I am almost went insane last week. Some may say that is a very small step for me, but that is all a matter of perspective. One man’s crazy is another man’s sanity. Certainly one issue should not be enough to take me to the brink, but this one is kind of delicate. Like most people of my age group, we are all growing older and we are growing older a lot faster than we ever thought was possible. It seemed just a few years ago, I was skippin‘ down the cobbled stones, lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy. If I tried that now I would probably be feelin' woozy.
It is a matter of biology that we all grow older; you can’t avoid that fact given the alternative is to be dead. But it is whether or not you accept the fact that you are growing older or not. There are many ways to look at this situation, avoidance, denial, acceptance and an all out battle against nature using every tool that science can supply are some of the options. I have certainly at one point in my life avoided the aging issue altogether and definitely denied the process was going on at another point, and finally, yes I am slowly accepting the fact I am getting older. I still haven’t opted for the scientific approach yet, although there is still time for that option. Thankfully aging in itself doesn’t kill you, it is the total lack of bodily functions that finally does you in.
I did the denial thing a few summers ago when I still believed I could water ski like a teenager. Most family and friends were not aware of any thing wrong, as my body was in shock for most of the weekend. It was only until I was home alone with my family that my body seized up and only emerged from the pretzel-like shape I had twisted into after a few days of loud soul-wracking moans and pleadings with any natural or supernatural entity to stop the pain. To say it was a graceful segue to acceptance of aging is a little of a stretch, but here I am now happily ensconced in the fact that yes I am older and yes there have been changes, but that is OK. Again considering the alternative, this is not a bad position to be in.
My youngest daughter was feeling out of sorts one weekend. Nothing seemed to be right. Her Mom asked her what was wrong, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know... I just wish I was older.” A very common and real statement that is made by young teens around the world. But deep in my psyche where a normally quiet bespectacled nerd resided, this statement rattled down through the dark corridors of my brain and caused this fellow to bolt upright in his comfy chair. He clucked a few times and then threw the Mike Meyers Fool Switch and took over my mind and body. Without a second for me to rationally react, I found myself standing on my ottoman, newspapers still fluttering through the air after I tossed them, screaming at the top of my lungs in some acquired and unknown Scottish accent, “Wha? Ya crazy lass? Ya canna wait until your life is over!! Ha’ your brain turned to porridge? Mind you what you be wishing for! Before ya know it the wicked hand of time will come down and smote you with grey hair and wrinkles like the old woman who is standing beside yo...” Fortunately, another bespectacled nerdy scientist deep within my brain threw an even more important switch and turned my mouth off before I went any further.
I sat back down sheepishly smiled, mumbled an apology and was happy to hear my regular voice instead of a thick Scottish brogue. Fortunately, this sort of thing happens a lot around our household so things got back to relative normalcy in short order.
I can understand why my daughter wanted to be older, it is kind of seductive. No more education system and having the freedom and time to spend lots and lots of money. But as all adults know, seduction is all it is. We tried to explain that with all of this comes a great amount of responsibility especially if you throw in the burden of being a parent in the mix as well. Getting older is not one big party (well, maybe it was for a few years) and as you get older instead of getting easier, life tends to become even more difficult, more complicated. The kids sat at the dinner table and stared at us with truly unbelieving and unconvinced eyes. I finally told them of an old philosopher or was it an ancient Chinese saying that put forth something like, “With great power comes great responsibilities.” They exchanged glances and one of them said to me, “Dad. Peter Parker's uncle said that”. Damned spider.
“So,” they continued, as they warmed to the thought. “You really think getting older and being a parent is the same as being a super hero?” Without hesitation, my wife and I both agreed. I mean, what is it that a super hero actually does? They save the world from mass destruction, ya da, ya da, ya da. That is a mere pittance to aging and parenting. We strive for Truth, Justice and the American way (or at least a variance of that), we try to right the wrong, punish the evil doers and make every thing in the world right again. The only thing missing is the secret identity and jazzy costume. I looked at my wife said as she stood proudly over the dinner table, her hands firmly resting on her hips with wind blowing her hair back heroically. She smiled at the kids and said, “Give me a cape, slap an M on my chest and call me Mom. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Monday, April 13, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Outliers, Left Out of Success?
I just finished reading the acclaimed bestseller, Outliers, The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a fascinating read with interesting and controversial insights into what breeds success in such diverse groupings as professional hockey players to entrepreneurs like Bill Gates to airline pilots to ethnic groups who score highest in mathematical scores.
What a load it has taken off my shoulders! Here I was blaming my lack of success on my reluctance to work hard and the total absence of dedication to any job that requires more than a passing effort. No, according to Gladwell it is simply a matter of the timing of my birth. Without giving to much away of the book or it’s conclusions, the hypothesis is that children who are enrolled in school whose birth dates are closer to the cutoff date for school registration in September are faced with the undeniable fact that their maturation and their intellectual capacity was not equal to those they were in class with. This then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of not achieving the standards of his classmates and leads him down the path of moral rectitude, substance abuse and an ultimately death; or a career as a lawyer.
