Jim Charter wrote:

 > Shay wrote:
 >> It appears you are finding your niche in your new profession, but are
 >> doing so not by evolving (in fact, refusing to evolve) but by making
 >> only small adaptations to the skills you developed while engaged in
 >> other pursuits.

 > I agree, for instance cab driving might have been/or still be an
 > opportunity to invest in a business for myself, learn about owning
 > a car, even a medallion, the intricacies of debt etc., but I have
 > not pushed that far. But is reusing previously acquired skills in
 > a new context the only common denominator you've observed?  There
 > must be more to what you are driving at here.

 > Obviously a huge and difficult topic.  In this sense, of how
 > acheivement is defined I may have allowed some tiny 'evolution'
 > for myself.  But still, on one hand there's the cliche that this
 > still can be nothing more than a rationale for failure, and on the
 > other hand, I have perhaps resisted development towards less
 > material acheivements.  Yes now I think I understand what you were
 > driving at earlier.  Just wondering how it is something in common
 > with 'burnouts'  I would be interested if you could develop that
 > point further.

Yes, you understand perfectly.

Skill recycling isn't a common denominator, just a sign that a person is 
"cherry-picking" the areas of his occupation where he wants to place his 
energy rather than diving wholly into "succeeding" at that profession. 
The common denominator is a lack of extroversion or fear (of financial 
ruin) or any other trait that makes a given apple on a stick look as 
appealing to one person as it does to another.

As to this "refusal's" being a rational for failure, I suppose it is in 
some instances and not in others. Moving over to my clearest point of 
reference - my self:

In High School, others had even me believing that I was an underachiever 
because my grades were poor. I laugh at that now. Would an underachiever 
run 24 miles a week? Work late nights after school? Train countless 
hours on home-made equipment?

I wasn't and am not currently underachieving. What I was/am doing is 
focusing my energy into areas that provide little or no chance for 
"success." I didn't have the genetics or want to become even a 
small-town track-and-field competitor; my after-school job was 
satisfying but offered no resume-enhancement; and despite my many years 
of working out, you'd never know I was into fitness at all unless you 
saw a blood test. What I could have done is get a doctorate in 
Electrical Engineering as my brother is doing, but working in an office 
seemed too much like going to school, and I *refused* to spend my life 
doing anything that felt as terrible as going to school. I have what 
some others consider a lopsided view of the costs versus rewards of that 
type of occupation - and of my current occupation.

Someone who spends his night watching TV and grumbles that he's too good 
to cheat to get ahead like the other weasels have done? Yeah, that guy 
is rationalizing failure.

Burnouts run away from whatever it was that burned them up, but only run 
so far, because they still find a lot of appeal in whatever rewards drew 
them to that occupation in the first place. The homeless programmer who 
had the heart attack at 28 introduced himself as "Windows" and still 
dressed as best he could manage as a programmer. He couldn't survive 
being a programmer occupationally but got what he needed by playing the 
roll of "computer guy" socially.

 >> I believe there's medicine in physical activity.

 > I believe so too.  Humans do have many 'dimensions' for
 > development though.

Many, but I truly believe that brain (not mental) fitness is the 
foundation under all other dimensions of development. I believe that the 
brain is like the heart or any other organ in that it will be sick if 
not given the proper physical environment. I can't see how a person can 
put potato chips into his brain and expect that brain to produce a 
healthy mind.

 > A cute aside...  My daughter,  who has more drive as a young
 > adolescent, than her father ever had,... after her struggles as a
 > highschool freshman,... is gaining much better social 'traction'
 > in her sophomore year.

Excellent. I need to find some pretext to have a long talk with my 
niece(13yo) about bad social habits. My niece is smart enough not to 
smoke crack or get pregnant just because her friends are doing it, but I 
don't think she grasps how carefully she needs to guard herself against 
less obviously destructive (but more contagious) habits and attitudes 
that can be picked up from friends. The pretext is necessary because her 
mother has fallen victim to this herself and wouldn't want me lecturing 
her child on the dangers of hanging out with losers.

  -Shay

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