“Anything truly novel is invented only during one’s youth”

This summer I read Walter Isaacson’s illuminating biography of Albert Einstein, the man who is widely considered to be the greatest thinker of the 20th Century. In 1905, when he was only 26 years old, he published four groundbreaking papers that forever changed the way people understood space, time, mass, gravity and energy.

By the time Einstein turned 40 in 1919, at a moment when he was struggling to devise a unified theory of matter, he complained to a friend that “Anything truly novel is invented only during one’s youth. Later, one becomes more experienced, more famous – and more blockheaded“.

Einstein’s frustration at his diminished capabilities as he aged is a phenomenon that is considered common with mathematicians and physicists who seem to make their greatest contributions to science before they turn 40. Einstein remarked to a colleague that as he got older he felt his intellect slowly becoming crippled and calcified.

Why does this happen? In Einstein’s case, it was partly because his early successes had come from his rebellious traits. In his youth, there was a link between his creativity and his willingness to defy authority and the universally accepted cosmological laws of his day. He had no sentimental attachment to the old order and was energized at the chance to show that the accepted knowledge was wrong or incomplete. His stubbornness worked to his advantage.

After he turned 40, his youthful rebellious attitudes were softened by the comforts of fame, renown, riches and a comfortable home. He became wedded to the faith of preserving the certainties and determinism of classical science – leading him to reject the uncertainties inherent in the next great scientific breakthrough, quantum mechanics. His stubbornness began working to his disadvantage as he got older.

It was a fate that Einstein began fearing years before it happened. He wrote after finishing his most groundbreaking papers: “Soon I will reach the age of stagnation and sterility when one laments the revolutionary spirit of the young“. In one of his most revealing statements about himself, Einstein complained: “To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself“. He found it even harder as he got older acknowledging “the increasing difficulty a man past fifty always has adapting to new thoughts”.

Einstein brilliance is beyond compare, but I can relate to his observation about doing your best work when you are young. When I look back at my personal life and work career, I recognize that I was at my most ambitious and innovative during the decades of my 20’s and 30’s.

My adult life exploded with big events in 1982, the year that I turned 22. In the timespan of that one year I managed to graduate from college, marry my college sweetheart, start my first professional job as an engineer, buy a new house and a new car, and learn that my wife and I were going to become first-time parents. I remember filling out a survey designed to measure the amount of stress in your life during that eventful year and being surprised when the calculated stress numbers registered so high that they indicated I should be dead!

But all of it was exhilarating to me at that point in my life. I was experiencing new things and accumulating knowledge like a sponge. I knew that my growing family would be counting on me to be a good provider – which gave me the incentive I needed to focus on building a stable career.

I was determined to be successful in my engineering role and threw myself into learning everything I possibly could about the company I worked for as well as the electronic test and measurement equipment that they manufactured.

Many of my co-workers had graduated from more prestigious universities than me and I felt that I had something to prove. I wanted to make a name for myself and grow my reputation and value within the company by making important contributions to the projects to which I was assigned.

I took several continuing education engineering classes at night to improve my knowledge of subject areas that I knew would be helpful to me at work, I sought out brilliant co-workers who could mentor me and give me wise advice on how to approach complex technical projects, and I questioned everything – wondering if there might be a better solution to the problems we were trying to solve.

This drive in my early career to be successful enabled me to do my most innovative and important work for the company during the decades of my 20’s and 30’s. In the span of my first 18 years working for the company, I was awarded two patents, helped develop multiple new test products which generated millions of dollars for the company, created automated software regression tests significantly lowering product development times while improving software quality, and published frequent technical articles for industry conferences and trade journals.

By the time I turned 40, I could point to many important career milestones and had achieved recognition as a top performer and leader within the company. The rewards of my hard work were a comfortable home and financial independence. With this success I began to have feelings of contentment that lessened my drive to take on new projects or solve interesting problems. I became comfortable and happy with life as it was – I no longer felt the need to over-extend myself.

