o it seems the 'privilege meme' (authored by Will Barrett) has been making the rounds; people bold the things that are true about their upbringing from this list as a way to showcase how much 'privilege' (read: unfair advantage) they had over their peers - perhaps supposed to feel guilty about it?

As an immigrant for whom English is my THIRD language (and whose parents started over in their mid-30s in a new country with a new language), the entire excercise irritates me on so many levels I felt the need to create a counter-meme. The truth is, by global standards, EVERYONE who just lives in the westernized world is absurdly privileged, and it is incredibly destructive to focus on the miniscule 'unfairness' of how so-and-so got to go to a museum as a kid, and you didn't.

Go through the list below. Bold the stuff that's true about you.

Or I'll make it easy on you and just list the stuff that's UNtrue.

Poverty
1	Unlike 50% of the world, I have always had access to clean, potable water.
2	I don't know anyone who does NOT have access to clean, potable water, and until I read the above, did not know the percentage of world population that does not have this benefit.
3	I don't know anyone who died from malaria.
4	I don't know anyone who died from malnutrition.
5	I don't know anyone living on less than US$1000 per year.
Government, Education, Internet
6	I live in a country where the average citizen has a life expectancy over age 40.
7	I live in a country that has a literacy rate of over 95%.
8	I have a connection to the Internet either personally or through a library in my city, and through that, can access the repository of the world's knowledge with a few keystrokes.
9	My country does not enact nationwide internet censorship and will not forbid me from reading articles or posting comments critical of my country's leaders or policies.
10	My country does not jail or execute citizens who express dissent with its current leaders or government policy.
11	From age six to eighteen, I have access to a public education system that is free to residents of my community.
White, Heterosexual Males (others, please skip down to next section)
12	If I am financially successful, I am told the only reason I have a comfortable lifestyle is because of my 'white privilege' - any hard work, risk-taking or personal work ethic I applied to better myself during my schooling or career is discounted. I am obligated to 'share the wealth' and endure confiscatory taxes of my income and investments as 'reparations' to nonwhite strangers I'm presumed to have oppressed on my way to to top.
13	If I am financially/professionally unsuccessful, I am solely responsible for my failures and can expect to be openly ridiculed by mainstream culture ('hick' 'poor white trash' etc).
14	I must never acknowledge reverse-racism/anti-white discrimination; the existence of women-only fitness clubs, race-gerrymandered college admissions or government set-aside contracts for less-qualified competitors are all legitimate recourse against centuries of oppression perpetrated by people of my skin tone/gender.
NON-White Heterosexual Males (N-WHM)
15	If I start a business, there exists an entire federal bureau dedicated to granting me access to capital, consulting and mentoring, based on my ethnicity or gender.
16	There exists advocacy groups of my specific ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation, who strongarm special privileges for my group from governments and give me access to free legal and media representation if I ever feel aggrieved by a WHM and wish to make a big to-do about it.
17	There exists Oppression Studies majors at most universities where students can earn bachelor's and even advanced degrees just by studying/cataloging how those with my ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation don't have it as good as WHMs.
18	If I, as a minority, express an opinion skeptical of the notion of 'white privilege,' I will be scolded as a 'self-hating [minority type]' who has 'internalized my oppression;' there is only one correct opinion to have on the matter and if I dissent, I can expect to be branded a 'race traitor.'

artin Blank: (on a headset, talking with his secretary from his hotel room, trying to cut short an awkward conversation) I have to go.

Marcella: Well we all have to go sometime, sir, but we can choose when.

Martin Blank: (Standing up to disconnect the call) Nobody chooses when.

- John Cusack, Grosse Pointe Blank

Imagine: You're a 53-year-old CEO of a well-respected international consultancy that spans the industrialized world. As a matter of profession, you socialize with and advise chieftains of multi-billion-dollar firms, and your life is scheduled out eighteen months in advance, optimized to the nth degree from dawn to midnight, juggling the obligations of a family and the demands of a job where your thoughts and insights are constantly sought by colleagues, subordinates, clients and compatriots. Retirement to a golf resort is still over a decade away - until then, every moment brings new challenges, new opportunities and you are primed to handle them with the same energy and focused attention that got you where you are.

Life is good.

Now imagine: a doctor's visit. You've been in excellent health your whole life and expect your recent headaches to be a minor annoyance to be chased away by time or the right handful of pills.

"I have bad news. You have inoperable brain cancer. You have three to six months. I'm sorry."

Like a rain of lit kerosene on a well-manicured garden, Gene O'Kelly's meticulously-planned, ordered life was torched in an instant, and he now has to compress the balance of his life into 100 days.

What would you do?

What would you do?

On Ben Casnocha's strong recommendation, I picked up a copy of Gene O'Kelly's haunting memoir, Chasing Daylight, which chronicled his final journey into oblivion, beginning with his diagnosis, and ending with his wife writing the last chapter of a book he was unable to finish.

In one measure, he was fortunate - the cancer that afflicted O'Kelly would not compromise his mental facilities; he would have the presence of mind to be himself right up until the end - and in this, he considered himself blessed, as he wrote in the opening lines of his book.

In his final 100 days, O'Kelly brought the methodical, organized ethos that made him an effective executive into the realm of settling his interpersonal affairs: drafting a plan of how he wanted to say goodbye to friends, colleagues, family - in the right order, and in a manner that preserves the best parts of their memories without maudlin moments of regret or anguish.

Every decision was weighed with an eye toward making the best of each of his remaining days (refusing chemotherapy, for instance, since the putative benefits of extending his life by weeks came at the expense of wracking him in distracting pain), chasing the remnants of daylight left in the accelerated sunset of his life in pursuit of "Perfect Moments" where he and the person he was saying goodbye to had full presence of mind in the now, with no room for useless 'what-if' dwelling in the past or idle speculation of a future that he can no longer be a part of.

Everybody draws different things from such a powerfully personal story - what took my breath away about the entire account was its supporting character who made sporadic appearances, Corinne O'Kelly ... Gene's wife, upon whom the burden of his decline and demise must fall the heaviest. Right at his side the whole time, faithfully transcribing his notes for the book chronicling his final days to share his journey with others, all the while channeling her own grief, her sadness and her love into this, their final project together.

If I am allowed a criticism of the book, it is this: O'Kelly did not give his wife nearly the space she deserved, her quiet devotion and running interference on the background that gave him license to fully explore what it meant to die well and on his own terms. But perhaps this, too, was intentional and as it should have been, a long-winded tribute to a beloved wife is something more fitting for private reading - and the book, like Gene O'Kelly's business life, is the public man than he chose to share.

Thank you, Gene - for a thoughtful and soul-stirring read. I hope to raise a toast to you one day in Valhalla, but if it's all the same to you, I hope that day is far off. And thank you, Ben, for the recommendation.

Off to work.

