UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING BLOG

First thing this morning, Sky and I ventured into the world of swirling white snow that laid in drifts as far as we could see. It had blown and snarled all night, whistling through the dark, fierce in its cold and its ice.

But as day broke, it was as gorgeous as it was calm and benign and we set out to take stock of it all. More than that, to revel in it like children exploring something so awesome that is sets the mind afire and makes everything possible.

As we zigzagged through the virgin white terrain–everything pure and unmarred–it was as if the landscape was a canvas upon which I could write my thoughts. My dreams. My aspirations. I truly felt as if God was challenging me to write on the snow, something worthy of the immense beauty he laid before me.

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In business–as in all of the complexities of life–decision-making is a fuzzy logic process. You think through the pros and cons, the upside and downsides, the good, the bad and the evil. And you are often left in the fog of conflicting input, uncertain of the direction you should take. The choice you should make.

In the end, we do have to decide: we must make a decision. Conventional wisdom holds that it is wise to take plenty of time, to absorb and consider all of the issues, to contemplate, to  reflect and to avoid hasty decisions at all costs. In effect, to remain floating upside down in the grey area for as long we need.

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Whenever new lovers kiss for the first time, when they link their arms and clink champagne flutes and then waltz off to bed to get lost in each other, they may be different couple by couple in a zillion ways but one thing runs like a thread through them all: they are absolutely certain that this love, this passion, this week-old intensity, will last forever. Will burn so fiery hot it will give the sun a run for its money.

At the moment of ignition, this is not a hope. It is a deeply held belief. It seems that absolutely nothing in all of the heavens and earth can detract in any way from the magnetic force field that makes it near impossible to be apart for a day, an hour, a minute. This love, this romance, appears to be one for the books. Written in stone.

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Actually, I have hardly any idea of the science Albert knew and even invented.  Sure I understand the broad outlines of relativity, but only in the same way that I have a crude and naïve understanding of how Hendrix turned guitars into chaotic and passionate love affairs.

But I believe that I do know the most important thing Einstein knew: that our world, our universe, our lives–none of it is what it appears to be. Another dimension, perhaps an infinite series of dimensions, exists above and beyond the tangible and linear movie that goes on in front of our small and believing eyes.

The patent clerk who had the greatest epiphany in the history of life put it all in a neat little five character equation and then walked away, leaving the world tilted upside its head:

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It was just about a year and a half ago when my dear, sweet, polar bear of a golden retriever Blue died. I cried for a month. I couldn’t bare being in the house without him. I dreaded opening the door on my return without his joyous greeting. Carol and I went to a hotel to get a break from it all. We cried there instead.

I shared this all with you. And if you recall I swore I would never get another dog again, to spare myself the pain. And then within a month, Carol and I visited a breeder, our eyes turned to a tiny Golden with a blue ribbon around his neck, we swooped him up in our arms, named him Sky and brought him home.

He has changed my life and taught me an enduring lesson. Every morning we leave the house for a mini hike. He roars out of the door and throws himself out into the woods, sailing over rocks, chasing deer, chewing branches and when there is ice or snow on the ground (such as this morning), laying down and sliding as far as the momentum will take him. Everything is an adventure, a joy, a miracle to him (as it should be to all of us).

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