This is my eulogy. This is the story of how I died but was reborn a different man - a man capable of greatness and hell bent on resuming its quest. No, I did not die in fact, but the day I stepped onto Australian soil on June 24, 2008, I bid goodbye to the man I was. It was a necessary step, and now I can write about how I thought I had died inside, only to discover that my life was greater - no, grander - and whatever setbacks I experienced were just that.
My death occurred on a scorching hot day in July of 2007. My partner of several years broke the news that though he loved me, he was no longer in love with me. I took the news stoically, calmly. It shocked but didn’t surprise me. I knew that we had drifted apart somewhat, but I misjudged how far. Some time before, he had suggested to me that we seek some counselling, and I didn’t disagree. I simply took it in and then continued on as I had before. I didn’t listen, and then on that summer day six or eight weeks later, it was over.
Simultaneously, I was assigned to an impossible project at work which frustrated and annoyed me. Days after my break-up, I lost control. I rang my boss and told her I needed to be put in a supporting role on the project. I could no longer deal with the developers on the customer side and I risked saying something inappropriate to them. My voice cracked as I explained this to my boss, and she quickly picked up on my state.
“Are you OK, Jason?” she asked.
“No, I’m not. I’m sorry, but I am going through some personal difficulties, and I just need to take a background role on this project. Can I do that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m sorry. I am trying my best not to compromise this project. I know how important it is.”
“Don’t worry, Jason, just take the day off and take care of yourself. We’ll get it sorted out.”
I hung up the phone and stood in silent misery in my home office. Randy had heard the exchange from the other room and came into my office and hugged me close. He didn’t utter platitudes or phoney words of consolation. He just held me while I cried until I pulled myself together. I told him to go to work and that I would be OK. I just needed time to think.
At the time we were living in a two-bedroom unit in Scottsdale, Arizona that we’d bought together. We were both unhappy in the place and decided to move back to his place on the other side of town until we could sort things out financially. We’d put the unit up for sale or rent and proceed from there.
***
In the months after we moved back to Chandler, similar episodes would recur. I’d begun to retreat from my friends somewhat and welcomed the increasing business travel that my boss doled out to me. On any given Friday or Saturday night, Randy would return home from working at a local bar to find me in a terrible state once again. He’d begun to worry about me. I’d constructed a cocoon of a bedroom, living room and home office all in one small bedroom. I spent a lot of time there. I still went out, but I avoided talking to anyone about anything of substance. Being a rational adult, I did not descend into heavy drinking or other self destructive behaviour. I was simply sad, deeply sad. I was confused and spent hours, days and weeks trying to understand what I’d done wrong. I beat myself up. I thought myself unlovable. I thought the curse of independence had rendered me incapable of connecting.
Then, light. During a training engagement at my company’s home office in Carlsbad, California, an older gentleman from New Zealand attending the course approached me about working in Australia. He had been a long-time consultant for a business partner of ours. After observing my depth of knowledge he thought I would be perfect for a role down under. He took me to lunch and laid out the possibilities. I felt energised for the first time since summer of 2007.
I returned home and told Randy I might have an opportunity in Australia. He was overjoyed. We had spent a month long holiday in the country and had fallen in love with it. We had even discussed moving there together at one point, but after the break-up, that plan dissolved.
I then began to investigate the possibilities. I contacted a work colleague in Sydney and asked him if they needed anyone to assist their small team. They did, as it turned out. As account manager, he was desperately in need of a pre-sales engineer - or demo boy, as I sometimes call it. They could only get a US-based person down to Australia on rare occasions and then it was a struggle to bring that person up to speed on the deal. They really needed a full-time local pre-sales guy. I told him I was interested, and even though I had no real sales experience, I’d been a trainer and a consultant, so I had vast knowledge working with customers. He said he’d talk it over with his guys and get back to me.
Some time later, I had a phone interview with the guys in Sydney. It went well. They hired me. Steve, my soon-to-be boss, explained the challenges of being isolated from the rest of the company, but I didn’t mind that. I was moving to Australia and nothing was going to stop me!
For the months to follow, I played the visa preparation game with our HR department in Sydney. I had to get medical exams, fill out reams of paperwork, supply proof of education and birth. I was a man with purpose again.
***
In March of 2008, Randy announced to me that he was seeing someone new who lived in Los Angeles. I asked how they’d met and he replied with: “Do you remember that night with your sister and her friend Ron at that bar in LA last Thanksgiving?” I did remember and that’s where he’d met the new guy. I was thunderstruck. I hadn't attempted dating yet and couldn’t conceive that Randy might have already moved on. Once again, my immediate reaction was stoic and calm. And once again, my delayed reaction was devastation. I had only a few months left before leaving the United States and here I was a blubbering a mess. Why couldn’t I just get on with it?
***
Finally, my visa paperwork was submitted to Australian immigration. The HR department in Sydney informed me the approval was certain to occur, but could take up to eight weeks for it to go through. I sighed in relief. It was really happening. I was moving to Australia.
Three days later I received the e-mail from HR that my visa had been approved. Good God! I had four weeks to pack my life up, sell my car and leave my American life behind me permanently. My intention was not to move temporarily. Australia was to become my new home country.
***
Late June arrived quickly. I had decided to rent a car in Phoenix and drive to LA with all my belongings I hadn’t already shipped to Sydney. I needed the thinking time and I needed a last weekend of fun in southern California. I booked a room at an inexpensive motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and invited my friend David in San Diego to come up and my oldest and best friend Daniel from Montréal to fly down. Randy would come out Sunday morning - my departure date - and have one last day with me, my friends and my sister.
