I’ve written a fair amount about failure here, from the sense of failure I felt in connection with caring for Martha Sr to other more public failures. In the first ‘failure’ tagged post from last year, I said this:
I think we tend to underestimate the value of failure, in our focus on success. I have lots of what would conventionally be characterized as “failures” in my life, but each one was an experience which helped lead me to new understanding about myself and the world. Basically, I’m of the opinion that if a failure doesn’t kill you, it isn’t really a failure. And since none of us gets out of this life alive, anyway, we’re all doomed to “failure”.
The most interesting people I know are not the ones who have only succeeded in everything they’ve tried – that type is either too self-satisfied to be interesting, or so unambitious to have never pushed themselves. Give me people who go too far, who push themselves in what they do past their abilities, who are ambitious enough to want to Paint the Moon. Those are the people who are interesting.
Indeed. Here is an excerpt from this year’s Harvard Commencement Address:
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
OK, that’s a little generic – the sort of thing you might hear from anyone who has a bit of life experience and enough success so that they would be invited to give the Commencement Address at a prestigious institution. But here’s a bit more, from just before that passage:
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
It’s J.K. Rowling, of course. A failure, just like all the rest of us.
Jim Downey
My friend looked up from her grilled salmon, surprise on her face. “I didn’t know your father was a policeman.”
* * * * * * *
I came across a very thought-provoking article a few days ago, about the intersection between idealism and reality when it comes to who should get a college education. It’s a longish piece, but definitely worth reading, and I have sent it to a couple of friends who teach at the college/university level. Here’s one particular passage:
There is a sense that the American workforce needs to be more professional at every level. Many jobs that never before required college now call for at least some post-secondary course work. School custodians, those who run the boilers and spread synthetic sawdust on vomit, may not need college—but the people who supervise them, who decide which brand of synthetic sawdust to procure, probably do. There is a sense that our bank tellers should be college educated, and so should our medical-billing techs, and our child-welfare officers, and our sheriffs and federal marshals. We want the police officer who stops the car with the broken taillight to have a nodding acquaintance with great literature. And when all is said and done, my personal economic interest in booming college enrollments aside, I don’t think that’s such a boneheaded idea. Reading literature at the college level is a route to spacious thinking, to an acquaintance with certain profound ideas, that is of value to anyone. Will having read Invisible Man make a police officer less likely to indulge in racial profiling? Will a familiarity with Steinbeck make him more sympathetic to the plight of the poor, so that he might understand the lives of those who simply cannot get their taillights fixed? Will it benefit the correctional officer to have read The Autobiography of Malcolm X? The health-care worker Arrowsmith? Should the child-welfare officer read Plath’s “Daddy”? Such one-to-one correspondences probably don’t hold. But although I may be biased, being an English instructor and all, I can’t shake the sense that reading literature is informative and broadening and ultimately good for you. If I should fall ill, I suppose I would rather the hospital billing staff had read The Pickwick Papers, particularly the parts set in debtors’ prison.
America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.
Crashes and burns? Yes, because as the author discusses, not everyone has the capability to function at the college level. This is obvious to anyone who has given the matter any consideration. But it is sobering to read the accounts of Professor X about being the one who has to convey this to actual, real, students.
* * * * * * *
Come Monday, across the street from my home there will be a big golf tournament. No, not some PGA event. It’s a benefit thing, done to help raise money and awareness for the local “Officer Down” fund. They’ve done this there each year for the last four or five. As I drive in and out of my neighborhood I’ll get to see the big signs touting the event.
It’s odd. Perhaps I should connect with the organizers. Perhaps I could be of some assistance. Because my dad was killed on the job, he was an “Officer Down“. That was almost 40 years ago, and you’d think I would be ‘over it‘ by now. You’d be wrong.
* * * * * * *
My dad dropped out of school in the 8th grade, though I think he got a G.E.D. later. Back in the 50s you didn’t need much education to get hired as a cop.
My mom graduated from High School.
I grew up in a very blue-collar household. Comfortable enough by the standards of the time, but not what you would call an ‘intellectually rich’ environment. I distinctly remember being told that I read too much, and needed to go outside and play more. We didn’t have books or original art around the house, though my mom did draw a little.