Being an October child I was enrolled in school almost a year before some of my classmates were. This part of my upbringing was no surprise to me. Having the bejesus pounded out of me in the playground by a goon who was 5 inches taller and outweighed me by 30 pounds was nothing new. But I didn’t have the wherewithal to inquire about his date of birth to verify this hypothesis or not. I was too busy just trying to avoid that long hanging bit of saliva he had dangling from his lips as he held me down. The thought still sends shivers down my back, I was never sure if he was going to be able to suck it back up to his mouth without losing control of it.
I always thought that I had some certain level of superiority over my classmates because I was younger than they were. But according to this new outlook on education and age, I couldn’t have been more mistaken. I had been bred for failure.
Marketing a book like Outliers, especially one that has all the elements of something extremely boring, it helps to have a bit of controversy behind it. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, published in 2005 was one that had some spicy racial overtones to it’s ideas. It did generate respectable sales figures for the authors (I wonder what month they were born in) and spent almost a full year on best seller lists. Freakonomics was essentially about theoretical economics with some drug dealing and crime statistics thrown in. It had the capacity to be as boring as counting ceiling tiles, but they transcended that. Gladwell has taken a similar approach. A lot of the highlights or more controversial bits do have racial elements to them because after all, the main thrust is to sell books and nothing sells books like some old good racial controversy.
While there are many valid points he proposes in his book, he does leave one particular definition unexplained. He never truly defines what he refers to as successful. He certainly profiles those who are financially successful to those who are intellectually successful, but he never really does focus on what that definition should be. He seems to waffle between the financial and the intellectual but in the end leans towards the financial as to which one carries the most merit.
By no description am I a professional hockey player or a mover and shaker in industry, but I have been a published writer for over twenty years and I feel there is some degree of success in just that fact. There is no denying the fact that for the most part writing is not a lucrative venture, but I have had many financially successful people tell me that they wished they had the ability to write as seemingly effortlessly (I won’t tell them the truth) as I.
I guess in the end, the definition of success really does rest within your own mind. Just remember you are as successful as the next guy; as long as the next guy is not a professional hockey player or Bill Gates.
What a load it has taken off my shoulders! Here I was blaming my lack of success on my reluctance to work hard and the total absence of dedication to any job that requires more than a passing effort. No, according to Gladwell it is simply a matter of the timing of my birth. Without giving to much away of the book or it’s conclusions, the hypothesis is that children who are enrolled in school whose birth dates are closer to the cutoff date for school registration in September are faced with the undeniable fact that their maturation and their intellectual capacity was not equal to those they were in class with. This then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of not achieving the standards of his classmates and leads him down the path of moral rectitude, substance abuse and an ultimately death; or a career as a lawyer.
Being an October child I was enrolled in school almost a year before some of my classmates were. This part of my upbringing was no surprise to me. Having the bejesus pounded out of me in the playground by a goon who was 5 inches taller and outweighed me by 30 pounds was nothing new. But I didn’t have the wherewithal to inquire about his date of birth to verify this hypothesis or not. I was too busy just trying to avoid that long hanging bit of saliva he had dangling from his lips as he held me down. The thought still sends shivers down my back, I was never sure if he was going to be able to suck it back up to his mouth without losing control of it.
I always thought that I had some certain level of superiority over my classmates because I was younger than they were. But according to this new outlook on education and age, I couldn’t have been more mistaken. I had been bred for failure.
Marketing a book like Outliers, especially one that has all the elements of something extremely boring, it helps to have a bit of controversy behind it. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, published in 2005 was one that had some spicy racial overtones to it’s ideas. It did generate respectable sales figures for the authors (I wonder what month they were born in) and spent almost a full year on best seller lists. Freakonomics was essentially about theoretical economics with some drug dealing and crime statistics thrown in. It had the capacity to be as boring as counting ceiling tiles, but they transcended that. Gladwell has taken a similar approach. A lot of the highlights or more controversial bits do have racial elements to them because after all, the main thrust is to sell books and nothing sells books like some old good racial controversy.
While there are many valid points he proposes in his book, he does leave one particular definition unexplained. He never truly defines what he refers to as successful. He certainly profiles those who are financially successful to those who are intellectually successful, but he never really does focus on what that definition should be. He seems to waffle between the financial and the intellectual but in the end leans towards the financial as to which one carries the most merit.
By no description am I a professional hockey player or a mover and shaker in industry, but I have been a published writer for over twenty years and I feel there is some degree of success in just that fact. There is no denying the fact that for the most part writing is not a lucrative venture, but I have had many financially successful people tell me that they wished they had the ability to write as seemingly effortlessly (I won’t tell them the truth) as I.
I guess in the end, the definition of success really does rest within your own mind. Just remember you are as successful as the next guy; as long as the next guy is not a professional hockey player or Bill Gates.
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