How special and unique are we, really...?
Poets have said we're all like snowflakes, not one on the planet quite like any other. Popes have added that each life is an unrepeatable act of God. But meanwhile, mothers have been known for generations to stare at their children and sigh: "You're just like your father!"
So which is it? How are we humans to be understood by a parent? a teacher? a cop? a general or mayor or president? True, our eyes tell us we all act differently. Yet our psychologists tell us we are in our essence all the same. Can such a contradiction be reconciled? Lets try. Lets say: We are all the same differently.
Like a baseball is the same object, different pitchers can make it do different things. Like a pair of lungs are the same organ, different breathers can put it to different purposes. Like a history textbook is the same, different teachers can study it with their students in different ways.
As usual, Shakespeare says it best. In THE MERCHANT OF VENICE he assembles two historic opposites -- European Christians and European Jews. But when Shylock confronts his Christian tormentors, he is speaking to us all: "He hath disgraced me and what's his reason? I am a Jew. But hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons. If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"
So just about the time you and I begin to believe we're the only one who has thought this thought...felt this feeling...sung this victory. Or experienced this doubt....feared this fear...lost this battle...known this betrayal. That's the time to draw upon the comfort -- yes, comfort seems the correct word -- that you're hardly the first. Hardly the only. Hardly the last.
See...? We are all the same differently....! There is pride in our differentness, but comfort in our sameness. A reality that not only fits us like a glove, it should also fit our families, our communities, our churches, and our nations. Trouble is, this glove seems to be ignored by 21st C Americans as much as it was 14th C Venetians.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
HALF OF US
On this April 6 in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven, approximately half of us on this planet are uniquely breeders, nesters, caregivers, comforters, teachers, supporters and everyday wisdom on the trail. I speak of and for women...!
The long twisting history of the female of the species begins metaphorically with Eve. And while the men who wrote the holy books may have wronged her, it seems thereafter that goddesses not gods were most honored. This because primitive man understood that all life comes forth from the woman.
In time, though, gods-from-the-air replaced the goddesses-from-the-earth in the pantheon. Women became subordinate to men. And the stories have ever since reflected this hierarchy. Woman has been seen and codified not only as secondary, but very often seditious. Consider history's hall-of-shame featuring the wiles of Eve, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Mata Hari, all the way to the seductive sirens-of-the-screen to an innocuous Monica Lewinksy.
The French police have for generations summed it up neatly and naughtily: "Cherchez la femme!" Whatever the crime, first look for the woman.
And yet, reports from the front suggest a different tale. For all the male's brute strength, there has been the female's quiet endurance. While their men conquer nature and enemies, the women give these conquests their value. In the form of homes, schools, churches, and all those civilizing characteristics that sublimate mere conquests into victories worth living with.
They had no word like Feminism in the past, for there seemed to be no other way. Men wove the narratives in which men were portrayed and accepted as naturally and divinely endowed. Women...? well everyone, including them, were understood to have-their-place.
Regardless of how one wants to debate this historical plotline, one would have to grant that something's not quite right when half the world's population has been allowed -- ordained, really! -- to stifle their talents and gifts in the name of the-way-things-are.
And speaking of "stifling," that was ol' Archie Bunker's favorite reaction to Edith. As a result, Archie -- and all the world's other Archies -- have been running the world for a long long time. Results to date can easily justify the women of the world asking: "How could we have done any worse...?"
So long as you don't watch offerings like "The Housewives of New Jersey," chances are you'll agree. The world's women could hardly have done any worse
The long twisting history of the female of the species begins metaphorically with Eve. And while the men who wrote the holy books may have wronged her, it seems thereafter that goddesses not gods were most honored. This because primitive man understood that all life comes forth from the woman.
In time, though, gods-from-the-air replaced the goddesses-from-the-earth in the pantheon. Women became subordinate to men. And the stories have ever since reflected this hierarchy. Woman has been seen and codified not only as secondary, but very often seditious. Consider history's hall-of-shame featuring the wiles of Eve, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Mata Hari, all the way to the seductive sirens-of-the-screen to an innocuous Monica Lewinksy.
The French police have for generations summed it up neatly and naughtily: "Cherchez la femme!" Whatever the crime, first look for the woman.
And yet, reports from the front suggest a different tale. For all the male's brute strength, there has been the female's quiet endurance. While their men conquer nature and enemies, the women give these conquests their value. In the form of homes, schools, churches, and all those civilizing characteristics that sublimate mere conquests into victories worth living with.