Related Reading: Twilight of my Years (musings on mortality)

Motivation and Gratitude (essay on the invisible miracles we take for granted that keep our bodies working)

handy tool that I have been forwarding to every client I've been speaking with in recent weeks since I found it:



Note: I have a few quibbles with some of the default assumptions in the 'general' tab under the advanced settings section that has a rather dramatic effect on the calculations

• "Return on Investments" ought to be at least 7% if one assumes a 70/30 equity/fixed-income portfolio - even 100% bond funds average about 5~6% per annum.
  
  
• The average home-buyer is probably closer to the 30~35% tax bracket, not 20%.
  
  
• Inflation tracks rental increase rates - both should be at or close to 3% given historical trends.

Other resources:

For a more, ah, slanted perspective on the whole issue, I would direct your attention to HousingPanic, who gleefully trumpets the misdeeds of real-estate speculators and those who accept crushingly unsustainable debts to bankroll their properties. ernunnos, any suggestions of other blogs people should be following on this subject?

P.S. After re-joining Toastmasters through the Lee Emerson Bassett club two months ago, then adding a double-membership at Adobe Speakers, I've sustained a grueling pace of delivering almost a speech every week out of the Ten-Speech CTM Manual; normally, members are expected to finish the CTM course over one to two years, but I am on track to complete the CTM in three months. This Weds, I will be delivering Speech #8, entitled "Why Smart People Are Statistically Destined to Remain Single - a Whimsical Look at Dating Markets for Outliers" (a spoken version of Why Pjammer is Doomed to Eternal Bachelorhood with "Lawrence Lessig" style slides).

Those in the Palo Alto area are invited to come along and check it out - drop me a comment and I will add you to the guestlist.

lmost everyone I know familiar with the sociological phenomenon of Dunbar's Number first came across it in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

Briefly stated, there is a cognitive maximum size of a 'tribe' the human monkey-brain has evolved to credibly cope with and manage: that number is 150. Beyond that, we need systems, formalized codes of conduct to deal with those outside whatever we classify as our own tribe - and our capacity for empathy drops precipitously for those who do not live within that sphere.

David Wong, whose hysterical Ultimate War Simulation I first came across a few years ago, wrote on the subject of Dunbar's number in The Monkeysphere.

Excerpts:

Famous news talking guy Tim Russert tells a charming story in his book Big Russ and Me (the title referring to his on-and-off romance with actor Russell Crowe) about his father, who used to take half an hour to carefully box up any broken glass before taking it to the trash. Why? Because "the trash guy might cut his hands."

That this was such an odd thing to do illustrates my monkey point. None of us spend time worrying too much about the garbage man's welfare even though he performs a crucial role in not forcing us to live in a cave carved from a mountain of our own filth. We don't usually consider his safety or comfort at all and if we do, it's not in the same way we would worry over our best friend or wife or girlfriend or even our dog.

...

[O]ne way or another we all have limits to our sphere of monkey concern. It's simply the way our brains are built. We each have a certain circle of people who we think of as people. Usually it's our own friends and family and neighbors and classmates and coworkers (or at least the ones in your department) and church or suicide cult.

This is literally the reason society doesn't work quite right. The people who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell picking up and eating a whole Taco Salad with her bare hands? Or you saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop?

...

6. That's not my fault! I don't know those people!

Right. And they don't know you. That's why they don't mind stealing your stereo or vandalizing your house or cutting your wages or raising your taxes or bombing your office building or choking your computer with spam advertising diet and penis drugs they know don't work. You're outside their Monkeysphere. In their mind, you're just a vague shape with a pocket full of money for the taking.

That's the whole thing, right here. Life on Earth, in a nutshell. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside and out of our Monkeysphere and those outside make up 99.999% of the world's population.

- Inside the Monkeysphere

The problem for me is there is no one single easily-identifiable 'tribe' I feel fully at home in - for most of my life, I've felt like an outsider in nearly social group I was putatively a member. Whether it's the community of free-market libertarians, sleight-of-hand magicians, vegetarians, gun owners, film enthusiasts or Chinese-Americans, I never felt fully comfortable within the Venn diagram of any of these worlds, even though I find myself actively participating in all of them.

Perhaps my tribe is elsewhere - another world, another time, and this is just a way-station en route.

P.S. There were a few technical glitches in the audio of my interview with Asian Playboy; will be cleaning up those files this afternoon and posting it by Tuesday.

Until then ...

ne hundred and eighty six. One hundred and eighty four.

The heart-rate monitor on the treadmill tells me that I am hovering at the cardiovascular redline of males my age; from experience, I know I can sustain this level of output for about two more minutes before I need to reduce my run-speed in the Interval Training program that I am running. There's half-empty water bottle to my right; the contents of bottle's other half is soaking through my shirt as I listen to the last minutes of a New Scientist podcast through my B&O earphones as I adjust the speed for a final full-power sprint to close out the running portion of my workout.

*SPLASH*

My lane is clear and I begin a steady crawl stroke across the Olympic-sized pool.

In anticipation of triathlon training I will be starting in six months, I've recently added swimming to my regimen - while running is an intense activity that demands my full-time attention, my mind wanders during laps in the pool, drifting to different snippets of conversations from previous weeks.

Today, thoughts coalesce on the three-hour conversation I had with a twentysomething friend of mine, B., who survived a major car accident two years ago which left his shoulder hanging precariously from the socket, leaving him in chronic, intense pain. We spoke of how often we take for granted things until they are taken away; having only broken my wrist in a mountain-biking accident fifteen years ago, I can barely relate to what it must feel to be in the sort of pain he's describing - needed to be dosed up on Oxycontin just to get through the day. Although an upcoming surgery can hopefully fix a significant portion of his shoulder, he faces the very real possibility of spending the rest of his life with permanent damage to his rotator and motor functions.

We talked about the psychology of pain; about what he would give to live one day - just one day - without pain, to trade his body for someone else's for 24 hours and do all the things most people take for granted.

At 33, my body still obeys all my commands without complaint or failure - and it takes a conversation like that for me to realize what a miracle that truly is.

Press this pair of 50-lb weights to muscle failure, three times, on the incline bench.

"Yes sir!"

Now, run eight miles on an interval circuit at 100% of your maximum heart rate.

"Right away, sir!"

During one of those whimsical flights of fancy my imagination is known to take, I imagine myself addressing an anthropomorphized assembly of my body parts and internal systems.

Me: "I wish I could thank each of you every day for the consistent and reliable service you've rendered these decades, and I hope we enjoy many more to come. But one day, one of you will fail me - one of you will be the first to fall on the job."

The image, once in my thoughts, would not leave. In mind's eye, I see my self-avatar in his best "El Jefe" swagger, pacing a long boardroom to continue:

"... and that failure will begin a cascade of failures that ends with the final failure that will doom us all. I don't know who among you will be the first to fail me,"

At this, I imagine pausing at the seat of the avatar representing my reproductive organs and, leaning over in a menacing voice, growl:

" ... all I can say is, it'd better not be YOU."

As the crowd chuckles, the mental image fades ... and I am back in my lane at the pool.

*SPLASH*

I perform an inverted flip and propel myself off the wall and breach the surface of the water and resume my laps.