At dinner on Friday at a nice French bistro in West Hollywood, I felt a sudden sadness hit me again. I felt alone again. I excused myself from the dinner table and found my way to the men’s room in the back of the restaurant. I braced myself against the wall and collapsed onto the toilet seat, trembling with grief, but anger too. Almost a year had passed. I was about to embark on the grandest adventure of my life and here I was back in my home office in Scottsdale wracked with helplessness. I felt like a pathetic mess.
Minutes later I returned to the table. My friends were concerned. They could tell from my complexion I’d been crying, but I told them not to worry. I would be OK. I didn’t know if I would, but I didn’t want them spending the night consoling me instead of enjoying the occasion.
Sunday came. Randy arrived and met us all at a cafe in Pasadena. It felt odd seeing him, knowing I was leaving, but he would carry on with his life undisturbed. I didn’t resent him. Even though he had initiated the break-up, he had been there for me ever since. He never spoke ill of me to anyone. Who could be angry with someone of such kindness of character? I was more angry with myself for failing to live up to the relationship.
Mid-afternoon came and I had to go. My flight to Sydney wasn’t until after 10 pm, but I needed to return the rental car, check through my oversized luggage and get through customs. I didn’t want to be rushed. My friends left Randy and me alone to say goodbye to each other in the car park of a museum. He hugged me close, told me how much he loved me and that I would do great things in Australia. I turned around and walked toward the car without looking back.
***
It is now 2011 and Randy was right. In the three years since my death and rebirth, I have reinvented myself. I still work for the same firm and I have established a network of friends and business associates. Within a few years’ time I’ll be an Australian citizen. I have fulfilled the promise I made to myself years ago. I pushed through my grief slowly. I have moved on. I have even met someone whom I think is an even better match for me than Randy was.
In the end, I realise that I did nothing wrong. My relationship with Randy ran its course and that’s that. We’re as close as friends today as we were as partners in the past. Whilst the nature of the relationship changed, we still possess the comfortable ease with each other that we had almost from the time we met eight years ago. I’ve heard over the years that a first love stays with you forever and I think that’s true for me. I will never forget the wondrous four years together and I now cherish the memories we’ve had since then as friends.
My life in Australia is completely different from my life back in the US, and in some ways I am a different man. My passion for living is intact, however. So is my fierce independence and my single minded drive to achieve excellence. Those who care about me proudly boast of my exciting life in Sydney and all the exotic locales I get to visit as a matter of course. When I think back on the choices I’ve made since childhood, the Greek concept of eudaimonia returns to me. It is a concept that the word happiness cannot convey properly, for it means the deep, fulfilling life of achievement and the serenity that comes with it. This is the meaning of my life and, despite a crucial setback, it continues to be what drives me every day. As it turns out, my death was an exaggeration. It is my life that is most important.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
A Thwarted Life
I recently finished reading the 1941 James M. Cain novel Mildred Pierce. Many of you may recall the 1945 film version that was a comeback vehicle for Joan Crawford. The novel, like the movie, follows the life of a put upon woman struggling to make a success of her life. At every pass, just when success is seemingly hers, someone or something gets in the way.
From that common framework, the movie version veers 180 degrees from the novel. The movie is showy and soapy. Joan Crawford’s Mildred is more caricature than character. Her daughter Veda, played by a teenaged Ann Blyth, is more petulant brat than scheming she-devil, as she is in the novel. Fundamentally, however, the movie diverts from the novel in its tone.
Mildred Pierce the star vehicle is bombast and revenge melodrama, with a murder plot thrown in as a nod to the popular noir films of the era. The novel, on the other hand, portrays its lead character as a woman striving to succeed on her own terms. She is decidedly low class, with no skills or standing to guide her other than her own fierce determination. Her daughter Veda fashions herself a high society girl embarrassed by her mother’s menial work as a waitress in a greasy spoon in Depression era Los Angeles. Even after her mother rises to become the owner of a chain of restaurants, Veda is only impressed when Mildred shacks up with worthless playboy Monty Beragon. Monty may not amount to anything, but at least he hails from Pasadena blue-blood stock.
The central conflict of the story is between Mildred and Veda, each vying for victory and only one winning in the end. The novel deals not in murder and mayhem, but rather in the universal theme of earned versus unearned success. It is a sombre work, and whilst it treats Mildred as a heroine of sorts, it is essentially a period slice of life piece, albeit a compelling and well written one.
Reading the novel reminded me of the same kinds of people I’ve met and dealt with my entire life, some who have striven to earn their own way, and others who live as parasites on the backs of those who do succeed. Some people think the Vedas of this world are the norm and that the Mildreds are an impossible fiction. I am sometimes aghast at the abject cynicism of young adults who have already given up merely because they confuse the occasional louts they meet as the norm, as the to-be-expected. Looking at the politicians of our era, I cannot say I blame young people entirely. That is why I often tell younger people to look beyond the empty platitudes and dangling carrots that politicians proffer and focus on their own integrity.
When I decided at a fairly young age that my life would consist of adventures spanning the globe, I didn’t know the precise nature of the obstacles that lay before me. Even someone with the sunniest of attitudes can get caught in a web of deceitful or opportunistic imbeciles, and I was no different. Despite these occasional setbacks, I never allowed others to get me down for long. I cast them aside and continued forward, only occasionally glancing back to assess a failed friendship, job or relationship as lessons of what to avoid in the future.
Since moving to Australia nearly three years ago, I’ve met a great number of new people, some who have become friends and on-going business associates, while others fleeting acquaintances of little consequence. My greatest joy, however, is in knowing that I shall never accept the fate of Mildred Pierce: a woman who had high goals but who enabled a wicked child to get the best of her.
