

Last week Mark found Ted talks, and has become addicted. Ted talks are random speeches given by some of the greatest thinkers, innovators, business people alive right now. The talks and the people who give them are fascinating. It is amazing that so much is going on in the world, so much is still being discovered, connections are constantly being made.

I am a Kinda Nerd, and I was loving the talks. Mark is a Complete Nerd, and he was like a crack addict about the stuff. I swear that within a week he had listened to nearly every Ted Talk, and insisted on letting me know everything he was learning…

“We need to pay attention to this Craig Venter guy for alternative fuel…”

“Check out this new way to teach the Pythagorean theorem… GENIUS!”

“Oh. My. Goodness. Who knew a Wii controller could do so much?”

Everything from a Ted talk is interesting, but this Wii controller thing piqued my interest. A Wii controller that does something more than Wii? Tell me more.

Apparently, there are digital whiteboards that cost thousands of dollars due to their snazziness. I don’t understand the details, but the Wii controller can be rigged into a poor man’s version of the laser marker for the white board (or something). So you can make your own $40 version of thousand dollar cutting edge technology.

I’m not really that impressed with the Wii controller (ok, I kinda am). I am, however, impressed with this idea of “doing the impossible”. If anyone had asked the designers of the digital whiteboard to cut the price in half with a better, more affordable design they would possibly balk at the suggestion. They might even insist that it is impossible to do so. (I’m fully aware that they do know that their technology is, essentially, equal to a Wii controller and don’t care because they are able to charge thousands of dollars and people will pay)

This guy comes along, “does the impossible”, and makes thousand dollar technology affordable for literally everyone.


What are the “impossibles” in my life? What “can’t be done” with the resources at hand? Where am I limiting my thinking with “rules” that don’t really exist, that never really existed?

I am not really sure what the theology is behind what I’m about to say, but I do believe freedom is such an important part of Christianity. There is liberation in knowing that God is fighting for us to no longer be slaves to sin, to insecurity, to hopelessness. I hear about Wii controllers becoming digital whiteboards and I can’t help but imagine our brains being released from the prisons of these old thoughts.

Maybe our ‘becoming’ looks the same way. Stepping out of the prisons of old ideas, definitions, and rules about who we are and what is possible, and stumbling clumsily into the truth.

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