Friday Donuts

Friends, In this hyper-connected, über-kinetic world we live in, it’s easy to lose your bearings. One can be forgiven for getting confused now and again. Like the time I accepted a job in Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming), thinking I’d be going to Yosemite National Park (California). Or the time I had a meeting at Inverness Park (south Denver) and arrived promptly at Interlocken Park (north Denver). We live in a complex world and often fall into the trap at judging things too quickly -then moving on (who has time to examine everything anyway?).  Expert after expert tell us it’s more effective to take a step back, deconstruct the problem and challenge our assumptions –but these experts don’t have 200+ e-mails sitting in their inbox every day. And so, we continue to think in a linear fashion. To borrow process reengineering speak, we pave cow paths instead of engineering efficient roads. In this time of year when we start to consider new year’s resolutions, I hope you will take som

Friends, You don’t need me to tell you books are great. They expand our worldview and take us to places we might otherwise never visit. Their characters can be fascinating. A good book has a well-rounded cast of characters with nuances and complexities that allow us to empathize with the villains and wonder about the heroes. But the characters in even the best written books share a flaw –and, no, I’m not talking about character flaws. Despite the author’s best intentions, they all come from the mind of a single individual and are subject to that person’s stereotypes, thought process and subconscious biases. They all fall within what the author can conceive and, therefore share the same “DNA”. I suppose you could say they are all made in their creator’s image. On the bright side, this flaw helps storylines be cohesive. I wonder if it’s possible to write a book where each character is penned by a different author (perhaps there are some like that out there already). It would be like

Friends, General relativity has some weird implications. Concepts like length contraction (the faster you go the shorter you get) and a speed limit for the universe (how fast light moves in a vacuum) are among the counterintuitive implications of Einstein’s theory. Lately, I’ve been pondering time dilation. The notion that time can move slower for super-fast moving objects, or for objects that are subjected to immense gravity. Moving at the speed of light or standing at the event horizon of a black hole, time stands still. But what if the minimum speed limit for time isn’t zero? What if it were possible to make time move backwards? Suppose you start moving faster than light. Would your watch run counterclockwise? Might that explain dark matter… is it just regular matter moving backwards in time? Could the same be true for gravity? Once you reach infinite gravity, you cross a threshold where time moves backwards? Might that explain dark energy –the force that is tearing the universe

Friends, Scrolling down my Facebook feed I had to do a double-take. There was Deepak Chopra with the quote “65% of your genes are the same as a banana”. Was this the beginning of a put-down match? Was he going to follow it up with a “yo momma” joke? Of course, I had to watch the video. Disappointingly, it turned-out to be an inspirational speech. You know, the “you’re special because you’re made of stardust” kind. I guess it was too much to hope for. Mr. Chopra in a duel of words with some hoodlum… or, even better, the Dalai Lama. Deepak would volley “What’s furry and spits? Yo momma, ‘cuz she’s a Llama”. Dalai would respond “That’s all you got? You need to Deepak your bags and go home. ‘Cuz that was lame”. I guess you can’t find everything on the Internet –yet. I wonder what percentage of my genes are the same as a donut. I’m guessing it’s more like 66% (closer than a banana). Whatever it is, I hope you grab one. Who knows, it might inspire you to enter a battle of words (or wri