The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

NYC Subway: A Brief Encounter with Mr. Frost

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(Pic #1) Epiphany in the Park

Last Monday, I arrived in Manhattan in what has been called “the snowiest January since the city starting keeping records” — 36 inches to be exact — easily breaking the record of 27.4 inches in 1925.

NYC Subway: poetry in motion (AP Photo/Jim Cooper, File)

Struggling with my bulky bags on the icy subway stairs, trapped by what seemed like hundreds of layers of winter clothes, I quickly needed a serious attitude adjustment.  I managed to win a seat on the B train down to Bryant Park in midtown. Cursing the weather, the crowds, and my decision to travel to New York in January, I suddenly saw something that completely transformed the experience.  On the subway train, amidst the ads for personal injury lawyers and dermatology clinics, I saw a message in the ad space overhead: A short poem by Robert Frost, called “Dust of Snow.”

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

I read it, and cried.  Re-read it, and lost it again.  I couldn’t believe this poem had found me, and on this particular day. No born-and-raised New Yorker had ever appreciated the transit authority more than I did at that moment.   It was such a sweet, powerful  reminder that those unexpected moments – just like Frost’s snow dusting – can instantly cialis shift our thought and lift our spirits.

Emerging from the subway exit, I saw what can only be described as a silent white city. The falling snow had completely muted the normally discordant traffic noise, and turned Manhattan into a gloriously quiet, spectacular black and white cityscape.

(Pic #2) Fountain Freeze

The barren trees behind the New York Public Library formed delicate lacy patterns against the flat bluish skyscrapers, and the park’s famous fountain had frozen over. (Pics #1 & #2) I grabbed my camera and couldn’t stop shooting. The snow kept coming. It landed weightlessly on my hair and I caught flakes on the tip of my tongue, the way I used to as a little girl growing up on Long Island. The experience was every bit as miraculous all these years later. All of this — all of it — sparked by 34 perfectly chosen words from the mind by Robert Frost, and the largesse of the MTA.

Sadly, I’m told the agency has begun removing those literary ads from the train cars because of state budget cuts. Transit officials have replaced the words of Franz Kafka, Galileo, and other great thinkers with updates about the agency’s new technology, equipment, and infrastructure.  Perhaps some will find inspiration in the promise of jobs that those projects could bring. For me though, I will just remain grateful for the warming fire of those two Robert Frost verses on a winter’s day.


CNN Hero: One Image Changes One Man

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When you catch yourself acting like a spoiled brat — click above.

For Narayanan Krishnan, it took only one image to change his life: that of an elderly man eating his own waste. Krishnan was an award-winning chef at a 5-star hotel group when he came across the man living under a bridge in Madurai, India. When the chef saw what the man was eating, he said he was shocked — and haunted — by the image. He began feeding the man, and a week later, Krishnan had quit his job and decided he would devote his life to feeding the hungry. That was in 2003. He has now served priligy more than 1.2 million meals to India’s homeless and destitute — mostly elderly, abandoned and often abused by their own families.

Krishnan’s day begins at 4 a.m. He and his team cover nearly 125 miles in a donated van, routinely working in temperatures topping 100 degrees. The hot meals he delivers are simple vegetarian dishes he personally prepares, packs and often hand-feeds to nearly 400 clients each day.

And consider this:  While most of us skirt the homeless on city streets and freeway underpasses, Narayanan Krishnan seeks them out.

The Importance of Creativity: Unleashing Your Personal Superpower

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(Pic #1) “Wormhole” gum wrapper drawing by Beau Hufford, San Diego

“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.” — (Virginia Woolf)

If you find yourself on empty or “stuck” at work —  consider exploring a free, mind-altering drug that can change the way you solve problems, and even view life: creativity.

By stimulating the right side of your brain, you get to supercharge your thoughts, and release a whole new collection of ideas just waiting to be unearthed. If you consider yourself traditionally left-brained, or analytical — imagine operating on all 8 cylinders, not just 4 — by engaging your “other half.” There’s a power in twice the surge, and all it takes is a little trust — trust that stepping outside your comfort zone can lead to new discoveries about yourself, and your creative capabilities.

How? By starting.

Get honest about what artistic passion lies inside you, and allow yourself to play. Free yourself to be spontaneous, and explore new ways of expressing your thoughts. It may mean a few discordant notes, or an impulsive scribble (Pic #1), but the process can truly take you to new places.

 

(Pic #2) 10-minute collage

While it sounds like an oxymoron, the most “freeing commitment” I’ve ever made was to set a time for 10-minutes of art-making every day. I started last March, and haven’t missed a day since. The art comes in many forms: painting, collage, photography — and it’s now become a precious ritual that I hate to miss — even if I get to it a midnight. It happens to be my way of kick-starting the creative process. And I have since discovered these daily sessions have enriched my corporate work — and my life.

Creativity means business:

(Pic #3) Mary Reeves : “Creative Controller”

If “creating for the sake of creating” doesn’t get your attention, how about unexpected profits?  Read on to see how one woman saved her company hundreds of thousands of dollars by jumpstarting her right brain with a Taylor guitar. Let me share:

My colleague Mary Reeves is an experienced corporate controller. (Pic #3)  She recently ran the accounting department at a successful firm in Southern California that makes electronic components for computers and modems.

As controller, of course, it was her duty to find ways to save the company money, and improve its efficiency. She knew their products were in demand, and sales were brisk, but she didn’t understand why it took so long to get the orders xanax into consumer hands.

Electronic Brainstorm

She wondered if there were a way to cut down on the clunky system that had merchandise shipping from Hong Kong to California (through the company’s customs bond) then re-packaged before being sent out again to customers. She asked executives if they knew a way to expedite orders so that they could be sent directly to their clients. No one had an answer, and her frustration grew.

At the same time, at night after work, Mary began studying and playing music. She told me the process of playing guitar — which requires left and right hands working together while performing vastly different tasks — engaged both sides of her brain, and had profound consequences. Then, learning to sing — while playing — intensified the experience even more. She said it was a slow, awkward process, but in the end, worth it.

Then one day, Mary had a chat with the local Federal Express rep about her frustration with the company’s shipping policies, and the lights went on. It turns out FedEx has an International Priority Plan that ships through Alaska, and saves 5-days of delivery time. Mary pitched the plan to her company, and execs jumped on board. Soon, consumers saw the benefit of lightening-fast delivery, and the word spread. And oh, by the way, Mary saved her company over half a million dollars.

The connection? Our now “balanced-brained” controller says the only reason she was able to pull off this fantastic feat was that she expanded her thinking “by engaging both sides of her brain.” She told me she has no doubt that her consistent “play”  led to her creative, successful wins at work. It’s also why she reveres Albert Einstein’s passion for the violin — as explained in an excerpt from his biography — “Einstein: His Life and His Universe” by Walter Isaacson:

Music was no mere diversion. On the contrary, it helped him think. “Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or faced a difficult challenge in his work,” said his son Hans Albert, “he would take refuge in music and that would solve all his difficulties.” The violin thus proved useful during the years he lived alone in Berlin, wrestling with general relativity. “He would often play his violin in his kitchen late at night, improvising melodies while he pondered complicated problems,” a friend recalled. “Then, suddenly, in the middle of playing, he would announce excitedly, “I’ve got it!’”

Get playing.