suspicion,
Because the museum wanted this statue to be true.
Because the museum needed a show-piece so badly,
It wasted millions of dollars on a fake.
Blink is that moment in time where subconsciously we make up our mind.
That instant where snap judgments are made, where emotions exist, where thinking is natural.
The moment when we know that "something is not right."
Or the moment when we know "That something is special."
That moment is quick.
It happens in a "Blink."
And all our past experiences,
All our current conditions,
All our knowledge and emotion go into that moment.
And it all combines to create a notion of instinct.
But we can choose to ignore our instincts.
We can want something so badly
That our feeling for the situation,
Our ethos about the experience,
Fades into the night like lightning in a distant storm.
We can train our instincts.
We can study art endlessly.
We can know history.
We can even know the rock.
But when our instinct screams, "no"
And our heart screams louder, "yes,"
Can our instinct persevere?
Gladwell hints at this throughout the book,
But stays focused on the idea of the snap decision,
Blink of an eye moment.
However, I'm much more curious as to how
And when we decide to relax in that moment.
To trust our gut. To follow our suspicion. To go with instinct.
Because wisdom not only lies in instinct, but also in timing.
My break from Time Magazine has lead me to not only read 1 book, but 2 books.
The second book i picked up was:
"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller.
I have to confess, I'm a Donald Miller fan.
I read three other books by the author.
And i enjoyed each of them, none more than "Through Painted Deserts."
Anyway, I enjoy Donald Miller because his diction is very verbal.
It sounds like a conversation.
It doesn't sound like a book,
It sounds like a recorded discussion.
And so I was excited for this read.
And it did not disappoint.
"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" is a book,
About story and a movie.
But mainly story.
It's about how we are all living a story.
And our stories have meaning.
And how those stories also give meaning.
With a hint of post-modern thinking,
Miller describes life as a series of stories that make up something bigger.
A corporate story. A Story if you will. The Human Story
And these smaller experiences give meaning to the larger Story.
The trick is to live a life with stories worth telling.
Experiences that deserve to become memories.
Not just to stockpile memories like water in anticipation of Y2K,
But to prove at the end that you lived.
To show that you managed your life as well as your money.
To provide value to your breaths.
But Miller takes it farther than an encouragement to do something.
He reminds us that we need to do something that is something bigger.
Life isn't about our story. It is about our Story.
And how your experience fits into it.
Because life is not lived independently, but intertwined.
So live your life with people.
Make memories with others.
Incorporate in the something bigger, corporate, Human Story.
And in the End, that Story will surely be memorable.
I am a subscriber to Time Magazine.
I like reading Time because I feel connected to the world.
But I have found that after reading the weekly edition,
I have no time to read anything else.
So, I decided to take a break from it.
But I didn't want to take a break from reading.
So, I picked up a book my sister got me for Christmas:
"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.
Explaining how small things make big differences,
Gladwell defines the point in which trends become more,
Epidemics that seem to immerse culture.
These epidemics are supported by three types of people,
Along with other variables: Salesmen, Mavens, and Connectors.
Mavens know everything,
Salesmen convince everyone,
And Connectors tell everyone.
This book simply sheds light on important truths,
Truths that are rarely discussed outside of marketing meetings.
It explains that the news station you watch may affect how you vote,
That the neighborhood you live in affects what you wear,
That the smallest details in life actually have large affects in behavior.
And so I wonder: What small thing has shaped my behavior?
Or even what small thing has not shaped my behavior?
The most memorable proof presented in the book
Deals with New York's 90's Subway Culture.
Crime was rampant, graffiti covered cars, and people rarely paid.
If you haven't noticed, those conditions have significantly improved.
But it wasn't an increased presence in Law Enforcement.
It wasn't that all of New York decided at once to clean up the underground.
Instead, the New York Transit Authority made it a priority to clean graffiti.
Graffiti was the key to lowering crime rate, increasing subway revenue, and a cleaner underground.
Cleanly painted cars signaled that New York cared about public transportation.
Small things make a significant difference.
New York still has graffiti.
We all do.
But before each train leaves,
It is inspected, cleaned, and painted as necessary.
New York identified the "Tipping Point" that changed New York Transit for the foreseeable future.
I can only hope I can identify that point in my life.
I work at US Bank.
Here's something you should know about banks:
They go through a LOT of pens.
When I see a bank with pens on the end of chains
So they cannot leave the counter,
I understand. And i envy them.
Because at US Bank we supply the world with pens.
When i started my Job, I never had a pen.
And i could never find a pen.
They all mysteriously disappear.
This is a problem when there are deposit tickets and withdrawal slips that need to be completed.
So i started bringing my own pen.
It was nothing special.
Too nice of a pen wouldn't last more than an hour at the bank.
It was blue, with a translucent tube that made it identifiable.
Other than its appearance, it was just another pen.
But it was mine.
And it represented something important to me.
I actually stole that pen (sorry, hypocrisy) from a Ski Shop in Utah.
So, every time I wrote with that pen,
I was reminded of Bannanograms and Mario Kart.
Of Stephen Colbert and Taco Johns.
Of the friends that I miss,
And the memories that were made to embark 2011.
But unlike that pen, which died about a month ago (RIP),
Those memories and those friends will stay with me.
I distinctly remember pacing the dimly lit room in disbelief,
exiting the patio door to the shrill sound of sirens
while blue and red illuminated the depressed night skies.
Rain continued to thump the wooden deck above me
as I tried to make sense of Sunday's events.
Sunday seemed to be set up as just another day.
Church, lunch, church, dinner.
Repeat weekly for eternity.
But Mother Nature had something else in mind.
The storm invaded Joplin, MO
as if it were a land to be conquered.
Sonja and I flanked the storm,
Heading to Afton for our routine Sunday Night Hangout
With the students that we have come to love.
Leaving to the sound of tornado sirens,
We peered to the west of Interstate 44
And saw a lowering cloud that characterized our drive with silence.
Shaken faces greeted us in the room where we had laughed so often.
As we learned the news of the Tornado,
The education that i had just celebrated completing seemed worthless.
We watched solemnly via web cam as a storm chaser toured the remains of the city.
They never teach you how to deal with such a sight.
Enduring the repeating pulse, each number dialed proved a friend was safe.
We decided to return to Joplin via Kansas and back-roads.
Entering the city from the west, we found a line cut through the heart of Joplin.
Story after story, work, and volunteerism filled the week.
Was this the real world about which Adults had warned?
As little help the Tornado sirens were to Joplin,
So too were the warnings repeated about the cruelty and unfairness of the "real" world.
No matter how imaginative, thoughtful, or daring my thoughts were about life after graduation,
This exceeded my expectations.
This was a scene out of a movie, not reality.
The kind of thing you don't mind watching because you know it's fiction.
And each morning, as i awoke,
I wondered if the devastation had disappeared.
I wondered if the nightmare had finally concluded
But what i found was life.
Disaster is our plight.
Each day, we face devastation and death,
and the daunting task of living among it.
But more important than the reality that is ours,
Is the fact that the warnings from adults about
unfairness, cruelty, and unjustness,
Those warnings fall short.
Not because they fail to depict cruelty in a way that us understudies can understand.
But because they stop at cruelty.
What they fail to warn against is the way people confront cruelty.
The way in which communities love.
The way in which restoration conquers.
And so as I stood on my porch today,
On a routine Sunday while the stars lit up the night sky,
I learned that we all have stories.
But more importantly, I learned that those stories persist.