Understanding that this body, this fabulous, reliable machine that has served me so well will one day break down piece by piece is both sobering and - odd as it may sound - liberating. This bag of blood and bones is not immortal - but what I do with it CAN be.

During Toastmasters last Wednesday , I was asked: "You seem so driven. What is it that motivates you?"

It's a good question. For my off-the-cuff response, I gave an abbreviated version of the above, and in so doing, was reminded of the exchange from Good Will Hunting between Chuckie and Will:

Will: Oh, come on! What? Why is it always this? I mean, I 'owe it to myself' to do this or that. What if I don't want to?
Chuckie: No. No, no no no. Screw you, you don't owe it to yourself man, you owe it to me, 'cause tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be 50, and I'll still be laying bricks. And that's all right. That's fine. I mean, you - you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket, but you're too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that's bullshit. 'Cause I'd do f-ing anything to have what you got. So would any of these f-ing guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years.

And that same thing could be said for the rest of us. I know there are frustrations and difficulties attendant to all our lives - but on balance, we should celebrate and be grateful that we live lives of absurd abundance left fallow for lack of understanding of how uniquely blessed we are: full use of our limbs, unlimited supply of clean potable water, access to free indexed repositories of human knowledge ... an embarrassment of riches that eclipses Croesus' holdings in his prime.

This morning, I am going to cash in on my winning lottery ticket of good health by taking an extended run on the dirt trail course around my office.

Cash in on my (relative!) youth and energy to block out three hours to a joint-screenwriting project I've recently accepted and email my writing partner on the list of things we need to complete this week.

And so to you, Constant Reader a gentle exhortation: live your dreams. Today. You won't always have what you have at this moment, and there's no better time to start than right now.

PS: An oddity ... (this seems to always inspire gasps of envy from other Asians) unusual among Chinese-Americans, I have 20/20 uncorrected vision. Which is probably a double blessing considering my propensity to lose expensive eyewear. Heh.

ne of the best decisions I made in college was joining Toastmasters International.

I first became aware of the organization through Harvey Mackay, author of the NYT-bestselling book Swim With the Sharks (Without Being Eaten Alive). In the book (a treasure trove of business wisdom condensed into three to five-page chapters written for short-attention-span business owners), he made a standing offer to his readers - join Toastmasters for a year and if you feel you didn't get your money's worth by year's end, mail a copy of your canceled check of membership dues and he will refund you the entire amount.

Toastmasters, for those unfamiliar, is a peer-mentoring international club focused on one goal: members helping each other become better public speakers through a series of time-proven exercises and live practice in front of fellow club members. With dozens of chapters in nearly every zip code, it's one of the best and most effective ways to build up one of the most essential and underdeveloped skills in your professional life.

The fundamental truth is, everybody has conversational quirks and verbal tics that interfere with our ability to get our point across - some unknowingly pepper our sentences with 'um,' 'like' or 'you know,' - some of us may speak too fast or too loud; while your friends and co-workers are familiar with and have adjusted to these bad habits; they compromise our ability to express our best ideas and thoughts to the people we want to communicate them to.

As mentioned in Consigliere, Mi Consigliere!:

somewhere during the transition to adulthood, we cross the invisible boundary labeled 'You Ought To Know Better By Now,' and that flow of feedback slows to a trickle, and then stops. And as goes feedback, so goes your evolution as a human being.

Think of all the self-defeating and objectionable behavior you witness among your friends and acquaintances; unfortunately, given the choice between bringing up potentially uncomfortable topics or turning a blind eye, nearly all of us opt for the latter. And so we go along, blissfully unaware, making the same mistakes over and over again ... before an audience of knowing peers too polite to point out your flaws to your face.

This goes double for our communication skills.

While nearly everyone acknowledges that we can stand to improve our ability to get our point across, few take the initiative to do anything about it. To be sure, hiring a professional speech coach at $75/hour is a formidable expense and a very real barrier, but many people are simply unaware of the extremely cost-effective options that are open to them for showing up to a local Toastmasters group and joining.

As an enthusiastic advocate of Toastmasters to friends, co-workers and clients, I felt it was time to renew my own participation in this fantastic organization; after visiting a number of chapters in the area, I will joining and delivering my first talk to the Lee Emerson Bassett Club at the Stanford Graduate School of Business this Weds evening.

For those of you in the Bay Area who wish to come along watch me in front of a live audience, please feel free to respond in this RSVP and come on by. Typically, this club meets for dinner afterward as a group at a local Palo Alto restaurant.

mong the concepts that lingered and swirled most vividly in my imagination after reading Frank Herbert's epic Dune, was his described professional class of "Mentats."

In the novel, Mentat candidates, selected by breeding and subjected to a rigorous gauntlet of intellectual exercises since birth, are trained to absorb staggering amounts of data and disparate information to sift and coalesce the relevant into concise, usable analysis. Most children who undergo this intense process fail out before adolescence; fully-trained Mentats are considered supreme logicians and highly sought after across the Imerpium as advisors to ruling royalty, military leaders and guild directors.

A significant element of Mentat training was their efforts to cultivate what was called 'The Naive Mind' - to see things as if for the first time, ridding oneself of preconceptions and prejudice that mar most human's capacity for objectivity.

Cognitive psychologists are long familiar with the phenomenon of Confirmation Bias - the natural tendency for people to seek out and overcount evidence that supports our beliefs and dismiss data points contradictory to our world view. Once we arrive at a conclusion about something - human nature is loathe to revise our beliefs and often dig in our heels to avoid the emotionally unpleasant experience of admitting we were wrong; our egos freezes our ability to objectively sort new information that may challenge our existing assumptions, limiting our ability to grow and evolve intellectually.

"Chunking" (Cognitive Psychology)

Some may be familiar with the psychological term 'chunking;' as adults, we 'chunk' previously small bits of data into compressed macro-units so we can process larger amounts of information more effectively. Using the computer an analogy, humans have a finite amount of RAM that cannot be upgraded - the standard way to process more information is to compress data into that finite space through mental shortcuts and cognitive 'chunks.'

Those of you who play musical instruments know this intuitively; when you first learned an instrument, notes are learned one by one ... strung together clumsily and with great difficulty. As time passes, your mind aggregates certain strings of keystrokes/motions into mental 'chunks' which become your new the 'unit' of thought, until entire concertos become a single fluid stream of memorized motions that flows from your fingertips to the audience. Most of us have experienced the phenomenon where a music teacher asked "now please start from the first four notes from the third measure," only to draw a blank - we know songs from certain anchor points but we reached a level of musical proficiency in which such requests are at a level of granularity below our ability to process.

(More on the topic can be found by reading the Wikipedia entry on Chunking)

The Naive Mind and Confirmation Bias

We've all seen examples of Confirmation Bias in the people around us - political partisans (Democrat or Republican) who believe members of their own party can do no wrong, and gleefully trumpet the misdeeds of their enemies as proof of their own moral superiority. Religious zealots who seize upon an ambiguous fossil discovery as 'proof' the Earth is as Biblically-stated, only 5000 years old.