I did well in school, though. And even with my antics and acting out, I was a straight A student through High School. Thanks to something like our local “Officer Down” fund, and insurance, and money donated for that purpose, I was able to attend one of the best undergraduate schools in the country. It is entirely possible that had my father not been killed, I would not have been able to swing attendance at such a school for financial reasons. Because of this, I’ve always had some real mixed feelings about my college education, as excellent as it was.
* * * * * * *
My friend looked up from her grilled salmon, surprise on her face. “I didn’t know your father was a policeman.”
I am used to this. Have been for a very long time. The surprise that someone who is well read, well educated, who writes, creates, and owned an art gallery, could have come from such a background. My friend’s husband, who was there with us, was one of the artists I used to represent. We’ve dined and worked together, shared many conversations and experienced both joy and sadness in the turn of our fortunes. I make no pretense of being an intellectual, no claim to a true academic knowledge of any subject. But still, she was surprised to hear that my dad was a cop.
Because, for all that we Americans assume that we exist in a classless society, we still make huge assumptions about one another on the basis of education.
So, while I do not argue with Professor X that there are, indeed, those who do not belong in college, I think that it is always important that we try and make those opportunities available. I’m smart, but I am not exceptional – it is only because of my education that I seem not to be the son of a cop. Sure, some will fail in an attempt to get a college degree, or sufficient credits to earn this or that position. But they need the chance to find this out for themselves.
I realize that this was not the argument from that article in the Atlantic. Or is it? Judge for yourself from this concluding paragraph:
One of the things I try to do on the first night of English 102 is relate the literary techniques we will study to novels that the students have already read. I try to find books familiar to everyone. This has so far proven impossible. My students don’t read much, as a rule, and though I think of them monolithically, they don’t really share a culture. To Kill a Mockingbird? Nope. (And I thought everyone had read that!) Animal Farm? No. If they have read it, they don’t remember it. The Outsiders? The Chocolate War? No and no. Charlotte’s Web? You’d think so, but no. So then I expand the exercise to general works of narrative art, meaning movies, but that doesn’t work much better. Oddly, there are no movies that they all have seen—well, except for one. They’ve all seen The Wizard of Oz. Some have caught it multiple times. So we work with the old warhorse of a quest narrative. The farmhands’ early conversation illustrates foreshadowing. The witch melts at the climax. Theme? Hands fly up. Everybody knows that one—perhaps all too well. Dorothy learns that she can do anything she puts her mind to and that all the tools she needs to succeed are already within her. I skip the denouement: the intellectually ambitious scarecrow proudly mangles the Pythagorean theorem and is awarded a questionable diploma in a dreamland far removed from reality. That’s art holding up a mirror all too closely to our own poignant scholarly endeavors.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Privacy, RKBA, Society, Survival, Terrorism, Violence
If you know me at all, from personal experience or just from my writings, you might be a bit surprised to know that when I was a kid I was considered bookish, uninterested in athletics, a bit nerdy. I distinctly remember being pushed to close whatever book I was quietly reading, and to go outside and play ‘like a real boy’.
Why do I mention this? Well, because I have been following with some interest the whole ‘controversy’ around Lenore Skenazy‘s recent column and subsequent news coverage/website devoted to the concept of “Free Range Kids“. In itself, it is fascinating that Skenazy’s ideas have generated this kind of reaction – challenging the prevailing cultural norms about child-rearing and parental control (under the guise of keeping kids safe). Lots of people are saying that it is about time for us to get away from “helicopter parents” who so over-protect their kids that the kids never get any real life experience. Just look at the comments at BoingBoing, on her website, or just about anywhere else – she gets some criticism, but for the most part people are saying either that “it’s about time” or “what’s the big deal – this is how most of the working class folks get along”.
But beyond that, there is something else that comes through: a basic desire for people to have some freedom back, that the whole “security” mindset may have gone too far, that we have gotten well away from our self-professed ideal of being the “Home of the Brave”. I don’t think that this is the least bit surprising, nor that it would show up in these kinds of discussions, because I think that the issues are very closely interrelated.
