The Eye of the Storm

Storm clouds just passed by our Florida coast and are now gathering above the late October northeastern skies.  In the midst of it all, gazing upward, it is easy to ask big questions.  Looking at the changing cloud patterns above, connections emerge to our human behavioral patterns below. 

'Clouds' are all the buzz this week as the pop culture film, Cloud Atlas, opened in theaters.  The film left me disappointed, but I was able to exit the theater with one philosophical nugget from the book by David Mitchell: "My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” ―  The truth of that statement as it applies to 'meaning of life' questions led me to ask, what the heck is a Cloud Atlas?   Since authors and filmmakers are known for giving away clues in a title,  it seemed like a good starting point to find out if there were any other philosophical nuggets worth mining. 

Interestingly enough, a cloud atlas was an early tool for studying the weather- a collection of visual images to identify different types of clouds and how those clouds predict weather patterns. We humans, like clouds, fall into some pretty predictable patterns ourselves.  We create emotional storms via the 'butterfly effect' from one tiny negative thought, leading to a not-so-tiny negative act, leading to a massive misunderstanding. It would be nice to have an atlas to navigate around particularly dangerous swells. (Maybe Twitter and Facebook are currently serving this purpose since I have now learned to steer clear of the angriest posts and people.)

Conversely, a single positive thought (as in right now -this second)  may generate a single kind act - which could build a wave of kindness surging beyond any one lifetime.  Clear heads and clear skies seem connected in ways that parallel dark thoughts and dark skies, yet our world is absolutely defined by the existence of both.  Our planet and our souls cannot flourish without the changing pressures.  Good things and bad things happen because the flower needs the rain.  It is silly to believe any one of us could thrive sitting under a perpetually cloudless sky.  The challenge is to avoid getting blown over by approaching storms.  In order to withstand the weather life brings, we need to mimic the eye of the storm.  Find that place of relative calm within.  With this mastered, we become empowered to understand what it takes to be the pressure system actually causing sunny skies to follow,  for ourselves and everyone else in our atmosphere.

Do You See What Eyes See?

Looking at the October sky last night,  it dawned on me that the obvious answer to the question, "Do you see what I see?" is most certainly, unequivocally, under any and all circumstances,  "no".   "Seeing" is a complicated endeavor, an action with variables unique to each and every receptacle. When we see, we use both our eyes and our brain.  Basic science tells us that our individual lenses and brains follow snowflake logic: no two are the same. Hence, no two 'viewings' are the same either.  

The greatest factor in this lens-brain equation is, of course, the brain. Our brains both reflect and affect what our eyes see in any given situation. Presidential debate watchers Wednesday evening saw the same debate, yet our preconceived beliefs affected what drew our focus.  We know this, but always seem surprised when others don't share our take-away. As a person who has spent my life trying to persuade others to see things the way I do, I am only recently coming to realize that no one ever will.  And therein lies the beauty.  Only the beholder gets to judge because we each construct our own path to the truth. 

Wisdom seekers have long recognized that the goal is to see beyond what is before our eyes.  The true gift of sight rests not with the eyes, and not even with the brain.  Transcendent understanding involves a third element;  insight. Unlike eyesight, which is dependent on the physical world around us, insight emerges from the intangible world within us.  Insight connects what the eyes and mind often cannot.  Atticus was able to teach this to Scout, and Obi-Wan to Luke, so perhaps there is hope for the likes of me yet.

Opposites Detract

Maybe it is me, but lately everywhere I look I see polarization.  While I am no expert when it comes to science, I know enough to understand that polar climates do not yield much growth.  As a huge fan of passionate discourse, I respect the allure of loyalty when it comes to belief systems, but I feel surrounded by bickering camps watching the truth get lost in the middle.

With this Capulet vs. Montague mentality, where for art thou, 'good ideas'?  The obvious example is our current national election.  As an educator, I try very hard to respect all points of view, keeping my own somewhat under wraps.  Similarly, our school hopes to teach our young people to decide on the issues, and not on the spin. We are finding it more and more difficult to have dialogues on separate matters because most things are bundled as part of an agenda that is 'liberal' or 'conservative'; 'democrat' or 'republican'.  Heaven forbid that we land on an opinion that does not fall squarely in one camp or the other.  If so, we find ourselves as the only baby seals at a shark party.  Since when was our country about bullying those who disagree with our point of view? Have the open minded become a silent majority? A huge minority?

This increasing encampment and 'bundling' extends beyond political ideology.  Realizing that many people came to this country seeking free expression because theirs had run out of room for particular beliefs,  it seems obvious that intolerance is a sure way to poison a society.  We must cultivate a climate rich with diverse gems of thought and original ideas.  Every person should enjoy the right to bask in the warmth of respectful discussion, because that is the only way we learn.  Our collective failure to listen pushes us further and further away from the ideal, and ever closer to the icy caps of  righteousness, devoid of a single true and noble thing. 

