There is a moment in time that is paradoxically, timeless and fleeting. It is finite and infinite. Like so much of our existence, it is a Rorshach test of sorts, 
open to whatever we impose upon it. We can view it as the end of the night. We can see it as the dawn of a new day. Or we can treat it as a magical time, a virginal moment, that is a blank page, allowing us to paint our thoughts and dreams on it once we have gone through the night and before we grapple with the day.
For those who crave black and white, this is too much to deal with. It is too poorly defined. It is not about sleeping. It is not about waking. It is, instead, about cultivating the endless possibilities God puts before us and that are so rarely harvested.
All of the great, the astounding ideas in the history of the earth, have come from the “mindless” moments we are free to walk down the street, sit under a tree, lie in a hammock and think freely.
I have always loved the story of Edwin Land walking around Cambridge with his young daughter when she asked “Why does it take so long to see a picture after you photograph it daddy.” Land was about to answer within the confines of current technology when he caught himself and, like the exceptionally intelligent and gifted man he was, asked himself the same question. “Why indeed?” Thus was born Polaroid. And ditto for nearly every extraordinary enterprise and artistic masterpiece through the ages. They are born not when the mind focuses, as conventional wisdom would have you believe, but instead when it floats.
In life, we have but two great possibilities: love and achievement. All else is TV, fast food and cigarettes. If you value the first two, the wondrous two, the divine two, you need to push all else out to sea. And you need to fight for them.
Often, people who don’t know me ask, “What do you do in your free time.” Please tell me what they mean. What is “free time?” Every second carries an opportunity cost. If I don’t spend it well, toward love and achievement, it evaporates
forever. Hard on myself? I will accept the charge, admit to it and keep on relishing every moment.
I thought about John Locke today for the first time in many years. When did he first have the epiphany that we are all born with blank sheets of paper, absent of ideas? I know.
When he was alone. When his mind could drift. In the time he chose not to be free.
Before the morning becomes the day.
Mark Stevens
CEO
What are you writing on your sheets of paper?
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Humans are like the airlines. We go from point a to b every single day, we all DO things. We all ACT, drive, flip people off, fire, hire, fight, complain, smile, look pissed off, make decisions etc….all these things are destinations….like an airliner we reach these destinations. Like an airline most of us carry LOTS of baggage to these destinations. The baggage is wherein lies all of the problems that hold people from any kind of JOY.
How many of us are guilty of carrying forward baggage from past relationships, from past failurs, from past expriences good OR bad. We wake up chalked full of baggage, chips on our shoudlrs, ready to fire an answer or decision off based on our own baggage…..and to go back to the airliner analogy some people are carrying so much baggage, their plane just doesn’t fly anymore! What a shame!
How do we free ourselves of this baggage? The answer is wake up every day and thank god you’re here and able to do things. ENJOY the little things, getting in your car, playing your favorite tune, driving to starvucks, putting your windows down, talking to the cashier with respect, connecting with people, helping someone in any way possible…. etc. etc. Enjoy it all, every bit of it, and you will dump the baggage!
Once the baggage is dumped you are FREE…free to be happy….and that’s where it all truly starts! And there’s no feeling in the world like it. It’s like christmas morning every single day!
Gaston,
So true. I think of it as the art of letting go.
Mark Stevens
CEO
A few months ago I was working with a friend and consultant on some creative material. I complained that I couldn’t come up with anything really good. She made a comment that was a “whack on the side of my head.” “Ed, I have known you for some time and it seems to me that you occupy every minute of everyday on working, reading, listening or whatever. I don’t think you ever allow yourself any time just to think. That’s your problem.” Mark, you are correct in saying that we need to build in those times for “mindless moments” to have time for the “blank sheets of paper”. Times just to allow our minds to wander and wonder. I still need to force these times because I am always so busy, so thanks for reminding me in your message today. I need to remember that taking time to “walk in the woods” is not a waste of time but a time that is needed to free the mind.” Ed Laflamme
Locke was wrong about tabula rasa. Jung had it right.
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I don’t agree. I believe it is pervasive and the number one killer of true living.
Mark Stevens
CEO
“Ah-ha moments” – these have defined my life. Answers to simple and complex question hit me while I am not fixated on the problems. Such is life – sometimes it’s our only brush with true genius. It’s the weekend golfer shoot even par, the struggling writer seeing the end of the book before he picks up the pen, or the rookie marketer realizing they suck – before they blow the budget (haha).
These moments in time can define a person. One can look at it as the end of the night or the dawning of a new day, but always, always remember – the darkest hours are those just before dawn. And the calmest part of the storm is at it center. Finding that calm allows our genius to break through. Where is your calm, your zone, your place where genius runs amuck in the midst of the mediocre? Mine? In the quiet space between my nightly reading and sleep…with a pen and paper just out of reach.