There are many defintions of reinvention, all having to do with “producing something new based on something that already exists.” (Cambridge English Dictionary)
But as many human beings who inhabit the earth, are as many ways to reinvent. Which is a number way beyond millions. To make this real in physical terms, I searched terms for reinvention in an online thesaurus. There are at least 18 words for reinvention. I focus on one in this video: Revitalize.
What does reinvention mean for you?
When have you been faced or are faced with having to reinvent yourself? If there is anything you learned from that crucial moment, please either share in the comments or message me.
On the nature of questions, thought and a bit beyond
Unless you’re in a philosophy class, you probably don’t ponder the nature of what a question is. And even if in a philosophy class, you’re likely taught to know great thinkers and their works; apply that to thinking in current times and maybe, just maybe reflect upon how this might apply to your life. But as to the question of the origin of a real question, and in particular, how that originiates inside ones being – that is, from ones subjective experience – that isn’t taught much in school, or really anywhere.
Ad to this the fact that popular understanding of the meaning of a question is uninspiring and not reflective of life’s splendor. Here’s an example of what I mean. The English (online) Oxford Dictionary offers the following definitions:
A Question (noun)
A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information; A doubt about the truth or validity of something; A matter requiring resolution or discussion; A matter or concern depending on or involving a specified condition or thing.
Questioning (verb)
To ask questions, especially in an official context; To feel or express doubt, raise objections.
It’s not that these definitions are wrong, it’s that they are incomplete and reflect nothing of the heart and pulse of a great question – the kind that are born raw and wordless. The kind that make us human and remind us that we are human…just by virtue of the fact that we can feel the impulse to wonder.
So you can imagine my thrill when reading about what Socrates had to say about the vibrancy and power of a question in a book titled, Why Can’t We Be Good, by Jacob Needleman. One section in particular, grabbed my attention because it talked about the possibility of questions that arise when thought (eg., the busy-mind) slows down or even stops. Needleman describes experiences in nature, among other situations, where he had early impressions of this quality of stopping inside that allowed for something different.
And so I ventured on my morning walk with the idea in mind of attending to what in nature compells me to stop, and be still inside. A simple experiment. But as the saying goes, that which is simple is often not easy.
And this is no exception.
Glorious!
Reference
Why Can’t We Be Good, by Jacob Needleman, 2007 Penguin Group.
It’s a well established fact that being in nature is good for body, mind and soul. But when in nature, do we listen, or do we stay plugged in to our music, our thoughts, our need to label and define what we see. The power of nature is that it provides conditions to listen and by doing so bring inside oneself a moment of not knowing, not being in the head. What a gift that is.
Resources
There are hundreds of tree deities, here is one of many links to inspire:
My story starts a bit over two years ago when I reinserted/forced myself (with the support of a dear friend) into my dad’s life. After several decades of failed attempts and disappointing encounters, I had almost given up.
This time would be different. After showing up at his doorstep, he let me in. We visited for a short while and then I left. I began calling him once monthly. After a few months, a connection developed. Not great, but much better than past decades. Most importantly, I let go of all expectations of what a father should be. …which allowed him to be. (Funny how that works). And, new for me, I didn’t trample myself in the process. In other words, it was an empowered surrender.
We shared a few nice visits together in the next year and a half, in part thanks to my brother, John who insisted we bring Thanksgiving dinner to him in 2014. It’s quite amazing the healing that can happen in the sharing of a single meal. Having that time together was good, but actually wanting to have that time together was the real fulfillment for me…maybe for dad too. I don’t know.
And then one day, I got a call from the sheriff’s office in Northern California. Dad’s body was found in front of his house, shot in the head. He was in critical condition and was being airlifted to the hospital. An hour later, I got a call from the Coroner who told me he had died on the way and that it appeared to be suicide.
It was early afternoon on April the 28th, 2015. I live alone and the fact that it was mid-workday meant that nearby friends and neighbors were not around. But I needed human contact immediately. I went to the corner laundry mat where Lottie the laundry lady, who after numerous chats while doing my laundry over the years, has become a friend. I barely told her what happened when she stopped what she was doing and just hugged me. I went from not breathing to sobbing and gasping for air to a settled calmness while in her arms. She saved me in that moment.
I went back to my apartment and called my brother to tell him. Obviously, extremely difficult for both of us. And though difficult, I also felt a moment of relief that I’d said all I wanted to say to him from the place in my heart I wanted to say it. That is to say, from a place of love.
But the miracle of repercussions from healing a painful relationship doesn’t end here.
A couple of hours after getting the terrible news of my dad, I received a call from a tissue procurement specialist….aka an individual who makes the first call to family members of individuals who’ve just died, with the goal of determining whether the recently deceased loved one qualifies to be a tissue donor. I’ll spare you the details, but will say that the roughly two hour process, spread over the course of three separate phone conversations with four different individuals was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. But I hung in there and remained on the phone, responding to questions as well as I could while at the same time, trying to be present to my own experiencing of acute grief.
The net/net is that my dad’s tissues couldn’t be used because of a time delay with the coroner…so the intake process was for not.
This didn’t work for me. I’ve got a little dictator in my head that’s always saying -“dam it, rob, make something good out of this”. It’s a bugger of a demon, but sometimes its useful. This was one of those times.