In writing this, I am thinking of someone I’ve come to know well over the past six months who occasionally struggles with some of his recent decisions. I remind him that he needn’t ruminate too much about the past because he has a radiant future. Neither of us, in other words, are Mildred Pierce, and that is a damn fine thing.
From that common framework, the movie version veers 180 degrees from the novel. The movie is showy and soapy. Joan Crawford’s Mildred is more caricature than character. Her daughter Veda, played by a teenaged Ann Blyth, is more petulant brat than scheming she-devil, as she is in the novel. Fundamentally, however, the movie diverts from the novel in its tone.
Mildred Pierce the star vehicle is bombast and revenge melodrama, with a murder plot thrown in as a nod to the popular noir films of the era. The novel, on the other hand, portrays its lead character as a woman striving to succeed on her own terms. She is decidedly low class, with no skills or standing to guide her other than her own fierce determination. Her daughter Veda fashions herself a high society girl embarrassed by her mother’s menial work as a waitress in a greasy spoon in Depression era Los Angeles. Even after her mother rises to become the owner of a chain of restaurants, Veda is only impressed when Mildred shacks up with worthless playboy Monty Beragon. Monty may not amount to anything, but at least he hails from Pasadena blue-blood stock.
The central conflict of the story is between Mildred and Veda, each vying for victory and only one winning in the end. The novel deals not in murder and mayhem, but rather in the universal theme of earned versus unearned success. It is a sombre work, and whilst it treats Mildred as a heroine of sorts, it is essentially a period slice of life piece, albeit a compelling and well written one.
Reading the novel reminded me of the same kinds of people I’ve met and dealt with my entire life, some who have striven to earn their own way, and others who live as parasites on the backs of those who do succeed. Some people think the Vedas of this world are the norm and that the Mildreds are an impossible fiction. I am sometimes aghast at the abject cynicism of young adults who have already given up merely because they confuse the occasional louts they meet as the norm, as the to-be-expected. Looking at the politicians of our era, I cannot say I blame young people entirely. That is why I often tell younger people to look beyond the empty platitudes and dangling carrots that politicians proffer and focus on their own integrity.
When I decided at a fairly young age that my life would consist of adventures spanning the globe, I didn’t know the precise nature of the obstacles that lay before me. Even someone with the sunniest of attitudes can get caught in a web of deceitful or opportunistic imbeciles, and I was no different. Despite these occasional setbacks, I never allowed others to get me down for long. I cast them aside and continued forward, only occasionally glancing back to assess a failed friendship, job or relationship as lessons of what to avoid in the future.
Since moving to Australia nearly three years ago, I’ve met a great number of new people, some who have become friends and on-going business associates, while others fleeting acquaintances of little consequence. My greatest joy, however, is in knowing that I shall never accept the fate of Mildred Pierce: a woman who had high goals but who enabled a wicked child to get the best of her.
In writing this, I am thinking of someone I’ve come to know well over the past six months who occasionally struggles with some of his recent decisions. I remind him that he needn’t ruminate too much about the past because he has a radiant future. Neither of us, in other words, are Mildred Pierce, and that is a damn fine thing.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Keynote of the Future
Several times a year, Apple releases new products or significant updates to existing products. To generate excitement for the new products, Steve Jobs gives a keynote address highlighting what’s new and compelling about them. Mr Jobs invites the product managers on stage at the events to present a deeper dive of each new product or set of features. What strikes me most about these keynotes is the glee with which Mr Jobs and his employees showcase their new products. They clearly love their careers and they love Apple.
The most recent keynote for the new iPad 2 got me thinking about great products and industries in general. These days, it is tough to find industries that wow us as much as the computer industry. Year after year, people around the world reap the benefits of all the research and development that goes into the products of technology that we enjoy every day. Who can recall how much time was required to research something as simple as the first movie Cary Grant starred in or the population of Austin, Texas in 1980, to cite a few slightly arcane examples? Hours? Probably, because in order to find that information one had to visit a public library and then one could only get that information during opening hours. Today it takes seconds, thanks to search engines like Google and the World Wide Web in general.
I also got to thinking about those industries that remain stagnant for years or even decades. Industries that don’t wow us with their innovation because they have none. Industries that we tolerate because most of us cannot imagine that schools or post offices could operate any differently from the way they do. We have grown accustomed over more than a century to see them as necessarily state run enterprises with a mediocre at best track record at educating children or delivering the mail.
So what does this have to do with Apple keynotes? Nothing, really. But it raises a few questions: Why is there no excitement about new teaching methods? Why is there no famous CEO in the education field getting up on stage in front of millions of eager customers to show off his latest innovations in teaching mathematics to young children? The answer, sadly, is there is no such thing as a market in education. The entire notion that education could be an exciting marketplace of ideas and competing for profit schools and universities is an anathema.
To an old friend of mine who is a public school teacher, the idea of capitalism applied to education is bizarre. Obviously education must be state run or else how would kids get a decent education? Without the beneficent state, kids would have no schools to attend because their parents couldn’t afford it. Of course the teachers would make a pittance without the public unions to collectively bargain for their salaries and benefits. Everyone knows this - right?
If it is true education must be a state run monopoly, then why is it other industries thrive as private, for profit entities? Why is it the very marketplace that has made our lives more efficient, safe and even fun inappropriate when it comes to the most important thing in a child’s life - the development of his mental faculty? Wouldn’t great teachers relish the idea that their greatness be rewarded with an ever rising standard of living, just as computer programmers have enjoyed for decades?