More prosaically, we carry private biases about people in our lives - some well-deserved, others perhaps not so - which limits our relationships with them.

The discipline of cultivating "the Naive Mind" is being able to retain the ability to zoom in and zoom out of cognitive granularity at will - to see things as a seasoned expert and then see that same thing again piece-by-piece as if for the first time.

So what does this mean in practical terms?

In my life - I found it helpful to articulate my assumptions: the things I believe, the things I *want* to believe to be true.

Knowing human nature and its tendency toward Confirmation Bias, I make a deliberate effort to view evidence that supports those things I believe with heightened skepticism as a way to offset my natural biases toward wishful thinking; at the same time, I give a measure extra credence and credulity to things I normally disbelieve/disparage. Divorcing my ego from my beliefs is a continuous process, but in so doing, it helps to ensure that - like in My Favorite Liar, beliefs are constantly evaluated against facts, and capable of withstanding logical challenges.

And while I may never ascend to be a Mentat-Duke or lead humanity on the Golden Path, it's the best we can manage without a ready supply of Spice and a Barony at my command.

ne of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar.

I guess that statement requires a bit of explanation.

The topic of Corporate Finance/Capital Markets is, even within the world of the Dismal Science, a exceptionally dry and boring subject matter, encumbered by complex mathematic models and economic theory.

What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

"Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures ... one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day."

And thus began our ten-week course.

This was an insidiously brilliant technique to focus our attention - by offering an open invitation for students to challenge his statements, he transmitted lessons that lasted far beyond the immediate subject matter and taught us to constantly checksum new statements and claims with what we already accept as fact.

Early in the quarter, the Lie of the Day was usually obvious - immediately triggering a forest of raised hands to challenge the falsehood. Dr. K would smile, draw a line through that section of the board, and utter his trademark phrase "Very good! In fact, the opposite is true. Moving on ... "

As the quarter progressed, the Lie of the Day became more subtle, and many ended up slipping past a majority of the students unnoticed until a particularly alert person stopped the lecture to flag the disinformation. Every once in a while, a lecture would end with nobody catching the lie which created its own unique classroom experience - in any other college lecture, end of the class hour prompts a swift rush of feet and zipping up of bookbags as students make a beeline for the door; on the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. K, looking quite pleased with himself, said with a sly grin:

"Ah ha! Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. Discuss amongst yourselves what it might be, and I will tell you next Monday. That is all."

Those lectures forced us to puzzle things out, work out various angles in study groups so we could approach him with our theories the following week.

Brilliant ... but what made Dr. K's technique most insidiously evil and genius was, during the most technically difficult lecture of the entire quarter, there was no lie.

At the end of the lecture in which he was not called on any lie, he offered the same challenge to work through the notes; on the following Monday, he fielded our theories for what the falsehood might be (and shooting them down "no, in fact that is true - look at [x]") for almost ten minutes before he finally revealed:

"Do you remember the first lecture - how I said that 'every lecture has a lie?'"

Exhausted from having our best theories shot down, we nodded.

"Well - THAT was a lie. My previous lecture was completely on the level. But I am glad you reviewed your notes rigorously this weekend - a lot of it will be on the final. Moving on ... "

Which prompted an rousing melange of exasperated groans and laughter from the classroom.

If I ever teach a class, I will have to incorporate this technique.

And while my knowledge of the Economics of Capital Markets has faded in time, the lessons that stayed with me was his real legacy:

• "Experts" can be wrong, and say things that sound right - so build a habit of evaluating new information and checksum it against things you already accept as fact.
  
  
• If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation.
  
  
• A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously.

I've had many instructors before and since, but few that I remember with as much fondness - and why my favorite professor was a chronic liar.

Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

-Michael Crichton, The Lost World

P.S. Welcome, readers from theferrett, Ben Casnocha, and other places! Feel free to poke around and read older pieces ... last longish essay that may also interest you is The 16 Essential People of Your Life. Cheers!

P.P.S. Holy smokes, I'm on the front page of Reddit.com! Huzzah.

Welcome new readers! If you enjoyed the post, please feel free to leave a message telling me how you found this entry. Gratzi!

unch last week with sunyata__ in Palo Alto was tremendously fun and our conversations meandered from her new job (for which I again offer hearty congrats!) to something that reminded me I wanted to cover in greater detail here.

The Avatar
For nearly all of us - we have, in our mind, an idealized version ourselves as we'd like ourselves to be. Call it the Self-Avatar. In this iteration, you are magnanimous, thoughtful, well-respected, honorable, courageous ... whatever attributes you'd like to believe you exemplify.

Then, there is your real, flesh-and-blood self - riven with all the flaws that beset humanity. Unless you are completely schizophrenic, chances are good that you bear at least passing resemblence to that idealized Self-Avatar in your finest moments. Unfortunately, your real 'you' has other qualities, revealed in your worst moments - petty, situationally-dishonest, cowardly, or immature.

Between your Self-Avatar and your real you lies ... a gap.

For some, that gap is an enormous chasm of hypocrisy, filled with pious, self-congradulatory posturing completely at odds with their real-life misbehaviors, willfully (or obliviously) unaware of the distance between the self they believe themselves to be, and the actual lives they lead. Others are aware and mindful of that gap, and seek ways to diminish them in time, understanding that their individual failures are part of a necessary and iterative process, along the path to maturity.

As mentioned in the entry on consiglieres,

As children, we expect grownups to correct our manners, grammar, and behavior. In the process, we open ourselves to change - we learn, we adapt, we grow. But somewhere during the transition to adulthood, we cross the invisible boundary labeled 'You Ought To Know Better By Now,' and that flow of feedback slows to a trickle, and then stops. And as goes feedback, so goes your evolution as a human being."

As a personal example, about 30% of my serious dating relationships were ultimately marred by infidelity (on her part, never mine). Now, I am uncertain whether that figure is high, low or average (and yes, I've already considered that the percentage might be even higher and I was simply unaware); but in nearly every case, because she considered herselt not be "that kind of woman," the infidelity was compounded with deceit. A soothing lie was preferred over an unpleasant truth.

In my experience, persistent obliviousness to that gap is a problem shared by a majority of physically attractive women (BOCTAOE). Pretty women occupy a strange world, standing at the nexus of a hive of yes-men looking to bed them, and willing to overlook any deficit in character for that opportunity; if they so choose, they have the option to refuse essential personal development for decades ... until their beauty fades.

Being mindful of the gap is a constant discipline - it is no sin to have lofty ideals as to what you'd like to be, and possess an ambitiously virtuous self-avatar; the difficulty comes in the day-to-day, having a clear-eyed understanding of where you fall from your own ideals and putting unremitting effort in closing that gap when you find them.

If your self-avatar includes seeing yourself as a honorable person - make your peace with those with whom you hold grudges that have long outlived the magnitude of its offenses - summon the courage to be the bigger man and take the initiative for reconciliation, even if you believe the other was in the wrong.

