TED and unexpected gifts
I am simply awestruck.
I started thinking I might simply send an email to a few people about the evening I just had, but it's just so much bigger than that I decided to put it to the masses at once and point people to this post. It's long so if you have no time to read the full thing, skip to the end to read the really nifty finale now and read the rest when you do have time.
Let me start with the backstory, as the chain of random events leading up to this is a pretty tenuous string of links.
Sunday night after greatly enjoying an evening with Carisa and her family watching their gift to me of a live performance of A Christmas Carol, I checked my voicemail (the phone having been turned off for a while due to the show). There was a message from Adam saying he might need me to come out to California with him for a business meeting Monday. This is about 9PM I'm checking this, mind you, so I was a bit less than thrilled. I called him and confirmed indeed, I need to meet him in CT at 9AM Monday morning so we can then travel together to JFK to catch our flight. Packing and drive times accounted for, this gave me about 3.5 hours of sleep to get that night. Thankfully he called just after I went to bed and said he changed the flight and that I could get there at 11AM, which Kate relayed to me before I crashed. You know what, this part isn't important - suffice to say I slept, I drove, I drove again, I flew, I got a rental car and parked it in a garage with 6" between it's ceiling and my roof, we did our meeting, reverse the process, I'm back in CT Wednesday night late.
During the time spent traveling around trying to determine the schedule for the rest of the week, Adam remembered he had received an invite to a small TED event in Manhatten and mentioned we might be able to go if it wasn't too late to get on the guest list. To any unfamiliar with TED it stands for Technology Entertainment and Design and is a conference held to gather essentially the most creative, intelligent, and successful people from around the world into one area to simply talk with each other to inspire great minds to become greater. It's a fabulous concept, check it out more www.ted.com - anyway - when we got started on work this morning he checked, realized it was tonight rather than tomorrow night as he previously thought, RSVP'd, and amazingly they still had space so we planned to go.
This event was a different direction for them, it was based on a theme of "Unexpected Gifts". Traditionally this conference is not just an invite only affair, but is quite expensive to attend - I would normally not have had the funds to attend even with an invite. This gathering was smaller than normal, and only for one night, so the fee was free with a condition: you had to bring a gift with a story attached to it to give to another attendee. Adam allowed me to take a longer lunch and we headed to Borders to pick a gift. I wanted to get a book from each of the major themes Tech/Ent/Des which I felt was important or had changed me somehow. I got there and only found one of the three I wanted - "It's Not Easy Being Green" which presents simple philosophies of Jim Henson who I see as possibly my greatest role model, this was my Entertainment slot. I wanted to get a book on Viktor Schauberger to fulfill the Technology aspect as I find a depth of brilliance and truth in his insights unmatched by any scientist except perhaps Nikola Tesla, about whom Borders had a few books so I got one of those instead. Finally for the Design aspect I wanted to get a book by John Connell, the architect and founder of the Yestermorrow School of Design Build which I attended and found so profoundly appropriate to my own views and the best interests of civilization, but alas that was absent as well. Struggling with this one and running out of time I conceded to go to the checkout lane absent one aspect when I saw in back of the counter some Magic The Gathering decks. It struck me that the design of that game truly was exceptional and that it was a brilliant replacement for my design aspect on that basis alone.
Gifts in hand we headed back to Adam's, got some more work done, I ironed my travelworn clothes, and we headed out into the city. The lineup of guest speakers for the event was very interesting:
"The Gift of Imagination": Chiho Aoshima will present the New York City debut of her award-winning anime work, "City Glow." A next-generation anime artist, she bridges the gap between popular and fine art with digital drawings steeped in Japanese culture.
"The Gift of Connection": Lelei Lelaulu is the vision behind Counterpart, an NGO based in Washington D.C., dedicated to connecting people, resources and institutions. His work has given him a treasure trove of stories about what it is to be human.
"The Gift of Wonder": Dr. E.C. Krupp is the astronomer, architect and master planner behind the Griffith Observatory. A popular lecturer and author, he brings the universe into focus for thousands of children and adults.