In some distant future - but not too distant one hopes - we may one day see the rise of the Education Keynote. It will attract millions of eager parents and teachers clamouring to get a glimpse at the latest marvels of the education world. iMaths 2030 - a mere $10 upgrade from iMaths 2028, with a money back guarantee if your eight-year-old son or daughter fails to master differential equations in three months’ time. Now that is a future I think is worth fighting for - not just the return of rigour in education, but in the innovations that we have come to expect in the high tech world of 2011.
The most recent keynote for the new iPad 2 got me thinking about great products and industries in general. These days, it is tough to find industries that wow us as much as the computer industry. Year after year, people around the world reap the benefits of all the research and development that goes into the products of technology that we enjoy every day. Who can recall how much time was required to research something as simple as the first movie Cary Grant starred in or the population of Austin, Texas in 1980, to cite a few slightly arcane examples? Hours? Probably, because in order to find that information one had to visit a public library and then one could only get that information during opening hours. Today it takes seconds, thanks to search engines like Google and the World Wide Web in general.
I also got to thinking about those industries that remain stagnant for years or even decades. Industries that don’t wow us with their innovation because they have none. Industries that we tolerate because most of us cannot imagine that schools or post offices could operate any differently from the way they do. We have grown accustomed over more than a century to see them as necessarily state run enterprises with a mediocre at best track record at educating children or delivering the mail.
So what does this have to do with Apple keynotes? Nothing, really. But it raises a few questions: Why is there no excitement about new teaching methods? Why is there no famous CEO in the education field getting up on stage in front of millions of eager customers to show off his latest innovations in teaching mathematics to young children? The answer, sadly, is there is no such thing as a market in education. The entire notion that education could be an exciting marketplace of ideas and competing for profit schools and universities is an anathema.
To an old friend of mine who is a public school teacher, the idea of capitalism applied to education is bizarre. Obviously education must be state run or else how would kids get a decent education? Without the beneficent state, kids would have no schools to attend because their parents couldn’t afford it. Of course the teachers would make a pittance without the public unions to collectively bargain for their salaries and benefits. Everyone knows this - right?
If it is true education must be a state run monopoly, then why is it other industries thrive as private, for profit entities? Why is it the very marketplace that has made our lives more efficient, safe and even fun inappropriate when it comes to the most important thing in a child’s life - the development of his mental faculty? Wouldn’t great teachers relish the idea that their greatness be rewarded with an ever rising standard of living, just as computer programmers have enjoyed for decades?
In some distant future - but not too distant one hopes - we may one day see the rise of the Education Keynote. It will attract millions of eager parents and teachers clamouring to get a glimpse at the latest marvels of the education world. iMaths 2030 - a mere $10 upgrade from iMaths 2028, with a money back guarantee if your eight-year-old son or daughter fails to master differential equations in three months’ time. Now that is a future I think is worth fighting for - not just the return of rigour in education, but in the innovations that we have come to expect in the high tech world of 2011.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Rigour or Rigor Mortis
Back in America, a battle is brewing in my home state of Wisconsin concerning public unions. The new governor is proposing budget cuts in the face of mounting debt which include an end to collective bargaining for teachers, requiring public employees to contribute more to their health care and pensions, among other things. Predictably, union members and teachers in particular are protesting these cuts on the basis of workers’ rights.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Wisconsin, it is known as one of the leftist laboratories in America. Public salaries and benefits are higher on average in Wisconsin than many other states. The city of Milwaukee once had a socialist mayor even, which to some is a real accomplishment. Having spent a fair amount of time in Eastern Europe as a younger man, I consider it more of a guilty admission, not a cause for celebration.
It is instructive that the primary protesters in Wisconsin are teachers. They even staged a ‘sick-out’ to enable them to flock to Madison, the state’s capital, to protest Governor Walker’s bill. Whilst I cannot verify that teachers dragged their unwitting students along to these protests, I do have an old friend who advocated this.
The grim joke in this affair is the one thing the teachers aren’t doing currently, which is teach. My intention here is not to talk about whether or not I support Governor Walker. That is a topic in of itself. What alarms me is the audacity of some teachers who assert a right to a job, with lavish benefits on top of it. In my profession, I am rewarded on the basis of how well I perform my job. If I fail to live up to it, then I am rightly reprimanded and, if my bad performance continues, summarily shown the door. In addition to this, I am only as good as my last achievement. I must continually prove my value. The result for me has been a rewarding career in the software industry, stretching back 15 years.
Are teachers in Wisconsin and other American states paid on the basis of their performance? Must they prove they are imparting knowledge and training young minds? Do they even know what a proper education entails? I have yet to see evidence that the protesting teachers are bothering to think about what their recent actions mean to the kids denied the very thing we entrust teachers to do.
Perhaps a bit of perspective is in order. At the young age of 17, I left the comfort of my hometown and ventured to Belgium to live with a family and attend a Belgian high school. My primary goal was to achieve fluency in French, which I did. What I witnessed in my Belgian school, however, shocked me to my core. Not only were my Belgian counterparts better educated than my fellow American students, but they were expected to perform. No mollycoddling. No excuses. Excellence was expected - full stop.
Just what did a last year Belgian high school student learn? In geography class, he was expected to grasp the nature of the Soviet collective farm system and compare and contrast it with western private farming. He was expected in French class to write eloquently about Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mémoires d’Hadrien, among other advanced works of literature. In religion class, he was expected to have a good understanding of the world’s religions and offer up cogent commentary on them. In maths, he was expected to offer critical analysis of concepts barely seen in American universities. In addition to the daily rigour, teachers examined a student’s notes for their accuracy and penmanship and he would be marked down for illegible writing and poor grammar.