Acting with honor is about the self - not about how others may react, and it is infinitely easy when our own lives are riven with hypocrisy and pettiness to harshly judge the failures of others, to focus harsh judgement on those whose flaws may be more visible than our own, to reassure ourselves that at least we aren't as bad as THEM. Focusing that beacon of judgement on ourselves is a much more difficult action - far easier to sneer at condemn the weakness of others than to acknowledge them in oneself.

It's a tall order, but then again, we should expect no less from ourselves, or those we choose to love.

Now, off to work.

ontinuing from the previous post on the topic, we'll cover the rest of the list.

9. The Event/Ticket Connection

"Hello? Let me guess what you want ... FOUR front-row seats for the Sharks game this weekend? Yeah, I'll get that FedExed to your office. You're welcome. No, I can't make it, but enjoy yourselves. I'll see you next week."

For those with an inside connection, no event is truly ever "sold out;" the right person in the right place can get you access to the most coveted seats for the hottest game/show/event in town, even in the last minute. His hookups are far from cheap, but if you are looking to make a grand impression on a high-stakes business deal (or a high-potential date), having someone on your speed-dial who can get you into the biggest venues on a moment's notice is a priceless connection.


10. The Local Celebrity

"What's the seating capacity of the fundraiser? Ok, I'll bring 300 photos to autograph and make sure my fans know where to show up. Glad to help."

National celebrities may be fun to have include your rolodex, but even if they are a good friend, it's difficult to get their time commitment for anything as they are besieged by lucrative appearance opportunities that demand their presence on a moment's notice.

Local celebrities, on the other hand, seek to broaden their fanbase and make a deeper connection with them in the immediate community; they are invaluable allies when you seek to host a nonprofit fundraiser and need to pack your event with new faces. Too, given the sheer number of people they interact with, they double as 15. in a pinch and can put you in touch with the right ... whomever ... should the need arise.

11. Big Money Guy

"Your startup looks attractive and I definitely want to talk with some of your end-users, but I can't make any promises about what my partners ultimately decide. I'd like to forward your business plan to my senior partner, if that's ok with you."

The title on the business card of the Big Money Guy (BMG) can say a dozen different things - "Private Equity," "Turnaround Specialist," "Venture Capitalist," "Angel Investor," maybe "Dabbling Dilettante" - but the chief attribute of the BMG is his access to capital and his position to invest it.

The BMG is in the profession of moving six, seven, eight-plus-figure sums of money around and is on the prowl for ways to deploy capital in promising situations that can earn him (or his backers) substantial returns.

Canny people know that in a negotiation situation, if you are a seller, it's helpful to have multiple buyers; if you are a buyer, you want multiple sellers. As an entrepreneur, it's good to have multiple potential 'bidders' on the equity of your business who know you personally and understand the depths of your competence. Don't wait until you need capital before you go asking ... strangers may buy your business if it has a sufficiently compelling story, but they'll sell their cash dearly for not knowing you already.

12. Local Politician

"I'll look into the ordinance - we may be able to grant your firm an exemption if you can prove your organization falls in the category outlined by the grandfathered laws concerning zoning for your area."

Local politics is, and has always been, a brutal, bare-knuckle business. Like them or not, those who rise to the top have survived having raw sewage dumped on their heads and private investigators (hired by opposing candidates) sift through every moment of their adolescence and adult life looking for dirty laundry. A successful politician stands at the nexus of some of the post powerful people in your zip code, and if you wish to circumnavigate the miles of red tape that entangle the average citizen when they wrestle with City Hall, it's good to have a local pol as your own personal advocate.


13. Auto Mechanic

"$900?! Good lord, is that what the dealership told you? I don't know why you didn't just come to me first. What you have here is a simple valve-timing issue - I can fix that for you in ten minutes with a $50 part. Drop off your car by my place anytime."

Like lawyers, doctors and financial advisors, mechanics are in a prime position to capitalize on the economics of asymmetric information. They know things you do not, and opportunities abound for a less-than-scrupulous person to enrich himself at your expense without your knowledge.

Finding a skilled, honest mechanic is, like everyone else on this list, hard work; the end result of patient, long work of culling candidates from a long list of potential vendors. Having one who you can trust completely is well worth the effort.


14. Consigliere

Previously discussed at length in this entry

Excerpt:
Think of all the self-defeating and objectionable behavior you witness among your friends and acquaintances; unfortunately, given the choice between bringing up potentially uncomfortable topics or turning a blind eye, nearly all of us opt for the latter. And so we go along, blissfully unaware, with our evolution stalled out, making the same mistakes over and over again ... before an audience of knowing peers too polite to point out your flaws to your face.

15. Mr. Connections

"Hello? Hey Gavin, what's up. Yeah, I still know people at Microsoft ... had lunch with Tony and Sheila last week. No kidding, another startup? Let me guess, you want some retail-clean copies of Office. Four copies? Shouldn't be a problem ... let me make a few calls and get back to you Friday. I just have a small favor to ask in return ... "

The Universal Donor of your rolodex, Mr. Connections is plugged into anything and everyone; a well-connected person just one or two phone calls away from nearly everything you'd want or need.

Some, like theferrett would opine that knowing Mr. Connections obviates the need to know anyone else, but as geah pointed out, such a strategy puts all your eggs in one basket, and #15 owns you. Too, favors from Mr. Connections are, like O-negative blood, in scarce supply and too valuable to waste on small-stakes requests.

It's difficult (and expensive) to outright purchase favors from this person; a skillful Mr. Connections trades not in cash but access - his currency is access to people, to relationships, to organizations. In the barter economy world where Mr. Connections inhabits, the best thing to offer him is whatever unique access your own position offers, be it professional or social.

16. Best Friend

The one person you can tell *anything* to - the one who understands you in your entirety - flaws and all, and accepts you anyway.

If you go through life and have nobody else in your Rolodex but #16, you are richer than 99% of the people I know. And if you find a #16 who also happens to be someone you can date and marry, well, you can count yourself among the luckiest SOBs who've ever walked on this God-forsaken planet, and while good manners would have me congratulate you, a part of me would probably seethe with envy.

Human nature. What can you do.

For those of you who've RSVPed for the wine-tasting dinner party tomorrow, I'll see you in 24 hours.

ontinuing from the previous post on the topic, we'll cover the next two individuals on the list.

7. Police Officer

"He's got a restraining order against him from an ex-wife four years ago, and a prior for possession back in '99 that he pled down to a 'disturbing the peace' misdemeanor. Not someone I'd consider a major threat, but I'd keep a close eye on this guy."

Though most of us live ensconced in a bubble of relative safety, the jungle is never far from home and law enforcement officers who stand at the thin blue line are the ones charged with keeping that jungle at bay. For all our illusion of personal safety, the demographic reality is that about one in seven of us will be a victim of crime during our lifetime.

To be sure, the first step is to educate yourself about self-protection: defensive-driving, environmental awareness and martial-arts/firearms training. Beyond that, it still pays to have an ally who wears a badge for a living.

