Random Acts of Greatness

My wife and I come from two completely different backgrounds and yet with so many similarities in upbringing.?

We were both brought up with love of travel. We are now traveling across US taking the northern route. It is absolutely magical to come across random acts of greatness. I am going to talk about two that have truly touched me in the last week.

Glacier Park Lodge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Park_Lodge)?

There is this amazingly beautiful structure made of large douglass fir wood hauled from far off distances. The lodge was constructed over 100 years back in in 1913 and all it took was 75 men and 15 months to build this absolute gem.

This was the vision of Louis Hill who was then the president of Great Northern Railways. Even though people thought he was crazy to build in this area, he was determined. He felt that this would enable tourism to the Rocky Mountains and Glacier National Park. What is truly baffling is the audacity and scale of the structure. The possibility of creating lodging could also have been created by developing humbler lodging on this difficult terrain but he chose differently and created a monument that would enable joy for so many generations to come.This is a grand structure with a giant hall created with giant lumber with over 200 rooms and so many facilities for the guests.

One man’s vision (and a team of people coming together) changed the world in this area forevermore.

Enchanted Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Highway)

Gary Greff decided that he was going to do something about reviving the economy of his hometown of Regent, North Dakota, a farming village in the middle of nowhere. He began constructing amazing scrap metal sculptures along a 32 mile stretch from the main highway to his village leading tourists to visit. He funded the project himself and recruited other farmers to help him weld. Greff decided that he wanted to honour the everyday beauty of his area and so chose sculptural subjects such as grasshoppers, pheasants,?geese. One piece titled A Fisherman’s Dream shows an underwater scene of interconnected plants, fish, and boats. Now, we see so many people coming from all over the world to see these eight magnificent structures. What was amazing to me is that Greff and his farming community created these contributions with such obvious love over the last 20 odd years. AND, they haven’t quit innovating! They’ve now started an enchanted hotel — as people who traveled down to see the sculptures also needed a place to stay and the village would benefit even more. Vision, teamwork and grit have literally changed the landscape of both the natural world and the people’s lives.?

My learnings

There are some of the things that strike me as I am exposed to people who build on ideas bigger than themselves:

1. Think beyond present: Many of our actions are reactionary. There is a need and we work on fulfilling that need. This may lead to adequacy but not excellence. We have to imagine a different future. We need to be able to think what can be rather than what is. We need to create that future.
2. Have courage and audacity to dream big: We get conditioned and move to our rational side very quickly. We are asked to be ‘realistic’ and ‘practical’ but that is not what creates change. We need to let our imagination rise and not be cowed by our minds and by opinions around us.
3. Resources are never a constraint: Most of those who have created with their imagination did not start with available resources. They built on a vision and found ways to garner the inputs needed. Facilitation happens when we are ready to dream and act with conviction towards fulfilment of those dreams.
4. Design matters: There is great power in design. We tend to try and save cost and that leaves us with, at best, something that is adequate. In order to build towards everlasting beauty we need to begin with the end in mind and collaborate with those who are able to visualise and channelise that dream into realty.
5. Think contribution beyond self: Our work has the be way beyond ourselves. It has to be in service of others. The visions become wider and larger when we can imagine ideas that would be impactful for others and build with that in mind.

We are working towards contributing towards a cleaner planet by rethinking, creating and providing compostable packaging. There is so much to be learnt by people who have gone ahead and built on ideas that were not straightforward. We will continue to search and find ways to explore and search for solutions.