Apparently, all signs in the economists’ magic 8-balls point to recovery and it looks like we missed Great Depression: The Sequel, after all. But for somebody who remembers the recession in the early 1990s, the past year has been an unwelcome flashback.
Quite recently, there was an interesting – and comforting – article about parenting in the local paper. The one thing that stuck to my mind about it was that some research expert – probably a Fellow at some Institute – noted that we, human mothers and fathers, tend to forget – and overrate at the same time – our own childhood by the time we’ve become mothers and fathers.
When we also overrate our own children’s abilities.
The result: We rush our kids into doing things.
We may all be brothers and sisters, and on some level I kind of like that idea, but, honestly, I just can’t feel it. I’ve never had a friend, or a teammate, that I’d say was “like a brother” to me.
Then again, I’m an only child, so how should I know what it feels like to have a brother.
I never even had an imaginary friend, let alone an imaginary brother.
The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where the washing machines used to be
When Dad was the manager of the store
And I always tagged along, like I did when I was four
Or, to be sure, this is where the window used to be
I once decorated it in a christmas theme, with cotton snow and all
I knew those things, I knew what was cool
because I had just got home from the business school
The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where Dad’s buddy stood with a video camera on his shoulder
And shot me and my schoolmates (and I was the Phantom, waving to the crowd)
As we drove around the city, at least four times, all mighty and proud.
The place where I sit and write this
Is where I made my best mixed tapes
And where good old Mr Grön picked me up for my first driving lession
Then proceeded to have his own afternoon napping session
The place where I sit and write this
Is where I gave my first interview
“A star was born, he’s got potential,” they said, I think
And they asked what the star liked to eat and drink
The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where the washing machines used to be
When Dad was the manager of the store
But, I’m sure you guessed it by now: the store is no more
The place where I sit and write this
Is now another coffeeshop, with cookies and latte
There’s a new building, new business where my life used to be
But they do have wireless internet, and they let me use it for free
Sweden is many things to many people. In the last couple of centuries, Sweden has given the world dynamite, a internationally renowned prizes (that sometimes get misspelled in Hollywood movies), cheap furniture, meatballs, pop music, more pop music, a car that has ignition on the floor, three-point seatbelts, refrigerator, and according to an old client of mine, color.
I think he was trying to say that some Swede had invented a color printer, a color TV, or maybe something even more basic color technology, but the way he said it made it sound like people had been living in black and white – and not just in the Dark Ages – until that Swede invented color.
Anyway, Swedes are an industrious people and the world has a lot to thank them for.
Apparently, self-control is a good thing:
Once Mischel began analyzing the results, he noticed that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly [to get marshmallows now instead of waiting and getting two later], seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.
[T]he ability to delay gratification … was a far better predictor of academic performance than I.Q. In other words, “intelligence is really important, but it’s still not as important as self-control.”
That’s my problem. I would have failed the marshmallow test. I’ve always been the kind who eats all candy right away, hand to mouth until the bag is empty. The upside is that I would have been just fine with getting only one marshmallow now. No regrets, either.
However, I always did well in school, I had the patience to learn those German verbs, and work my through the math problems. Maybe I’m a genius?
But I can’t get up at 5 am to work out, I’m no good at dieting, and I generally prefer now to later. Which is why I can never have projects just lying around. I’ve published three books, two of them were collections of my earlier articles, the third an oral history of a hockey team.
I would love to have “work-in-progress”. When I picked up painting, I loved it – the actual work – but I always had to finish everything in one sitting. (Standing).
So, now I’m actually trying to practice having unfinished work lying around. I go to bed in the middle of a sentence instead of burning the midnight oil and working my way to the end of the story. I would love to have a half-finished crossword puzzle folded inside my notebook, so that I could add a word every now and then, over a course of days and weeks.
And this weekend, I did something that may be a step to the right direction.
This:
Although, I chose Monday’s crossword because it’s the easiest, and I finished it in one sitting.
Upside: I should have been working instead. I feel like a better person already.
Below is a fairly long thing about running.
Get the printer-friendly pdf here or keep reading the 3 000-word story below.
The small path to the gym goes through a tiny piece of recreational area. I want to say forest, but that’s just too grand a word for what is a very tiny green spot on the map, but yes, the path goes through the woods.
It can be scary in the winter, especially when I’m listening to music on my Apple® iPhone™ music player, especially after J told me that the urban predators look for people just like that.
It only takes me a minute to cut through the “forest” – with real living animals such as roe deer and hares – but a lot of different thoughts rush through my head. I know, there’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light, and all that, but yesterday, I walked to the gym in full daylight, and saw three of these shady beasts hiding by the side of the construction site, and my heart missed a beat.
Then I turned on the music and cut through the forest, knowing that I’d be able to outrun the ‘saurs.