Here's why:

Like any organization, your local constable will have its own set of priorities, and while your concern about your teenage daughter and her dope-dealing, thuggish new 'friend' is of paramount importance to you, it may rank very low in the precinct that ostensibly exists to 'serve and protect' your neighborhood.

Perhaps a former ex-lover is leaving vaguely-threatening messages from pay-phones to your home line, and your repeated requests for police intervention is shuffled to the bottom of their priority queue.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the ear of an sympathetic officer of the law?


8. The Wolf/The Cleaner

"I can take care of your problem. If anyone asks, this conversation never happened, and we've never met. Are we clear?"

Most problems in life can be solved through diplomacy and negotiations. Very rarely, we face intractable challenges and formidable adversaries can only be satisfactorily resolved through more ... well, direct means.

This is a territory where the rules and conventions of civilization end, and you enter the stark and unforgiving wasteland where the Wolf makes his den.

The defining characteristic of the Wolf is his encyclopedic knowledge of crime and criminality. He has intimate knowledge of the blind spots of police and criminals alike, and knows how to dance between the raindrops of law enforcement and urban predators without getting wet.

The Wolf is not somebody you summon casually - his methods, like his personality, are harsh, ruthless and brutal.

Climb high enough in the world and (even in spite of your best efforts to avoid unnecessary conflicts) you will accumulate enemies who despise you for nothing more than your success.

Fortunately, most enemies are minor threats that can be safely ignored, but given the reality of the Vandal's Utility Function, you have to accept the fact that there exists those who are willing and determined to expend whatever resources are at their command to see you fall.

As an upstanding citizen, you cannot be seen directly fighting with jackals - it is unseemly and undignified. Indeed, open warfare legitimizes their presence and may embolden a minor jackal to become a major threat to you, your family and your businesses.

A discreet call to The Wolf can spare you decades of agony should the occasion arise. Chances are, you may never acquire the sort of antagonist that would require the services of a Wolf. But as the saying (regarding defensive firearms) goes - it's better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it.


To be continued ...

ontinuing from the previous post on the topic, we'll cover the next two individuals on the list.

5. Personal Finance Advisor/CPA/Insurance Agent

"There's been some new tax laws passed that affect you since last we met; we'll go over in a moment. So the good news is that your accounts have been doing well this past year and you're up 14% on a portfolio that's almost 40% fixed-income. Bad news: you're looking at tax bill of over $18,000. We should rotate more of that fixed-income allocation to the municipal bond ladder I mentioned yesterday on the phone, and rebalance your equity portfolio by selling off some of your real estate exposure."

* disclaimer/disclosure - I do work in this industry, so my opinions here are far from unbiased. Proceed accordingly.

The quarterback to your financial life, a good personal financial advisor is a resource and consultant for your individual investment options and tax-smart tactical planning of your wealth; an individual whose advice can add literally millions of dollars in net worth to your family over the course of a lifetime and ensure your next generation (or charities) are free to receive the fruits of your earnings on your own terms.

There are actually three professional subcategories covered here, and while some financial advisors do hold an insurance license and wear multiple hats, you may very well have three individuals to cover this segment of your life - but the principles outlined below hold true regardless of whether you want an all-in-one CPA/Investment/Insurance guru, or multiple advisors.

Mediocre financial-advisor/client relationships are product-driven; vendors in crisp suits peddling pre-packaged products with little regard to your individual circumstances and goals. They are the punching-bag fodder for those who make a living sneering at the financial services industry (Suze Orman, index-fund zealots, Motley Fool, et al.), who hold them up as straw men to knock down, setting themselves as the heroes and saviors of the uneducated masses from the rapacious sharks of Wall Street, offering simplistic, strident slogans/proclamations as if they were universal laws ("Never get UL - buy term, invest the difference!" "Variable annuities are all scams!" "Never pay a load!") from their websites and TV specials.

I did mention I was biased in my disclaimer, yes?

In my opinion, the only advisor worth having is one who can work as your advocate - a trusted partner with the breadth of experience you can count on to help you navigate through the maze of insurance/investment/tax laws and options and offer tailored solutions to your individual needs.

So how do you evaluate a financial advisor? A few things can help separate the cream from the chaff of cold-calling stock-jockeys vying for your attention.

• Advocate vs. Salesman When you meet with a potential advisor for the first time, does he show up with a product to pitch, before he knows anything about you? High-functioning relationships with a financial advisor should be driven by the client's needs, not the 'hot product of the month.' Would you trust a doctor who has a prescription with your name on it for you to sign, the moment you walk into his office?
  
  The client-advocate model takes a completely different approach; initial meetings are about understanding needs and sussing out your priorities, both stated and unspoken. It's a delicate dance of na2 nie1 that relies much on observation, empathy and good understanding of human nature before any discussion of solutions are broached.
  
  
• Professional designations How do you make sense of the blizzard of acronyms that trail the name on those business cards? Is a CFP better than a CLU? How does a ChFC stack up against a CSA? Each three/four-letter title represents the completion of a set of continuing-education coursework focused on specific issues. The best visual summary I've seen on the topic can be found on this matrix. An advisor with higher-level designations is, at the very least, formally recognized as being educated on the subjects in their specialization and, ceteris paribus, better-informed than his less-credentialed peers.
  
  
• The Company You Keep How do you find such an advocate-advisor amid an ocean of smooth-talking peddlers, waiting to place you into some fund you don't understand? Ask the most successful friends/colleagues you know who they use to manage their wealth. Do keep in mind that established advisors often have account-size minimums that may be beyond your means; like any other individual on this list, it may take many interviews with multiple candidates before you find the one you can choose to keep ... but the benefits are well-worth it.

6. Medical Doctor

"Dr. Anderson? Look, this has to stay just between you and me, but I went to med school with Hal Anderson, and while he's a perfectly nice guy, he is a better schmoozer and marketer than he is surgeon. I know he's famous, what with all those ads he runs on the radio, but we're talking about elective surgery on your eyes; I know all the surgeons in the area and sent my wife to Dr. Jonas Lee. He's expensive, but there's nobody else I would trust with the procedure."

A mediocre CPA/financial advisor can cost you money.
A mediocre lawyer can cost you legal trouble (or more money).
A mediocre doctor can cost you your life.

There's an old two line-joke that bears repeating:

Q: What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of his Medical School class?
A: "Doctor."

Now, how would you like this Doctor to be slicing up your eyeballs with LASIK, or attempting to perform life-saving surgery on your infant son? Joke's not so funny any more, is it?

In any profession, insiders have unique access to assess each other's ability. Think about the people you know in your own profession - those whose skills you respect, those who are merely competent, and those bumbling fools you would not trust even the basics functions of your job. That bell curve exists in every field, but the stakes are substantially higher when it comes to issues related to your irreplaceable body. Like it or not, the hard truth is: not every doctor is equally competent.

Physicians are human, and anyone else, they are loathe speak ill of their own kind; it is surpassingly unlikely that your personal doctor who runs your annual physical will be willing to share his frank evaluation and opinion of his fellow docs. Having a trusted friend/confidant M.D. who is not your personal physician is absolutely essential to shorten the path between your medical concerns and the one specialist that those 'in the know' would entrust their own family's lives to.

