I have always been utterly fascinated by the creativity of humans. I suppose my interest began when I tagged along with my father. He enjoyed explaining things to me and I soaked up his information like a sponge. When he created a model of our home I spent hours quietly watching him work at his drafting table creating the three dimensional scaled down replica. Even though I was still a toddler he showed me how to use ratios and proportions to change actual measurements into miniature images. I remember being fascinated with his drawings and his patience in making studs and shingles and planks out of balsa wood while explaining his every move to me as though I was old enough to fully understand what he was saying. 

When I was a bit older and we were living in another house he tutored me on the steps for creating a sidewalk. Once again I watched him meticulously measuring and planning for the concrete structure that would lead us from the driveway to our front door without ever walking on the grass. To this very day I do not take the sidewalks around my neighborhood for granted but I sometimes wonder if there had been enough care in constructing them because I know they are cracked and tilted while the one my father built is still as straight and strong as ever. 

The world is filled with individuals whose minds are so brilliant that they somehow seem to transcend the limitations that most of us feel. I recently thought about the two graduate students who met at Stanford University and turned an idea for a doctoral dissertation into what we now know as Google. As students they became the talk of the Computer Science department as they begged and borrowed equipment to test the mathematical algorithms that they had created to bring order the the worldwide web. The work that started in their dorm eventually continued in the rented garage of a woman who was struggling to make the payments on her home. With seed money from interested investors the rest of their story became history. 

My father taught me to watch for such innovators. He dreamed of the future and often spoke of the concepts that he believed would eventually become reality. One of his prized books was an early depiction of the rockets that would one day carry humans to the moon and into the outer reaches of the universe. That illustrated tome became the impetus for my brother to study engineering and later work with NASA to send astronauts to the International Space Station. 

I always regretted how much my father missed with his early death. He would have been incredibly excited about the space program. I feel certain that he would have wanted to be part of the work happening just down the road from where we lived at the time he died. I knew that he had been searching for a job that would be meaningful and the exploration of space was just the kind of thing that motivated him and captured his creative spirit. 

My father also understood the fragility of the earth’s ecosystem. He spoke of our need for water and how the oceans might surely become a source for our human needs if only we found a way to remove the salt. At dinner time he would regale us with ideas for making the earth a better and healthier place. He took delight in sharing his knowledge with us even as we sometimes barely managed to understand what he was saying even when he used the simplest of terms. 

Now I watch a younger generation that shares my father’s fascination with implementing new ideas for transforming our world. I get as excited when I hear them as I did when my father expounded on the creative natures of humans and the possibilities of the future. I can see my dad driving an electric car and telling me how solar and wind power will save us from our our hubris which had the audacity to believe that we do not need to keep learning and inventing and adapting and caring about doing things right. 

We can’t afford to stand still or lapse back into old habits. I learned this from my father. It is up to each of us to stay abreast of innovation and to encourage the bright minds among us to take chances in the quest for knowledge and the betterment of how we live. My father would tell me to have an open mind and to appreciate the process of discovery. These are lessons that have influenced me for all of my life because I remember him embracing the evolution of ideas in mathematics and engineering and even in the arts. He understood history as a driver of progress, not as a stationary exemplar of how to cling to the past. He taught me to appreciate the great minds who always seem to rise up to save civilization even in its darkest hours. 

My father taught me to believe in the best nature of humans. He showed me over and over again how noble we can and should be. Thinking of his lessons fuels my optimism. Watching the world through his lens tells me that we may face some rocky times but we will eventually be better than okay. Right now someone is already working on an idea that will elevate us all. I can’t wait to hear about it and bring it into my life.