Miracle Innovations--Come on, Humans!

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I just remembered that I forgot to lock my car, so I look out my window, press a button, and almost a block away I see my car flash and automatically lock itself. For a moment I don't take this now-commonplace act for granted and acknowledge what it is: a miracle. Human-created, technological magic. Something a decade ago I would not have considered to be in the realm of possibility.

The mesmerizing clocks and gears in 3-D Hugo

Breakthrough innovations--miracles of mind (and nowadays usually technology) that redefine how we do things and often could not be predicted by what occurred before--are the elusive dream of many current businesses and the catalyst for new industries and economic growth. We also need breakthroughs right now to solve the challenges of an America that has forgotten how to collectively solve problems, dream together and invent a new future. 

Perhaps like you I have been feeling pessimistic about the state of our culture--despite my creative rabble-rousing I am in many ways a very practical person--but something about watching Hugo, Martin Scorcese's new 3D movie, shook up some optimism in me.  Movies in many ways are the ultimate manifestation of current human creativity, requiring hundreds of talented people coming together to create as engaging an experience we can have while seated.  And I finally understood that 3D movies are a breakthrough--that my experience watching Hugo was qualitatively different from any movie experience I'd had before (I have not been an avid 3D goer) and that movies now were being reinvented in a way I hadn't really thought possible.

Artificial Leaf that can store solar energy

Add to that the truly amazing innovations featured in the recent Time Magazine "Invention Issue" (You may have to be a subscriber but worth picking up a copy) and suddenly I'm finding myself believing that humans can make miracles. Perhaps you've already met Siri, the iPhone digital assistant who can respond to your verbal requests like never before.  There is also DRACO, a new virus killer that may change the length of colds forever, as well as an artificial leaf that can effectively convert and store solar energy.  Not to mention 3-D chips, virtual textures, laser headlights, mind reading software and solar airplanes and so many others proving that miracle inventions will continue to change our world. Undoubtedly we'll soon adapt to them and take them for granted but they will continue to mesmerizingly come at us.

So for a moment, as this year ends, I'm embracing these miracles and believing that breakthroughs don't have to be only technological.  We are ready to change our politics, our economic paradigms, our distractions, our materialism, our stress--how we solve problems, get along and care about each other.  It only takes a small shift, a bold idea, a different way of seeing or communicating or being.  That may be a miracle but we humans can indeed do miracles.