Let’s talk about Skenazy’s notions again for a moment. Her basic premise is that while we need as parents (and as a society) to take some reasonable precautions, it is also extremely important that kids be allowed to actually experience life outside the purview of parents and other authorities – to have a little room to learn about things like self reliance, independence, and problem solving. Her example is letting her 9 year old son ride the subway in NYC on his own. What happened? I’ll quote from her site:
When I wrote a column for The New York Sun on “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Take The Subway Alone,” I figured I’d get a few e-mails pro and con.
Two days later I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and all manner of talk radio with a new title under my smiling face: “America’s Worst Mom?”
Yes, that’s what it took for me to learn just what a hot-button this is — this issue of whether good parents ever let their kids out of their sight. But even as the anchors were having a field day with the story, many of the cameramen and make up people were pulling me aside to say that THEY had been allowed to get around by themselves as kids– and boy were they glad. They relished the memories!
And the next paragraph nicely summarizes what the real problem is, as I see it:
Had the world really become so much more dangerous in just one generation?Yes — in most people’s estimation. But no — not according to the evidence. Over at the think tank STATS.org, where they examine the way the media use statistics, researchers have found that the number of kids getting abducted by strangers actually holds very steady over the years. In 2006, that number was 115, and 40% of them were killed.
Now, why do people have the perception that the world is much more dangerous now, when the statistics don’t support that? Hmm. Think about it for half a moment and the answer is obvious: because that is what we are constantly told by the mainstream media, both in news and in fiction. And I’m not just talking about kids being kidnapped, assaulted, or murdered. If it isn’t the government trying to scare us senseless about some new terrorist threat, it is some TV show preying on your fears with murder or deadly ingredients in your food/water. Think of what sells papers and ad-time, and you’ll understand the motivation. It has always been so. But what has changed in the last generation is the absolute saturation that we get from these sources.
I am the first to acknowledge that the world is, indeed, a dangerous place. When I was barely starting adolescence my dad was murdered, and my mom was killed in a car accident, for crying out loud. Sure, neither of those is as bad as the loss of a child, but still. I do take reasonable precautions in going about my life, from trying to watch my diet to getting exercise to carrying a gun (and other safety tools). I use my seat belt and pay attention while driving. But I also live my life – because I know that no matter what, I’m going to die of something someday, and I would much rather enjoy the life I have than live in fear of losing it.
It is simply impossible to live a fully protected life. Just as it is simply impossible to fully protect kids from harm. Furthermore, it is completely counter-productive. In the case of kids, all you are doing is denying them the opportunity to really learn about themselves – the one and only person that they will have to rely on in the future. Kids have to learn to walk on their own. And they have to learn to get up when they fall. Sure, they’ll get hurt. They’ll scrape a knee, maybe get cut, maybe even break a bone. Know what? That’s life. They’ll heal, or learn to deal with it.
That’s harsh, but I am not advocating harshness. I am advocating bravery. Because that is what will come from learning that yes, you will get hurt – but you will recover from it. Yes, life will present problems, but you can learn to overcome them or cope with it. Learning that is liberating, and the sooner someone learns it, the more fully they will enjoy what life they have.
Likewise, in seeking to protect ourselves from threats, we have done nothing but lose our bravery as a nation. And lose our freedoms.
Let the kids range free. And let your own faith in yourself range a little freer, as well.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Failure, Feedback, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Well, there’s been another surge of interest in the book the last few days, and now there have been over 8,100 downloads of it.
As I told my wife on our morning walk today, saying “over eight thousand” sounds like a lot. I mean, it’s not just some kind of flash-in-the-pan interest thanks to one posting on a SF discussion forum or something. Over the last thirteen or so months, there has been a continued interest in the novel. And one of the most interesting things is that it largely seems to be due to word-of-mouth – I can only track about 1,200 downloads back to people visiting from other sites (and that is being generous in figuring that just because someone visits from a link on a site they decide to download the book.)
