Category: Wonder and Awe

Interesting day yesterday. Got to see Rick Belluzzo, Lou Holtz, Rudy Giuliani, Krish Dhanam, Bob Kittell, Terry Bradshaw, Goldie Hawn,  Colin Powell, James Smith, Brian Tracy, Stephen Pierce, Bill Cosby, and Stanley McChrystal. The experience was helpful.

Of course, there’s no hope for posting something meaningful and brief that touches on all of their words. I’ll stick with just one impression. It came while listening to Colin Powell.

He described life as the Secretary of State: airplane always at the ready, red carpet, kings and heads of state clamoring for his attention, and Diet Coke served on a platter. The whole thing. Yet there he was, 6 years 3 months and 17 days after he left office, standing in the Quicken Loans Arena speaking after Goldie Hawn and before James Smith. No personal jet. No red carpet. No official diplomacy. And his Diet Coke came out of a vending machine. American royalty one day, American citizen the next. Power transferred peacefully and every American had something to say about it. And no blood was spilled.

When viewed in the context of world history and human nature, I witnessed nothing short of a miracle.

There’s joy in arranging various sizes and types of wood both prior to and after striking the match. Wood and heat and air all have their qualities. To arrange things in such a way that heat engenders more heat is fun. Where should the next log go? Is the kindling fine enough? Dry enough? What will catch next? Does that thick smoke mean that something is heating up or cooling down? What can I do with this fire the way it’s burning now?

As the tender, there is joy in the dance. I don’t make wood burn — at temperature, it does that on its own. Yet I can arrange things in such a way that stuff happens. Business, relationships, music, visual arts, athletics, automobiles, gardening, etc. all offer similar opportunities to get on the dance floor with people, phenomenon, and materials.

I enjoy it anyway.

Flu is a awful thing. It takes over — temporary catatonia.

Then, in what feels like the depths of it all, it breaks. Just like that. Even though there’s still a period of reconstruction ahead, the war is over.

How does that work? As a matter of emotioned curosity, what if this immune system, which I’m told my body has, doesn’t work? What would that be like? Beyond diet and exercise, how can I support these functions over which I essentially have no control? Unlike hunger or thirst or an itch, why doesn’t the body ask me to do something other than be still? Am I really just a passenger in this unimaginably complex creature?

So, I ordered something on the 16th, left Shenzhen, China on the 18th. It just arrived at my door (1:45pm EDT on the 21st) by way of Hong Kong, Japan, Anchorage, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and the sprawling metropolis of Bedford Heights – and I could “watch” it as it made its way.

Google does give me a route if I had wanted to pick it up myself. It’s only 23,016 miles requiring 79 days and 9 hours and suggests both a jetski and a kayak for various parts of the trip. There are a few tolls I didn’t bother with adding up – too lazy to do the currency conversions.

Oh, and the shipping on the order was free.

I’m still trying to understand having running water.