Thursday, November 20, 2008

A New Perspective

I fancy myself a big picture thinker and for the most part have chosen to surrounded myself with a lovely collection of  equally high-quality, big picture thinkers. Well, I’ve met my match in Kristin Mary Johnson, in fact, we all have. 

I used to think there two kinds of thinkers, those who see the trees and those who see the forest. I believe most of us began life as “Tree Thinkers”. Youth is noted for its short-sighted, know-it-all, live-in-the-moment existence. For many, age brings a charming level of maturity and reckless abandon is replaced by... oh, what shall I call it? Balance?

Several years ago, I introduced this concept of balance to my children with the “Silly brain, Smart brain” analogy. I explained to them that our brains have two parts. The Silly Brain in charge of new ideas, creativity, and play. The Smart Brain in charge of rules, logic, and consequences. These are both terribly important parts of our brain. For without the Silly Brain, we would function like robots, simply doing what we are told and what’s been done before. We agreed our world would not be very exciting with only a Smart Brain. A world with only Silly Brains would be as a five-year-old Seth perfectly labeled, “crazy and out of control!” 

So, at our house we nurture and celebrate the Silly Brain in each of us. We only ask that the Silly Brain check in with the Smart Brain before its colorful and exciting ideas are executed. This keeps those of us with impulsive tendencies out of a great deal of trouble.

Back to the Tree Thinkers, who I believe have one of two problems with their Smart Brain. First, there are those whose Smart Brains simply don’t look as far into the future, or consider consequences as thoroughly as we as a society had hoped. These people are actually few and far between; most Tree Thinkers actually have perfectly functioning Smart Brains and they just don’t care to use them. I don’t have a ton of mercy for those who opt out of using the resources they naturally possess.

The Forest Thinkers enjoy more balance. They are admittedly more at risk for forgetting to use their Silly Brains, but that is a subject for another day or one of my books, perhaps. These Forest Thinkers are available in a variety of concentrations, some engaging more Silly and others more Smart Brain. Perhaps it was my arrogance, or perhaps blatant ignorance, but I believed that was it. Some people see trees and some see the forest...and then I met Kristin.

She is smart, and I mean beyond my normal standards and expectations for smart. She understands human behavior on a level I’ve only seen one or two other times in my life. She knows about things I’ve never heard of. It took me well over a year to beat her in Scrabble, and sadly she was on really strong pain medication from her foot surgery then. One of Seth’s favorite games is to try to stump Kristin with random trivia he picks up in the world and to date he has NEVER stumped her. Even eight-year-old Kira, or as I prefer to call her “The Mighty Independent One”, has even begun to occasionally allow wee nuggets of Kristin’s wisdom slip past the iron gates.

There were hints that despite many similarities, some huge differences existed in the way our brains functioned. Where I see a responsibility to raise children who are educated, emotionally intact, and ready to make a difference in the world; Kristin sees a responsibility to do the same for the millions of parent-less children in the world. Where I ponder the current state of race relations, Kristin sees the poor decisions that were made in the past that paved the road to here. I’m the kind of thinker that would convert cars to run on corn thinking it’s progress. Kristin is the kind of thinker that would ask, where the hell we’re going to get all the corn? Who is going to have to starve for us to decrease our dependance on foreign oil?

It was sort of maddening for me. It felt like she disagreed, but she insisted she understood my points. It felt like she must perceive me as short sighted, but she insisted she didn’t. I went sort of crazy talking about this bigger picture she was “stuck on” (I don’t sound so open minded now as I type it) when every stitch of my being is consumed with dealing with the reality as it exists RIGHT NOW!

Then it hit me, there is another way of “seeing” the forest. Kristin is what I’m now calling a Satellite Thinker. Where a Tree Thinker stands right in front of the issue looking for a solution and the Forest Thinker steps back from the issue to contemplate the “big picture” looking for a solution, the Satellite Thinker gears up and heads for the sky to get “the biggest picture” of all to find a solution.

At first I didn’t understand it, and it created some confusing challenges for us...okay that’s not true. It created challenges for me, she wasn’t confused at all. Much like the way I can see the thought process of the Tree Thinker, Kristin can see with delightful clarity my Forest Thinker perspective. She just won’t settle for stopping there when there is a bigger, more effective perspective available. In hindsight, I realize I’ve known one or two other Satellite Thinkers but they are a rare and precious find.

First thing this morning in my email I read an amazing letter Kristin wrote and sent to our elected politicians about the American automakers plea for bailout money. I have said for months that I want to drop her in on these meetings where our political leaders are making critical decisions about our nation’s future. She could just sit there and listen to the plans silently, then just before anyone signs anything she could pipe up and say, “Okay, what about...?” 

Kristin, let me be the first to say that you’ve got my vote.