They had no word like Feminism in the past, for there seemed to be no other way. Men wove the narratives in which men were portrayed and accepted as naturally and divinely endowed. Women...? well everyone, including them, were understood to have-their-place.
Regardless of how one wants to debate this historical plotline, one would have to grant that something's not quite right when half the world's population has been allowed -- ordained, really! -- to stifle their talents and gifts in the name of the-way-things-are.
And speaking of "stifling," that was ol' Archie Bunker's favorite reaction to Edith. As a result, Archie -- and all the world's other Archies -- have been running the world for a long long time. Results to date can easily justify the women of the world asking: "How could we have done any worse...?"
So long as you don't watch offerings like "The Housewives of New Jersey," chances are you'll agree. The world's women could hardly have done any worse
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL
One of life's inexorables -- genetics!
You and I are genetically aging every minute of every day. Lately, however, neurobiologists are promising the promises of genetic engineering. Which sound pretty terrific. Because along with refinements and corrections, there's also the promise of altering the aging process itself.
But here's where the waters muddy. While genetics can envision a super-race of enhanced humans, some geneticists worry about the results. Like the fictional Dr. Frankenstein and the all-too-factual Adolf Hitler. Other geneticists dream of perfecting our species by focusing on what's best in us. However, while the first group agree on what's "worse" about us, the second are not always sure about what's "best."
Some speak of enhanced sensory capacities so we will see and hear more than now. Other speak of enhanced cognitive powers so we will think and achieve more than now. I notice, though, few appear to be looking in my direction. I'm looking not at what we might become, but what we once were.
Before you and I inexorably happened into the coarser adults we are today, we once were the unblemished children prophets and poets sing about. Jesus: "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Heraclitus: "Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play." Shakespeare: "A man loves the meat in his youth he cannot endure in his age."
If I were ever to meet with the brilliant genetic teams probing our better selves, I would lack their bona fides. I might, however, possess something which the profundity of their work has lost track of -- the purity of their own lost childhood. That kinder childhood which finally emerged in the early 19th C as generations of Oliver Twists were gradually released from centuries of child-labor. The lost childhood Citizen Kane's "Rosebud" became to him in his final hours. The magical childhood we see and celebrate every Christmas season.
OK, my vision of genetic engineering is counter-culture. "Grow up!" is the mantra of the majority. Especially as our children must face a brutal world. And yet, one can still wonder if it would have grown quite so brutal had its young not been encouraged to grow-up by leaving behind so much of what was best to their childhood.
IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Tom Hanks shakes his head, "There's no crying in baseball." We laugh at the absurdity of it. And yet, and yet, maybe that's part of our problem! Maybe as adults we've lost the capacity to cry when we hurt, to embrace when we love, and to splash barefoot through puddles of April showers....
You and I are genetically aging every minute of every day. Lately, however, neurobiologists are promising the promises of genetic engineering. Which sound pretty terrific. Because along with refinements and corrections, there's also the promise of altering the aging process itself.
But here's where the waters muddy. While genetics can envision a super-race of enhanced humans, some geneticists worry about the results. Like the fictional Dr. Frankenstein and the all-too-factual Adolf Hitler. Other geneticists dream of perfecting our species by focusing on what's best in us. However, while the first group agree on what's "worse" about us, the second are not always sure about what's "best."
Some speak of enhanced sensory capacities so we will see and hear more than now. Other speak of enhanced cognitive powers so we will think and achieve more than now. I notice, though, few appear to be looking in my direction. I'm looking not at what we might become, but what we once were.
Before you and I inexorably happened into the coarser adults we are today, we once were the unblemished children prophets and poets sing about. Jesus: "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Heraclitus: "Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play." Shakespeare: "A man loves the meat in his youth he cannot endure in his age."
If I were ever to meet with the brilliant genetic teams probing our better selves, I would lack their bona fides. I might, however, possess something which the profundity of their work has lost track of -- the purity of their own lost childhood. That kinder childhood which finally emerged in the early 19th C as generations of Oliver Twists were gradually released from centuries of child-labor. The lost childhood Citizen Kane's "Rosebud" became to him in his final hours. The magical childhood we see and celebrate every Christmas season.
OK, my vision of genetic engineering is counter-culture. "Grow up!" is the mantra of the majority. Especially as our children must face a brutal world. And yet, one can still wonder if it would have grown quite so brutal had its young not been encouraged to grow-up by leaving behind so much of what was best to their childhood.
IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Tom Hanks shakes his head, "There's no crying in baseball." We laugh at the absurdity of it. And yet, and yet, maybe that's part of our problem! Maybe as adults we've lost the capacity to cry when we hurt, to embrace when we love, and to splash barefoot through puddles of April showers....
Monday, April 4, 2011
CONFESSIONS OF A BASEMENT BLOGGER
Frontiers have been beckoning all throughout the history of humanity. That deep river or high mountain or vast ocean just up ahead. Seems as if we're genetically encoded to be afraid yet curious. So desperately curious we simply have to conquer it. Especially Americans whose history began as a series of new frontiers from our Eastern settlements along the Atlantic, eventually across the wide Missouri, and finally the towering Rockies to the Pacific.
Frontiers, however, exist and beckon not only in a geographic sense. There are also the frontiers of the mind. Modern man has used physics to probe what's on the earth, in the skies, and now in outer space. But there is still so much of inner space yet to be conquered. So if physics was our field of choice in the last century, biology will be in this century. Which is why our best neuro-biologists are in a state of perpetual frontier-crossing when it comes to our brain circuitry, our genes, and all the endless codes locked inside us.
But a funny thing happened on the way to progress...!
Usually it's been a straight-line advancing from simpler to more extraordinary. Yet one of these lines may have begun wobbling lately. One of these neuro-biological advances may have run into trouble. Our progress in the field of human communication.
What started as grunts advanced into language, language into writing, writing into printing, then printing into the mass media of newspapers, radio, television and now the Internet. Amazing stuff, all this. And at a quick glance, pretty impressive.
But now here's where the straight-on, frontier-crossing line may wobble. The medieval church was wrong to resist the acquisition of reading on the part of the masses. However, what about the acquisition of publishing on the part of the masses? It sounds so democratic. It seems to fulfill the ideal of every-citizen-a-vote-and-a-voice.
And yet, as I publish these words -- and am called by some a citizen-journalist -- I hesitate. Journalism has long been deemed a sacred profession in which facts and truth are supposed to be the North Star. Researchers and editors are always on hand to check and balance what gets published. But no one censors me. Nor the other hundred million personal & corporate websites.
And so we have either reached the apotheosis of democracy, with every one of us having instant access to the screens and minds of a million fellow citizens....or we have forged an enormous electronic hammer which allows any one of us to pound every nail we happen to see. Or imagine. Or concoct.
Sure I like to "publish" like this. As does anyone who wants to inform or dis-inform, praise or discredit, rally and lead. But here's haunting question: How many of us are crying 'fire' in this enormously crowded new theatre...?
Frontiers, however, exist and beckon not only in a geographic sense. There are also the frontiers of the mind. Modern man has used physics to probe what's on the earth, in the skies, and now in outer space. But there is still so much of inner space yet to be conquered. So if physics was our field of choice in the last century, biology will be in this century. Which is why our best neuro-biologists are in a state of perpetual frontier-crossing when it comes to our brain circuitry, our genes, and all the endless codes locked inside us.
But a funny thing happened on the way to progress...!
Usually it's been a straight-line advancing from simpler to more extraordinary. Yet one of these lines may have begun wobbling lately. One of these neuro-biological advances may have run into trouble. Our progress in the field of human communication.
What started as grunts advanced into language, language into writing, writing into printing, then printing into the mass media of newspapers, radio, television and now the Internet. Amazing stuff, all this. And at a quick glance, pretty impressive.
But now here's where the straight-on, frontier-crossing line may wobble. The medieval church was wrong to resist the acquisition of reading on the part of the masses. However, what about the acquisition of publishing on the part of the masses? It sounds so democratic. It seems to fulfill the ideal of every-citizen-a-vote-and-a-voice.
And yet, as I publish these words -- and am called by some a citizen-journalist -- I hesitate. Journalism has long been deemed a sacred profession in which facts and truth are supposed to be the North Star. Researchers and editors are always on hand to check and balance what gets published. But no one censors me. Nor the other hundred million personal & corporate websites.
And so we have either reached the apotheosis of democracy, with every one of us having instant access to the screens and minds of a million fellow citizens....or we have forged an enormous electronic hammer which allows any one of us to pound every nail we happen to see. Or imagine. Or concoct.
Sure I like to "publish" like this. As does anyone who wants to inform or dis-inform, praise or discredit, rally and lead. But here's haunting question: How many of us are crying 'fire' in this enormously crowded new theatre...?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
THE MOST POWERFUL 3 POUNDS IN THE COSMOS
Talking about thinking, here's something to think about. The human brain weighs about 3 pounds or only 2% of the body's total. So small and odd-looking, Egyptian burial priests removed and discarded it. To them, the heart was the essence of the pharaohs they were preserving.
