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Simons Says

December 12, 2014

As an almost inveterate traveler – one who begins planning his next adventure to sweeten the sadness during the return trip of the current adventure – I took special note of and pleasure in this statement of Eric Simons in his book Darwin Slept Here:

“Optimism may be one of the biggest benefits of travel. When you spend all your time in a small area, trekking back and forth to work, getting all your news on the Internet, it’s easy to think the world is a lot worse off than it is. Then you get out in it, even for a short bit, and you get a summit view or find a friendly person who cares about nature just like you do, and then even when you go home, you remember: Hey, it’s not all bad. We’re really doing ok.”

When I see advertisements that promote travel as an escape, I cannot agree. For me, travel is a change from the daily routine, but it’s hardly an escape. In fact, I see more sights, hear more sounds, smell more scents and taste more flavors when I travel. I interact with countless more people – in airports, markets, parks, museums. But even moments of isolation – perhaps on a remote beach or trail – are somehow richer, more contemplative, when traveling.

It is not escape but engagement with new cultures and customs that travel causes; and it creates opportunities for personal reflection that routine obscures.

As Simons says, “Traveling connects us to the world and renews our capacity to wonder.”

Teaming Up

February 21, 2012

Try as I might, and no matter how much I practiced, I never became comfortable going to my left as a high school basketball player. I feel the same way about some of this job I have today.

If I’m asked a question about student eligibility, my response is usually quick and confident. The topic is in my wheelhouse, my comfort zone, my right hand.

But when I need to make a decision about information technology, a subject that didn’t exist when I started in this work, I need much more time and I’m more tentative with my answers. And it feels like I’m dribbling with my left hand.

Unfortunately, as time goes by, I’m faced with more questions that are in my area of weakness than my area of strength. It’s just the way the world works today, with everything tied into or revolving around technology.

Fortunately, we’ve assembled a team at the MHSAA office that includes staff for whom technology is not a thing. It just is. Like the air they breathe. They are as instinctive with their advice about technology as I am about the transfer rule.

Gratefully, there’s room for both of us in a modern enterprise serving traditional values.