Cloudy to Clear

December 19, 2024

Saturday is December 21, the Winter Solstice, also known in Robert-Frost-speak as the "darkest evening of the year." I see it as the day we humans symbolically most need the technology we have developed, inventions that allow us to flourish despite the cold and dark outside. We flip a switch, and a light comes on. It's like magic, but it's not.

Given my love for both human ingenuity and creating new reasons to celebrate, it will not surprise regular readers that years ago I invented my own quirky holiday: Lightbulb Day. Each Solstice, my family toasts the innovations that bring comfort, safety, and joy to our lives. The celebration is flexible: We give high-tech gifts (or high-tech gift cards), we look up trivia about the inventive origins of everyday things, and we talk about our favorite inventions. This year, I’m especially grateful for modern cataract surgery: Last month, my husband David went from cloudy vision to crystal-clear sight in about an hour, painlessly. In another era, he’d have faced gradual blindness.

Though brilliant innovators often credit the "giants" who paved their way, real progress isn’t confined to intellectual superstars; it’s powered by millions of ordinary people tinkering, improving, and contributing step by step. David, for example, works on mathematical models for cancer and Alzheimer’s research. He won’t discover the cures himself, but his work helps build the path forward.

Being an innovator doesn’t require groundbreaking research, of course: It’s about spotting gaps to fill, processes to improve, or ideas to amplify. And it’s a mindset we can nurture in our kids: When you see them creating or problem-solving, call it out! Once they think of themselves as innovators, they’ll approach the world with a lit-up sense of possibility.

It's like magic, but it's not. It's better.

—Deb