I was satisfied to rest on my past achievements and to take on less tasking roles that would improve the product in evolutionary, rather than revolutionary ways. Over time, I became the wise, experienced, older mentor to younger employees who came to me for advice and direction.

I felt okay with that transition as I considered it my good fortune to be in a situation where I was able to share my knowledge with a new generation of ambitious young people who were ready to make their own marks on the world by inventing novel new solutions that were now beyond me. In some ways, being a part of those collaborative efforts made me feel better than my individual personal accomplishments.

The famous journalist Ed Bradley once interviewed Bob Dylan in 1998 on the television show 60 minutes, at a time when he was approaching 60 years old. During the course of the interview, Bradley asked Bob what the source of inspiration was for his famous early songs, the ones that led to him being recognized as the voice of a generation while he was still only in his 20’s.

Dylan replied that his early songs were almost magically written and that he felt some kind of power, outside of himself, flowing through him while was writing them. When Bradley asked if he could still tap into that penetrating magic now in his songwriting, Dylan paused and said; “No, I don’t know how I got to write those songs“. Bradley followed up and asked if that disappointed him, Dylan replied softly; “Well you can’t do something forever and I did it once… and I can do other things now – but I can’t do that“.

That is a healthy way, I believe, of thinking about what is possible for each of us as we age. My days of endless ambition and innovative thinking are past. But I can do other things now that I couldn’t do then. I can indulge hobbies that interest me, I can find new paths to hike and rivers to fish, I can help care for my mother in her old age and I can share what I have learned through my life experiences and pass it on to my grandchildren and the larger community via this blog.

There will only ever be one Einstein, none of us will ever be as brilliant as him – but if you are under 40, get busy by putting your spry young mind and youthful ambition to work! Maybe you too can come up with novel ideas and ways of doing things that will help change the world or someone’s life for the better.

And if you are over 40, you can be like Einstein in his older years; contributing in a positive way to his community and sharing his wisdom, experience and good fortune with the next generation. In the end, many of our late in life pursuits that we share with others can end up being more rewarding and meaningful to us than any personal accomplishments we achieve along the way.

“There’s a way to do it better – find it”

I mentioned in a previous blog about the serendipity of finding interesting or compelling books at the book swap shed of my little town’s Transfer Station. I recently finished reading a book that I happened to find there called The Grace of Great Things – Creativity and Innovation.

The author, Robert Grudin, a former professor of English at the University of Oregon, described the book as a study in creativity and innovation. The title refers to the words a monk is said to have spoken to the young child Michel Colombe (before he became a famous sculptor) as the monk observed the child forgetting to eat because carving things in wood seemed more important to him:

“Work, little one, look all you can, the steeple of St. Paul and the beautiful work of the Compagnons. Look, love God, and the grace of great things will be given to you.”

Even though I do not consider myself a particularly creative person, especially in the area of the arts, the study of creativity holds some interest for me because I have had a tendency throughout my personal and professional life to seek out innovative solutions to problems I encounter. My training in engineering and the sciences taught me to step back and look at a problem from all perspectives – and to devise solutions that are not always obvious or biased by traditional thinking.

Of all the kinds of joy in this life, none perhaps is as pure as the kind experienced when sudden insight leads to the discovery of an elegant solution to a vexing problem. I have felt this satisfaction often in my professional life while creating software applications to solve our customer’s problems and while patenting new test methods that made finding electrical defects on Electronic Printed Circuit Boards faster and safer.

The word inspiration originally meant a breath of divinity, and it seems appropriate that it is used to describe that moment when a creative solution flashes into your consciousness. To be inspired feels like a divine event – something that seems to come from beyond as the mind surrenders to a force outside its control.

Gruden’s study documented the characteristics and particular habits that creative people share and that lead to original thinking and bold ideas. Those looking to become more inventive should practice the following mental habits and attitudes that Gruden writes are most congenial to inspiration:

Passion for Work – People are often advised to find a job that they love and it appears that those who do are usually the most creative. Creativity blossoms when you fully identify with your work and see it as an expression of your character.

