Oh, No is that them Again?
My family always have teased my son, as I was always teased as a youth by many. Let me explain, There are those who see things one way and others who see the same thing another way. Most of us would be happy to have the insight to see things the way the majority see something, or at least to see it as the rest do. My son and I have never ever seemed able to settle for that.
I can still hear my mother saying to me, " If there are a right and a wrong as sure as sure you will be determined and need to find another way altogether. Never happy to just see things like everybody else." She was convinced that I was like this just to be awkward and such thinking always got me into trouble or at least being frowned on.
It was only years later I was having a debate with a group of friends about a certain topic. The friends were divided into two groups each arguing their corner. As usual, I suggested a third way, "Here we go again said one of my friends. Always got to see it different." An older gentleman who was sitting and listening leaned over and said to me, "Stick with it son your idea is full of insight."
For the first time, I no longer felt like an oddball I felt I had a valuable contribution to make worthy of being heard. Probably the first step on my journey of search to find the meaning and the worth of my existence.
It is worth the while being different, it will not always be comfortable,, but if it brings a new way of seeing that leads to insight it is worth the discomfort.
The class of noisy boys in a German primary school was being punished by their teacher.
They were assigned the problem of adding together all the numbers from 1 to 100.
The boys settled down, scribbling busily on their slates, all but one.
This boy looked off into space for a few moments, then wrote something on his slate and turned it in. This was the only correct answer.
When the amazed teacher asked how he did it, the boy replied, "I thought there might be some shortcut, and I found one: 100 plus 1 is 101; 99 plus 2 is 101; 98 plus 3 is 101, and, if I continued the series all the way to 51 plus 50, I have 101 50 times, which is 5,050."
After this episode, the young scholar received special tutoring from his teacher. The boy was Karl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest if not the greatest mathematician of the 19th century.
He saw a problem and he saw a new way to reach a solution, insight.
Another very true story of somebody prepared to look at things slightly different from everybody else is that of Elias Howe.
He had spent ages trying to invent the sewing machine but was having problems with how to locate the eye of the needle.
He was rapidly running out of money and ideas when one night he had a peculiar dream.
He was being led to his execution for failing to design a sewing machine for the king of a strange country. He was surrounded by guards, all of whom carried spears that were pierced near the head. Realising instantly that this was the solution to his problem, Howe woke up and rushed straight to his workshop.
By nine o'clock that morning the design of the first sewing machine was well on the way to completion.
After inspecting the machinery at length, he marked an "X" on a defective part and billed GE for $10,000. The company protested, asking for an itemization.
Steinmetz's reply read simply: Making one chalk mark $1.00 Knowing where to place it $9,999.00
It is often good to take a slightly different look at the problems of life it is the case that there just might be another solution staring you in the face. The biggest curse of life are the words, "We have always done it this way." Go on just for once do it another way it just might be the way of insight.
As the great sage said, "To perceive the subtle is to have true vision."
Have a glorious day may you dream dreams that bring joy try something a bit different who knows what might become of it.
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