"The Gift of Compassion": Tenzin Bob Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Llama. He is a professor, scholar, lecturer, prolific author and proponent of peace.
"The Gift of Memory" was the final speaker, an ex steel worker who at 50 suddenly had his mnemonic abilities go crazy and he's now memorized such things as the entire Scrabble dictionary and what day of the week every single date from 1AD on was. Unfortunately I cannot remember his name (bitter irony) and he was a substitute for the original speaker I had more info on so I can't say anymore on him.
All of them were as brilliant as expected, especially Lelei and the monk. By itself simply that would have been great. At the end of the presentations the gift exchange happened and in back of me was an older gentleman Adam and I had been talking with earlier who spoke like he had a true zeal for the TED vision which made him interesting, so I chose to exchange with him.
I explained my gifts to him and he listened intently and seemed genuinely curious about each one, said he had just test driven a concept car from Tesla motors so was very curious to learn more about the man who inspired that company and wasn't sleeping well so would likely get half of it read tonight. He was intrigued about the Magic cards, but was not sure he'd understand the game entirely but would try. He agreed that Jim Henson was an inspiring soul and was pleased with that book too.
I then opened my gift. A simple black envelope, containing a simple printed sheet of paper with a message explaining the gift and his contact information. Any time during the next two years I may make two first class round trips from any American Airlines US hub airport to either London, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Delhi, Tokyo, Rio, Buenos Aires, or Sao Paulo. I was utterly dumbfounded. I still am. How do you respond to such a generous gift? I certainly will share my experiences with him to begin with, he seemed very much the type to thoroughly enjoy such a vicarious experience. Now I just need to figure out which to choose :D This is such an incredible opportunity, I would likely never had had the funds to take such trips ever in my life, heck it's going to be tough enough just to gather the funds for a hotel and such.
It's so absolutely mindnumbing to consider the random events that cascade together to create such drastic events in ones life. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how this chain is forged into completion.
I started thinking I might simply send an email to a few people about the evening I just had, but it's just so much bigger than that I decided to put it to the masses at once and point people to this post. It's long so if you have no time to read the full thing, skip to the end to read the really nifty finale now and read the rest when you do have time.
Let me start with the backstory, as the chain of random events leading up to this is a pretty tenuous string of links.
Sunday night after greatly enjoying an evening with Carisa and her family watching their gift to me of a live performance of A Christmas Carol, I checked my voicemail (the phone having been turned off for a while due to the show). There was a message from Adam saying he might need me to come out to California with him for a business meeting Monday. This is about 9PM I'm checking this, mind you, so I was a bit less than thrilled. I called him and confirmed indeed, I need to meet him in CT at 9AM Monday morning so we can then travel together to JFK to catch our flight. Packing and drive times accounted for, this gave me about 3.5 hours of sleep to get that night. Thankfully he called just after I went to bed and said he changed the flight and that I could get there at 11AM, which Kate relayed to me before I crashed. You know what, this part isn't important - suffice to say I slept, I drove, I drove again, I flew, I got a rental car and parked it in a garage with 6" between it's ceiling and my roof, we did our meeting, reverse the process, I'm back in CT Wednesday night late.
During the time spent traveling around trying to determine the schedule for the rest of the week, Adam remembered he had received an invite to a small TED event in Manhatten and mentioned we might be able to go if it wasn't too late to get on the guest list. To any unfamiliar with TED it stands for Technology Entertainment and Design and is a conference held to gather essentially the most creative, intelligent, and successful people from around the world into one area to simply talk with each other to inspire great minds to become greater. It's a fabulous concept, check it out more www.ted.com - anyway - when we got started on work this morning he checked, realized it was tonight rather than tomorrow night as he previously thought, RSVP'd, and amazingly they still had space so we planned to go.