People who love their job, derive pleasure from it and like the border collie are happiest when they are working and have a job to do. Their passion for work inhabits the full volume of their mind and persists during leisure hours and even during their sleep. In the creative life there is no distinction between leisure and work. Creative people belong to their work, and their commitment is rewarded with unexpected discovery.

Love of the Problematic – People who spend their lives ignoring and denying problems rarely become inspired. Conversely, the minds of creative people instinctively love tackling problems and discovering solutions. Creative people are sometimes seen as troublemakers because they upset the status quo by exposing problems that have been ignored.

Thomas Edison would instruct his engineers to observe closely and pay attention to things that did not totally fit. When he saw the slightest flaws with a proposed solution he would send them back to the drawing board with the instructions “there is a better way – find it“.

Love of Beauty – Moments of creativity, when inspiration leads to the discovery of an elegant solution to a problem one has worked on so passionately are rare.

Innovative people see great beauty in these moments when they come and they strive to capture the same feeling of beauty in all the other areas of their life.

A Sense of Wholeness – Creative people are good at looking at the big picture. When examining a problem, they are able to deconstruct the individual elements that form an object and see how the various parts are interconnected.

This quality opens up perspectives that allow them to visualize the true identity of a problem and it encourages their minds to explore new thought patterns and see potential discontinuities and anomalies that others don’t.

Boldness and a Sense of Openness – A willingness to follow good ideas despite their forbidding strangeness takes courage. Creative people do not fear ideas and are willing to ignore prior assumptions and walk on the edge of chaos; opening themselves to bold new ideas even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Innocence and Playfulness – Inventive people have a way of looking at each new project as a blank slate – unbiased by tradition and what has come before. They are like inquisitive babies trying to make sense of an item without known purpose or use.

They do not put limits on solutions (like people whose only tool is a hammer want to define define all problems as a nail) and they are happy to travel down unexpected paths (like a cook who turns a failed mousse into a successful chocolate topping).

Suffering – It is not obvious, but inspiration is related to suffering. Creative people often have to suffer through failure of experiments, the refutation of hypotheses, the trashing of one’s own findings, dead-ends, disapproval and rejection.

Even the process of achieving professional credentials is usually full of pain (endless study, practice, humiliation by teachers, competition with peers, the sting of criticism and the fear of inadequacy). Inspiration is impossible without groaning effort, without the painful winning of skill, and hard-earned expertise.

Pain has always functioned as a stimulus to material progress. It was fear pain, and grief that helped drive the great medical and social advances that exponentially increased the length of the human lifetime.

Individuals who spend their lives in the persistent avoidance of pain are not likely to amount to much. When pain and suffering is duly faced and endured, like exercise, it builds the endurance and humility that make us amenable to inspiration.

Remembrance – Many noted revolutionaries and innovators claim that their ideas were not new. They explain that they were simply maintaining continuity with the past and restoring old ideas that had been corrupted or forgotten.

Creative people utilize their remembrance of the past to invent new applications that incorporate old ideas – they are adept at rediscovering something that was always true and adapting it to a new application.

Liberty – The essence of inventiveness lies in recognizing that the world is capable of innumerable configurations. Those who have lived long and paid attention know not only that things can change – but also that it is a law of nature that they must change.

Successful people anticipate how things are changing or will change in the future and work within a system that gives them the freedom and liberty to advocate solutions that will best meet those changing needs.

People living in autocratic and rigid systems of governance do not advance as fast as those living in a free and democratic system because the barriers those societies set in place do not empower their citizens to pursue their ideas to their full potential.

When looked at together, these identified habits and attitudes map out an environment that makes the mind fertile for creativity and the growth of inspiration – planting a virtual garden for the inquiring mind to wander. For most people, visits to this garden are rare, only occurring by chance and surprise.

That is the case for me. I recognize in myself many of the qualities and characteristics that Gruden associates with creative people and I have been fortunate to experience the thrill and satisfaction that comes from discovering innovative test methods and software applications during my long work career.