At test time, a student received two marks in each subject: one for the material and another for his ability to write. Finals consisted of both oral and written exams. What did this mean for me, an ill-prepared American kid? I was utterly lost. I constantly felt ashamed for the education I didn’t receive and simultaneously revolted by the schools American teachers in Wisconsin are now abandoning in favour of their ‘rights’.
Fortunately for me, my French teacher took me under his wing to help me achieve the one modest goal I had set for myself. He gave me special reading that was within my grasp, but also challenged me to learn more and more vocabulary. I wrote short essays on the books he assigned me and he thoroughly corrected every last sentence in French. He gave me elocution lessons to improve my diction. By the end of my year in Belgium, I could write fluently and could discuss advanced topics with my teacher. Because of this preparation, I was able to attend a French language university and study successfully with native French speakers.
Returning to the paltry excuse for schools in America, I ask the protesters to prove their value or get out. I ask them to rise to the task to become like the late Jean Marchal, my Belgian mentor and intellectual saviour. I demand that they stop allowing children to languish and do their jobs. The heroes in education are not the mob mentality protesters demanding benefits beyond all reason, but those who treat excellence in education as their only goal. Nothing less will do.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Wisconsin, it is known as one of the leftist laboratories in America. Public salaries and benefits are higher on average in Wisconsin than many other states. The city of Milwaukee once had a socialist mayor even, which to some is a real accomplishment. Having spent a fair amount of time in Eastern Europe as a younger man, I consider it more of a guilty admission, not a cause for celebration.
It is instructive that the primary protesters in Wisconsin are teachers. They even staged a ‘sick-out’ to enable them to flock to Madison, the state’s capital, to protest Governor Walker’s bill. Whilst I cannot verify that teachers dragged their unwitting students along to these protests, I do have an old friend who advocated this.
The grim joke in this affair is the one thing the teachers aren’t doing currently, which is teach. My intention here is not to talk about whether or not I support Governor Walker. That is a topic in of itself. What alarms me is the audacity of some teachers who assert a right to a job, with lavish benefits on top of it. In my profession, I am rewarded on the basis of how well I perform my job. If I fail to live up to it, then I am rightly reprimanded and, if my bad performance continues, summarily shown the door. In addition to this, I am only as good as my last achievement. I must continually prove my value. The result for me has been a rewarding career in the software industry, stretching back 15 years.
Are teachers in Wisconsin and other American states paid on the basis of their performance? Must they prove they are imparting knowledge and training young minds? Do they even know what a proper education entails? I have yet to see evidence that the protesting teachers are bothering to think about what their recent actions mean to the kids denied the very thing we entrust teachers to do.
Perhaps a bit of perspective is in order. At the young age of 17, I left the comfort of my hometown and ventured to Belgium to live with a family and attend a Belgian high school. My primary goal was to achieve fluency in French, which I did. What I witnessed in my Belgian school, however, shocked me to my core. Not only were my Belgian counterparts better educated than my fellow American students, but they were expected to perform. No mollycoddling. No excuses. Excellence was expected - full stop.
Just what did a last year Belgian high school student learn? In geography class, he was expected to grasp the nature of the Soviet collective farm system and compare and contrast it with western private farming. He was expected in French class to write eloquently about Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mémoires d’Hadrien, among other advanced works of literature. In religion class, he was expected to have a good understanding of the world’s religions and offer up cogent commentary on them. In maths, he was expected to offer critical analysis of concepts barely seen in American universities. In addition to the daily rigour, teachers examined a student’s notes for their accuracy and penmanship and he would be marked down for illegible writing and poor grammar.
At test time, a student received two marks in each subject: one for the material and another for his ability to write. Finals consisted of both oral and written exams. What did this mean for me, an ill-prepared American kid? I was utterly lost. I constantly felt ashamed for the education I didn’t receive and simultaneously revolted by the schools American teachers in Wisconsin are now abandoning in favour of their ‘rights’.
Fortunately for me, my French teacher took me under his wing to help me achieve the one modest goal I had set for myself. He gave me special reading that was within my grasp, but also challenged me to learn more and more vocabulary. I wrote short essays on the books he assigned me and he thoroughly corrected every last sentence in French. He gave me elocution lessons to improve my diction. By the end of my year in Belgium, I could write fluently and could discuss advanced topics with my teacher. Because of this preparation, I was able to attend a French language university and study successfully with native French speakers.
Returning to the paltry excuse for schools in America, I ask the protesters to prove their value or get out. I ask them to rise to the task to become like the late Jean Marchal, my Belgian mentor and intellectual saviour. I demand that they stop allowing children to languish and do their jobs. The heroes in education are not the mob mentality protesters demanding benefits beyond all reason, but those who treat excellence in education as their only goal. Nothing less will do.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
That All-Consuming Passion
As I have travelled through life these past four and a half decades, I have noticed two essential attitudes that guide people's lives. There are those who attack life with gusto, taking on one challenge after another, come what may. Then there are those who muddle through life in a grey lament, neither excelling at anything nor seeking to improve their lives. They exist - or even subsist - but they don't seek greatness.
I, of course, fall into the former category. Never one to let a disappointment stop me, I take lessons from my failures so I can avoid the same mistakes, and then I find a new goal to energise me. I have possessed this attitude for all of my adult life, but it stretches back to my early childhood, too.
At the beginning of 2011, a good friend of mine Steven and I were chatting about life and goals. I talked about how I had wanted to pursue a long-form writing project for many years. As a lover of great fiction, I aspired to create a great plot and story, but after much thought and even outlining, the ideas would fall flat. This, as one could imagine, frustrated me. I love fiction so much and have read hundreds of novels over the course my life, so why couldn't I, a confident and mature young adult, come up with a good story? I haven't an answer to that question right now, but in discussing this, my friend suggested something else. In essence, he said to me: 'What about a chronicle of your life and travels?' My first thought was: who would want to read such a thing? My next thought was: who wouldn't! Why isn't my life interesting enough to write about and therefore put out for the world to read - whomever that might entail?
