Perspective

This month has been a trying month.

• I'm late with my taxes. The tax folks have some form of annoyance with me that I haven't even had the time to investigate. 
  
• I'm working on a very big, complex task for my client's client's client's client. It is technically challenging and there have been exacerbations - incorrect direction, stumbling blocks from their R&D folks (not bad ones, but stumbling blocks nonetheless), a lack of subject-matter expertise for quite a time, network outages at their place, our move back to the office of my client's client, more service interruptions on that side from both a switch malfunction and some firewall rules knocking out the VPN tunnel, and so on. All in all, the stuff of grey hairs, ulcers, and heart attacks.
  
• My Godson's little brother arrives 12 weeks early by emergency C-section, playing dice with his own safety and the mother's. And he ends up with a bowel problem an an ileostomy... at under 3 pounds in weight. He has had great care at CHEO, but he's got a ways to go yet before he gets a normal, safe life. I've been worried about my friend, his wife, my Godson, and his new little brother Alexander. A strong name for a small one confronted with such a hard start to life, but so far he seems to be struggling his way along despite the hurdles. Still, I worry.
  
• Dad spent 3+ weeks in the hospital getting a vacc treatment on his ulcer. That had me visiting or talking to him every day. I must have spent 20 hours a week doing that in addition to my work. It was good, but tiring. He's home and things have dropped back to reasonable levels. But it was a stressful from a schedule perspective and worrying about Mom being home alone and her having some breathless spells that are probably heart function related. More stress there.
  
• I had a minor dust up with a friend over some sort of misunderstanding. I don't think either of us came across clearly, but the whole event caused me great anguish. I wish that particular episode could have been lived out differently.
  
• Tonight, my cousin in Missouri informed me that his mother, in Motherwell, Scotland (my Mother's sister) was admitted to hospital with a lung clot after having had what they thought was a persistent lung infection. Everyone is quite worried about Aunt B. I know it has me worried. I'd go to her if I could. Not that I could do anything, but I feel for her and really hope she is getting good care. I'm not sure what to think of the British medical system.

Anyway, having said all of that....

Life is not easy, nor simple, nor does it progress smoothly, nor end in a dignified, orderly, scheduled fashion, nor does it begin in a dignified, orderly, scheduled fashion... 

... but it happens. And it perserveres. And it persists. And we fight and we do what we must, whether we are 78 or -3 months old. 

There are a lot of things in life that could make one despair, lament, or just simply tire out and give up. But we soldier on and try to make the best of a tough hand, hoping the next deal will be a bit better and we can grow our stake. 

In a perverse way, I think that's optimism. I think that's the quality that makes me understand that nothing confronting humanity today will be our death knell. In every age, there has been challenge, horror, and stalwart and intransigent refusal to give in to the dark parts, to let the candle of hope go out. 

I don't actually believe that every day in this life on this side of the daisies is a good one. I've seen proof of that. But I do believe that where there is life, there is hope. And with life and hope, their is a beauty, a purity of the human spirit. 

When people you love are suffering, you suffer with them. When people are in need yet their is naught you can do for them, you feel diminished. Yet from their courage and from their forbearance and from their simple endurance, one can take solace and perspective. 

What matters in life isn't the worst of days, or the least of days, nor the number of days. What matters is not solely the quality of life or the material goods that we accumulate. What matters is not that we suffer, that we feel pain, or that we sometimes give in to desolation. 


What matters is that we remember the good moments. We hold onto hope and to beauty. We hold on to courage and try to encourage it in others. We hold onto love and to family. We hold onto friends. And we hold onto the conviction that there is good in the world and that it matters more than all of the dark, parlous times. 


We hold onto the candle that gutters in the night but does not go out, a light in the darkness - perhaps dim, but shining on. 

"When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you." 

-- Firefly TV Series, episode titled The Message (and so it is!)

  

Challenge: Remembering Little Achievements in Design and Engineering

 

There are all sorts of awards out their for big, fancy, world changing developments in design and engineering. Things like the space shuttle, the international space station, the hubble space telescope, the mars rovers, developments in nanomaterials, some of the huge damns and skyscrapers, new methods of generating power, etc. all come to mind as the sorts of inventions or developments that will end up vying for such prizes.

Today, I was struck by the fact that many design enhancements or developments in our world are smaller, more banal or pedestrian, and yet for all that, incredibly useful. I think many of these are under-rated. So I thought I would throw out a small challenge to my reader(s):

Try to think of one or two small design enhancements or small inventions that you've seen over the past 15 or so years and post a line or two about them here. The idea is to identify the sort of thing that is a small invention, device, or feature enhancement and therefore that wouldn't probably make any sort of lists of bigger, more spectacular achievements, but yet one that has the sort of utility that makes you say 'hey, that was a good idea!' and the kind of ubiquity that should mean the other reader(s) would know what it was (or would understand why it was good even if they didn't).

So, bonus points (I'm keeping score) for the best replies!

I'll start with my own first candidate:

The screw-top orange juice carton

Now, this little baby was, if you think about it, a neat development. Maintains the same form factor generally (means package needs to change very little overall and larger scale shipping containers require no changes) as older cartons and keeps orange juice fresher for longer, makes for more convenient pouring, means you don't have to wrestle with reticent cardboard spouts (that can tear while opening and then where does that leave you?), and generally seems so obvious that you say 'wow, why didn't they think of that beforehand?'.

Of course, if it was so obvious, why did none of us think of it?

I hope the packaging designer who came up with this got a raise or a share of the patent revenues. He probably didn't, but it has now become fairly ubiquitous and it is a highly functional design.

So, what else have you got?