To be continued ...

ver lunch with a friend last week, the topic of conversation turned to relationships - the ties that bind, and the people who drift off into the archives of our memories. There are friendships, of course, but beyond that we talked about essential relationships one must cultivate to thrive in this complex world that is increasingly interconnected, and yet in other ways, increasingly isolated. As Harvey Mackay said in his book Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty, 2 a.m. is a terrible time to be making new friends. Who can you trust when you need an ally in your hour of need? What relationships should you build *now* that can sustain you through life's uncertain trials and opportunities?

There are, in my view, sixteen essential individuals in anyone's life that should be in your Rolodex/Palm Pilot/Day Planner.


1. Headhunter

"There's a startup in the Valley that's looking for someone with your experience. Pay's solid ... about 20k more than what you're making right now plus stock options, but you can expect to log some pretty heavy hours. Good crew there, and the CTO led his last company to a $250 million IPO. If you're interested, get me an updated CV and I'll forward it along."

According to BLS numbers, the average working American will change jobs four or five times in his career (and in least half of those situations, be involuntarily laid off). If it hasn't already happened to you, sit tight - your turn is coming. Do you want to be one of those hapless drones combing through classified ads or hitting up college chums you haven't spoken to in years for job leads? Doesn't it make sense to have someone who has a working understanding of your professional strengths as your advocate to the right employers in those moments?

While mediocre headhunters are worse than useless, an experienced and competent recruiter is a godsend to corporate division managers and business owners, sparing them countless wasted man-hours interviewing unsuitable candidates by culling a list of well-qualified professionals to review.

As an employee, a well-respected recruiter can be your most valuable ally when you've been passed up for promotion and need an exit strategy ... or worse, just found out you've been part of a six-thousand-person layoff. If you currently hold a salaried position at a well-known company, chances are, a recruiter has contacted you at least a few times. Even if you are completely happy at your job when a headhunter calls, take him up on a lunch meeting anyway.

Since you are not looking for a new job, feel free to grill him mercilessly to size him up. A good recruiter can take the heat. Is he smart, competent, and honest enough to disclose the downsides of the job listings he's showing you? Is he capable of winning the respect of CEOs, seasoned entrepreneurs and hiring managers? From the average-level up to Sigma-Two-level headhunters, the answer is 'no' - but you'll learn something, and are free to continue your search; if you are content in your current job, accepting calls from recruiters represents a passive 'fishing' strategy that keeps you on the radar while honing your own interviewing/interrogation skills. Keep the dialogue open and do your own culling until you connect with a knowledge professional you can trust to be your inside track when the moment comes and you find yourself needing to get your CV in the hands of the right person, right now.


2. Computer Security Guru

"I don't know what the hell you've installed. I'm going to do a full wipe of your hard drive and reinstall your apps. Don't download crap off strange websites any more, ok?"

Think about the data on your personal/work computer and all the incredibly valuable information it stores related to your personal and business matters. Now imagine the utter devastation you'd suffer if the content of that computer were somehow compromised.

With proliferation of computer viruses, spyware, spyware-disguised-as-anti-spyware, and increasingly sophisticated phishing incursions, your computer is a single point of failure in a constant, escalating war between data thieves who write insidious programs designed to steal your information, and the white-hat infosec guardians who build the countermeasures to defeat them.

Unless computer security is your profession, it pays to have a personal ally navigate this minefield and keep you updated on what you should/should not install, which systems are riddled with vulnerabilities as well as how you should backup/secure your data. It's like any insurance policy; a pain in the neck and a major hassle all the way until the moment when you realize you need it.


3. Realtor

"I know the sellers are offering an attractive price, but it's attractive for a reason. The MLS report won't show it, but there's a jail three blocks away, just across the county line. Not worth the $40,000 discount ... it would be too expensive at half the price."

The single largest financial transaction you will likely make during your lifetime is the purchase or sale of real estate. A canny Realtor, savvy about the nuance of the neighborhood where you will purchase/sell property, is worth every penny of their large commissions. That's the good news.

The bad news? Like the headhunting profession, the potentially large income of real estate, combined with the low barriers to entry, is catnip to nitwits and encourages many mediocre people of mediocre ability to enter the field and pollute it with their incompetence.

Does that sound harsh? Probably. But judge for yourself.

On the low end of every realty brokerage office are dabblers - typically housewives who pick up a real estate license and transact one or two deals per year (usually for friends and family) to sustain the illusion of independence/professional employment. Slightly higher up on the totem pole are agents who work a salaried day job and are 'doing real estate on the side until it gets big enough that I can get into it full-time.'

These Realtors are to be avoided at all costs. If they aren't taking their real estate career seriously, why should you?

At the other extreme are the high-roller SuperAgents. If you spend any time in an upper-middle-class residential district, you'll probably see the same faces staring out at you from those For Sale ads again and again. These agents have spent years building a network of clientele and are extremely well-connected in the local homeowner's community; very often, they hire a team of licensed lesser agents to work beneath their brand.

The virtues of working with an established winner are obvious - the downsides, perhaps less so. Many SuperAgents spread themselves very thin; unless you are engaged in a multi-million-dollar transaction that demand their personal attention, some SuperAgents will farm out your transaction to one of their less-experienced subordinates and simply collect their skim off the top with little or no actual interaction with you. In essence, a classic bait-and-switch, you engage what you thought to be the services of a highly-experienced real estate professional and ended up paying full price for an amateur. I want to stress that this is not always the case - I happen to know two SuperAgents who take pride in their willingness to walk every client through all elements of a real estate deal - but if you wish to hire somebody is the "#1 Agent in [insert city]" it is something to be aware of.

In my opinion, the ideal Realtor is someone who is on the cusp of becoming a top producer/SuperAgent ... a #8-ranked person in an office of 45 ... somebody hungry enough to care about earning your trust and referrals, but not so busy that he's out of touch with the needs of his smallest clients. He's educated about the pulse of the local markets, knows the area's school districts inside out and most importantly, willing to tell you things you may not want to hear.

How do you find a good Realtor? Same as with any other professional: ask around. Size them up. Throw them curveball after curveball and try to rattle them. Repeat.


4. Criminal Defense Attorney

"You have one job, and one job only: shut the hell up. Volunteer nothing. Let me do all the talking."

I can hear some of you scoffing at this suggestion. After all, you're an upstanding, law-abiding citizen. Why in the world would you need a criminal defense attorney? Same reason you carry life insurance (you do own at least a Term Life policy, right? No? Bad blogger, no do) - not because you need it right now, but because you're covering yourself for circumstances beyond your control.

True story: an old college friend working as a surgeon found himself in a divorce situation. To exact maximum leverage (and, doubtless, motivated by no small measure of sheer malice), his ex-wife decided to level the vilest accusation you can make against a father of small children. Even absent ANY corroborating evidence, once certain legal balls start rolling, there is no force on earth that can stop its relentless progress.

