Tag Archives: op-ed

american indians

American Indians: Many Participants, No Bystanders.

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By: Chris Warren.

As I described in this article from February 2014, a majority of my closest friends are of a different race, ethnicity, or religion as me. I never consciously singled out dissimilar folks to be friends with, it just sort of happened that way. When I had an opportunity to go to an American Indian festival & powwow last weekend, I was just as naturally drawn to it. What began as a fun afternoon outing ended as new insight about American Indians that had somehow slipped past me in all my multicultural experiences.

The first thing I noticed was that American Indians are devoted to their culture more than any other group I’ve ever been exposed to. We modern day caucasians think of “culture” as movies and art and music and whatever is trending on Twitter. There is nothing particularly wrong with this, but they are things made or done by others while an audience watches (for example, a symphony performance). We have no personal connection. There are many witnesses and very few participants.

American Indians are the exact opposite. Their cultural identity is based almost exclusively on the idea of personal contributions. As we walked around the festival, there were craftsmen making blankets, jewelry, clothes, carvings, and tools. All of the items had a special meaning beyond their practical purpose and nearly all were made from natural, straight-from-the-earth materials such as stone and animal skins. No Indian was sitting around watching. Everyone was doing something according to their unique skills.

Ask an American Indian about their culture and and they will likely show you something they made themselves that you can touch. It is not for entertainment or art for art’s sake. American Indians do not build famous buildings or erect great monuments. They make statements with small, everyday objects and consider rivers and mountains their “monuments”. When a culture reveres the Earth, it only follows that they do not believe they can build anything greater.american indians

 

I also noticed another unusual trait of American Indian culture: While everyone makes individual contributions, no one person calls attention to themselves or tries to elevate himself above the others. There are no “celebrity Indians”. Their humility is stunning. It’s almost as if no one wants to take too much credit for what they do out of a concern for appearing ostentatious. Each person is proud of the skills they bring to the tribe, but they see themselves as merely an equal among many. One piece of a jigsaw puzzle is no more meaningful than any other…yet if even one piece is missing, the entire puzzle fails. It is a community that is greater than the sum of its parts.

At one point of the event, they had a dance that everyone was expected to participate in. The Chief started things off and little by little the crowd joined in. By the end, it was just a big group moving in a continuous circle. No one person was in “front”. Even in dance, American Indians embrace community.

The most memorable insight I gained from my afternoon with the American Indians is that they have a very strong sense of who they are. The young kids understand that the stories their elders tell are not just stories. They are an oral, living history of times past that has something to offer the present and give a vision for the future. The elders understand that the young kids are the key to keeping the culture alive.

American Indians are very much aware of time. They feel a deep continuity between generations and go to great efforts to maintain it. I’m very confident that a hundred or more years from now, there will still be American Indian craftspeople hand making articles of their culture and telling real life stories of a people who would not let themselves forget who they are.

 

pope francis

Pope Francis Crosses The Line With Class And Grace.

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By: Chris Warren.

This is a big week for American Roman Catholics as Pope Francis is making his first ever visit to the USA. The media acts like he is some sort of visionary, but that only shows how little the media knows about the history of the papacy. It’s not unprecedented for a pontiff to dabble in politics and social issues; Pope Francis is doing it with an amazing level of class and grace. Popes have been inserting themselves into secular matters for centuries, and in many cases it went far beyond mere “dabbling”.

Pope Francis’ position on climate change or gay marriage or whatever provides material for endless chatter on the cable news channels. Had electronic media existed in times past, it would have been overloading the circuits with news of how popes were, literally, kingmakers. Pope Julius II (b. 1443, d. 1513) was known as the “warrior pope”. He raised armies and conquered territory, acquired vast art collections, and tore down then rebuilt what is now the present day St. Peter’s Basilica. Julius II was also the guy who hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. One can barely imagine the media attention that would ensue if Francis attempted anything close to what Julius II did.