Returning to the goalless drifters for a moment, I notice another common trait: defeatism. Whilst I possess a certain amount of self-criticism, these others wallow in the things they'll never do. Perhaps as children they had parents who treated them as incapable nothings. Perhaps as school children their teachers did the same. And now as adults, their defeatism encompasses the essence of their souls such that when they encounter a can-do spirit, they express jealousy or even hatred. I, on the other hand, feel a tingling excitement when I meet other people of achievement.
Another friend and former colleague, Liza, recently came to Sydney for some business meetings. She's based in Toronto, but travels the world seeking out new opportunities wherever they may originate. The only word to describe Liza is dynamo. She's constantly on the lookout for new challenges and achievements. Wherever she is and whatever the state of economies in North America and abroad, Liza will come out successful and cheerful. Nothing gets in her way. Over dinner, I discussed my book plans with her and how they began to take form. First, she was surprised to hear that I had been writing for such a long time and then she had only words of encouragement to offer. Though I only see Liza occasionally, I consider her a lightning rod of inspiration. Obviously I don't need her enthusiasm to embark on a daunting project such as writing a travel memoir, but it surely encourages me, knowing that I have an audience of other achievers.
In the end, what I see in my friends and in myself is an all-consuming passion to live to the fullest. Yes we admit that disappointments and failures are part of the on-going experiment, but they are brief moments to accept and then cast aside as the consequence of taking risks. If I flash forward to my dying days and one asks me if I have regrets, I am sure the answer will be a resounding NO. That, I submit, is the difference between one who lives and one who merely exists.
I, of course, fall into the former category. Never one to let a disappointment stop me, I take lessons from my failures so I can avoid the same mistakes, and then I find a new goal to energise me. I have possessed this attitude for all of my adult life, but it stretches back to my early childhood, too.
At the beginning of 2011, a good friend of mine Steven and I were chatting about life and goals. I talked about how I had wanted to pursue a long-form writing project for many years. As a lover of great fiction, I aspired to create a great plot and story, but after much thought and even outlining, the ideas would fall flat. This, as one could imagine, frustrated me. I love fiction so much and have read hundreds of novels over the course my life, so why couldn't I, a confident and mature young adult, come up with a good story? I haven't an answer to that question right now, but in discussing this, my friend suggested something else. In essence, he said to me: 'What about a chronicle of your life and travels?' My first thought was: who would want to read such a thing? My next thought was: who wouldn't! Why isn't my life interesting enough to write about and therefore put out for the world to read - whomever that might entail?
Returning to the goalless drifters for a moment, I notice another common trait: defeatism. Whilst I possess a certain amount of self-criticism, these others wallow in the things they'll never do. Perhaps as children they had parents who treated them as incapable nothings. Perhaps as school children their teachers did the same. And now as adults, their defeatism encompasses the essence of their souls such that when they encounter a can-do spirit, they express jealousy or even hatred. I, on the other hand, feel a tingling excitement when I meet other people of achievement.
Another friend and former colleague, Liza, recently came to Sydney for some business meetings. She's based in Toronto, but travels the world seeking out new opportunities wherever they may originate. The only word to describe Liza is dynamo. She's constantly on the lookout for new challenges and achievements. Wherever she is and whatever the state of economies in North America and abroad, Liza will come out successful and cheerful. Nothing gets in her way. Over dinner, I discussed my book plans with her and how they began to take form. First, she was surprised to hear that I had been writing for such a long time and then she had only words of encouragement to offer. Though I only see Liza occasionally, I consider her a lightning rod of inspiration. Obviously I don't need her enthusiasm to embark on a daunting project such as writing a travel memoir, but it surely encourages me, knowing that I have an audience of other achievers.
In the end, what I see in my friends and in myself is an all-consuming passion to live to the fullest. Yes we admit that disappointments and failures are part of the on-going experiment, but they are brief moments to accept and then cast aside as the consequence of taking risks. If I flash forward to my dying days and one asks me if I have regrets, I am sure the answer will be a resounding NO. That, I submit, is the difference between one who lives and one who merely exists.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The Fall of a Corrupt Soul
‘Nice guys finish last’. In popular parlance, few phrases prove more difficult to refute than this one. How many of us work in large organisations and companies where the most grasping, mediocre and power hungry co-workers appear to get ahead, whilst the honest among us languish in our cubicles? Hence the expression and the confusion when one suggests that the most virtuous do, in fact, prevail in the long run.
We can look no further than the popular TV show 24 to see the fall of a corrupt soul in the character of Sherry Palmer, played with aplomb by Penny Johnson Jerald. For those unfamiliar with the show, Palmer appeared in the first three seasons, first as wife of presidential hopeful David Palmer. In the first season, Sherry was David’s campaign manager who, from the first time we see her on screen, appears to have some other motive than the successful election of her husband. As the season wore on, her true colours manifested themselves in her casual flouting of the integrity that David possessed. She manipulated reporters, covered up scandals and even attempted to get a staffer to sleep with her husband. At the end of the season, David cast her out of his life and threw her off the campaign.
In season 2, David Palmer is President and faces a nuclear threat to the United States. Sherry reappears and offers to help him find out who may be trying to undermine his presidency. As in season 1, Sherry still has the same motives, but once again appears to want only the best for her ex-husband. Even though Johnson Jerald is relegated to half the episodes in the season, one feels her presence throughout. As it turns out, her conniving and conspiring form the central plot element in the season. Her narrow escape in the final episode of the season proves breathtaking. One has to watch it to believe it. In other words, how in the hell did Sherry make it out alive again?