Today we know differently. At our birth, the brain's complex circuitry is already largely complete. Waiting to be engaged as we grow up in a whirlwind of physical and metaphysical encounters over the next 80-90 years. At our death, this same brain ceases its physical activities while, according to some, its metaphysical activities endure.
Between those two points in time, these remarkable 3 pounds of neurons might be considered the biggest-bang- for-the-buck in the entire cosmos. The human brain crackles with an force-field proportionately vaster than even the power of the sun and the stars. And, unlike them, it can create ideas and beauties whose splendor will match almost anything Nature has to offer.
Why then we ask has the human brain created so much that is so vicious and vile throughout our specie's time on this planet? If you say Evolution has formed the brain, then why has Evolution gone so wrong so often? If you say God has formed the brain, then why has a good God allowed so much evil in His world? Darwin is not here to answer the charge; God is not available to sit in any witness chair.
Judged or not, the human brain continues to be the most extraordinary instrument ever known. Multiplied each day by a factor of 7 billion. How tempting such an instrument. How alluring such a force. And, predictably, how many human beings throughout history have sought to mesmerize and master these brains to their own ends. Think those Pharaohs...Alexander...Xerxes...Caesar...Attila...Napoleon...Hitler.
But even in conquered slavery or in forced concentration camps, our brains almost always remain our very own. To use or waste as we see fit. A fact that is in play whether we are at the controls of a space shuttle, bent over a maze of research tubes, or simply fingering a keypad like this one. Or, if you think about it, at night as all 7 billion of us slip off to sleep.
Somewhere between the consciousness of the day and the mystery of the dream, our brains can race and travel throughout an entire lifetime of parents, family, communities, friends, successes, failures, hopes and fears. Hollywood with all its cameras and computers can't come anywhere close to such drifting-off-to-sleep panoramas
Despite all the astonishing efficacies of the human brain, you still wonder why two of its choices. One, its ancient refusal to conclude all those other brains out there are far more like you than against you...! Two, its current search to discover everything about itself that is no more than the random work of Evolution rather than the intentional gift of some cosmic intelligence...!
I'll be thinking about both as I drift off tonight. Maybe you too.
Today we know differently. At our birth, the brain's complex circuitry is already largely complete. Waiting to be engaged as we grow up in a whirlwind of physical and metaphysical encounters over the next 80-90 years. At our death, this same brain ceases its physical activities while, according to some, its metaphysical activities endure.
Between those two points in time, these remarkable 3 pounds of neurons might be considered the biggest-bang- for-the-buck in the entire cosmos. The human brain crackles with an force-field proportionately vaster than even the power of the sun and the stars. And, unlike them, it can create ideas and beauties whose splendor will match almost anything Nature has to offer.
Why then we ask has the human brain created so much that is so vicious and vile throughout our specie's time on this planet? If you say Evolution has formed the brain, then why has Evolution gone so wrong so often? If you say God has formed the brain, then why has a good God allowed so much evil in His world? Darwin is not here to answer the charge; God is not available to sit in any witness chair.
Judged or not, the human brain continues to be the most extraordinary instrument ever known. Multiplied each day by a factor of 7 billion. How tempting such an instrument. How alluring such a force. And, predictably, how many human beings throughout history have sought to mesmerize and master these brains to their own ends. Think those Pharaohs...Alexander...Xerxes...Caesar...Attila...Napoleon...Hitler.
But even in conquered slavery or in forced concentration camps, our brains almost always remain our very own. To use or waste as we see fit. A fact that is in play whether we are at the controls of a space shuttle, bent over a maze of research tubes, or simply fingering a keypad like this one. Or, if you think about it, at night as all 7 billion of us slip off to sleep.
Somewhere between the consciousness of the day and the mystery of the dream, our brains can race and travel throughout an entire lifetime of parents, family, communities, friends, successes, failures, hopes and fears. Hollywood with all its cameras and computers can't come anywhere close to such drifting-off-to-sleep panoramas
Despite all the astonishing efficacies of the human brain, you still wonder why two of its choices. One, its ancient refusal to conclude all those other brains out there are far more like you than against you...! Two, its current search to discover everything about itself that is no more than the random work of Evolution rather than the intentional gift of some cosmic intelligence...!