It is somewhat amusing that the media thinks Pope Francis made some huge splash when he gave a few sermons and wrote what is basically the Vatican equivalent of a college term paper on climate change. It’s barely an effort compared to his predecessors. Pope Paul V (b. 1552, d. 1621) put Galileo on trial for daring to suggest that the Earth revolved around the sun. Galileo was found “guilty”, given a light sentence, then was later tried by the Church a second time as a repeat offender. He lived the last few years of his life under house arrest.

Although the Catholic Church no longer places anyone on trial for scientific heresy, that of course does not stop the Church from having an opinion. It’s a fair argument that religion should concern itself only with spiritual matters, but since society by default is also a statement about collective values and beliefs, the line between religion and politics is quite fuzzy.

Pope Francis has been criticized for stepping out on the ledge, so to speak, and making bold statements about secular affairs. If he did not, then what is the point of having a Church? One of the primary purposes of any church is to glorify God by doing good works for others. Is Pope Francis supposed to sit in a chapel and quietly pray the Rosary all day?

One thing that always bothered me about secular people is that they wrap themselves in a veneer of separation of church and state, thinking they have a monopoly on social change. If it were not for organized religion, a lot of problems would go unsolved. I don’t see any atheists building hospitals in Africa or running homeless shelters in inner city America. They aren’t willing to admit it, but secularists do indeed have a de facto church –the government– to which they petition for help and guidance. It takes a lot of nerve for people who think the church should be separate from the state to treat the state as if it were a church.

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I don’t completely agree with everything Pope Francis says on political and social topics, but I do agree with his selfless message of God’s love. If his words makes people of any (or no) faith look a little more kindly upon their fellow man, then that’s a net plus. Pope Francis is in a position to reach people who otherwise would not have any interest at all in words of faith. He is not a political figure and thankfully is not bound by any political customs. Pope Francis teaches that politics may not belong in religion, but religion most certainly has a place in politics.

lake shore drive

Mitch Aliotta 1944-2015. The Most Famous Song You’ve Never Heard.

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By: Chris Warren.

There “aint no road just like it, anywhere I’ve found,” and there aint no song just like anywhere I’ve found. Mitch Aliotta, one third of the Chicago local legend trio Aliotta, Haynes, & Jeremiah died in Las Vegas July 27. I was notified of his passing just recently.

Their single, Lake Shore Drive, was released in 1971 and is still ubiquitous on Chicago radio, at sports stadiums, and public events. Aliotta, Haynes & Jeremiah were never a huge commercial success, but anyone who has lived in the area in the last 44 years has heard the song and probably knows the words to it. It’s the most classic of classic Chicago songs, even more so than Frank Sinatra’s Chicago, That Toddlin’ Town. It’s not possible to overstate Lake Shore Drive’s place in Chicago lore. The song will never, ever die.

Anyone who has never lived in the Chicago area has probably never heard Lake Shore Drive. It’s one of north east  Illinois’ best kept secrets.

I’ve had Lake Shore Drive on my ipod for years and it’s one of my top ten most played songs. It reminds me of a time and place that always makes me smile even though I’m far away. I’ve ridden my motorcycle down Lake Shore Drive (colloquially referred to as LSD by the locals) many times, with “water on the drivin’ side” and it is an experience that never leaves me.

If you ever see a vinyl copy of an AHJ album at a garage sale, grab it because it is a rare collectible. Even more rare is a song that is loved across a generation and is so famous within a city and virtually unknown outside that city.

I’m inspired to take a few days off,  gear up the motorcycle and head to Chicago for another run down LSD before it gets too cold. I haven’t been that way in a long time and it seems like a good idea. Of course, I’m bringing the iPod. I know every single word to that song.

Thanks for riding along, Mitch.

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architecture

The Lego School of Architecture.

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By: Chris Warren.

Last summer during a vacation trip to Chicago, I accepted an invitation to go on an architecture bus tour. For those who don’t know, Chicago is where the skyscraper was born and more than any other locale in the world is the earliest example of the modern city. Our tour lasted two hours, but that was barely an introduction. There are people who spend their entire careers studying the architecture of Chicago and still do not get through it all.

