I love innovation. I love when people take the familiar and turn it upside down, inside out or on it’s side to create something new, interesting and exciting.
I am particularly fascinated when something simple is transformed into something sublime, which oddly enough is part of the definition of sublime: “to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2) : to render finer (as in purity or excellence).”
Here’s an example, when I looked-up the definition of “sublime” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, after sharing the definition, they ask:
“What made you want to look up sublime? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).”,
Which I think is very innovative, because it creates a platform for transforming the act of information seeking, i.e. looking up a word in the dictionary – into an online conversation, which is the first step in creating a sense of community and allows users to share their stories, which may deepen their sense of community, and lead to brand loyalty in the process. Capitalistic, but still sublime. (I love saying that word, if only in my head, sublime. Saying “simply sublime” is even more fun. “It was simply sublime.” I know it comes across as all uppity and fake, but if you start saying it – if even in your head – you’ll be surprised how quickly even the simplest things start seeming, well, sublime.)
Here’s another example of innovation plucked from today’s online pages of the “Writer’s Almanac”:
“On this day in 1979, Sony introduced the Walkman portable cassette player. Sony’s co-founder, Masaru Ibuka, liked to listen to music when he traveled, but he was tired of lugging a full-size cassette player with him, so he commissioned designers to come up with something more portable. Cassette player technology had been around since 1963, but Sony miniaturized it and made it portable as well as private, with no external speaker. They took the idea of the Pressman — a portable tape recorder that was popular with journalists — and removed the recording mechanism and added stereo sound. Skeptics doubted that it would sell, since it lacked recording capability, but Ibuka replied, ‘Don’t you think a stereo cassette player that you can listen to while walking around is a good idea?” “
Why, yes, I must say I, and millions of other people think it is a wonderful idea, and as we all know, an idea that has been transformed and tweaked many times since then.
And, as always, because I am me, these samples of innovation and thoughts of the sublime got me thinking about transforming and tweaking our lives.
What one thing could you improve in your life by looking at it from a different angle, turning it upside down, tweaking or transforming it, or seeking a sublime solution?
To get started, you might want to look deeply into the eyes of someone you love; pause for a moment when some bit of nature takes your breath away, or you taste something so rich and delicious, tart and tangy, or bold and spicy that it draws your attention to it and not the world around it – and then that let replicating those sensations be the model for transforming your world, because from the bottom of my heart, I believe that our worlds are meant to be sublime.
I believe that feeling that good, is not only okay, it is how we are supposed to feel – if not every moment, at least lots of the time. (And, just for the record, I’m talking about the natural high of being, enjoying, and respecting who you are and the wonderful world around you.)
And, I believe the easiest way to get there, is to capture the moments that take your breath away, store them in your memory so you know what you are shooting for, and then use them as the motivation and the model for creating the life you really want, and how rich, wonderful and rewarding your want it to feel.
I think Albert Einstein summed it up nicely:
“There are two ways to live your life : One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though every thing is a miracle.”
Have a simply sublime and wonderfully lazy long weekend.
PS To the women who just finished the Wishful Thinking Works workshop series – thanks for transforming my Thursday nights in June! Getting together with you was simply sublime.
Wishful Thinking Works 