In season 3, President David Palmer is facing a major biological threat to America, all the while campaigning for re-election. When a scandal erupts surrounding a major campaign contributor and his brother Wayne - who is also his campaign manager - David calls upon Sherry to help him sort out the mess. In so doing, Sherry sinks the lowest she possibly can to ‘solve’ David’s problems, thereby corrupting his presidency and sealing her fate once and for all.
I consider Sherry Palmer a prime example in contemporary popular art of both a political and philosophical villain. Let’s first examine the former. Sherry’s primary concern is the acquisition of power - power at any cost and regardless of whom she tramples in the process. Does she seek power in order to help her husband best serve the American people? No. As she makes clear from the outset in season 1, she wants power over others, as evidenced by the energy she expends seeking to destroy others. Sherry Palmer is, in fact, the perfect fictional example of the modern politician in America today. She neither seeks to safeguard the individual rights of Americans nor even knows what rights are.
Sherry Palmer shows her philosophical colours throughout the three seasons in which she appears. Whereas David sticks to his principles, Sherry considers David’s ideas naïve. Everything is grey and complicated to Sherry. Everything is matter of opinion and, in her unprincipled mind, this means the sky’s the limit as far as her personal corrupt ambitions go.
Now, 24 is an action thriller and as such spends little time on deep philosophical issues. Were it to do so it would lose the excitement of watching Jack Bauer defeat terrorist enemies. Nevertheless it does present ideas succinctly and within the context of the plot structure. Sherry Palmer, in all her grey pragmatism and political expediency, is a villain and therefore the show expresses its view of those ideas implicitly. That is enough for me.
To return to the initial premise of this article, dramas like 24 show that power hungry villains do get their comeuppance and the virtuous do prevail. In daily life we may see our co-workers get away with petty indiscretions and power plays, but over time, eventually, these same corrupt souls do lose. We may not see them fall as dramatically as we do in pulse pounding action thrillers, but they do burn out, one way or another. A million little Sherry Palmers ultimately take two proverbial bullets to the chest.
We can look no further than the popular TV show 24 to see the fall of a corrupt soul in the character of Sherry Palmer, played with aplomb by Penny Johnson Jerald. For those unfamiliar with the show, Palmer appeared in the first three seasons, first as wife of presidential hopeful David Palmer. In the first season, Sherry was David’s campaign manager who, from the first time we see her on screen, appears to have some other motive than the successful election of her husband. As the season wore on, her true colours manifested themselves in her casual flouting of the integrity that David possessed. She manipulated reporters, covered up scandals and even attempted to get a staffer to sleep with her husband. At the end of the season, David cast her out of his life and threw her off the campaign.
In season 2, David Palmer is President and faces a nuclear threat to the United States. Sherry reappears and offers to help him find out who may be trying to undermine his presidency. As in season 1, Sherry still has the same motives, but once again appears to want only the best for her ex-husband. Even though Johnson Jerald is relegated to half the episodes in the season, one feels her presence throughout. As it turns out, her conniving and conspiring form the central plot element in the season. Her narrow escape in the final episode of the season proves breathtaking. One has to watch it to believe it. In other words, how in the hell did Sherry make it out alive again?
In season 3, President David Palmer is facing a major biological threat to America, all the while campaigning for re-election. When a scandal erupts surrounding a major campaign contributor and his brother Wayne - who is also his campaign manager - David calls upon Sherry to help him sort out the mess. In so doing, Sherry sinks the lowest she possibly can to ‘solve’ David’s problems, thereby corrupting his presidency and sealing her fate once and for all.
I consider Sherry Palmer a prime example in contemporary popular art of both a political and philosophical villain. Let’s first examine the former. Sherry’s primary concern is the acquisition of power - power at any cost and regardless of whom she tramples in the process. Does she seek power in order to help her husband best serve the American people? No. As she makes clear from the outset in season 1, she wants power over others, as evidenced by the energy she expends seeking to destroy others. Sherry Palmer is, in fact, the perfect fictional example of the modern politician in America today. She neither seeks to safeguard the individual rights of Americans nor even knows what rights are.
Sherry Palmer shows her philosophical colours throughout the three seasons in which she appears. Whereas David sticks to his principles, Sherry considers David’s ideas naïve. Everything is grey and complicated to Sherry. Everything is matter of opinion and, in her unprincipled mind, this means the sky’s the limit as far as her personal corrupt ambitions go.
Now, 24 is an action thriller and as such spends little time on deep philosophical issues. Were it to do so it would lose the excitement of watching Jack Bauer defeat terrorist enemies. Nevertheless it does present ideas succinctly and within the context of the plot structure. Sherry Palmer, in all her grey pragmatism and political expediency, is a villain and therefore the show expresses its view of those ideas implicitly. That is enough for me.
To return to the initial premise of this article, dramas like 24 show that power hungry villains do get their comeuppance and the virtuous do prevail. In daily life we may see our co-workers get away with petty indiscretions and power plays, but over time, eventually, these same corrupt souls do lose. We may not see them fall as dramatically as we do in pulse pounding action thrillers, but they do burn out, one way or another. A million little Sherry Palmers ultimately take two proverbial bullets to the chest.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Intellectual Due Diligence
During a conversation with my mother when I was about 30, I proclaimed that she and Dad had made it easy for me to reject religion. Incredulous, my mother asked me what I meant by that statement. I told her that both she and Dad had inculcated in me from a young age never to believe something without thinking. Both my parents are life long journalists and therefore their MO in life has been to ask questions and to seek out facts. Sometimes those facts have lead to an uncomfortable revision of a previously held opinion. Sometimes they have reinforced an existing stand on an issue. Whatever the case, they always insisted my siblings and I think first and weigh the evidence before reaching a conclusion.
