Delta-Beings

I believe that everyone is “interesting,” that no individual is without value or interest. Sadly, some of these people hide their colors, and others are simply sleepwalking through life. Call these sleepwalkers, Delta-Beings.

Why “Delta”?

A fully functioning brain can generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power.

Beta: Strongly engaged brain. Brain waves of 15-40 cycles per second.

Alpha: Not all that engaged. Brain waves of 9-14 cycles per second.

Theta: Daydreaming. Brain waves of 5-8 cycles per second

Delta: Deep, dreamless sleep. 1.5 to 4 cycles per second.


Delta-Beings always play it safe.

Delta-Beings do not ruffle feathers, trouble the waters, or rock the boat.

Delta-Beings will do what they are told to do…immediately…without even thinking about it.

Delta-Beings think tradition is off limits and that the mantra “We have always done it this way,” is divine wisdom.

Delta-Beings always agree with everyone—even when they all are disagreeing with each other

Delta-Beings don’t stand out.

Delta-Beings don’t know that there is a box, much less that they might want to think-outside-of-it.

Delta-Beings are predictable.

Delta-Beings parrot the company line, even after it is proven that it is only a punch-line to a very old joke which no one finds funny.

Delta-Beings rarely do anything “wrong.”

Delta-Beings do not challenge.

Delta-Beings can only solve the problems of the past.

Delta-Beings do not create, they only maintain.

Delta-Beings resist visionaries because such people require that Mr or Ms Delta-Being wake-up!

What can you do, if you are a Delta-Being?

Go find weird people, eccentric players, and off-the-wall-thinkers that never encounter a rule they don’t question. Find people who are allergic to boxes. Get to know them. Be challenged by them. Allow them to take you on the magical mystery tour of their thought processes.

Look around you. Look at your office and your life. R-e-a-l-l-y look. How many people of color are there? How many people from different cultures and countries? How many of your friends think exactly the way you do about almost everything? SNOOOOORING!

Read books, magazines and periodicals outside of your industry. Read up on genomes. Read Tolkien. Read Bob Sutton’s, Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. Read books which challenge the way you have always done-it, believed, thought. Shake-up your brain.

Visit museums. Immerse yourself in the atmosphere of creativity and self-expression. Consider the nuances, the juxtapositions, the shades, and the spaces. Go read up on the lives of the artists who move you. If they are still on this planet, contact them. Go meet them. Listen to them.

Visit a nearby graveyard. I am serious: dead serious. This is where you are headed. No matter how many years away it is, it is not all that far away. What will the epitaph read?

She Was Bored to Death
--Or—
Wow! What a Ride

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2010