Windmills and Choices

I had the chance to open a department meeting today, and, while not my finest performance thanks to the cloudiness of a “stuffy head,” I felt a deep connection with the central theme of my talk: choosing where to go from here.

Life is a series of choices, each leading to another choice or two. It’s like the “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” of my youth…only I can’t flip ahead and work my way back from a cool ending.

Or can I?

There was a young man in Malawi, Africa, who survived a terrible drought and subsequent famine that occurred during the early part of this new millennium. His name is William Kamkwamba. Most of the people who live in rural Malawi are subsistence farmers. They grow their own food, being sure to save food for the times when their crops do not grow. In Malawi, most farmers grow tobacco, too, and sell it as a way of making a little money so they can buy other things that they may need. Their lives are intimately intertwined with the seasons and the cycles of rain and drought. This is why any blip in the system can have a devastating, fatal effect.

When the drought hit, William’s family lost not only their source of food but their source of income, as well. His parents were not able to pay for his school fees. At the age of 14, he dropped out of school. There was little work to be done in the fields. So, with nothing to do and, literally, starving to death, William decided to spend his time at the library in his village. It was little more than a small room with several shelfs of books. Among those books, William found a book called, “Using Energy.” Within the pages of the book, William saw a picture of a windmill. The picture captured his imagination, and William learned that windmills could be used to generate energy, electricity.

Electricity.

William built a windmill. If he had failed, it wouldn’t be much of a story. He built a windmill and produced enough electricity to power one bicycle light bulb which he hung from the ceiling of his room. The windmill changed his life forever.

William’s windmill was vision made reality. It was a dream pulled from the ether and given tangible form.

For a long time, windmills have been a symbol of futility. Miguel de Cervantes, Saavedra wrote a book about a character named Don Quixote who lives in such a dream state that, at one point in the story, he attacked a windmill because he thought it was a giant. The term quixotic is used to describe something that is not sensible or practical, something delusional.  And the term “tilting at windmills” represents the ultimate quixotic endeavor: fighting the unwinnable, futile battle.

Or the impossible dream.

We are presented with windmills throughout our lives: challenges, trials, opportunities, changes.  How we view these windmills is truly a matter of choice.  Unwinnable battle or impossible dream?  I know what William would say.

On a farm somewhere in Malawi, the blades of a windmill spin furiously in the hot desert wind.