That said, the remedy for our 'global swarming' is to seek to understand, not to be understood.  Let's find footing on truth and not on the unstable platforms currently floating adrift.  To borrow from my father (who borrowed from the ancient Greeks),  "there is a reason we have two ears and only one mouth..."

Under Pressure

August is a pressure filled month in schools, and ours is no exception.  In the midst of the August rush, I found an unexpected wave of insight while pressure washing my sidewalk.  Specifically, the efforts of my labor made me smile as, inch by inch, each strip of dirt on the sidewalk disappeared, leaving a shiny clean spot in its place.  How satisfying, I thought, to see results like this!  Wouldn't it be great if I could get these results in all aspects of my life?  Then it hit me.  Intense concentration of like efforts is the only way to garner results whether your work is pressure washing, educating children, or coordinating a space probe to Mars.

Finding the proper application of intense concentration is a finely tuned initiative; aim too high and you lose accuracy, causing your efforts to wash over your target without actually getting what you had hoped.  Aim too low,  and the overflow spills back at you, again missing the mark.  So to my my digital friends, I leave you with this: we find success as the result of collective, continuous pressure, aimed exactly in the right direction,  from exactly the proper vantage point.  Miss any part of this formula and you risk losing a foot (or a student's 'ah ha' moment, or maybe even evidence of a Martian...). 

A View from the Top

I am pretty good at hiding the fact that I don't always practice what I preach. As some of you know, the mantra I incessantly repeat is 'carpe diem', or 'seize the day'. A few years ago, an amazingly insightful woman named Dale called me out in a moment of cowardice, exclaiming in front of a group of my colleagues, "I'm not buying this carpe diem stuff from you unless you get out of that seat, fasten yourself in, and enjoy the glorious view from way above the back of this boat!" It was her 60th birthday and she had convinced a group of us to celebrate by going para sailing along the sunny Florida coastline. So let me tell you the whole story.

I was terrified of the very idea of para sailing. This fear, however did not trump my social need to join in on a group bonding opportunity, so I quickly came up with a plan. I could cleverly masquerade as the adventurous type without having to actually partake in the specific adventure. With camera in hand, I hopped onto the boat claiming to be the group 'photographer'. It was a perfect ploy. No one would notice that I wasn't going to actually do anything brave. I could hence get the reward without the risk. Forget being strapped to a parachute, dangling high in the air, connected only by a skimpy little harness. I would leave that to my friends as I safely kept both feet on the boat, snapping photos to document the memory.

The boat pulled away, out into the open water. One by one, each of my friends conquered their fear to capture a breathtaking ariel view of the marine life below. They laughed, hugged, and thanked Dale for the gift of this birthday adventure. I played along, pretending that I too had some part in this collective bravery. As the boat started to turn for shore, Dale smiled, winked at me with a sparkle in her eye and called me out on my trickery. "Your turn, Miss Carpe Diem", she said. "Oh, but I have my camera and it's time to get back, " I muttered in response. The respect I hold for her will keep me from sharing the actual word she used to describe my lame attempt at avoiding imminent danger. Suffice it to say, in a nano-second, I was strapped into that harness, with her by my side, hearing only a ringing in my ears when we were hoisted into the air.

My heart raced as I white-knuckled the side straps. I closed my eyes, feeling the air lift us from the deck. "Open your eyes", she said. When I did, I first saw only her hands waving at everyone below. Then I focused on the boat becoming smaller and smaller beneath us. "Oh, look, dolphins", she said, pointing off to my left. In that second I got out of my head and into the moment. I saw the water sparkle as the dolphins swam around in the turquoise shallowness near the rocks. I felt the warmth of the sun, the softness of the breeze, and taste of salt water. Dale looked at me and said, "There you go, now you've got it."

Some people know how to talk a talk, and some people are brave enough to put real legs on ideas in order to actually take them somewhere. Dale was that kind of person. She served as a teacher, and ultimately as the Head of School at the same school for almost 30 years. She volunteered on numerous Boards and was highly regarded by all in her profession as a true leader. Last week, in a horrible moment, she was killed by a troubled employee whom she had fired earlier that day. When I heard the news, the first thing I saw were her hands. As clearly as I saw them when we were suspended in the air, admiring dolphins swimming below.

In the days that followed her death, people told stories about how she used river rocks to help ponder difficult decisions. She encouraged students, faculty members and friends to do the same. A basket of river rocks sat on her desk, each imprinted with different words that might somehow have meaning to the holder. A dear mutual friend shared that at her memorial service on Friday, thousands of mourners were each given a river rock, lovingly inscribed with different words painted by the children at Dale's school.

My friend knew I couldn't make it and kindly selected one for me. He said he didn't look at what was written on each rock right away, but instead waited until he got back to his office. When he took them out of his pocket, knowing all about our para sailing adventure, he said only one of the rocks was clearly meant for me. On mine was the word "uplift".