So, I decided to take a step I have been putting off for a long time: this morning I sent a query to a literary agency. In fact, I sent it to one of the agencies I had selected as being a good fit a year ago – they were one of only three who even bothered to respond to my query (of 9 or 10). And they turned me down, saying that they thought the book sounded interesting but were “insufficiently excited” about it. Here’s an excerpt from what I sent them today:
About a year ago, I contacted you concerning the possibility of representing me and my work. Your assistant at the time kindly declined on your behalf. But a lot has happened in the intervening year, and I would like you to reconsider. Given your long history working with science fiction authors, I still think that you are the agent for me.
My finished novel is discussed below. But first allow me to explain briefly why I think you may want to reconsider representing me.
When I set out to find an agent early last year, I also decided to put my novel online, available as a free download in .pdf form. Since then, over 8,000 people have downloaded the book. Some of this has been due to mention of the book in various forums, but that only accounts for about 15% of the downloads, according to my server statistics. The vast majority seems to have come about entirely because of word-of-mouth. And those numbers of downloads have continued to slowly grow. In the last week alone, almost 350 people have downloaded the book.
Shortly after posting the book online, I also started a related blog. The numbers there are not huge, but typically run about 100 visitors per day. Comments pertaining to the novel are almost uniformly very positive. Many people indicate that they are eager to buy the book in conventionally printed form. One person who produces audio books as a sideline was so enthusiastic about the book that he produced an unabridged audio version and made it freely available to me to use – this has just been added to my website in recent days.
Over the past year, as I was the primary care-provider for a family member with Alzheimer’s living here at home (culminating in her death last month), I also wrote about the experience of being a male care-giver for my blog. When I cross posted those entries to other forums, they always received a very enthusiastic response. That series of blog posts runs to about 40,000 words, and I am now planning on developing them into a book on the subject – a memoir, if you will.
So, we’ll see – see whether that is sufficient to entice them to represent me, or if I just get another rejection. Rejection hurts, kicks you right in the ego, there’s no doubt about it. But it is a necessary part of the process. And all of you who have downloaded the book, who have told others about it (and my blog), who have sent me comments and feedback – you all have made it easier to face the prospect of rejection. Thank you.
I’ll keep you posted. This is just the first step – in coming days, I will probably spend some time to select a couple of other agencies and contact them as well. We’ll see what happens.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, Failure, Health, Hospice, Predictions, Sleep
“What’s wrong, MIL?”
She’d been restless most of the afternoon, but each time she called or squirmed enough to prompt me to investigate, the most she had been able to tell me was that she was “uncomfortable.” I tried to tweak her meds a bit, but I suspected that the duragesic patches which are supposed to be good for 72 hours were running dry half a day early.
She took a sip of water from the straw I held to her lips. She swallowed, then said: “I was just worried.”
“Worried? What are you worried about – maybe I can help?”
“Well, I think I need to go shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“For clothes. For when I take the train back to college this fall. I won’t have time to shop once I am there.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
My wife had been napping. These days, each of us does what we can to get enough sleep, whenever we can. Because while I write these entries about what I have been doing in caring for my mother-in-law, be assured that my wife does even more in caring for her mom. So we watch out for each other, try and leave time for napping.
When she came down, asked how her mom had been doing, I told her my suspicions about the patches. We’d seen evidence previously that they ran out a bit early for my MIL – everyone has a different speed at which they metabolize medicine, even something as supposedly stable as a transdermal patch. She agreed with my assessment, and we changed the patches 12 hours early. At worst, the hospice might complain that we had made a mistake, and not to do it again.
I didn’t care about that, and I wasn’t sure that it would matter – that the end would probably come before we had to worry about a new Rx for the patches.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
It takes a while for the painkillers from the patches to saturate the system – there’s a ‘ramp up’ period, once they have gone dry. This is well understood, and we have additional painkillers on hand to help get past the initial stages – what are called “breakthrough” medicines. We’d given her what we hoped was enough of this when we got her to bed, along with something to help relieve her breathing difficulties. For a while, she slept fitfully.
Then at midnight she woke, tried to get out of bed. I heard her (I was on-call), got dressed and went down to see what she needed. As I got her disentangled from the bed rails and onto the commode, I asked her if she was OK.
