Beth Lee Connects The Dots
One of the best things about writing a book such as my Is Your Genius At Work? is that I get notes like the one below. It came from Beth Lee [Facebook link], who attended a workshop based on that book that I led in Fargo as a guest of Jodee Bock.
First, a little background. This is what I mean when I use the term “genius”:
Parrots And Pirates And Synchronous Events
“Temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events.” That barely comprehensible phrase is how Carl Jung once described what he called “synchronicity.” Fortunately, it isn’t all that hard to understand: improbable events happen that did not cause one another, and that seem connected in some way that appears to mean something that isn’t immediately obvious.
Here are three improbable events that seem connected and have happened to me recently.
First, I have been hanging out in and around the new Rio Salado Audubon Center in Phoenix, doing research for a book. I say it is improbable because, if you had told me three months ago that I would be doing that, I would have said something like, “Huh?”
Nothing To Prove
On a birthday with a zero in its number, in an unexpected flash of clarity, I understood that I have nothing to prove to anyone. The catalog of things I had tried to prove before that moment is long: that I am smart, clever and creative, that I am competent and capable, that I am successful, sexy, and insightful, that I am one of the guys during happy hour, that I belong almost anywhere I go, that I understand both the outer and inner game of baseball, that I see what is wrong with the world and what is needed, that I see what is wrong with an organization and what is needed, that I see what is wrong with you and what is needed, that I am quick-witted and funny, that I have taste and style, that I can write, and probably lots of other things that I can’t recall at the moment.
A Wonderful Thing Someone Said About You
Listen carefully and you may hear the sound that I make when I read the words below from Geetali Tare. It is a whooshing sound, a strong but gentle out-breath that begins deep inside me. I can’t seem to stop doing it right now.
Geetali, who lives in and writes about the town of Shimla, India, at her blog, Shimla Gallimaufry, offered the words in her latest post, Spreading The Love:
What’s In A Voice
He is in his early fifties and he visits his parents most Sunday mornings. When he gets out of his car in his parent’s driveway, he is the age that he is. He regresses to about eighteen by the time he says, “Hi Dad,” in the living room, and then to about twelve by the time he reaches the kitchen and says, “Hi Mom.”
He is aware of this regression because the pitch of his voice is lower than normal when he says, “Hi Dad,” and higher than normal when he says, “Hi Mom.” The lower pitch is proof to Dad that the son is now a man. The higher pitch is proof to Mom that the son is still her little boy.