Despite the sadness of her loss, I am gratefully reminded of the most important job any teacher, parent, spouse or friend can have. We must pull each other out of our fears and into our life's great adventure. If we fake it even for a second, we risk missing a fantastic right now. I honor my friend by remembering what she taught me - carpe diem isn't something to say. It is something to do. I had best get busy.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Here in Florida it feels as though it has been raining for a solid month. While grumbling about this constant deluge, I remembered the six year old version of me first learning two key lessons about rain. Lesson number one: people pay a lot of attention to you, especially in a crowded place, if you put your curly hair in pigtails, smile, and sing the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"- just like your grandparents asked you to do. Lesson number two: old people seem to know a lot about the weather.

Since I am now just a few years beyond the age of six, it is probably a fine time to revisit what I know about rain (putting all the meteorological details aside). My current depth of understanding of lesson number one (pigtails, smile and crowd-pleasing singing) is still useful, but in a less literal sense. A child of six is unencumbered by the baggage of adulthood. Six year olds smile so easily and they can be talked into doing almost anything to please others, especially their grandparents. When I think back on those impromptu performances, part of me wants to express a nostalgic yearning for the simpler times of a bygone era, but quite frankly, I know it isn't the cheesy seventies that I miss. I miss my six year old world view.

The song "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" had a simple melody and lighthearted lyrics. The moral of the tune was somewhere close to this: 'you can't stop the rain by complaining, so choose to be happy now because the sun will soon return'. Regardless of the weather outside, we are are free to make ourselves feel sunny or rainy on any given day.

At six, you can make others feel sunny by singing a silly song out loud in an ordinary crowded place on an otherwise ordinary, perhaps gray day. As a grownup, you could still try that trick but someone might be tempted to call a doctor. Instead, my adult take-away from childhood lesson number one: Change the weather in your mind and turn yourself into a sun lamp for others. Do this not only because your singing voice might be one only your grandparents could love, do it because humanity's emotional climate matters more than any high or low pressure system blowing in from the west.

The modern relevance of childhood lesson number two: (old people know a lot about the weather) is simple. My mom and my grandparents used to sing a song called "You are My Sunshine" to me every time I saw them -until I was old enough to be embarrassed by this fact. As a little person of six, I truly believed I was that important to them. What I had partially forgotten in the many years in between six and now, was that the people you love really are worth singing about. It shouldn't be embarrassing and we should never be too busy to let each other know that we are, really, each other's sunshine. It is our job to weather storms, imagined or real, by keeping the inside lights on.

Wise old people know the difference between real sunshine, real rain, and the weather that comes and goes. While I am chronologically at a place where I should know this in both my heart and my head, I am still learning how to be consistent with the heart part, specifically how to truly enjoy singing in the rain. I know where to find the sunshine if I am not too busy looking outside. Where is Burt Bacharach when you need him? Or Gene Kelly for that matter? Or maybe I could use Rihanna's umbrella, ella, ella....

A Room with a View

As I sit here today with my Starbucks on my left and iPad on my right, I admit that I am an 'experience junkie'. Somewhere in my journey from childhood to my current self, it became critical for me to have 'atmosphere' in the smallest of things. What I now see, however, is that I often trade in 'manufactured' experiences while missing the real thing all together.

In looking at my craving for 'experiences', I came to three conclusions. First, coffee does not cost four dollars, but I am willing to pay that ridiculous price for a moment of 'me-time' just before work every day. Second, while I live less than a mile from the ocean, I am willing to pay for a vacation hotel room with a 'view' of the ocean, rather than dip my toes in it on any given day. Finally, third, I am willing to pay small fortunes to Target and Amazon to decorate my house like a madwoman for every holiday, in anticipation of enjoying quality family time therein, yet somehow the holidays come and go without enough memories to match the countless glittering light display spectacles.

My new assignment, as a result of this epiphany, is to stop decorating an imaginary experience and remember the value of living in a real one. A real one gets messy sometimes and not everything is in order. As a school leader, I have been tempted to solve countless problems while trapped in my office at my computer, with a mobile phone, an iPad and work line all buzzing and dinging at the same time. I host meeting after meeting to discuss quality experiences for the students while the very same wonderful students are celebrating a fiesta for Spanish class upstairs, or are in the courtyard reading to a specially trained dog, or are engaged in a debate on the national debt in the library. The lesson for me is calling as I finish typing this sentence.

Out of my office window, I see a group of high school students heading for the bus to leave for a college tour. One of those students is my sixteen year old son. I realize all too clearly that most of what I am busy orchestrating is simply happening around me with or without my planning. It is better to steal a moment at breakfast with my son, enjoying my 50 cent homemade coffee. It is better to go swimming in the ocean than to sit in an expensive room and look at it. And it is far better laugh with loved ones sans the glittering lights than to lose oneself in the details of an orchestration. While I will never leave all of the glitter, Starbucks or planning meetings behind, I will be sure to keep those things right where they belong- simply as window dressing to a beautiful day spent hand in hand with the people who matter most. Carpe diem!