She looked at me, her eyes watery and unfocused. I never did get much of an answer out of her, but it was clear from how much difficulty she was having breathing that I needed to do something. I did – increasing the dosage of the med she takes to control this kind of spasming. This is what we’ve been instructed to do by the hospice nurses.
It worked. After I got her back into bed and settled, her breathing relaxed, and she started snoring loudly. She snored like that for two and a half hours, during which time I actually got some sleep. You learn what sounds are good sounds when listening to a monitor at night.
And you learn what sounds are not. I woke about 3:00 to the sound of silence. Not even a hint of breathing from my MIL.
I went to check, found her still breathing, but so lightly and shallowly that you could barely tell it, even when standing right over her.
Two more times before I got up at 6:00 I went to check, see if she was still with us. She was.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
She wanted to get up for breakfast, so we did that. But she was breathing and coughing so hard that when she’d finished we didn’t even suggest that we go ahead with her normal Sunday morning bath. Getting her dressed, she was barely able to hold herself upright in the wheelchair. When we got her into bed her breathing was again stressed, and again we gave her something to help, half a dose.
And then we called hospice.
Lisa, our usual nurse, had told me on her last visit Thursday: “Call. Anytime. We don’t like surprises.”
So I called. The office put us through to the nurse on call this weekend. It was Lisa. I told her how things had gone in the previous 24 hours.
“I’ll be right over.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“There’s significantly diminished lung capacity,” said Lisa, setting aside her stethoscope. Kneeling there next to the bed, her hand gently brushing my MIL’s hair away from her face, she looked up at us, then back at my MIL. “Can you say goodbye to me? I just stopped by for a moment, and have to leave now.”
It took my MIL a few moments to understand. Then she smiled slightly, and with a weak voice said “Goodbye.”
Lisa gave us another patch, this one to help control secretions into my MIL’s airway. Some swabs for her mouth, when it needs moistening but she is unable to drink. Told us how to arrange the pillows under my MIL to help control aspiration problems. And that we should freely use the meds which help control breathing spasms, keep her comfortable. “It’ll probably make her even sleepier. But at this point, that is not a bad thing.”
I nodded.
And now we wait.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Failure, Faith healing, Predictions, Psychic abilities, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Titan, Writing stuff
[This last part of this post contains mild spoilers about Communion of Dreams. You’ve been warned.]
I tend to look at things with a skeptical eye. For all that I would love for magic, or psychic abilities, or even religion to be real, there is very little good, reproducible evidence that it is so.
Still, I do like to poke around in this stuff. One off-beat website I check occasionally is The Daily Grail (TDG). And today they had a link to this piece:
IT’S HAPPENING PRESENTLY
We use words such as premonition and precognition with certain belief systems attached. These belief systems come in two forms. First, that they imply foreseeing the future; and second, that they are a specific type of phenomena.
I dislike these approaches. Rather, I feel that often an answer can be found in the present; and they do, infact, cover a multidude of possible causes. In this essay I will explore just one of many possible explanations, found in the present.
It’s an interesting essay, and I would encourage you to read the whole thing. The author comes down on the side of rational explanation, but leaves some thought-provoking ideas out there.
I’ve always considered that people looking for psychic abilities were going about things somewhat incorrectly by focusing on the individual. Why not take a statistical approach to such research?
[OK, here come the spoilers.]
This is why in Communion I have Seth, the AI ‘expert’ who aids my main character, seek out possible patterns in discussion fora and in published articles which would indicate an up-tick in dream references which may be tied to the discovery of the alien artifact on Titan. My thought there was that a type of ‘leakage’ was occurring, though the characters in the story would not understand the full ramifications of what was happening.
Why do this? Well, because I am intrigued at how often certain ideas will seem to spring up simultaneously in wildly divergent individuals in a culture. Or how something like a meme will suddenly pop up and spread like wildfire in society. It is almost like we are all connected to some common source beyond our conscious level. This idea fits in perfectly with the underlying reality of Communion – which I will not explain, just in case someone who wanted to risk mild spoilers still wants to be surprised by the book.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, SCA, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
My shooting buddy S called me up yesterday morning, wanted to know if I felt like getting out to do a little plinking. Since we had a warm front move through the night before, it was forecast to be in the upper 50s – not your typical January weather for Missouri. A chance to get out and do some shooting was most welcome.
