Trust Tommy

John recently linked me to an article by Paul Graham entitled “What You’ll Wish You’d Known” – it’s a phenomenal read. I’m going to summarize and quote from it in this post, but I seriously urge you to read it in full here.

Before being vetoed by the school authorities, Graham was to give a talk for a high school, where he planned to speak about the misconceptions about school and the future that many high school students have.

I’ll start by telling you something you don’t have to know in high school: what you want to do with your life. People are always asking you this, so you think you’re supposed to have an answer. But adults ask this mainly as a conversation starter. They want to know what sort of person you are, and this question is just to get you talking. They ask it the way you might poke a hermit crab in a tide pool, to see what it does.

He goes on to explain why plans per sé aren’t what’s important in high school – they come later. What is important and what you should be focussing on in high school is discovering what you enjoy doing. You have to work on things you like if you want to be good at what you do.

He goes on to explain that one of the difficulties in doing this because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs – after all, being a doctor is not the way it’s shown on TV. That said, it’s not impossible either – you can watch real doctors by volunteering in hospitals.

One might also run into a problem in that there are some jobs that you can’t learn about, because they don’t exist yet – most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school. The world changes fast, and the rate at which it changes is itself speeding up. In such a world it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans.

He goes on to talk about how the “Standard Graduation Speech” isn’t so much wrong with its theme of “don’t give up on your dreams”, so much as badly phrased, because it implies you’re mean to be bound by some plan early on. The computer world has a name for this: premature optimization. And it is synonymous with disaster. These speakers would do better to say simply: don’t give up.

The article goes on to talk about college admissions, motivations, the importance of projects and how the successful people aren’t always ridiculously clever.

I think that last point is actually one of the best parts of the article:

I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they’d seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that’s one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it’s not our fault if we can’t do something as good.

There is some variation in natural ability. Most people overestimate its role, but it does exist. If I were talking to a guy four feet tall whose ambition was to play in the NBA, I’d feel pretty stupid saying “you can do anything if you really try”.

I think this article should be compulsory reading for all those in high school now (or those who will be soon) as well as those who teach in schools. Maybe this generation will be the first whose greatest regret isn’t how much time they wasted.

Full article by Paul Graham here.

What do you wish you’d known in high school?

The closest religion I’d associate my beliefs to would be atheism, but I manage to go about my daily business without dwelling on it too much. Why spend all of this life worrying about getting into the next one? There’s only now, as they say.

If I was religious, I’d imagine it’d probably go along with the rest of my life: being independent. I don’t like being “Tommy Collison, student of XYZ school”, I just like being a stand-alone figure. If I were, say, Catholic, the recent abuses, while horrific, wouldn’t turn me away from being a member of that faith. As far as I’m concerned, my belief is between me and a god – no in-betweens.

Religion didn’t play a huge part in my upbringing. My mother considered herself Catholic, but wouldn’t have regularly gone to mass. She did pray on occasion, the last time I recall was when I was having surgery. Dad, on the other side of the coin, wasn’t particular religious.

Mom, I think, tried to raise Catholic children but Patrick nor John ever showed any great interest in it, from my point of view. Following their example, I was never overly enthusiastic about it and the handful of times I was brought to mass during my childhood were usually spent daydreaming on what I could be doing at home or playing games with myself – calculating how many months I’d been alive, and so on. After a while, Mom gave into our lack of enthusiasm and we stopped that particular Sunday morning tradition. Over the next couple of years, my time spent in churches was limited to weddings, funerals and the sporadic visit on Christmas morning (and that last one is a tradition that died out a few years ago).

I did, however, make my communion and confirmation.

Around the time of my communion, when I was 7 or 8, I wasn’t nearly as headstrong as I was today, and I was quite self-conscious of myself. I considered myself uncertain as to where I stood on the grounds of religion, but I learned toward non-believing, even then. However, that dire need to fit in ruled all, so I joined in the mumbled morning prayer and blessed myself just like everybody else. The unreligious part of me scorned at this yearning to fit in, where I’d do these rituals which I didn’t really believe in. I got my answer as to what to do when reading our primary school Religion book, where it said that it wasn’t the hand movements that made blessing yourself sacred, it was the thought and the faith behind them. I had my answer. It didn’t matter that I did the movements along with everybody else, I reasoned with myself, if I didn’t believe in them.

So when our communion was coming up, and everyone else was preparing their pretty dresses and suits, I got right in there and picked out something nice to wear too. When they started learning off prayers and hymns, I joined in, feverishly learning off the lines because that’s what the other kids were doing. Also, and I won’t try and sugar coat this as I write it, about 8 years on, I enjoyed the notion of having a ‘me day’, when all my cousins and my godmother would come around and there’d be one of the Collison Get-Togethers. These events, which would only happen once a year, saw some or all of the 6 siblings on my Dad’s side and 6 siblings on my Mom’s side come together in one location, and a fantastic day would ensue. A lot of these still stick out in my memory for the sheer enjoyment I got out of them.