In exhorting me and my siblings to investigate and sort things out on our own, my parents never told us some areas were off limits. Therefore, from about age 11, I decided the concept of a God and religion in general were utterly silly - or worse. If, as my parents said, I ought to gather facts and evidence in all endeavours of life, then surely they were inviting me to do the same for the really BIG issues, too. And so I did.
Being a child of educated parents where dinnertime conversation frequently revolved around issues and ideas, I also learnt from a young age to cultivate good speaking skills. Respect for the opinions of others was key in my household, but so was healthy debate. If I disagreed with someone, it was acceptable to say so without belittling the other person for holding a divergent view from my own.
As readers of my blog know, I am not afraid to jump into serious issues, but I also avoid the philosophical jargon of other writers. That said, what I figured out as an adult through my own reading was the method my parents had taught me and my siblings amounted to Aristotelian epistemology. The 'e' word is a mouthful, so simply put, Mom and Dad taught us: what do you know and how do you know it? I am sure neither of them had the word epistemology in mind. Theirs was a common sense method they passed on to their kids and I am the happy recipient of that method.
I must pause here to insist I am not a professional intellectual - not by any stretch of the imagination. But I am an observer by my nature and I have always sought answers to the trickiest questions in life. Sometimes my method gets me into hot water. Some religious people have expressed dismay or anger over my lack of belief. Others cannot fathom how I could possess the audacity to challenge belief in a God when historical giants like Thomas Aquinas remained a Catholic despite his Aristotelian methods.
I can appreciate all the scorn and dismay, but my reply to those challenges is to say: people also believed in a flat earth until that notion was proven incorrect. In addition to that, a common reaction to my atheism has been: prove there isn't a God! Ah, that's a nice intellectual trick, but how does one prove the non-existence of something? Couldn't I just as easily say: prove there isn't an elephant in the room?
My intention here is not to condemn people - after all, this is a blog about valuing. My point is to illustrate that the only way I or anyone else can attain knowledge is by using our minds, sifting through relevant facts and reaching conclusions by a ruthless logical process. I often say - and this should be the epitaph on my gravestone - the facts, wherever they lead me. Sometimes facts will cause me to reject a specious set of ideas like religion or environmentalism. Other times they move me to accept unpopular ideas, such as my hard won belief in freedom and capitalism.
Many people are afraid to think or to challenge the popular wisdom of the day. I have never feared my own mind because I grasped at a young age that my greatest achievements in life will result from my ability to reason. Because of my adherence to good thinking methods, I can accept my errors without difficulty. I LIKE to be proven wrong, as long as the evidence provided squares with the facts of reality.
In thinking about thinking, I am moved to ask my readers: how do YOU arrive at conclusions? Put another way: is reality your friend or your foe?
In exhorting me and my siblings to investigate and sort things out on our own, my parents never told us some areas were off limits. Therefore, from about age 11, I decided the concept of a God and religion in general were utterly silly - or worse. If, as my parents said, I ought to gather facts and evidence in all endeavours of life, then surely they were inviting me to do the same for the really BIG issues, too. And so I did.
Being a child of educated parents where dinnertime conversation frequently revolved around issues and ideas, I also learnt from a young age to cultivate good speaking skills. Respect for the opinions of others was key in my household, but so was healthy debate. If I disagreed with someone, it was acceptable to say so without belittling the other person for holding a divergent view from my own.
As readers of my blog know, I am not afraid to jump into serious issues, but I also avoid the philosophical jargon of other writers. That said, what I figured out as an adult through my own reading was the method my parents had taught me and my siblings amounted to Aristotelian epistemology. The 'e' word is a mouthful, so simply put, Mom and Dad taught us: what do you know and how do you know it? I am sure neither of them had the word epistemology in mind. Theirs was a common sense method they passed on to their kids and I am the happy recipient of that method.
I must pause here to insist I am not a professional intellectual - not by any stretch of the imagination. But I am an observer by my nature and I have always sought answers to the trickiest questions in life. Sometimes my method gets me into hot water. Some religious people have expressed dismay or anger over my lack of belief. Others cannot fathom how I could possess the audacity to challenge belief in a God when historical giants like Thomas Aquinas remained a Catholic despite his Aristotelian methods.
I can appreciate all the scorn and dismay, but my reply to those challenges is to say: people also believed in a flat earth until that notion was proven incorrect. In addition to that, a common reaction to my atheism has been: prove there isn't a God! Ah, that's a nice intellectual trick, but how does one prove the non-existence of something? Couldn't I just as easily say: prove there isn't an elephant in the room?
My intention here is not to condemn people - after all, this is a blog about valuing. My point is to illustrate that the only way I or anyone else can attain knowledge is by using our minds, sifting through relevant facts and reaching conclusions by a ruthless logical process. I often say - and this should be the epitaph on my gravestone - the facts, wherever they lead me. Sometimes facts will cause me to reject a specious set of ideas like religion or environmentalism. Other times they move me to accept unpopular ideas, such as my hard won belief in freedom and capitalism.
Many people are afraid to think or to challenge the popular wisdom of the day. I have never feared my own mind because I grasped at a young age that my greatest achievements in life will result from my ability to reason. Because of my adherence to good thinking methods, I can accept my errors without difficulty. I LIKE to be proven wrong, as long as the evidence provided squares with the facts of reality.
In thinking about thinking, I am moved to ask my readers: how do YOU arrive at conclusions? Put another way: is reality your friend or your foe?
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