Regular readers may have noticed unusual amounts of design activity happening hereabouts lately. About halfway through the summer, I found myself in an existential funk and decided, instead of taking it out on my hair as usual, that I would inflict creative impulses and the need for change on my blog. My darling and brilliant friend Brendan Willis provided the design work--link here for further brilliance. I will be very smug in a few years when people are paying him millions of dollars for his talent, and his fee for this project was a batch of cookies, a few straight-up Manhattans, and three orders of Crab Rangoon (which, now that I'm thinking about it, he actually paid for).
Thank you, love!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Luck and All
When I was a kid, I went through a period of fascination with, respectively, the stock market and the cartoon strip Hagar the Horrible. Regarding the latter, I was specifically enamored with Hagar’s pet duck, whose name was Qvack. My father and I had a lot of quality time in those years bonding over both stock prices (during a school stock market project, my hypothetical Starbucks shares went gangbusters) and a cartoon duck in a Viking helmet. When my dad came home at night, sometimes he would hand me the funny pages of the paper, and I knew immediately our favorite duck had made an appearance. At school during the day, I would pore over the stock pages, looking for my favorite symbols. I always felt especially cool because Starbucks was listed on the NASDAQ, so I had to know where to go looking for my numbers.
During that time, my dad offered me an enduring piece of advice: “Buy low, sell high.” It may have seemed kind of self-evident, but I took it to heart. As it turned out, that phrase would turn into a shorthand for us—we use it to summarize a conversation, which otherwise concludes with something we already knew but is worth reiterating.
For example, recently I’ve found myself calling him after I finish a chapter of my GRE review book. He will talk me down from my study-induced hysteria and pessimism, and he will end with general encouragement and restatement of his belief that I’m doing everything right.
“Mm,” I’ll grunt. “Buy low, sell high, right?”
To which he will always reply: “Qvack, qvack.”
And I will be vastly comforted.
Another classic piece of advice my dad has always given me is applicable to stock prices, standardized tests, and many additional subjects:
“If you ever have to choose between being good and being lucky, pick lucky.”
For a long time, I didn’t really understand what he meant; it was just one of those things my dad always says. I think it took me so long to understand because, at a certain level, this particular piece of wisdom was fundamentally antithetical to my long held (if misguided) belief that I could do my best to control the universe around me by covering all my bases—that I could effectively hedge the idea of luck. When I was trying to get into college, I was hyper-vigilant about my GPA and heaped on diverse extracurriculars. I was trying to model myself exactly on what I understood to be the perfect candidate, because perfect candidates got into their top colleges—right?
(Well…)
Did my good GPA and diverse extracurriculars help my admission? Of course.
Did those things guarantee my admission? Not by a long shot.
It wasn’t until many years after I got into college that I came to realize that my admission was not only a result of my being good, but also one of my being lucky.
In the years since my college admission and subsequent graduation, I’ve had to let the idea of luck—and with it, my lack of absolute control over the universe—into my thinking. It’s been a humbling process, though perhaps not as crushing as rigidly adhering to the belief that if you don’t get what you want, it’s because there’s something wrong with you, not because you’re subject to unfortunate circumstances. In my lost year of job applications, I took my continued unemployment as a personal failure, not as a function of a bum job market. The funny thing is that I never extrapolated that outward: I never believed that the high unemployment happening around me was a result of many people’s failures. I believed their challenges were largely due to bad luck and a crappy economy. In a masochistic, intensely self-centered way, though, I thought for some reason that I alone was exempt from the indifferent arbitrations of luck. Whatever happened, it was my fault.
Again, my acceptance of the existence of luck was humbling, but it ends up beating the heck out of the alternative.
Much of my adult life has been spent trying to find the middle-ground between accountability and acceptance of an uncontrollable universe. That sweet spot, I have discovered, is a moving target, but sometimes the path can be fairly clear. For instance, it would be patently stupid to forego studying before taking the GRE, banking on luck and a few years of nearly forgotten high school math. However, there is a point at which I could cross the line into an unhealthy level of preparation, during which time I could foresee becoming convinced that my maniacal studying would guarantee me a great score.
In essence, there are two ends of the spectrum: at either end, I am a mess, having bombed from either a dearth of preparation or a surfeit of it. Every day I try to remain in the middle, keeping equidistant from insouciance and hysteria, between absolute dependence on being either very good or very lucky.
Recently, I was fretting to a friend about a graduate program, which she had just completed and which I am borderline desperate to attend (because after all, I’m not taking the GREs for kicks—there yet is an whole batch of application challenges awaiting me). She brought my father’s advice into very sharp focus, addressing my seemingly understated proclamation that I wasn’t convinced I would get in. Fortunately, my friend knows that when I casually admit I’m “not convinced” of something, that in reality I mean I’m pretty damn sure it won’t happen. In this case, I was also pretty sure that the program would not only reject me, but also probably kick me in the shins, spit on my neck, and tell me these jeans make me look fat. (When I address potential injuries, I tend to go all in, just for the sake of emphasis.)
Decoding my hysteria and coming to the root of my fears, my marvelous friend, cool of head and great of heart, said to me, “No one can be convinced they'll get in—it’s a competitive program. But some people have to get in, so why not you?”
She went on to state her absolute faith in me and my application, but something about her theory—and her own spin on being good and lucky—eased my anxiety so instantly and immensely that it made my head spin. Hers is advice grounded in the realities of skill and luck, taking both into account, and managing somehow to be both realistic and optimistic. As it sunk in, I nearly wept with relief.