He said that his Brother-In-Law was in town. I knew that S and T (the BIL) had hunted together for years, and that S trusted T not to be an idiot with a weapon, but I didn’t know much about him beyond that. S wanted to know whether it was OK for T to come along, try out some of our pistols. “Sure!”
So we set it up and went out to the range. As is my preference, informal shooting on private land – just tin cans at about a dozen yards for pistols, somewhat further for a little 9mm carbine of mine. Relaxed, laid-back, but still sufficient to keep my skills sharp and my mind off of being a full-time care provider for a few precious hours.
Since I didn’t know T, I wasn’t sure of his proficiency with handguns. And as we were talking about the guns we brought, getting them out and getting them ready, it was clear that he hadn’t ever shot a number of them. This isn’t too surprising, since several of them are somewhat uncommon.
My buddy S and I went first – our guns, make sure everything is working OK. When it was T’s turn, with a casual concentration he outshot us both, with our own guns. Turns out he has a law enforcement background, and still is involved in firearms training. As I noted to a friend in an email last night:
Nice to be shooting with someone that good, who wasn’t trying to be a dick about it. I’m a pretty decent shot, and can be quite good if I push myself into a ‘competition’ mindset. But I would really rather just relax and shoot without having something to prove. S is the same way. But trust me when I say that is somewhat rare – too often the competition bug gets in the way.
T was a state level competitor, but that was some years back. So now he’s relaxed – and good. Probably no where near where he was when he was competing, but that’s OK. Shooting cans at 15 yards was perfectly fine.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
OK, I’m going to brag a bit. Though it is all true.
When I was heavily involved in the SCA I was *heavily* involved. For a period of maybe about ten years I was known throughout the world-wide organization, in no small amount because of my ability as a fighter in the SCA style of martial arts. I had achieved the highest awards and rankings, acted as the chief officer in charge of all the fighting rules and safety criteria, and had literally written the definitive instruction manual for one particular sub-set of the martial art (greatsword use, if you want to know). I was, simply, one of the best there was. Given that there were tens of thousands of people engaged in this martial art around the world at the time, this was no small accomplishment, though of course in the ‘real’ world it doesn’t amount to anything of note.
But one thing which you might find a bit curious: in an organization where the basic measurement of skill is winning within the context of a tournament (patterned somewhat loosely on chivalric tourneys of the Middle Ages), I only won exactly four tournaments in my entire SCA career. Two of those were ‘Crown Tourney’, in which the ‘ruler’ for a six month period is chosen, and two others were other somewhat prestigious tournaments. But that’s it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune posted a piece last week titled “50 things I’ve learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order.” It’s kind of fun, and while I disagree on a few points, as I approach my own 50th birthday later this year I find it’s a list I pretty much could have come up with myself. In particular, he notes this:
38. In crisis or conflict, always think and act strategically. Take time to figure out what the “winning” outcome is for you, then work toward it.
I learned this long ago as applied to all of life, phrased simply as “define your victory conditions”. It has meant a somewhat less conventional life for me, mostly free of the trappings of “success.” And I’m OK with that.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
My friend responded to my email about shooting yesterday with this:
Nice to be shooting with someone that good, who wasn’t trying to be a dick about it. I’m a pretty decent shot, and can be quite good if I push myself into a ‘competition’ mindset. But I would really rather just relax and shoot without having something to prove. S is the same way. But trust me when I say that is somewhat rare – too often the competition bug gets in the way.
You are men.
Men have testosterone.
It’s very simple math.
My reply:
Over-simplified, actually. It’s more of a mindset.
***
I won four tournaments in my entire SCA career. Crown twice, Valour, and a memorial tourney in Des Moines. That’s it. Yet I had a world-wide reputation, and it was justified. By almost any measure you could devise, I would have been considered an ‘alpha male’ in terms of the prevailing testosterone pop-psych.