On the long drive home, my brief education in architecture opened my eyes to something that I had not noticed before: Out in the suburbs, the buildings along the highway, almost all of which were built since the 1980s, were boring boxes of recycled design.architecture

There were very few structures that looked like some thought was put into them. The rest were pre-formed concrete, glass hanging on steel, or some combination of the two. Like a little kid sticking toy Lego blocks together, the designers of these buildings did not select construction materials to fulfill a vision, they altered their vision to fit the construction material.

Nearly all the architecture on the Chicago tour was at least thirty years old; many were eighty or more years old. And there were dozens of them. Block after city block of creativity and visual art. It was amazing and beautiful. The suburbs were mile after boring mile of thoughtless edifices that looked as if sometime in the 1980s they just quit designing buildings and lazily resorted to stacking giant Legos together under the guise of “architecture”.

I’m confidant that every American male who was born in the last fifty years, including me, played with Legos as a kid. The low-tech, simple, snap together plastic blocks are a timeless classic that never loses its appeal even in the age of iPads and high definition video games. They are a lot of fun but do not allow for much originality. Give ten kids ten matching sets of Legos and let them each make something. The results will be very similar across the group: Boxy things with a lot of right angles that do not vary much from one example to another. The physical and geometric limitations of Legos controls the creativity, not the other way around.

I bet I could drive through the suburbs of New York or Seattle or Phoenix and it would not seem much different from the Chicago suburbs. I’m not the only one who notices a glaring dearth of creativity. People who know a lot more about this stuff than me are publicly grumbling. When you see the Empire State Building or the John Hancock Center, or even ancient Greek and Roman structures, you’re looking at architecture that does not look like anything else, any where.

architecture
Chicago, Illinois: The unmistakeable black tapering John Hancock Center with historic Navy Pier on Lake Michigan in the foreground.

If they could do such beautiful architecture in the past without the benefit of computer aided design, why can’t or won’t they do it now? Why does every building built in the last thirty years look like it came from the same box of Legos? Part of the answer may be economic or time considerations. Architects and designers are spending other peoples’ money, and those other people are (somewhat understandably) more concerned with budgets and deadlines than making an artistic statement.

I can’t envision anyone going on an architecture bus tour seven decades from now and marveling at pre-formed concrete buildings, assuming any of these buildings are still around. How did we go from gorgeous iconic edifices that will be admired for generations to assemblies of indistinguishable, glorified Lego blocks? If a civilization is remembered by the buildings it builds, then then we are living in a time that will be forgotten.

fate

When Fate Slams On The Brakes.

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By: Chris Warren

Most people appeal to God or whatever they believe in to deliver on a big request. When the request is not granted, they are disappointed. It may take some time to realize it, perhaps even years, but in most of these cases being stopped by fate from getting what we wanted was the answer to a prayer.

Back in my younger years I went off to college with the intent of becoming an electronics technician. I had an unbreakable interest in electronics since I was in grade school and was very eager to pursue it as a career. Unfortunately, my passion as a hobbyist/experimenter did not translate into the classroom. By the end of my first year, I was washed out.

I changed direction and decided I wanted to be a high school English teacher. I had an aptitude for language and this time had the grades to prove it, so I thought it would be a good fit. Everything went as planned until I landed a teaching assignment at a small high school in rural Illinois and was given a class of my own. The students liked me, and I was an effective teacher, but I quickly realized that this was not what I wanted to do for the next thirty or so years.

Barely out of college, fate already put the brakes on my life plans, twice. Or maybe I was just clueless. Being stopped from making a bad move is good, but it does not really get you anywhere, either. At some point, you have to release the brakes and find a better route. My story has a happy ending: I went back to college and tried electronics again as more mature and disciplined student. I finished the degree program with excellent grades and ever since have prospered in a field doing what I’ve loved since I was a little kid.

Fate is as much about forcing us to look for a better way as it is about stopping us from going the wrong way. In that regard it’s a double-blessing. Stopping for anything is against what modern culture teaches us. We are conditioned to keep moving and making progress, yet high-achieving people will often say that being stopped from proceeding on one path and diverting to another is a major factor in their success.

