Maybe Superman Was Simply Never Told What He Couldn't Do

The other day I went in to talk to my boss about an idea I had. Without going into too much unnecessary detail, I basically brought up some thoughts I had about changing an approach to some things we were doing. I had been thinking about some ways of revamping the current system and wanted to know what she thought about them. All I got was…

“No, you can’t do that.”

“No, that won’t work.”

“The problem with that is…”

“Everything would have to be completely rethought and changed…things that have been in place for a long time."

“Well, this is just the way things are.”

“That’s a nice idea, but…”

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

Now I’ll give her some credit because she was basically bringing up all of the realistic roadblocks and potential problems with my ideas, but I just didn’t like the way I was handled. I’d been thinking about this stuff for a long time. My plans were going to make improvements for everyone, I hoped, but then my hopes got dashed pretty quickly. And while I appreciate my boss’s feedback, I would’ve preferred a more positive approach. How about…

“That's a great idea. Let's talk about developing that. Here are some other things that you may want to consider."

Even if the end result would be that my ideas were unrealistic, at least I would’ve been encouraged to dream further and shown that new ideas are not only helpful, but also important to my own career and to the establishment I work for.

When I started really thinking about it, are we maybe told “No” too often? Are people told what they can’t do as opposed to told what they possibly could do? Sometimes those negative voices are too hard to overcome.

I often wondered how different we’d be as a species if we had no idea of limits. I know this sounds weird, but could I breathe underwater if I simply didn’t know that I couldn’t? Do people drown because that’s what they expect to happen, because that’s what we’ve been brought up knowing? You’ve certainly heard of the stories where a car rolls onto some man’s child and miraculously that man is able to lift the otherwise unliftable car off his kid. How does that happen? Is it adrenaline that somehow gives him strength that he never had, or is it fear that supercedes his knowledge of his personal limits and allows him to perform an act he never knew he could do… because he’d been made to think that he couldn't do such things? It’s so often said that humans only utilize a very small percentage of their brains. Why is that? Maybe it’s because we’re told that that’s all we can use.

I'll leave you with this: If a bird was taken as a baby and never saw its mother or another bird and was caged in a human home, would it ever know that it could fly? And with no one encouraging it, would it stay forever grounded, unaware that it had the ability to soar among the clouds?

Really now?

Ever wonder about keys? Ever wonder how it's possible that no two keys are alike? I have a hard time believing that. I've always wondered how many other Ford Explorers my Ford Explorer keys will open. Ford makes HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of these cars. They're sold all over the world. The key patterns never duplicate? Come on. Is this so that we don't try to take other people's cars? I've also wondered if I drove around hitting my garage door opener, how many other people's doors would I activate?

When I was a kid, I got locked out of my house. I asked my friend if I could borrow his key. He was stunned. I said, "Just let me see it." Sure enough, it fit right into my front door. Now it didn't open it, but it slid in perfectly. Maybe that's why I've always wondered.

Fingerprints are the same. Do you really think that no two are alike? In the billions of people who populate this Earth, none of us share the same prints... the same swirls and loops? Science tells us that this the case, but you know as well as I do that every person CURRENTLY living has not been finger-printed, and certainly not everyone who has EVER lived has been either. So therefore, how can science accurately make that claim. Maybe the better question is WHY are we being made to believe this?

Things I like... Things You Should Like

Ryan Adams is one of my favorite musicians. He's great in a lot of ways, but one thing that's cool about being an RA fan is that the guy puts out albums at a ridiculous rate. Two years ago he released three cds, one of which was a double-album, the wonderful "Cold Roses," all in one year. Some people have criticized his prolific nature... really?!? What would you prefer? A guy who puts out a couple of cd's a year, or someone who only releases a record every four or five years? Even if all of that output is sometimes uneven, at least you've got something to get your hands on! Don't forget that The Beatles released all of their work within a six year period! That's amazing. And let's not compare Ryan Adams to The Beatles per say, but get off the guy's back for working!

Anyhow, I've been going through my RA phase this summer. It happens all the time. I start listening to someone's entire catalog for some reason. In the beginning of the summer it was Bright Eyes. Then it was Jane's Addiction. Then I moved on to Pete Yorn and then The Clash. Once I listened to nothing but Bob Dylan for about six months.

So I've been going through my Ryan Adams cd's, which has coincided with the release of his latest album "Easy Tiger." What I like about RA is his great singing, his diversity of sounds, and the emotion that he puts into his songs. I know the word "heartfelt" can be a bit cliche, but at times this guy can almost make you cry. The song I can't escape is "Hard Way to Fall" from his "Jacksonville City Nights" album. It's a breakup song where the singer remembers all of these idiosyncratic details about his girl... how she reads from the back to the front of magazines, the Scotch that she drinks, how she loses her keys, etc. You realize it's a lost love song when he sings "how I miss those things." None of this is groundbreaking or anything, but it's simple and sad and direct and everything I like about music. The ending is the best. He's got the verse:

"See her smiling at him?
That used to be me...

And we used to be something,
but something happened to me."

I love that. It kills me. It kills me every time I hear it. It's so honest and sad. Best of all, I find it to be very self-critical, which most people struggle with.

So check out Ryan Adams. You won't be disappointed. And the best part is that by the time you've gotten around to buying one of his albums, he will have just released a few more.

What I Think About While You're on Your CellPhone

Ever think about the mail? Seriously, how does it work? It's mind-blowing to me to consider how the postal system actually operates. You write a letter. You put an address and a stamp on it and drop it in the mail box. A carrier picks it up and drops it off at a local post office. Somehow, that office, which receives mail from thousands of homes within its service area, is able to take that letter, separate it out with other similarly-marked mail, and send it on its way. But think about all of the options there! How many addresses could there possibly be in the postal United States? Now make that global. And somehow, I put something in the mail here in Virginia and two days later it ends up at my sister's house in Pennsylvania, or three days later at my brother's house in St. Louis. It's going from trucks, to offices, to planes, back to other offices, back to trucks, across time-zones. It's amazing.

And yet I bet if I asked the average person how the Post Office worked, they'd say, "I'm sure it's all by computer now." Yeah... that helps. Get back to your phone.