House of Eratosthenes

Now, Morgan and I are of an age, I think, because I remember those talks as well. And in my case, one of the things I took away from them was the important fact that although I had certain obvious talents even as a kid, I also had limitations. For example, I remember saying to my folks one day, “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.”

Dad shook his head. “Won’t work — you’ll be too big.” He explained that space capsules were cramped spaces, not really designed for hulking brutes of the sort I was destined to become.

Likewise, when I suggested that I might like a career as a secret agent, he pointed out that spies generally require a degree of protective coloration not typically found in very large redheads of my personality type. I wouldn’t be able to blend in enough for such a gig.
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These days, I suspect that parents who dropped this sort of truth on their kids would receive much tut-tutting, accusations of dream-crushing, and such. And I’ll admit, there was a certain amount of disappointment on my part, but I knew my dad loved me and wasn’t speaking from cruelty — he was simply telling the truth: Not everyone can do anything they might want. Instead, he said, you have to find the things that align with your abilities and your limitations and do those things as best you can. And by teaching me that lesson, he helped me find my way to what I do now. I’m grateful for that.

And I find myself wondering if there might be less frustration if more folks learned that lesson early on.

He gets it. A flurry of tiny, almost insignificant observations compel me toward a belief that “the talk” isn’t happening now the way it did in the days of yore. The question in the title of this post is not being asked as often.

Perhaps the attention span is slipping? Not sure what brings that about, but if it can somehow be proven that that is the cause to this effect, then it would be a simple matter to connect that cause to many others. It would explain much.

To the current crop of younglings I can only suggest: Just don’t be like her.

Update: I remember what I was reading when I started thinking this belonged over here, on the blog, and it wasn’t Prof. Mondo talking about it. It was an excellent observation about the graphic above by reader/follower/commentator Robert Mitchell:

We demand that, in school, kids sit down, shut up, and do what they’re told to do, and we drug them to the gills if they don’t. I expect that she was a charming little parrot when young, and her teachers adored her. So they “encouraged” her to seek out a “life of the mind” But no plan was given, just “Go to College!”. Trained from kindergarten to obey teachers, she was easy prey for the bottom feeders of the academic world, the “studies” professors……

The benefit to being a real “of the mind” type of professional, in my opinion, is that the aptitudes can develop late. I myself demonstrated little to nothing by way of remarkable or definable ability, contrasted with some of the other kids who were going to be professional athletes. Those who placed great confidence in their own opinions about what I would one day be, took the safe-shelter in the tiresome prediction that I’d be a great stringed-instrument virtuoso. Looking back on it, what really gave me opportunity for the future was not that. It was the encouragement I received to be a “solution in search of a problem”; the vision that I’d figure out how to do something others had tried to figure out how to do, and hadn’t yet succeeded at doing it. In my case, I have yet to invent the next great light bulb, or transistor, or what have you. But I have managed to solve these little puzzles along the way, and truth be told, that’s what has paid the bills.

That’s why I find this all a bit frightening. What appears to have taken a hiatus is this “do something unique” thing. The vision has been blinded. We seem to have an entire generation of kids coming up, who don’t envision themselves as doing anything now or in the future, besides fitting in to a large crowd, be it physical or virtual. But, either way, the large-crowd would not miss them if they were not there…and that’s okay.

To some, that’s a dream come true. Perhaps because of my own perspective on life and how to make a living while you’re in it, I call it a nightmare. I don’t wish to be melodramatic about it, but I struggle in vain to imagine one that could be any worse.

[…] UPDATE: Morgan continues the discussion. […]
- Having The Talk (No, Not That One…) | Professor Mondo | 02/02/2014 @ 08:48
My first thought was “that’s a woman?”

My second thought was “he has a son?”

My third thought was, “what in hell did you expect to do with a useless `degree`? Hell, basket weaving would have been more useful”.

What’s wrong with these people?
- pdwalker | 02/02/2014 @ 09:57
Huh. Now you got me thinking. “Womens’ studies” inclined me toward one conclusion, but now that I reflect on it, that’s the only tip-off I have one way or the other…
- mkfreeberg | 02/02/2014 @ 10:21
I have no doubt this lady worked very hard at college… harder than I did, anyway, since I didn’t graduate. In return, I could show you the charts I worked up for all the drafts I ran as GM of a fake hockey team in a favorite simulation program I bought years ago. And it was very hard work.

We won seven fake Stanley Cups in eleven seasons, so did it pay off? Suppose so, on some level, but I never expected to turn pro in Eastside Hockey Manager. If it had gotten me sacked from my day job, I’d have been a colossal moron. And now that I’m married and have a child of my own, I find that the team has gone wanting of late. I write instead, and that’s pretty hard too, but again, I’m not selling anything yet, may never sell anything, and my hard work doesn’t mean, by default, that people are obligated to part with the fruits of their own hard work to support my part-time avocation.

“Working hard” isn’t enough. The best professor I ever had during my stunted college career, the late Dick Wasson, was the one who got that through my brain. You have to work towards something or you are only putting all of your effort into wasting time, and you will succeed in that far better than you like.
- nightfly | 02/03/2014 @ 00:13
This is why I think all kids should play youth sports.

Real ones, not some wussy Euro bullshit like soccer. Learning that you can’t hit a curveball, or that your NBA career is over before it starts because you’ll never be 6’10”, does wonders for one’s reality-appraisal function. In these days of “everyone gets an A and a sticker for showing up,” nobody else is going to teach you those very valuable lessons.
- Severian | 02/03/2014 @ 10:17
As a heterosexual male, I did a ton of self-taught women studies in middle school, high school, and college. I failed all those classes though. At least my fallback of cat studies came through in the end!
- P_Ang | 02/05/2014 @ 15:22

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So What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Sunday, February 2nd, 2014