I'll be thinking about both as I drift off tonight. Maybe you too.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
WE KNOW NOW WHAT LIFE WILL BE BY 2100
It's always hard to make predictions. Especially about the future. Still, there will always be informed Futurists like Michio Kaku who boldly go where no man has gone before in his new book PHYSICS OF THE THE FUTURE. It will either astound you or, if you are of a certain age, amuse you...
Kaku is theoretical physics professor at the City College of New York, and that silver-haired presenter you see on so many science documentaries. His bona fides are far more science than fiction when he advances three big predictions by the year 2100. And while that date immediately leaves out 90% of us here, what the heck:
* The Internet will be in your contact lens
He pictures you blinking your eyes wherever you are in order to go on-line. Accessing your home base of operations, any data banks you need, along with any entertainment you wish. Then being able to download onto your lens the data, music, or movies you find. Even more, Kaku sees you identifying the faces of the people you meet, seeing their resumes and even translating their comments into any language you require.
He also envisions tourists being able to conjure up ancient images of the historical sites they are visiting. And patients being able to monitor their health with instant readouts of heart rates, insulin levels and PSA scores.
Think living inside "The Matrix"....!
* Computers, cellphones & MP3 players will disappear
Kaku predicts such instruments will become unnecessary, for now millions of chips can be placed throughout your worlds of home and work to respond to your needs. Specifically your brain's telepathic commands. For instance, entering a room and commanding the coffee maker to start brewing or the furniture to be rearranged.
These environmental chips will cost only pennies so that they will be easy to implant in selected venues where they can be programmed to respond to such commands.
Think all those "Star Trek" replicators that served Captain Kirk...!
* Cars will become driver-less
Kaku writes that the cars of the future will "fly" by floating on a cushion of magnetism. Room-temperature superconducting magnets on highways will eliminate rough rides and traffic jams, because central computers will now be able to track the motions of all the cars out there. Best of all, he states, without the friction of wheels-on-roads, you will need far less of whatever fuel is being used.
Think "Buck Rogers" and all those flying-belts his future society used...!
++++++++
Of course, those who are of that certain age, can recall the New York futurist in 1900 who predicted by 2000 there would be so many horse-drawn carriages in the metro area, pedestrians would be ankle deep in manure. Manure....? I guess our species never stops rummaging through the manure of life hoping to find that pony.
Kaku is theoretical physics professor at the City College of New York, and that silver-haired presenter you see on so many science documentaries. His bona fides are far more science than fiction when he advances three big predictions by the year 2100. And while that date immediately leaves out 90% of us here, what the heck:
* The Internet will be in your contact lens
He pictures you blinking your eyes wherever you are in order to go on-line. Accessing your home base of operations, any data banks you need, along with any entertainment you wish. Then being able to download onto your lens the data, music, or movies you find. Even more, Kaku sees you identifying the faces of the people you meet, seeing their resumes and even translating their comments into any language you require.
He also envisions tourists being able to conjure up ancient images of the historical sites they are visiting. And patients being able to monitor their health with instant readouts of heart rates, insulin levels and PSA scores.
Think living inside "The Matrix"....!
* Computers, cellphones & MP3 players will disappear
Kaku predicts such instruments will become unnecessary, for now millions of chips can be placed throughout your worlds of home and work to respond to your needs. Specifically your brain's telepathic commands. For instance, entering a room and commanding the coffee maker to start brewing or the furniture to be rearranged.
These environmental chips will cost only pennies so that they will be easy to implant in selected venues where they can be programmed to respond to such commands.
Think all those "Star Trek" replicators that served Captain Kirk...!
* Cars will become driver-less
Kaku writes that the cars of the future will "fly" by floating on a cushion of magnetism. Room-temperature superconducting magnets on highways will eliminate rough rides and traffic jams, because central computers will now be able to track the motions of all the cars out there. Best of all, he states, without the friction of wheels-on-roads, you will need far less of whatever fuel is being used.
Think "Buck Rogers" and all those flying-belts his future society used...!
++++++++
Of course, those who are of that certain age, can recall the New York futurist in 1900 who predicted by 2000 there would be so many horse-drawn carriages in the metro area, pedestrians would be ankle deep in manure. Manure....? I guess our species never stops rummaging through the manure of life hoping to find that pony.
Friday, April 1, 2011
A WEEK ON WALL STREET
"If it feels good, it has to be right...!" A mantra fairly common in recent America. Then there's this motto from an earlier America: "If it feels tough, it has to be right....!" Neither morality has a monopoly on the truth of life, but each certainly reflect its own particular America.
