(Yes, I changed the words to the “serenity prayer.”)

Every once in awhile we hear someone say something so interesting it manages to stick with us the rest of our lives. And it need not be profound or on the scale of a grand epiphany. It can be something as simple as a minor observation, and yet it manages to stay with us; a simple little image that may mean nothing to some, but is life changing to others.

My friend, Howard Hull, was a physicist. He was a regular guest at the restaurant I worked at when I first went to college, and he loved helping me with my physics homework. He always sat at one particular table and one time when he came in a man was sitting at the end of the next table, in such a way, he blocked Howard from getting to his usual spot. The man simply refused to move, so Howard got down on the floor and climbed under the table until he was far enough in to take his seat and order his dinner.

We loved to chat, and he was always open to hear my latest hypothesis about how the universe really works. One time he asked me to imagine, to think of, walking down a side walk headed North- say the sidewalk along Central Park. He asked me to picture in my mind a person walking on the other sidewalk headed East and away from me- perpendicular that is. There is a row of trees and the person is walking at such a speed that now one tree in particular is between us in my perspective as we continue walking. Unless one of us changes our rate of motion the person will remain hidden from me behind the tree as I proceed along my path.

If there is desire- if I want to see that person- then I have to effect change, and the best way to do so is to speed up or slow down and, ultimately, change my perspective. Now to some, this may seem a mundane and pointless or obvious observation. To me, though, it was an image I have never let out of my mind. And it made me commit a series of experiments in some of my classes I probably would have never considered.

I love math. And as luck would have it my math class just happened to have twenty students and exactly twenty desks. But now that I had my new found image from my friend Howard I realized my math class was lacking in one crucial aspect- perspective! At this point in the semester we had all settled nice and cozy into our regularunassigned but nonetheless assigned seating. It is an odd fact of life we tend to pick one seat and return to it every day like homing pigeons.

Each day from then on I decided to sit in a different seat, you know, just to see what math was like from different coordinates. I had no idea my little experiment would cause such a ripple in the fabric of space and time. Every morning as I walked to my classroom I would see other members of the class notice me on my merry way- their eyes would get big, and it wasn’t long before each of them would run to make it to class before I got there- in effort to spoil my nefarious attempt to pilfer their locus of comfort. This was the first of many successful experiments.

Howard taught me a lot about observation. You might recall in the beginning I mentioned he liked sitting at the same table in the restaurant, yet his lesson was about change, so it might seem as if he would not heed his own advice. Actually, though he preferred that spot much like a friendly neighbor who enjoys sitting on a porch while watching the world go by, he nonetheless did sit at other tables. And he did point out we have options- there is no need for me to change my perspective, unless I want to- and unless I want to see that person behind the tree.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Howard lately. He passed away just recently. I hadn’t seen him in years, at least not in person. His voice still resonates in my mind. I mention him to people whenever I can. When I drive by his old house I always look to see if he is still there. We live in troubled times- of course this can probably be said of any era. But we also live in wonderful times. We hold the ability to ameliorate bad situations with the smallest of changes and an easy way to do so is through a change in perspective- no matter how big, or how tiny.

Because of Howard I took classes I might not have otherwise taken, and like the famous line from Robert Frost we all hear at graduation “…that has made all the difference.” To this day I also continue to sit in different desks when I can and I still ruffle some feathers, but I’m glad to know it doesn’t take much, really, to change our world. Thank you, Howard.

H L Smith

For BolderLife Blog 2013