But those were high points in a career that also included plenty of low points, times when the enemies of discovery (depression, complacency and laziness) took root in me. Those were unproductive times in my life because people who are lazy or just trying to get by seldom make important contributions.

I am finding that just because I am retired now doesn’t mean I need to stop striving to be creative. The habits of creative people identified by Gruden are not limited to the workplace. I find these same habits of creativity can be applied while I am fishing, while I am working on household projects, while I am coding fun software programs for my grandsons to play and even while performing my volunteering activities teaching children and serving on the school board.

It is important to mention, amidst all this praise about the delights of inspiration, that creativity does not always confine itself to happy subjects or result in happy outcomes. History, unfortunately, is filled with examples of tragic visions and genius put to use in the service of malice. Knowing that creativity can be put to dangerous applications gives us an obligation to always be on the lookout for it and to speak out against it when we see it employed in harmful ways.

In the end though I believe there is a major connection between ethics and creativity. The great majority of inventions and innovations throughout the ages have been driven by a desire to make the world a better place. That 15th century monk was on to something profoundly relevant when he linked the word grace, and the pattern of moral strengths that it suggests, as the foundation of major creative achievement.

May you practice the habits of creative thinking to free your mind and to make your life and our world a better place… so that the grace of great things will be given to you too.

Greatest of All Time

After New England’s most recent Super Bowl triumph – and the unprecedented success the Patriots have experienced while Tom Brady has quarterbacked the team – it is common to hear sports media experts debating the merits of whether Tom Brady should be considered the “Greatest Of All Time” football player.

Graphic Drawing Courtesy of Felix Yadig

I find these debates amusing because no matter where you stand on the topic it is an argument that is impossible for either side to win or lose because the word “greatest” is ambiguous and it can be defined to mean different things to different people.

Some people equate greatness with athleticism and argue that Tom Brady is not as fast, agile or accurate as other quarterbacks; therefore he does not deserve the honor of being named the greatest of all time. Other people claim Tom Brady has no equal because greatness is measured by wins and championship titles.

In my previous job at a technology company it was stressed by company management to avoid using ambiguous adjectives when describing product results, competitive performance and customer satisfaction. Whenever ambiguous adjectives made their way into a company report, meeting or business email, they would be singled out by management and the author would be asked to replace what were called “Language of Affection” terms with more precise “Language of Report” terms.

Language of Affection terms such as great, beautiful, like, happy, cheap, expensive, fast, slow, satisfied, dissatisfied, terrible, hot, cold, etc. are considered ambiguous because they express subjective opinions. The company considered it misleading and potentially dangerous to make decisions or take actions with company capital based on these type of subjective feelings.

Language of Report terms, on the other hand, are based on objective, demonstrable facts that are specific and measurable. When data is presented using Language of Report terms, it becomes easy to set goals, measure performance and come to agreement about what objectives have been achieved.

In that spirit, rather than trying to debate whether or not Tom Brady should be considered the Greatest quarterback of all time, I have instead researched Tom Brady’s career and produced an itemized list of his accomplishments using Language of Report terms. These are facts and statistics that are specific, measurable and backed by evidence which cannot be disputed.

As impressive as these accomplishments are, it is possible that Tom will only improve upon this list if he continues to play at a high level for another 2 or 3 seasons before he retires – he says he is not done yet.

Tom Brady’s Career Accomplishments

• Player with most Division titles (16)
• Player with most Playoff game appearances (40)
• Player with most Playoff game wins (30)
• Player with most Super Bowl appearances (9)
• Player with most Super Bowl wins (6)
• Quarterback with most regular seasons wins (207)
• Quarterback with most Passing yards (81,693)
• Quarterback with most passing touchdowns (590)
• Most touchdowns thrown to different receivers (71)
• Most Playoff touchdown passes (73)
• Most Playoff passing yards (11,179)
• Most consecutive years scoring at least 400 points (12)
• Player with most Super Bowl MVPs (4)
• Quarterback with most Super Bowl touchdown passes (18)
• Quarterback with most Super Bowl passing yards (2,838)
• Most team wins in the last two decades (252)
• Only team to win 11 or more games for 9 straight seasons
• Most seasons with an undefeated home record (7)
• Most consecutive years earning a postseason playoff Bye (9)
• Most postseason playoff Bye’s since 2001 (13)
• Second most game winning drives (54)
• Second most Fourth Quarter comebacks (44)
• Second most Games started (267)