In spite of the fact his own kids stepped up to protest the D.A., the man faced multiple felony charges and was arrested at his hospital in front of nurses and fellow co-workers, led out in handcuffs and spent the night in county lock-up while CPS goons interviewed his children, filling their heads with God-knows-what.

After an agonizing five months of pre-trial motions (and two changes of defense attorneys), all charges were dropped - but by then, the damage was done. He's forever an 'accused felon,' and in a family court, a father branded with that particular scarlet letter fighting for custody may as well be tilting at windmills during court recess. Hell hath no fury, and all that, neh?

Odds are good such tragedy may never strike you, and I doubt most of you reading this will ever need to make that 2 a.m. phone call. Even so, it pays to know that one capable criminal defense lawyer who can navigate through those dire situations with minimum of damage.

Or be the person who can make that call on behalf of a friend on the edge of desperation.

To be continued ...

( the rest of it ... )

n Decade and One, singer/songwriter Vienna Teng wrote, at the age of 20, a song speculating on what her life would be like in eleven years in her future.

Once when I was thirty-one
I woke in the dead of night
and heard the vastness of the snowfall outside
slipped downstairs in my bare feet
soon forgotten freezing
and poured a milk glass full
to wait out the tide

...

as the white went down
I thought of the child upstairs
I thought of the God upstairs
that I couldn't believe
I thought of the chosen man
asleep on his side of the bed
how green becomes wood
in a family tree

been a decade and one
been a decade and one so soon
a decade and one
since I stood
so proud
and so unsure

ebony glowing by the window there
as always
fingers kissed the keys oh so tenderly
cool ivory returned in kind
I thought of anger and adulation
and the taste of dreams realized
and the waste dreams realized leave behind

Listening to the lyrics this evening put me in a contemplative mood: what would an entry from my journal read like, eleven years from now? With a pot of hot tea at my side and a laptop humming before me, my imagination drifted in two directions: from an optimistic chronicle of a decade well-spent, where wisdom and fortune prevailed at critical decision-points, leading to a engaging life that made the best of my idiosyncratic strengths ... to a vision of a darker path in which my demons and personal weaknesses overtook me and I stood alone, a broken and shattered man.

Both scenarios were equally plausible in their own ways - but for whatever reason, the darker entry was easier to write (it begins: Life as a fugitive: Day 422. The setting sun squats like a bloated pumpkin on the jagged skyline, sending burnt-orange slices of light into the dusty ramshackle room I've been renting under the alias 'Thomas Kwok.' Living on the run means avoiding the daytime world as much possible; I keep vampire hours, sleeping while the straight world goes about its business, emerging only in darkness to stay a step ahead of my pursuers. When I think about everything that went wrong that led me here, my thoughts return to the image of Lucas Grissom's stone-faced visage ...)

As a writing exercise, I thought it better to first tackle the more difficult task of writing the optimistic journal entry, before letting my imagination wander in the den of sin and error that might have been my life:

Decade and One: The Path Untaken #1

January 27th, 2014

My semiconscious mind dances on the knife's edge between lucidity and early-morning dreaming as the waking world fades into focus. The clock on my nightstand tells me it's 6:30 am when I slip from our bed in the darkness. I take a moment to look at the sleeping form next to me - curled tight into a ball of peaceful slumber, and I smile as I dress in shorts, sweatshirt and cap.

Odin is already awake by the time I reach downstairs - his tail wagging in eager anticipation of our morning run.

"Good morning, you furry nuisance. Been waiting long?" I grin, snapping the leash on his thick neck as we jog into the pre-dawn mist under the maze of ancient trees that surround our home. For all its inconveniences, it's moments like these that remind me why we chose a life in rural isolation away from the crush of urban cacophony.

We.

I pick up the pace of the run, beating a steady crunch-crunch-crunch tattoo of footsteps along the gravel path while my thoughts drift back to the woman fast asleep on her side of the bed. Strange that all through my wandering years, when I chased every sort of fool's errand hit-and-run relationship under the sun, I never imagined how good it could be - that certainty and quiet contentedness that comes from the sort of love that goes the distance. Perhaps it is our very ability to marvel at these tiny miracles that keeps them alive. If there was a God up in heaven I could believe in to thank for my good fortune, I'd be on my knees every night in gratitude for her unwavering love; in His absence, the best I can do is offer my affection and devotion to one who chose - my flaws and sins notwithstanding - to love me so freely.

The early-morning sun swiftly burns the fog to ribbons by the time we double back along the edge of a lake and return home.

As I rinse off sweat and trail-dust in the shower, I review what was in store for me today. Breakfast meeting with a studio executive to discuss the promising script draft I submitted three weeks ago. Keynote speech on sustainable agriculture I need to deliver this evening to an audience of 400 business executives. Lunch with a publisher who is interested in reprint rights to my first book. Review royalty contracts with my attorney in the afternoon. Hrm. This means I'll probably need to call sensei and put off my Shinkendo belt test until at least next week.

I think about friends in engineering and medicine, who go to work with the comforting knowledge that they carry everything they need to accomplish their tasks in their skulls. In the arts, you - like all your peers - face a blank canvas every day, and are judged by how you to fill it. Success is difficult to quantify in this wickedly fickle business; I've witnessed utter drek written by well-connected oafs sell for seven-figure deals while compelling stories languish in obscurity for want of competent representation.

Selling a script to a major studio nine years ago was the major turning point in my life; ever since, I've been a professional storyteller in one capacity or another. You'd think I'd get over the uneasiness after all this time - but the truth is, I still find earning my bread on the strength of my writing to be a strange and scary business. Though I've no doubt this is what I am meant to do, in weaker moments I still find myself overwhelmed by the day-to-day brand of frustrations attendant to the world I've chosen. In these moments, I try to remember what a successful engineer-turned-musician once pointed out to me "fulfillment != fun" - that there's a point to it, and that's the important thing.

"Coffee?"

Her voice snaps me out of my reverie. As I look at her, I ponder the odds of winning the love of a woman who is as beautiful in bathrobe and mismatched fuzzy slippers as she is in full makeup. I accept the coffee with a kiss.

"Morning to you, sleepyhead," I smile. "Hey - can you take Valerie to school? I've got this breakfast meeting with-"

"I know. You told me already." she winked, playfully twirling her car keys in her hand.

A tiny head peeks out at me from behind the bathrobe, still dressed in her pajamas.

I kneel to my daughter's height and tousle her hair. "Hey sweetie. I need to be in town today to meet with some people - so Mom will drive you to school today, ok?"

"Are you coming home to read to me my bedtime story?"

"Always."

_________

The Audi S4 gleams like a blue jewel in the garage. I drop my laptop briefcase in the back and settle into the driver's seat before firing up the mighty 4.2L V-8 and listen as it rumbles to life. The dew-slicked pavement offer little challenge to the S4's sure-footed Quattro as it roars down the winding road, kicking up a swirl of dead leaves in its wake.

It's going to be a long and busy day.




Other Decade and One Pieces:
Decade and One, by Rasee
Decade and One: the Path Untaken #2, by pjammer