Why? For the same reason that I didn’t want to get all competitive with T and S when shooting yesterday: winning things like that just isn’t that important to me. Some guys with *plenty* of testosterone are perfectly happy to define their lives in ways different from the prevailing pop-psych.
My friend’s insightful response:
Although I have noticed that at some level of competence, whatever the subject, people don’t seem to have quite the need to compete that they would otherwise. I’ve run into it myself in some areas. I think that with T and S and you, all of you knew that you’re competent shots and the idea was not to plink off the most cans, but to have fun trying weapons. And that’s what you did. I guess a better way to say it is that when people are comfortable enough in their own skin, their own level of ability in whatever they are doing, they don’t need to compete and can just enjoy participating in the activity.
Is that what you mean?
Exactly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
After shooting, we got back to my place, and hung out a while back in my bindery (where I have a large working table where we could set out some guns and whatnot to look at and talk about.) In the course of the conversation, S mentioned to T that I had written Communion of Dreams, and that it was up on the web for anyone to download.
“Doesn’t that make it kinda tough to make any money off of it?” asked T.
“That’s not the point,” I answered.
Because, while I wouldn’t mind selling the book to a publisher, and think that eventually having the book online will help in doing so, that’s not what my ‘victory condition’ is. My victory condition is to have people read the book, find it an engaging and thought-provoking story. Sure, lots of money from having a best-seller would be nice, but in all honesty I can earn a decent income from my book conservation work. My real goal is to be respected as a writer. And if I have to do that in an unconventional way, well, that’s a path I’m used to walking.
Jim Downey
I just lost my temper. I just had a full-fledged screaming fit, eyes bulging, veins throbbing, face beet red. At a 90 year old woman who knows no better, who is confused by the world around her due to Alzheimer’s, who is likely dying.
Why did I just do this reprehensible thing, and why on earth am I admitting to it in a public forum?
The first part of that question is the more difficult one to answer. I did it out of frustration, exhaustion, and fear. Frustration because she (my MIL) has been exhibiting compulsive behaviours all morning which drive me nuts (tearing things out of magazines, wanting to write on the back of photos in the little album she has, ‘cleaning’ up some lunch mess with a kleenex and in the process smearing stuff all over the table top and making more work for me.) This sort of thing rapidly gets under my skin – it’s like some small kid pestering you with a behaviour that they know will drive you nuts. Except, of course, that in this case she doesn’t really know what the hell she is doing.
Exhaustion is obvious. Though I have been getting a lot more sleep, this is the end of years of being a care-giver. I do not have ‘reserves’ to draw upon. I only have a worn and fragile veneer of sanity. I have had the discussions with her which tripped my outburst hundreds of times. Sometimes, like this one, I just snap.
Fear? Because she is dying. Because in some sense, while I know that we have done everything humanly possible to care for her, and extended her life by years . . . I will still feel a sense of failure as a care provider. I hate to fail at things. I fear that others will think less of me because of that failure.
So, why tell on myself, here, in this way? Because this is part of what it means to be a care provider. You lose your temper. You scream, you shout, you act in mean and petty ways. You will lose your temper, or your sanity, now and again. And if you are to be effective as a care giver, you then have to catch your breath, forgive yourself, and get on with the task at hand. None of us are saints. We’re all frail, fallible human beings. You have to accept that, if you have any hope of getting through this. Because you can’t just take the day off to go relax, or turn this project over to someone else. You have to deal with your own outburst, then get over it as best you can. You have to keep going, whether you want to or not, whether you feel fear, or exhaustion, or shame.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, DARPA, Expert systems, Failure, Government, Guns, movies, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Wired
You think you get frustrated when your computer acts up? How do you think the guys who were on the receiving end of 500 rounds of 35mm explosive anti-aircraft fire feel? From Wired’s Danger Room blog:
We’re not used to thinking of them this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic — picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force “is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday.”
Wasn’t something like this part of the paleo-future Skynet from the Terminator? You think maybe we should pass along to the boys at DARPA the suggestion that they should watch that movie as a cautionary tale rather than an instruction manual?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 