There was a time when play-through-the-pain was what authority figures advised you. From coaches to bosses to top sergeants to marriage counselors. Sweat, even some tough-it-out suffering, was esteemed. In today's focus on self-esteem, the advice is frequently just the opposite. Under-performing players, workers and GIs are more likely to be given counseling than the old kick-in-the-butt.
Who is to say which advice is better?
So much is so relative. At one time society tended to admire the stick-it-out-for-40-years-and-get your-gold-watch employee. Today, that sort of endurance gets more jeers than cheers. At one time stock brokers told you to hang-on-till-it-comes-back. Today, hanging on to anything too long is not perseverance, it's passe'. At one time if a TV show got off to a slow start, the networks stuck with it. Today, you either make it in the first four episodes or you're on the late-night-reruns.
It can said that today's national impatience is a good thing. It demands from us the best. And so today's Americans are programmed for quick-results-or-you're-gone expectations. Of their presidents, members of congress, teachers, celebrities, pastors, and rabbis; along with government policies, new reforms, and old wars. In a faster, gratification-conscious culture, results are what count. Don't tell me how hard it is, just do it...!
You have to wonder is there any way to measure the relative merits of playing-through-the-pain or playing-it-cool? One recent week with the cool-playing Wall Street players, and the choice stands out for you with startling clarity. The cabbie who brings the players to their steel&glass towers probably sees his world like the long-distance-runner. Endurance not speed is what wins in the end. "I'm the tortoise to your hare, hotshot; I help people get to where they're going while you help people lose their money."
The Wall Street player...? Well, when you spend some time with them, you sorta know what they think about the cabbie. "You're driving a hack day after day thinking you're a hard worker; but what you don't know is that America wasn't built by hard workers, but by smart workers."
Fact check: America is no longer the post-WWII superpower holding all the aces. It's now operating in a global economy with far more power-players at the table than 60 years ago. Given the new rules of the game, who will survive better: The broker or the cabbie? Depends on how you define "survive." Sixty years ago, you'd probably find more Americans answering: "The hard-working little guys may never get rich, but they'll usually sleep better at night than the profit-hustling big guys."
These days, that answer may sound naive. So maybe the real question all comes down to this: How valuable is a good night's sleep compared to a good day's winning?
There was a time when play-through-the-pain was what authority figures advised you. From coaches to bosses to top sergeants to marriage counselors. Sweat, even some tough-it-out suffering, was esteemed. In today's focus on self-esteem, the advice is frequently just the opposite. Under-performing players, workers and GIs are more likely to be given counseling than the old kick-in-the-butt.
Who is to say which advice is better?
So much is so relative. At one time society tended to admire the stick-it-out-for-40-years-and-get your-gold-watch employee. Today, that sort of endurance gets more jeers than cheers. At one time stock brokers told you to hang-on-till-it-comes-back. Today, hanging on to anything too long is not perseverance, it's passe'. At one time if a TV show got off to a slow start, the networks stuck with it. Today, you either make it in the first four episodes or you're on the late-night-reruns.
It can said that today's national impatience is a good thing. It demands from us the best. And so today's Americans are programmed for quick-results-or-you're-gone expectations. Of their presidents, members of congress, teachers, celebrities, pastors, and rabbis; along with government policies, new reforms, and old wars. In a faster, gratification-conscious culture, results are what count. Don't tell me how hard it is, just do it...!
You have to wonder is there any way to measure the relative merits of playing-through-the-pain or playing-it-cool? One recent week with the cool-playing Wall Street players, and the choice stands out for you with startling clarity. The cabbie who brings the players to their steel&glass towers probably sees his world like the long-distance-runner. Endurance not speed is what wins in the end. "I'm the tortoise to your hare, hotshot; I help people get to where they're going while you help people lose their money."
The Wall Street player...? Well, when you spend some time with them, you sorta know what they think about the cabbie. "You're driving a hack day after day thinking you're a hard worker; but what you don't know is that America wasn't built by hard workers, but by smart workers."
Fact check: America is no longer the post-WWII superpower holding all the aces. It's now operating in a global economy with far more power-players at the table than 60 years ago. Given the new rules of the game, who will survive better: The broker or the cabbie? Depends on how you define "survive." Sixty years ago, you'd probably find more Americans answering: "The hard-working little guys may never get rich, but they'll usually sleep better at night than the profit-hustling big guys."
These days, that answer may sound naive. So maybe the real question all comes down to this: How valuable is a good night's sleep compared to a good day's winning?
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