What I get out of this is that fate is nature’s, or God’s, or whatever’s, second chance. There is no benefit in avoiding trouble if it does not lead you to something else. And most good things come only after some sort of hardship. Maybe that’s why so many people who are successful without any sacrifice (lottery winners, for example) disproportionately end up with broken relationships, broken careers, broken bank accounts.

I’m at a point in my life where I feel like it’s time to evaluate what my next move will be. I’m not unhappy and I don’t feel like I’m just sitting on the brakes, but fate has saved me from enough mistakes to make me more circumspect. Fate, it seems, is not a mysterious external “power” after all. It’s an intervention, a moment of realization, a warning, and a compass. It forces us to look for opportunities we might not otherwise notice and choose a different path.

work life 2

Work Life Reality Check.

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By: Chris Warren

I recently went through a short period at my job where my schedule was juggled and I got stuck working undesirable hours. It was a temporary arrangement and I fought hard to get out of it, but with summer vacations and a coworker on disability, the scheduling holes needed to be filled. It sucked; yet as much as I don’t like having my work life messed with, I came out the other side a better person.

I am a communications electronics technician. We don’t turn the cell towers and the TV and the internet off at 5:00 every afternoon and leave. If you are getting service on your cellphone, or watching the Insomniac Channel, or shopping on Amazon in the middle of the night, that’s not magic. It means real people like me are out there working hard to make it happen. Every moment of every day. We never close.

As I pushed through the first of my series of odd shifts I resented the idea that I was there while everyone else is sleeping in. After a while, I became more tempered and introspective. “There are a lot of other people working crappier hours for a lot less than what you earn,” I thought. “Don’t be a whiney crybaby. You’re not better or more deserving than anyone else.” The work life reality check was well timed.

work life

My employer’s clients demand that we be there for them around the clock. Reading into this a little further, I like to shop and eat out on weekends and holidays, and late at night, much the same as anyone. When I’m wandering through Target at 8:00 on a Sunday night, I am supporting the very thing that I resent being done to me. If it were not for people like me, the Target employees would be at home resting. They are there because that’s what their clients want.

Not too long ago the world did not turn so fast and consumer demands were more modest. Every business was closed on Sunday except the pharmacy and the grocery stores, which were open until 1:00pm to catch the after church crowd. When the supermarket “expanded” its hours to 6:00pm, it was a big deal. Even gas was hard to get on Sunday. Since that halcyon era it’s become an expectation to be able to get anything, any time.

As I rolled home from work late Sunday I drove past the shopping malls and fast food places and movie theaters, all of which had full parking lots. On any other occasion I would probably stop and pick up a few things and not think much about how my shopping habits effect the work life of others. But on that particular night I didn’t want to be complicit in creating a reason for all these places to be open. I know I’m a hypocrite. I freely confess I am a perpetrator of the we-never-close business concept as much as I am a victim of it.

My future work life will probably include more undesirable schedule changes. There is a certain humbling effect in that it gives me more respect for those who work odd shifts as a matter of routine and get paid much less than myself. I’ve gone far in my profession, and in the hierarchy of my workplace I’m near the top. Occasionally pulling the junk shifts no one wants keeps me from getting too full of myself…and that can only result in a better work life when I’m on the clock, and a better, more grateful me the rest of the time.

 

 

back to school

Vignettes Of Back To School.

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By: Chris Warren.

The flurry of activity known as back to school is noticeable even by those with no direct connection to this yearly spectacle. It starts after Fourth of July when the stores roll out school supplies and the TV fills with commercials featuring good looking, outgoing kids jumping around telling us how awesome buy one-get one half off shoes are. Looking past the capitalism, we who don’t have kids going back to school can find many cute and heartwarming scenes.

My niece just started junior high/middle school and I happened to be over there visiting when she found out what her class schedule would be. The “Sixth Grade Chick Information Network” went full blast with dozens of texts and social media posts. Every sixth grade girl in the land, it seems, absolutely had to know who is in what class with whom, and when.

