Laura Vanderkam on Genius.

You may have read my entry about the Derb had to say about the issue of nature versus nature. It was a negative entry if I don't say so myself - there is so much you can't change about human nature. A lesson, that in practice, I won't accept.

Here is an article with a more positive spin on the issue. Lauran Vanderkam in The City Journal, says genius is both born and made. In her review of Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, she says you need talent, luck, and connections to succeed. Gladwell to prove the case uses an example that applies to me and that I can back up by personal anecdote:

To build his case, Gladwell relies on his own “outlier” ability to weave
a coherent tapestry from dozens of seemingly unrelated anecdotes—a talent that
made his previous books, The Tipping Point and Blink, into international
bestsellers. We learn, for starters, that almost all of the players who’ve made
it into the Canadian Hockey League (Canada’s junior league) were born in the
first few months of the year. It’s not that boys born in January are better
hockey players; it’s that the birthday cutoff for the youth leagues is January
1, and so boys born in January are usually bigger and more coordinated than
their teammates born in December, making them more likely to catch the eyes of
hockey scouts. They’re then given better coaching in more competitive leagues,
and hence they play more, get more practice, and eventually are, in fact, better
than the unlucky Sagittarius kids.

And unlucky Capricorn kids too, I might add. I was born in December and I was a very bad hockey player (house league I was), but I won't use having been born in December as an excuse for not having made it to the NHL. However, I do have an anecdote that proves the author's assertion. There was one time in my youth hockey days where I attended a fall hockey school. My particular age group was over-registered and I was relegated to a group that was a year below me. In the time I spent in my age group, I was one of the poorest players. And I felt humiliated to be put down to the younger group. But I did excel in the younger group and in the school-ending scrimmage game, I scored two goals, one of the two times I ever did in my hockey career.

My son Tony, being born in August, stands a better chance of being a good hockey player although being born in China and not in the first two months of the year will make it difficult.

What I also get from the City Journal article is that hard work does matter. Bill Gates logged in 10,000 hours of programming as a child. The Beatles played eight hours day after day after day in a German strip club before they hit it big. Also, it was hard work that helped two of the most successful cultures in America:

They (successful people) also tend to be the beneficiaries of positive cultural legacies. Gladwell argues that the entrepreneurial work ethic forged in the garment factories in New York 100 years ago helped spur the rise of the Jewish professional class. Similarly, the legacy of the Chinese rice paddies, which required careful, diligent, business-like cultivation, helps explain high achievements of people of Asian descent. Gladwell cites a Chinese aphorism—“No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich”—as exemplifying this legacy.

So, you will have to excuse me while I go back to work for my family and my students.



Here are is a link and another link: blasts from the past, as it were.

Thank God, there are millions of Chinese in Wuxi. Otherwise, Wuxi would be a very small and ugly town.