I also made my confirmation, when I was 13. By this age, any doubts about my religious orientation were gone and I approached this knowing fully that any reason I had for doing it (‘receiving the sacrament’ is the proper word, I believe) were wholly non-religious. I knew Mom loved the Collison Get-Togethers as much as I did – and this was as good an opportunity as any.

I also saw it as something slightly more significant than that – I’d set it in my mental calendar as ‘the day’. The day that was going to tell me what I felt. If there was a Catholic god, he would see my uncertainty and do something to prove himself – ‘touch me down inside’, to use a cliché.

I’ll admit, then, that as I sat in the front pew (nothing to do with faith – we were arranged in alphabetical order, and Collison was the third name) of the church that chilly morning, I felt a nervous excitement. The kind of excitement you feel when you know you’re about to meet your hero or something. Was something gonna happen? I felt my knees shaking as I stood up and approached the bishop. He anointed me, and I sat down.

To this day, I can’t look at a balloon deflating slowly without being reminded of my confirmation; that sense of shrinking as I sat in my seat. My hero hadn’t appeared out of the stage door.

There was also a grim sense of satisfaction there too – as if some part of me was saying: ‘well Tommy, there’s your answer’.

To this day, I don’t shy away from churches. I think they have pretty architecture and many of them smell nice, but the theological aspect of them is lost on me. If there’s a wedding or a funeral on I won’t make a point of not going to the church just because I’m not Catholic, and I think that stems from my realization that it’s not the participation that means anything – you need to want this, and have faith in it. I do get a sense of being lost though, having forgotten all the songs and prayers and gesticulations. Do I join in the mumbled praying or the hollow singing? Do I kneel when they do, or go up for communion when they do?

Photo owned by andycoan (cc)

So, there you have it, the history of religion and me. At roughly 1100 words, it’s my longest Trust Tommy post to date. Now to add in some pictures. Be sure to leave any comments, both negative and positive, below:

People I never really had.

I read blogposts by different people (mainly from IrishStudentBlogs folks) about their experiences with their grandparents, and I try to imagine what my interaction with mine would have been like. The only grandparent I have living memory of is my mum’s father, and I don’t think he ever left the house while I was alive. We certainly never had the relationship that the movies portray – going fishing, watching Countdown or whatever.

Of course, Patrick and John knew our grandparents longer than I did, what with being older, so they probably know more about them. My only mental picture of them is from what Mom or Dad say about them. I know my dad’s mother was a teacher, and that my mum’s dad built the house they lived in himself, but they’re only small snippets of information – not much.

Because of that, I think that my siblings and I (probably me more than the other two, being younger), sort of ‘adopted’ people in our lives into the grandparent role. My dad’s uncle used to live near us when we lived in Tipperary, and he’d sometimes call up to our house for dinner and he’d tell us of things about his time as a missionary. I distinctly remember thinking that he was a grandfatherly figure – grey hair, thick glasses – a quintessential old person, in my 7 year old eyes.

We also had a ‘grandmother’. She’s married to my dad’s cousin and also lived near us. She was an epic cook, and to this day she always comes to our house around Christmas (it should be soon enough this year, actually) and do a load of baking. It became a sort of tradition around Christmas, which I think is nice, even if I’m not a fan of mince pies. When we lived near her in Tipperary, she’d always be the one who’d mind us if Mom and Dad were away. I always got the feeling that since her kids were practically grown up by the time that we’d be asking her to collect so and so from school, she assumed the role of mother unto us. She was a person willing to take on the role of ‘Mammy’ unfalteringly, when we needed her.

A couple of different things have occurred, which have led to no-one in my life today really assuming the role of ‘grandparent’. Firstly, dad’s uncle passed away a few years back, and since we now live in Limerick, our ‘grandmother’ doesn’t take on many psuedo-mother duties. Also, John and Patrick are now away at college, leaving me effectively an only child. Finally, I’m 15, which means there’s less babysitting and emergency collections from schools needed.

So whenever I read blogposts or hear people talking about grandparents, I often find myself wondering about what might have been…

I have a cough, fever and mild headache. Still, show must go on

**

Have a read of this.

A lesbian couple with 3 of their 4 adopted children are about to set sail when suddenly one collapses. They hurry off the ship and into an ambulance which takes them to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The partner tried to follow the gurney into the trauma area but were stopped by the staff and instructed to go to the waiting room.

About a half hour later, a social worker comes out to the partner and says “you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition”.

That’s possibly one of the most bastardly things I’ve ever read, ever. If I was in the position, I would probably have hit him, or similar. At the very least there would’ve been a ferocious argument.

The partner obviously has a more level head then I do, and deals with him by asking him for his fax number because she said “we had legal Durable Powers of Attorney” and would get him the documents. Within a short time of meeting this social worker, she contacted friends in Lacey, WA, our hometown, who went to their house and faxed the legal documents required for her to make medical decisions for Lisa.