In studying, in stock markets, in love, in general: I seek to live in an optimistic reality, accepting both responsibility and the insane, arbitrary nature of the universe. Also, of course, accepting along the way some very good advice:
Why not you?
Pick lucky.
Buy low, sell high.
(Qvack, qvack.)
(To anyone who would like to take ownership of my GRE vocabulary flashcards after August 22, please feel free to contact me. Did you really think I’d use “insouciance” and “surfeit” if there wasn’t a secondary, exigent purpose?)
During that time, my dad offered me an enduring piece of advice: “Buy low, sell high.” It may have seemed kind of self-evident, but I took it to heart. As it turned out, that phrase would turn into a shorthand for us—we use it to summarize a conversation, which otherwise concludes with something we already knew but is worth reiterating.
For example, recently I’ve found myself calling him after I finish a chapter of my GRE review book. He will talk me down from my study-induced hysteria and pessimism, and he will end with general encouragement and restatement of his belief that I’m doing everything right.
“Mm,” I’ll grunt. “Buy low, sell high, right?”
To which he will always reply: “Qvack, qvack.”
And I will be vastly comforted.
Another classic piece of advice my dad has always given me is applicable to stock prices, standardized tests, and many additional subjects:
“If you ever have to choose between being good and being lucky, pick lucky.”
For a long time, I didn’t really understand what he meant; it was just one of those things my dad always says. I think it took me so long to understand because, at a certain level, this particular piece of wisdom was fundamentally antithetical to my long held (if misguided) belief that I could do my best to control the universe around me by covering all my bases—that I could effectively hedge the idea of luck. When I was trying to get into college, I was hyper-vigilant about my GPA and heaped on diverse extracurriculars. I was trying to model myself exactly on what I understood to be the perfect candidate, because perfect candidates got into their top colleges—right?
(Well…)
Did my good GPA and diverse extracurriculars help my admission? Of course.
Did those things guarantee my admission? Not by a long shot.
It wasn’t until many years after I got into college that I came to realize that my admission was not only a result of my being good, but also one of my being lucky.
In the years since my college admission and subsequent graduation, I’ve had to let the idea of luck—and with it, my lack of absolute control over the universe—into my thinking. It’s been a humbling process, though perhaps not as crushing as rigidly adhering to the belief that if you don’t get what you want, it’s because there’s something wrong with you, not because you’re subject to unfortunate circumstances. In my lost year of job applications, I took my continued unemployment as a personal failure, not as a function of a bum job market. The funny thing is that I never extrapolated that outward: I never believed that the high unemployment happening around me was a result of many people’s failures. I believed their challenges were largely due to bad luck and a crappy economy. In a masochistic, intensely self-centered way, though, I thought for some reason that I alone was exempt from the indifferent arbitrations of luck. Whatever happened, it was my fault.
Again, my acceptance of the existence of luck was humbling, but it ends up beating the heck out of the alternative.
Much of my adult life has been spent trying to find the middle-ground between accountability and acceptance of an uncontrollable universe. That sweet spot, I have discovered, is a moving target, but sometimes the path can be fairly clear. For instance, it would be patently stupid to forego studying before taking the GRE, banking on luck and a few years of nearly forgotten high school math. However, there is a point at which I could cross the line into an unhealthy level of preparation, during which time I could foresee becoming convinced that my maniacal studying would guarantee me a great score.
In essence, there are two ends of the spectrum: at either end, I am a mess, having bombed from either a dearth of preparation or a surfeit of it. Every day I try to remain in the middle, keeping equidistant from insouciance and hysteria, between absolute dependence on being either very good or very lucky.
Recently, I was fretting to a friend about a graduate program, which she had just completed and which I am borderline desperate to attend (because after all, I’m not taking the GREs for kicks—there yet is an whole batch of application challenges awaiting me). She brought my father’s advice into very sharp focus, addressing my seemingly understated proclamation that I wasn’t convinced I would get in. Fortunately, my friend knows that when I casually admit I’m “not convinced” of something, that in reality I mean I’m pretty damn sure it won’t happen. In this case, I was also pretty sure that the program would not only reject me, but also probably kick me in the shins, spit on my neck, and tell me these jeans make me look fat. (When I address potential injuries, I tend to go all in, just for the sake of emphasis.)
Decoding my hysteria and coming to the root of my fears, my marvelous friend, cool of head and great of heart, said to me, “No one can be convinced they'll get in—it’s a competitive program. But some people have to get in, so why not you?”
She went on to state her absolute faith in me and my application, but something about her theory—and her own spin on being good and lucky—eased my anxiety so instantly and immensely that it made my head spin. Hers is advice grounded in the realities of skill and luck, taking both into account, and managing somehow to be both realistic and optimistic. As it sunk in, I nearly wept with relief.
In studying, in stock markets, in love, in general: I seek to live in an optimistic reality, accepting both responsibility and the insane, arbitrary nature of the universe. Also, of course, accepting along the way some very good advice:
Why not you?
Pick lucky.
Buy low, sell high.
(Qvack, qvack.)
(To anyone who would like to take ownership of my GRE vocabulary flashcards after August 22, please feel free to contact me. Did you really think I’d use “insouciance” and “surfeit” if there wasn’t a secondary, exigent purpose?)
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