My sister-in-law sensed my lack of appreciation for this momentous back to school announcement. With the patience of a mother who knows she is talking to someone who has no clue how Sixth Grade Chick culture works (a presumption that was 100% accurate), she explained, “It’s all up and down Facebook and Instagram. It’s all they are talking about.” I politely smile and kind of see the point. Kind of.

Less than a month prior to The Great Sixth Grade Schedule Reveal of 2015 my niece was upset about leaving her old grade school and starting junior high. She wanted to keep her friends and the surroundings that made her feel so welcomed and comfortable. I tried to think of something meaningful to say that didn’t sound like a dorky old dude was saying it. “I think that after you’ve been in your new school for two, maybe three days, you’re going to think it’s the greatest place ever.” Ok. That wasn’t too dorky old dude-ish.

If I want to maintain my status as the Cool Uncle, I have to keep it real, and not in an dorky old dude sort of way. Knowing how to respond to texts with the appropriate emojis and occasionally buying the kid some pizza bumps up my Cool Uncle rating, too. By the way, my prediction was wrong, in reverse. She thought her new school was the greatest place ever on the very first day.

My “adopted nephew” James, who I have previously written about in detail on this blog, is beginning his freshman year in college. He ultimately wants to go to medical school and become a doctor; I honestly think he has the mettle to pull it off. It was very flattering when he and his older sister made a long trip just to hang out with me for an afternoon.

We had a great time shooting guns at a local range (an outing I had regularly taken them on going back many years) followed by a pizza stop. They smiled and told me about their hopes and dreams, and more importantly, their plans to achieve them. I felt respected; they felt like they were being taken seriously. It was evident that we all were enjoying the good vibe.

As the afternoon was winding down and the kids were getting ready to leave, I had one simple request: I wanted to hear from them every now and then, maybe twice a month or so. A phone call would be awesome. An email would be nice. A text message would be perfectly acceptable. They agreed to my request, but I know how aloof college kids can be so I wasn’t expecting much of a follow through. Now I feel a little guilty for not having more faith in them; since then they both kept their word and have been in regular contact with me. I hope they know how much it really makes my day when I hear from them.

Back to school is usually a happy albeit harried period for most families. In the moment they may not realize that for some students it is a major life change. Parents will wonder in complete disbelief how all the years clicked by so fast. Every increasing grade number, every turn of the semester, every first day back to school, places students a little closer to the moment when they will be the adults worrying, wishing, and wanting the best for the young people they care about so much. It’s a genuine blessing when a few of those young people are someone else’s kids.

If you liked this article, please check out my other related posts:

The Class of 2015: Let Your Love Bind You To All Living Things.

Graduation’s Greatest Hits?

The Play Was Over, But The Plot Kept Going.

Beating The Higher Education Hustle.

The Tragedy and Comedy of Senior Summer.

Graduation Completes The Circle.

tool idiot

You Can’t Fix A Tool Idiot.

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By: Chris Warren

Everyone knows a tool idiot, or perhaps are one themselves. I don’t intend the term to be as disrespectful as it sounds. A tool idiot is a wannabe do-it-yourselfer who either grossly overestimates his or her ability to do a job, uses the wrong tools for the task, or has the right tools but does not have any skill using them. Tool idiots deserve credit for at least trying, but in many cases might have been better off not trying.

One recent hot summer morning I noticed the neighbor up the road cutting a tree down. He was clearly having difficulty, which is to be expected when one tries to cut down an entire full sized tree with a small electric saw. I gave a fleeting thought to going over there to help him, but hey, my own to-do list is already longer than the weekend. I also know that property is a rental so I wasn’t interested in working at someone else’s house for free while the landlord collects a rent check every month.

Late the next day I was driving by again and the same guy is hacking on the same tree, and most of it is still upright. My misgivings about providing free labor notwithstanding, I couldn’t take watching him struggle any more. I told him I would run home, change into work clothes and come back with the equipment needed to end his long, hot, miserable weekend of fruitless toil.

