it was 33 degrees when I left home this morning. Winter lasts a day or two here in Tampa Bay and this morning was deep winter for us thin-blooded Floridians.
I layered on the clothing and threw on a beanie hat and drove down to the lake to see what the morning might produce for me.
All the kitties (bar Fluffy) decided to stay inside as I left. I am sure I saw one or two shaking their heads at me for heading anywhere other than under a blanket.
But I had been awake a couple of hours and lying in bed in the dark, i had come up with a list of props that I would like to try to work with this morning. So, cool or not, I wasn’t going to be dissuaded by the disapproval of a few feline friends.
There is a very narrow window of darkness between the boat ramp area gate opening up and the arrival of twilight. So I had to work fast.
I had a bulb idea or two and fumbling with trying to balance them in place while you take a shot is no job for cold hands. One had already slipped and fallen into the water before I managed to get anything right. I hope the fishes don’t eat it and I felt guilty as it floated out of reach and off into the lake.
I hope no one sees it as an opportunity to have a light breakfast.
Anyway, I have attached a few of the shots to the end of the blog, along with one which has been photo-edited to add a glow into the bulb. But the others are as-shot.
As I drove home afterwards, my runny nose and frozen fingers gave testament to a morning well-spent and I was happy with my little adventure.
There is no guarantee with ideas that sound viable in the darkness of an early-morning bedroom. Often as not, they fade fast in the unforgiving light of dawn.
But this time, the bulb played out exactly as I thought it might. Yes, there are a couple of things I would do differently next time, but it gave me what I imagined.
Trying to get it to stand vertical is nightmarish, by the way.
Anyway, as I drove home, I began to think about our idea processes and why things often seem so clearly doable in bed, only to become ridiculous once we are up and moving.
And I arrived at the conclusion that there are two main portions to an idea phase and they play out very differently depending on what time we are having them.
There is the basic idea and the qualification.
The basic idea is essentially the core thought that takes shape about something we are thinking about. It might be a problem we are trying to solve or an out-of-the-blue notion that is unrelated to anything else.
The qualification is the experience we apply to the basic idea in order to determine if it is viable. This experience is typically based on something from the past that we were either successful or not.
When we have a basic idea immediately post-sleep, our brains are very much refreshed and they are operating in a very pure manner. They are not encumbered by the pain in our wrist, the cold winter air, or the arrival of other variables into our thought process.
For several hours leading up to this idea, our brain has been in recharge mode and so almost any idea will seem momentarily earth-moving.
Qualifications will immediately occur after an idea creation moment, if we are fully alert and engaged in our day. By that stage, we are already dealing with variables. We’ve been dealing with the wrist pain and the cold temperature for hours already, so they are very much part of the thought process.
I don’t know if any of you have been in an organized brain-storming session, where someone is standing at a white board and encouraging the voicing of any idea that occurs to you, relative to the subject being stormed.
But if you have, then you already know that voicing an idea without qualification is why certain people within the company are suddenly thought of as complete morons.
Think before you speak, is the rule of thumb regardless of what the guy with the dry erase marker in his hand, said.
Unless you are an unqualified genius and are likely to spontaneously discover the cure for cancer without even having thought about it, keep your mouth shut.
But, interestingly enough, we will sometimes listen to our own unqualified ideas and proceed along a path as if we had qualified it.
Later down the road, those become the “what was I thinking” moments.
I had one of those moments … you remember me saying I dropped a bulb in the water? Well, here is the idiotic moment in full:
Having given up on the upright balancing idea, a voice in my head said “hey, I have an idea. Take your mobile phone and lay it on top of that post over there just above the water. Then rest the bulb on it and while it is lying down and you light it, it will give a good reflection on the phone surface. Hell, you can even turn the phone on, so that the phone screen becomes the light source for the bulb laying on it.”
Yeah, a real moment of genius that. This is why they keep me away from the cancer-cure programs.
The bulb rolled off and as I reached to grab it, I knocked the cell phone too. Luck of god I managed to grab it before it hit the water.
Explain that phone loss to the folks at the AT&T store and see the looks you get!
Anyway, I guess the point I am trying to make here is qualification of our ideas is an invaluable part of our process. So, before you jump out of bed and take up freestyle mountain-climbing, have a cup of coffee first and see how your wrist copes with handling the weight of a 12 oz dark brew.
… just a thought!
