vignettes

Truly

"Every person is destroyed when we cease to see him."
—Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

I once knew a woman who lost her sight. I cared for her one or two afternoons each week as I paid my way through college.

I helped her read her mail.

I helped her make tea.

I kept her company.

I watched her, and she "watched" me.

I remember the day she shared with me her story. She woke up, looked out the window, and said to her husband with a sigh, "what a grey day." His silence confirmed what she had long been fearing. The day was bright blue and sunny.

They say that when one sense falters, we rely more on the others to help us perceive our world. So what we may first consider to be a weakness, could actually be the very thing we need to build our strength.

Every so often, I think of Mrs. Zelditch and her journey of learning to "see" again. Her journey of building new strength.

Through her hands as they held your own and as they studied your face, finding the truth in you.

Through her ears as she listened to your words and the spaces between them, looking for hidden messages that you weren't even aware you had.

Through her heart as she felt the weight of your presence, measuring the mood you were in — your level of joy or worry or sorrow.

In other words, Mrs. Zelditch only had room to take in what really mattered: the essence of you.

A little more than two years ago my days went grey, figuratively speaking. I realized that I had forgotten how to see. So I bought a camera and I went on a journey.

And 100,000 shutter clicks later, I have learned (once again) how to see. People, mostly. People I love. People I respect and admire. People I meet in cafes or on the subway or on the street. People pursuing Truth and Beauty. People who inspire me.

And when I am with them, I look for clues. To who they truly are.

I look for their love.

I look for their joy.

I look for their passion.

I look for their purity.

And when I see it, I click.

When you look at your world and the people in it, what do you see?

Man, tool, or fool?

"You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both." —John Ruskin

In 1974, Philippe Petit, a lithe and nimble Frenchman, did the unthinkable—he rigged and walked a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center. After years of pondering and preparation, he gave his childhood dream flesh and bones, made it a reality, and shared it with the rest of us. Thirty five years later, the towers are gone, but the story of the man on the wire remains.

In life, we admire those who live on the edge and beyond our reach. Their actions fuel our imagination, and awaken us to the tightrope we could walk, or the windmill we would conquer, if we only gave ourselves the permission (and room) to express our freedom.

In living our lives, our dreams can easily get displaced by the dreams of those around us: our children, our spouses, our family, friends, and employers. Habit and duty settle in and make us forget that our dreams matter, too. And that's when we must ask ourselves if, while helping someone else live their dream, we do it at the expense of our own.

Whose dream are you living?

The genius of George

In December, 2006, Esquire published their Genius issue with a picture of George Clooney on the cover.

Not Albert Einstein.
Not Richard Feynman.
George Clooney.

It was so much more than genius. It was intrigue: Beauty and Intellect had equal parts on the page.

What we know of great art is that it often invites the audience to participate. We are left to wonder about what it was that made Mona Lisa smile, the process by which Michelangelo determined (then discarded) the untrue remains of David, and the variety and provenance of the pigments used to paint the Sistine Chapel.

In that issue of Esquire, men (and women) were invited to unearth the genius of George. On the heels of his debut as a director (Syriana), he shares without subtlety, his underlying motivation: "I am doing all that I can now, so that I can be creative for as long as possible."*

What is your genius, and where is it taking you?

*My imperfect recollection of his statement.

White space

In design, we use white space to create depth, drama, and pause on a page.

In business, white space gives us permission to challenge the status quo and to think and act in ways that are not limited by what we already know, or have the resources (and permission) to pursue.

In either case, white space is the deliberate act of making room to see, or be, or do something else.

In living our lives, it's easy to get caught up in the work we must do, the relationships we must nurture, the to-do list we must attend, that we forget to make room for new people, new experiences, new ideas.

We fill every moment with duty, and miss out on the opportunity to do nothing. Yet it is through doing nothing that we are often led to unexpected somethings: a new friend, a new hobby, a new adventure, a new idea—a whole new way of seeing, being, believing.

How do you create white space in your life?

Small talk

I loathe small talk.

Not because there's anything inherently wrong with it. In fact, it's an indispensable skill that comes in handy in a wide variety of situations, from deal-making to flirting. The problem is, I'm just not very good at it.

So when my seatmate in 3A on United's flight 19 from New York to San Francisco asked "What is the most interesting thing about you?", I was momentarily stumped—and deeply intrigued.

What a fantastic question. Rather than inspire one to share their carefully honed collection of titles and accomplishments, it inspires a different kind of inquiry and sharing—one based on our passion rather than our duty.

After a few moments, I found my answer: "I'm in love with a bunch of dead men." There was a momentary flicker of panic as his eyes grew wide and he quickly scanned the cabin for the next available seat, until he realized that I was not referring to a pile of bones buried in my backyard but to the great minds that left behind their writings and contemplations, one of whom happened to be his namesake: Marcus Aurelius.

What is the most interesting thing about you?

Little cowboy

We all have dreams. It's the one thing that makes each of us human, young and old alike. It's what allows Plato to develop the system of reason and logic, Einstein to discover the theory of relativity, and Madonna to become a world-famous "material girl." As a society, we rely on dreamers to propel us forward. Without them, life would be little more than a giant to-do list designed to keep us busy and distracted until we die. 

Dreams can last a minute, or a lifetime. The question is, what makes a dream stick? 

Last weekend my 6-year old nephew had a dream. He dreamed of a belt buckle. And for the second year in a row he put on his blue-checked cotton shirt, his black vinyl riding chaps, and a cowboy hat autographed by two bull-riding champions, and bravely clutched the fur of a startled lamb for all of three seconds. While three whole seconds didn't earn him "the" buckle, it did earn him a small stuffed bull. It also earned him a place in my heart. For having a dream and for putting himself out there, risking a mouth full of rodeo dirt for the possibility of winning a square piece of metal.

What did you dream about when you were young?