As important as these objective, measurable facts are for having an intelligent discussion on this topic; they do not paint a complete picture. Tom Brady also possesses many positive intangible qualities – qualities that are not easy to categorize or measure using the Language of Report but have undoubtedly contributed to his success in the league.

• Work Ethic – Tom Brady was not a top NFL prospect. He was the 199th player selected in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft. Nobody expected him to be more than a backup quarterback. Yet, he did not lack for confidence – telling the owner Robert Kraft when they first met “picking me was the best decision this organization ever made“. Tom did not start out as an elite quarterback, he made himself into one over time, through hard work, study and sheer will power. Teammates over the years have reported that Tom is usually the first one at the practice facility and the last one to leave.
• Unselfishness – Tom has agreed to team friendly contracts throughout the course of his career. Rather than insisting that he be paid as an elite quarterback, Tom sacrificed a portion of his pay so that it could be used to help improve other player positions that would make the team stronger.
• Football IQ – One of the major things that makes Tom excel at the quarterback position is his ability to read the defense prior to the snap – understanding before the play begins where the opponents weakness is and what the most favorable matchup will be for his team. Because of this innate football intelligence he can get the team in the right play and throw the football quickly before the opposing defense has time to react.
• Team Building – It is often said of the transcendent players in most professional sports that they have the capacity to inspire their teammates to play beyond their capabilities – they somehow know how to get the most out of their teammates. Despite the lack of top-flight receivers throughout his career, Tom ranks consistently near the top of the league every year in passing statistics. He does this by spreading the ball around to all the receivers and making it difficult for the defense to focus on stopping just one person. Tom gets the whole team involved because he is not predictable – his favorite receiver is always the one that is open.
• Leadership – Whenever Tom is given accolades for his accomplishments, he generally credits his success to the players and coaches. He recognizes that football is a team sport and to achieve success requires every player doing their part. One of the New England defensive players told a story about Tom Brady walking around the locker room before the start of a big game delivering individual messages of affirmation to each player to build them up. This kind of leadership makes players feel connected and important and it is why they leave their all on the field for the team.
• Single Mindedness – “Damn you Tom Brady! Why aren’t you dead yet?” screamed a frustrated Kansas City Chief’s fan as he watched Tom Brady methodically lead the Patriots down the field to beat his team in overtime and earn his ninth trip to the Superbowl. Tom continues to perform at a high level because he treats football as a complete lifestyle commitment. He has integrated Football into all aspects of his life, the food he puts into his body, the books he reads, the training he performs, even the pajamas he wears. It is this single minded focus on what he calls “giving up his life” for football that contributes to his longevity and enables him to play the game he loves to the absolutely best of his ability.

You can decide for yourself whether this list of accomplishments and positive personal attributes entitles Tom Brady to be labeled as the greatest quarterback of all time. For Patriots fans it doesn’t really matter how he is judged. What’s more important for us is the countless hours of entertainment and joy we have experienced over the better part of two decades watching football excellence and witnessing team dominance on a scale the likes of which is likely never to be seen again.

May you too strive to be great in all that you undertake.

“Seek Moderation in everything, except Knowledge…”

School was not my favorite thing when I was attending grades 1 through 5 at a Catholic elementary school in my hometown – mostly because of the rigors and discipline that were imposed on the students by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Those sisters demanded obedience and made embarrassing examples out of any child found to be cutting corners or violating the rules. I did not thrive but I did manage to adapt to that austere school environment.

When I was 12 years old, my parents decided to enroll me in the sixth grade of the local public Elementary school because it was closer to my home and less expensive for my parents – who were doing their best to make ends meet while supporting their large family of 8 children.