Within an hour of my return that tree was down and carved up into pieces small enough to carry. As I was leaving him on his own to clear the substantial mess, I was too polite to mention that for fifty bucks he could have rented a gas chainsaw and saved himself a day and a half of sweating his ass off while getting very little done.

He was both surprised and grateful at how quickly it all happened once the right knowledge and proper tools were applied to the task. Maybe it was divine intervention that he didn’t rent a gas chainsaw because I’m pretty sure he would have ripped a limb off with it, and I’m not referring to the tree. My floundering neighbor is a classic example a tool idiot: Well-intentioned, but hapless.

My dad is the exact opposite of a tool idiot. He owns, has owned, or has used pretty much every tool ever invented. He is the consummate handyman. From attic vents to sump pumps and everything in between, he has always done his own home repairs. Dad can pour cement, wire electric outlets, unclog drains, lay carpet & tile, put up fences, and tear down walls. He’s done several major renovations. He works on cars. Dad not only does it all, he does it with amazing skill. Even the stuff he screws up comes out twice as good as what the average person could pull off.

Guys like my dad are very hard to find now. The days of having do-it-yourself pride has been transplanted with a generation of tool idiots and a false belief that anyone can do it with no experience, no skill, and barely any effort. It’s a naiveté borne by television shows where some dude guts & remodels a whole house without even getting dirty.

People who barely know how to turn a screwdriver and whose garages are devoid of any sign of a homeowner with technical skills will spend a weekend watching HGTV and decide that’s all the “vocational training” they need to be master of all trades. Back in my dad’s time there were very few tool idiots. It was expected that most guys did their own fixes & upgrades because life wasn’t as simple as looking up a contractor on your smartphone and having them appear at your door within a few hours.

I’m not anywhere near my dad’s level, but I have a comprehensive collection of tools and can competently handle most homeowner issues myself. When I get stuck, I call my dad. He always knows what to do, and what not to do. When I look at a someone else’s project and I think to myself, my father would never do it that way,  I feel validated knowing that my daddy didn’t raise a tool idiot.

 

right now

The Rule of Right Now.

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By: Chris Warren

This summer there has been so many natural and man made calamities that I’ve become desensitized and hardly notice them anymore. There is no way to completely avoid being a victim, but there are plenty of ways the average person can, right now, decrease the odds of being involved in a tragedy and increase the odds of living through it if they are.

I call it the Rule of Right Now and here’s how it works: Wherever you are physically located while reading this, stop for a moment and look around you. Ask yourself: What is the most likely emergency/disaster event that could happen to me? And what is my plan if it happens right now? The Rule of Right Now states that we should train ourselves to always be aware of what could happen and have some kind of plan for dealing with it.

If you are at home in a safe neighborhood, coming up with a scenario may be difficult. That is the exact it can’t happen here complacency that makes victims unwitting participants in their own misfortune. Getting your head into right now requires some practice, and if you feel uncomfortable with the process, then you’re probably on the correct path.

The biggest barrier to being ready is denial. Denial creates at least as many victims as the tragedy itself.

The Rule of Right Now is universal. It goes beyond acute personal emergencies (such as a fire breaking out in your house) to very serious, widespread disasters that can effect an entire region or country (such as an economic crash). The biggest barrier to being ready is denial. Denial creates at least as many victims as the tragedy itself. A majority of people do not put even the smallest thought into what they would do if something horrible happened because they refuse to accept that anything horrible can happen in the first place.

It’s important to understand that the Rule of Right Now should not be interpreted as an endorsement for paranoia or an expectation that we should obsess over every conceivable disaster. Paranoia is a barrier, a distraction, to preparedness. It’s not sensible to be concerned with way out there scenarios that have a cosmically low probability of happening at the expense of ignoring obvious hazards. I personally know people who are think they are bad ass survivalists prepared for a Mad Max style societal collapse but do not have a functional spare tire in their car!

