Self Confidence and Younger Siblings

Today I watched Sebastien (20 months) follow Isabelle (4 1/2) around.  Clearly, she is super cool and whatever she is doing is fascinating.  She, being so young, is oblivious to her brother's hero-worship.

I flashed back to years ago.  My brother Phil is 8 years younger and I can clearly remember him following me around and looking up to me.    Suddenly, a lot of things clicked into place:  My self-confidence and narcissism - could it be as simple as older child syndrome?  Always before I had thought older child syndrome was all about being an only child for the first few years and then being treated differently by your parents.

Maybe my brother's youthfulness helped shape me into who I am today!  Perhaps it is naive to think the younger children live in the firstborn's shadow.  It is we, the first born, who define ourselves in the gaze of our younger siblings! Isabelle - take the confidence Sebastien gives you and run with it!

3.14

I disapprove of pi day.  I like to eat pie too and I get that pie's are circles, but pi is not pie and this rationalization of irrationality should bother you too!

First off, pi is an irrational number (it never ends when written in decimal form).  Why confine our celebration of its transcendental nature to three whole numbers? Also, we do not commonly separate the month from the day with a decimal place  - we actually write it down as a fraction!  So 3/14 does not even make me think of 3.14....

Second, if we were going with the Europeans (which we should in this regard) and list day first, month second - then we would be getting closer at least!  Not on March 14 (14/3) but on the 22nd of July (22/7) which is known, most appropriately, as Pi Approximation Day.  (I say the Europeans have it right because day-month-year is going from small to big whereas month-day-year is just plain weird.)

Finally, a never ending, non repeating number that represents the ratio of circumference to diameter and, as a result, appears in most of our fundamental equations -  is bigger than a one day celebration.  Sure, let it blow your mind - but don't stuff the Greek letter with a power punch inside of a little 3.14 box.

Chopstick Skilz

Once upon a time, long ago - A prospective son-in-law needed to impress his mother-in-law to be.

She had concocted a most cunning test:  Slippery chinese food with nary a pronged utensile in sight.  Mysterious slivers of meat glisten on a layer of even more obscure vegetables crying out to be identified.  Taunting the son-in-law-to-be to foolishly ask "Why, what's this?  Is it edible?  Perchance is it not yucky?  What are these strange wooden sticks next to this very tiny bowl?"

No, not so easy!  Our fearless and undaunted son-in-law-to-be-hero  calmy eats with the chopsticks.  Confidently going in for seconds and thirds with no questions coming forth from his lips.  In fact, he boldly makes eye contact with the mother-in-law-to-be. 

Overconfident he begins to talk while diving in for a particulary hard to reach slippery piece of mystery meat and (oh!  the horror), the savory sliver slips right off from the chopsticks as if plucked by the devil himself.  Luckily for our dashing hero, the piece falls neatly into his shirt pocket. 

The miracle!  Eyes go wide all around the table.  What will he do?  How will he handle this?

Calmly, I pat the shirt pocket while reaching for a new piece and proclaim: "So good, saving some for later!"

James Joyce, John Lennon, and Art

Way back, in my AP English class, we read "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".  I remember thinking how cool it was that Joyce felt he had to tear down all his youthful influences to release his inner muse and become an artist.

Seems to me John Lennon is sending the same message in an entirely different medium with his song "God".

Is it always necessary to leave something behind in order to look at it?  Maybe not - but if you are not looking for a new perspective then you are not an artist, are you?

Judging Books by their Covers

On NPR this morning, Frank Deford had a nice the little piece on how athletes are held to a higher standard that other public figures. Their private screw-ups are said to shame their entire sport.  He closed with this great observation :

"It's almost as if we expect politicians and entertainment celebrities to be venal and flawed, but despite all historical evidence to the contrary, we keep expecting better from athletes. We keep saying that Woods has let golf down — because we don't want to admit that he has let us down."

I have often wondered why we confuse the artist and the art.  For example, why should I expect John Lennon to have conducted his personal life in a manner in which I would approve just because I love his music?

 

Is it that we are so superficial that we expect a single aspect of a person to represent the entire person?  The song tells me all about the author?  The athlete executing practiced motions perfectly represent some inner beauty?
 
Yes, I do think we are just that superficial...
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(Lennon pic from http://daddytypes.com/ / Tiger pic from www.outofmygord.com)