I was the new kid in class and it was the first time I was exposed to a teacher who was not a Nun. My teacher, Mr Genaitas, was a man who became the first person in my life, outside my family, to really encourage me and motivate me to want to do my best.

While attending the Catholic elementary school I was just an average student at best – nothing special – but in my new public school surroundings I suddenly found myself at the top of my class, quickly becoming a favorite of my teacher who was delighted by my addition to his class. He pointed me out as an example for the other kids to follow,  awarded me special privileges for my assistance in tutoring other kids and suggested to me additional readings that he thought would challenge me.

I came to realize later in life that I probably owed my sixth grade success, and many of the fruits of my life’s later accomplishments, to the rigor and discipline that I learned at the hands of those Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Despite the negative aspects of the education system employed by the Nuns, they certainly instilled in me the values of hard work and sacrifice that have served me well throughout my whole life. My experience is that the Catholic education system teaches good learning habits that stay with you for life.

The things I got in abundance from Mr Genaitas that I did not get from the Nuns is encouragement, praise, validation and self-esteem. At the end of my sixth grade school year I left for Junior High School filled with confidence and the belief that the direction my life could take had endless possibilities. Sometimes on my way home from Junior High School I would stop by my old 6th grade classroom and visit with Mr Genaitas. He would smile at me proudly and give me advice as I told him about my classes and the subjects I was learning.

Teachers have the power to change a life. I have heard numerous people fondly reminisce about a teacher from their past who they looked up to and who made a positive difference in their life. All it takes is one inspiring teacher but I was truly blessed to have had several such teachers in my life.

A recent event made me realize that it is also possible for students to create a memorable and long-lasting impact on their teachers. I was visiting my 90 year old mother and she told me that she had a chance encounter with my old High School History teacher while shopping at the Grocery store. She said he asked her how I was doing and wondered what I had done with my life, mentioning to her that teaching was always gratifying to him when I was in his class.

I was shocked that he even remembered me. A retired teacher in his late eighties, someone who taught thousands of students throughout his career, remembering me fondly for my participation in a class he taught over 40 years ago.

It brought to mind another teacher who was influential in my life; Dr. Leo Hines, a professor of Medieval Literature at the College I attended. Dr Hines introduced me to the great religious thinkers of the middle ages and challenged his students with lectures that made them think about how those philosophies could be applied in our times. Those discussions came at an important time in my life, at a point when I was learning to put away childish things and become a man of substance.

I was surprised to one day find this note from Dr Hines, along with a magazine article, in my College Campus mailbox. The note was another event for me that demonstrated how teachers especially appreciate students who actively participate in the classroom and who are attentive, curious and eager to learn.

Dear Alan,

Your Christian athleticism puts me in mind of an article of mine published in England about the time you were born. It appeared in The Month, July 7, 1962. Hopkins himself published in this periodical in the mid-nineteenth century.

You always guarantee me an intelligent class, for which I am glad, so I reciprocate herewith by giving you an intelligent gloss on your psyche. I was not aware when I wrote it, of course, that that was my intention.

See you in class.

Best always, Dr Hines

My inherent desire to learn about new things has always come naturally and it has been part of my daily practice to search for things that I can do to increase my knowledge.

You will notice that Aristotle’s advice to “Seek moderation in everything, except knowledge, for virtue is found in the mean between extremes” exempts the search of knowledge as the one thing that people can not do to extreme. Anything else can be done to excess, but not learning, because learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

Great and interesting things happen when we are curious and seek knowledge. Albert Einstein said  “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious” and Walt Disney said “When you’re curious you find lots of interesting things to do”.

I hope I continue to remain curious and seek out knowledge to the end. When we learn new things we nurture growth points that bring new possibilities into our lives. So my advice is to go ahead and take that online physics class, read a book on a new subject, learn a new language, immerse yourself in a different culture, watch an educational documentary, visit a museum, start a new hobby, volunteer to help a charitable organization – always seek out knowledge and truth.

If you do, I’m certain your life will become filled with lots of interesting things to do!