This event was a different direction for them, it was based on a theme of "Unexpected Gifts". Traditionally this conference is not just an invite only affair, but is quite expensive to attend - I would normally not have had the funds to attend even with an invite. This gathering was smaller than normal, and only for one night, so the fee was free with a condition: you had to bring a gift with a story attached to it to give to another attendee. Adam allowed me to take a longer lunch and we headed to Borders to pick a gift. I wanted to get a book from each of the major themes Tech/Ent/Des which I felt was important or had changed me somehow. I got there and only found one of the three I wanted - "It's Not Easy Being Green" which presents simple philosophies of Jim Henson who I see as possibly my greatest role model, this was my Entertainment slot. I wanted to get a book on Viktor Schauberger to fulfill the Technology aspect as I find a depth of brilliance and truth in his insights unmatched by any scientist except perhaps Nikola Tesla, about whom Borders had a few books so I got one of those instead. Finally for the Design aspect I wanted to get a book by John Connell, the architect and founder of the Yestermorrow School of Design Build which I attended and found so profoundly appropriate to my own views and the best interests of civilization, but alas that was absent as well. Struggling with this one and running out of time I conceded to go to the checkout lane absent one aspect when I saw in back of the counter some Magic The Gathering decks. It struck me that the design of that game truly was exceptional and that it was a brilliant replacement for my design aspect on that basis alone.
Gifts in hand we headed back to Adam's, got some more work done, I ironed my travelworn clothes, and we headed out into the city. The lineup of guest speakers for the event was very interesting:
"The Gift of Imagination": Chiho Aoshima will present the New York City debut of her award-winning anime work, "City Glow." A next-generation anime artist, she bridges the gap between popular and fine art with digital drawings steeped in Japanese culture.
"The Gift of Connection": Lelei Lelaulu is the vision behind Counterpart, an NGO based in Washington D.C., dedicated to connecting people, resources and institutions. His work has given him a treasure trove of stories about what it is to be human.
"The Gift of Wonder": Dr. E.C. Krupp is the astronomer, architect and master planner behind the Griffith Observatory. A popular lecturer and author, he brings the universe into focus for thousands of children and adults.
"The Gift of Compassion": Tenzin Bob Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Llama. He is a professor, scholar, lecturer, prolific author and proponent of peace.
"The Gift of Memory" was the final speaker, an ex steel worker who at 50 suddenly had his mnemonic abilities go crazy and he's now memorized such things as the entire Scrabble dictionary and what day of the week every single date from 1AD on was. Unfortunately I cannot remember his name (bitter irony) and he was a substitute for the original speaker I had more info on so I can't say anymore on him.
All of them were as brilliant as expected, especially Lelei and the monk. By itself simply that would have been great. At the end of the presentations the gift exchange happened and in back of me was an older gentleman Adam and I had been talking with earlier who spoke like he had a true zeal for the TED vision which made him interesting, so I chose to exchange with him.
I explained my gifts to him and he listened intently and seemed genuinely curious about each one, said he had just test driven a concept car from Tesla motors so was very curious to learn more about the man who inspired that company and wasn't sleeping well so would likely get half of it read tonight. He was intrigued about the Magic cards, but was not sure he'd understand the game entirely but would try. He agreed that Jim Henson was an inspiring soul and was pleased with that book too.
I then opened my gift. A simple black envelope, containing a simple printed sheet of paper with a message explaining the gift and his contact information. Any time during the next two years I may make two first class round trips from any American Airlines US hub airport to either London, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Delhi, Tokyo, Rio, Buenos Aires, or Sao Paulo. I was utterly dumbfounded. I still am. How do you respond to such a generous gift? I certainly will share my experiences with him to begin with, he seemed very much the type to thoroughly enjoy such a vicarious experience. Now I just need to figure out which to choose :D This is such an incredible opportunity, I would likely never had had the funds to take such trips ever in my life, heck it's going to be tough enough just to gather the funds for a hotel and such.
It's so absolutely mindnumbing to consider the random events that cascade together to create such drastic events in ones life. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how this chain is forged into completion.