After unsuccessfully trying to sneak into the trauma centre (good on her, I’d have done the same) she’s left in the waiting room with her luggage, children and thoughts. She watches other couples being brought into the trauma centre to visit loved ones, slowly realizing that the social worker was right, that she wasn’t allowed to see Lisa because they were lesbians.

As she calls her family doctor two surgeons approach her and tell her that the massive bleed in Lisa’s brain gave her little chance to survive and if she did it would be in a persistent vegetative state.SherI let the surgeons know Lisa’s wishes of not wanting to be in a vegetative state, which were also spelled out in her Living Wills and Advance Directive.

A while later, she’s allowed to see Lisa with a Catholic priest who performs the last rites, before returning to the waiting room to break the news to her.

She pleads with the admitting staff to let her kids be with her, before being bluntly told they’re too young. Another shock. How can they do this?

The author makes the completely true point that it’d be unthinkable for a straight couple to be separated for minutes, never mind hours. Personally, I thought that bank accounts and the like would be harder to iron out for gay and lesbian couples – surely not access to a dying loved one at a hospital?

**

Second article is from the Irish Times, an opinion and analysis piece about the media and the grieving process, which can be read here. The article opens with the father of Darren Sutherland, who appeared on the Late Late show 4.5 weeks ago. That was less than two weeks after the star’s death. I don’t understand how a father can go on TV and speak about it like he did – but I can’t understand why they’d ask him to come on.. is there no respect?

Now, I’m a firm believer in not stopped people doing something like that if they want to, and not have other people make those sorts of decisions for them. I got into a rather large argument with someone on Twitter back in June about whether or Michael Jackson’s daughter should’ve been allowed to speak at the funeral.

I mean, yeah, she broke down, but she still got through that. Of course, knowing Michael Jackson, it was probably all orchestrated. I digress.

Like the above article, I’m not saying suicide should be a taboo subject and not talked about. Indeed, the media can play a big role in helping people, the fault lay both with having them there, and interviewing them in the first place.

OK, rant over, but your thoughts are, as always, most welcome. :)

In my internet wanderings, I came across Áine’s blog. She states:

I have a minor obsession with recording every last thing that I think, do, or say, hence the blog.

I sat down at my laptop one day and was stumped as to what to write about. I decided to write about a childhood memory, having prescribed it as an anti-writer’s-block post idea 3 times now.

I was shocked to discover how little I could remember. Snatches here and there, obviously, but certainly not enough to do a blogpost about. There’s me, using my new-found reading skills to read an advertisement for two kittens which we later adopted. Then there’s the time I ratted on some kids in Gaelscoil Junior Infants class for not speaking Irish, and got a gold star on my forehead because I reported my snitching through their much sought after Gaelic language, and my little 5 year old heart bursting with pride as I wore the gold star like a war medal. Or that time I came out of the cinema to have Mom tell me Sandy, our golden retriever had been put down. That sucked.

But yes, memories involving cat, rat and dog, but nothing concrete or blogpostable.

And that worries me. I remember snatches of all the above memories, and a few dozen others, but they’re only snatches; nothing great. I know that memories by cliché, if not by definition are all hazy and unclear, but this is taking the mickey.

The incident of realization about this came about 6 weeks ago, and since then I’ve been making a conscious effort to document stuff. My notes file is now full of one-liners. No, not those, one line files of what I’m up to. Snapshots of how I spend my life.

Okay, that can’t possibly have sounded as poignant as I think it did.

Anyhow, I’m trying to do more – carry John’s old video camera with me whenever I go someplace interesting (reminds me, I still have a load of Web Awards vids – will probably never publish them though. Except for a cookie, perhaps.) and take photos of what I get up to.

I want, no, need to remember more.

That is also why I blog.

I was starting this post out by saying that I know I’ve talked about this before, except I realized that it’s almost been a year since I’ve done a happiness post. It’s not that I want to be defined by them or anything, but this does need to be said.

Too many people believe that happiness is lying on a secluded beach or having a dream job where you get paid a million dollars an hour. Therefore, many people will make sweeping statements like ‘I’ve never been happy’ or something equally pessimistic.

Whether or not you’re happy, or have been happy recently, depends on what constitutes happy for you. It’s totally an individual thing – some people think that happiness is nigh on unattainable.

“Happiness” is one of the most relative terms out there. How long does this feeling last? A fleeting smile, or a week long holiday? Are you grinning euphorically for the entire 7 days?

In my opinion, from observations I’ve made, happiness isn’t recognized for what it is. I think that happiness is anything that makes you happy for a time. I won’t name how long in something so arbitrary as minutes or hours, because it depends on the person.

I think we need to recognize the small things throughout our day that make us happy and jump upon them and allow them to make us happy.

Photo owned by AJoelle_xo (cc)

Happiness is everyday things. It’s something totally attainable for everyone.

Below is a song from You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown called Happiness, which gave me the thought of this post.
________

Happiness is morning and evening,
Daytime and nighttime too.
For happiness is anyone and anything at all
That’s loved by you.