enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Buona notte.

Oh my god I think I'm in love with Sergio Castellitt0.

Give me one of him, anyhow, if you have the chance.

Obviously, I went to the film festival tonight. I was quite shocked to find that the theatre was completely full! It was crazy.

A very fine film: The M!ssing St@r. It's about an Italian engineer who goes to China to find a blast furnace that was sold by his firm in Italy, to correct a fault in it. He has a protracted interaction with a translator/guide that is very moving. It's much more nuanced and well-wrought than that description makes it sound. I highly recommend it. Oh and Sergio Castellitt0 is every bit as WONDERFUL in the movie as he was as Mario in Mostly Marth@!

Terrific!

It's freezing cold out. But I think the brisk walk (about two miles each way) did me some good. I'm quite unhappy about having to go to work tomorrow.

But, on a more positive note, seeing the movie made me realize again how much I need to stay in touch with what I feel when I am in Italy. Just hearing the Italian spoken, watching the character's mannerisms, reminded me of how much I love the big Italian character.

I don't know if I've yet written this, but a firm plan has started to form for me to go to Italy on a leave of absence in 2010. Next year would be too soon, but I think that three months in 2010 would work. Perhaps March, April, May, or April, May, June. Of course then I'd want to stay SIX months!!

Anyhow. The details will come soon. But I think that this plan is likely to materialize. I was thinking very deeply today about how you just can't let the important dreams slip by. You just can't. Life is not for the faint-hearted.

And of course, in thinking about this, I realized today that the world is my oyster! I mean, I had a slow start in life because I didn't have support growing up, but now I'm free. And I felt truly young today - only 38. And I have no responsibilities to anyone. I can make a change. I can go anywhere and do anything. I can always come back. I won't be giving up my passport any time soon!

SO often what one needs is simply a change of perspective. I realized that even if it takes ten years to form the life that I want - maybe it will mean the foreign service, maybe just an apartment abroad - I'll still only be 48. A baby!

I read an extremely interesting article today. It follows on the article I posted last weekend. It was about Malcolm Gl@dwell's new book. I had no idea that he was raised in Canada.

But that's not the point. The point is that he was saying that to truly master something it seems that it takes 10,000 hours (based on a variety of studies and other evidence). So, for example, virtuoso violinists and computer scientists, etc., put in more hours than anyone else, are driven to work harder than the people who become just mediocre violinists, and they succeed.

It also seems that the whole idea that genius is born and not made is possibly wrong. Genius is formed by the right confluence of support, timing and effort. Sort of like the patron theory. There's even evidence of this in the life of a guy like Mozart.

So I can relate to this. It's the first time, actually, that I felt I had an explanation for the way that I came at my marathon running. Really, I used to attribute it to talent, but in actuality it was a convergence of interest and drive. I mean, it is true that I won the first marathon that I ever trained for. But it is also true that when I had the idea in May that I would win a marathon in the fall, I decided that what I would have to do to get there was to run and run and run and run. That summer, without knowing anything about running or training, I was already running 100 miles a week by July. I would run not one, not two, but THREE runs of 15 miles or more per week. And on days when I ran these runs I would run a second time in the morning (usually 10k or 6 miles).

SO the way that Gladw3ll framed his idea of success really resonated with me. Because there was no indication from my past life at all that I could be a good runner. In fact, I never was one before. I tried running cross country for one season in university, went out for a couple of races. I was at the middle of the pack and the coach was not at all encouraging, so I quit.

But the thing that I've always had that fits with Gladw3ll's theory of what it takes to get something done, is that I'm obsessive! Yes! There seems to be some use for obsessiveness!

:)

Really though, if I could sum up my misery into one sentence, it would have to be that I have been yearning for the right fit of a thing on which to unleash my considerable drive to do something. I'm good at repitition!

If running had provided me with more money, or if I'd had some support, I'm sure that I would have trained for another four years and tried again for the Olympics. As it is, I'm glad that that didn't work out. I was not that happy in that life. I loved succeeding and pursuing a goal, but there were lots of things in that life that were not a good fit for me. Oh, and I was broke!

So there you go: If you want to do something really, really well...aim to get in 10,000 hours at it. Makes sense to me. As they say, "Genius is 1 per cent inspiration, 99 per cent perspiration."

I believe that. Only I also believe in the luck bit.

The most interesting part of Gl@dwell's article was this: When rich kids really pull ahead of poor kids is in the periods in which the school cannot intervene. Rich kids, for example, clearly have better opportunities for continued learning during the summers.

I have no idea on what research evidence this is based, but I find the idea compelling. Unless you're very, very lucky, if you're poor, you're unlikely to have a chance to try ballet, or learn to play the violin, or experience interesting political debate in your own home. And disadvantages, like health hits, accumulate. Research evidence, and I know this research well as there is a lot of it in health economics, shows that the socioeconomic health gradient exists not because poorer people recover less well from health episodes as children, but because they simply have more episodes of ill-health laid on. Over time, a clear divergence occurs between wealthier and poorer kids in the trajectory of their overall physical health and capacity. Unfortunately, the damage seems to be irreversible. (And of course poor doesn't mean only poor in money. People can be poor in money and yet be fortunate to have parents who make the home rich along as many other dimensions as possible. Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen.)

So, I'm rambling. But I think that this is why it's so important to be aware of the time that you have and to think deeply about what you want to do with it. Big investments are needed to give people a chance to succeed, even where no obvious genius has yet been revealed. It would be great if families and regions and nations gave this more thought...I suppose in light of this I should at least thank my mother for putting me in the right place in the health gradient. :) I know that it's unlikely that I'll ever be a parent, but were I ever to be a parent, I wouldn't make my kid do all sorts of things to please me. I think that brilliance is in the power to choose, and having the support to grow and live in what you choose. I'd simply make sure that he or she had the opportunity to pursue whatever she or he felt passionately about - even if it were something that I don't like at all (hockey! monster truck driving! conservative politics!) :) .

OK. I'm going to make either shortbread or brownies. I have no idea why. I crave one or both.

9:30 p.m. - 2008-11-16

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

other diaries:

stepfordtart
ohell
awittykitty
annanotbob
manfromvenus
smartypants
fifidellabon
hungryghost
hissandtell