I put on my Consultant hat and wrote down all my notes from my experience with the tissue procurement specialist over the phone based on what didn’t work, but also on what did work. It resulted in a three-page spreadsheet with some basic principles. I resolved to reach out (code for: cold call) to any organ/tissue donor organization who’d listen and with whom I could share my experience and feedback. Maybe in a small way, I could make a difference from this tragedy after all.
I called at least 25 different organizations around the country – 3 of which responded, and 1 of which actually made time for a one to one conversation. (These stats are not atypical. Despite the fact that we are supposedly in a “customer – centric” era, most folks don’t actually give their time…that’s what makes the rest of this story even more amazing.)
After an hour-long conversation with Lisa Stocks, the Executive Director of Lifesharing, the donor agency for San Diego, affiliated with UCSD, we both shed some tears. She assured me that my input would be considered in their training. This was my goal: to make a positive difference. What an amazing way to complete the loop of my connection, however troubled, with my dad. To give life through helping to improve communication.
I leapt with joy inside.
Several months later, I received an email from Lisa. She asked me to come speak to her group about my experience. A couple of months later, I did so. And though my speech was quite imperfect (eg., I exploded with emotion just walking into the room with face and eyes red and full of tears), I think I conveyed to those listening, the power (and importance) of being present and being human when you’re on the phone with another human being who is going through what might be the most difficult moment in their life.
That was a couple of months ago, and since then I’ve shifted my coaching/training business from Sales Communication to one focused more on difficult/important communication or situations.
Lisa has since provided me with a wonderful testimonial, which feels good of coarse, but it’s even more fulfilling to know that something useful and hopefully beneficial to others can be the outcome of a really tragic situation.
When I was 7 years old I made a trip to England to meet my grandparents on my fathers side for the first time. It was a special trip for many reasons, including meeting my friend Tom Spriggs.
Tom was a trusted neighbor and friend of my grandparents. He and his wife were the first to welcome them to Sway when they relocated there to retire. Sway was and still is a quaint and lovely village in Hampshire England, large enough to have a grocery store (or maybe a few by now), but small enough to formerly qualify as a village according to English standards – larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town.
My grandmother told me that Tom was a soft-spoken and private man made even more so after the loss of his beloved wife a few years earlier. She had taken it upon herself with characteristic British cheerful dutifulness to include Tom in her day-to-day life and social engagements. My grandfather, who I called Grandpop, built a doorway in the wood fence between their houses to make this easier and encourage visits for afternoon teas’.
I met Tom the second day of my trip while swinging on the fence in front of my grandparents’ house. I don’t recall our first conversation but remember that his gentle manner made me trust him immediately. For the afternoons that followed, he’d invite me for tea or show me his green room with rows of thriving tomato plants or we’d walk the two blocks to downtown Sway where there was a bed and breakfast and pub with pigs and chickens in the backyard.
It may seem odd that a 7 year old child and 60 year old man would have enough in common for a conversation, but we did, and we had many of them. We’d talk about all kinds of things. I told him about the dirt farm I made back home for lizards and slugs that despite its 3 inch mud-clay walls, failed to stop the creatures from escaping after an hour or so. I shared my love of sitting amongst the cornhusks in our garden, munching raw corn while dad hacked down the dead dry grass in the summer time. And that the reason I pressed wild flowers was so I could look at them when I felt sad to remember feeling happy.
Tom, a retired train conductor, told me about his travels throughout England and the interesting people he met along the way. He confided about his life before, when he was a soldier in WWI and how he endured trench warfare for an entire month without food. He was a teenager, one of 250,000 volunteers under the age of 19 to answer the call to fight. England had only 700,000 in the armed forces at the beginning of the war, compared to Germanys’ 3.7 million. He didn’t say much about his experience, just that it was hard to say anything at all.
The thing I remember most about our conversations, more so than what we talked about was how they felt. I was free because Tom was never in a rush. He always had time to chat, or at least, he seemed to. Not just for me, but anyone who crossed his path. Talking with him gave me the same feeling I had when watching the ocean or looking up at the sky through the branches of a cherry blossom tree.
I felt this calmness in nature all the time, but rarely in conversation and almost never in conversation with adults, with their agendas, and assumptions, and hopes and interpretations. With Tom it was different. I remember saying something, then waiting for his response and having the distinct impression of him reflecting on what he was going to say in a way that was both connected to our conversation and me and simultaneously connected to something within him that was also impersonal, infinite. The pauses between our interactions and even his tender and authentic delivery of his words gave me an entirely new experience of what conversation could be like.
Before leaving England, Tom and I agreed to continue our conversation through letters. Decades before the internet existed and at a time when long distance phone calls could get expensive, this was about the only option we had. Thank goodness…I doubt email would have been an equally satisfying replacement to the experience of reading a good letter.
We would write one another for many years to come until Tom’s death at 78. I was twenty-five.
Our correspondance of 18 years taught me about the power of consistency in love and friendship. In a word, patience.
When I was 7 years old I made a trip to England to meet my grandparents on my fathers side for the first time. It was a special trip for many reasons, including meeting my friend Tom Spriggs.