Every single time I board an airplane I memorize how many rows away and how many seats over the nearest two emergency exits are from where I am sitting. It’s not enough to glance at a card or look around the cabin and passively think, oh yeah, it’s over there, with no thought as to how I would find it if I could not see it. I also take notice of who is sitting between me and the exits. Even if completely blinded by smoke or darkness or injury, I will greatly improve my chances of escape by “counting” my way to an exit. That is how the Rule of Right Now is supposed to work. It does not require deep thought or intense training. It’s about having a thoughtful, controlled, predetermined response to plausible incidents.

Situational awareness is the act of knowing who and what is around you at all times. The Rule of Right Now goes a step further: You also have to contemplate what could happen and how to react to it. In my airplane example, I come up with a clear plan to get to the exit, as opposed to having only a generic awareness of where the exit is and calling it good enough.

Being prepared for disaster does not have to involve stockpiling guns and freeze dried food (although I strongly recommend doing exactly that if you are able). It also means paying attention and having a plan at all times. It means not having one’s head in the sand, nor consuming oneself with an unlikely future while overlooking the very real possibilities of today. Before anyone sees next time, they must first find a way to get through Right Now.

A Master’s Long Journey On A Trail Of Failure.

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By: Chris Warren.

If failure builds skill, then I should be an expert at a ton of stuff. The problem with this theory is that failure doesn’t by default make someone better. You have to want to be better, evaluate your shortcomings, and find a way to do it differently next time. Then go and actually do it. Failure is an effective teacher only when the student doesn’t stop trying.

Regular readers of my blog know that I am an very devoted amateur radio hobbyist and work professionally in the communications electronics field. I’ve spent this summer doing a lot of upgrades to my equipment and more than once I’ve been made painfully aware that for all the skill and expertise I’ve collected over many years of working on electronics as both a hobbyist and a professional, there is always something new tripping me up. Even more humbling is when I make mistakes performing easy tasks that I’ve successfully done before with barely a thought but at the moment cannot seem to grasp.

Someone who is admired and respected for their skill in a particular area make it look so easy, yet behind every flawless performance lies thousands of mistakes no one ever sees. Olympic athletes spend years falling down, missing the shot, not making their time, pushing through injury and illness. They take it all in and do better next time, until “next time” is the one single now-or-never Olympic event that is the denouement of their life’s effort.

On a far less Olympian but equally meaningful plane, there are everyday folks working as carpenters, auto mechanics, electricians, musicians, and teachers who are experts in their field and work largely unnoticed. After all, they don’t give gold medals for being the best accountant. The work may not be glamorous but it is important; the world runs better because these people did not quit the first time they failed at what they are now masters of.

failure

Every now and then I am invited to give a public talk about the technical aspects of solar energy and how it can be applied to everyday life. I always bring along some of my equipment for a live demonstration of how it all works. My solar power station attracts a lot of interest and many flattering compliments. The system is a point of pride for me because I designed and built everything myself from the ground up. I want all my electronic projects to say, “the person who made this is a highly skilled craftsman who cares about his work”.  A master does not brag about how good he is. He lets his results speak for him.

What the audience does not see behind me is is the decades-long trail of failure littered with burned out components, incorrectly wired circuits, blown fuses, ruined electrical connectors, a discharged fire extinguisher used on one of my alleged brilliant ideas, and spending hundreds of evenings and weekends in a college engineering lab doing it over and over and over until I had it right. I’m no genius. Usually I was the last to leave the lab because I was the slowest to figure it out. But I did figure it out.

For those who are driven to be accomplished at something, failure to keep trying is worse than failure at the task itself. Nobody wins all of the time. Show me someone who claims to have never been a failure and I’ll show you someone who has also never succeeded, or is a liar. The world rightly places a high value on success and winning, yet there is little talk of all the failure and pain and sacrifice that is the unavoidable price of being a master.

We live in a society that wants reward without risk, recognition without sacrifice, and no hurt feelings. The reality of life is indifferent to what society wants, or perceives as success, or how artificially low the bar is set to create as many winners as possible: Everyone knows which kids showed up early for practice every time, gave it all they had, and really earned the trophy, and which kids just can’t cut it and are being pandered to for the sake of appearances. Whether it’s winning an Olympic gold medal, beautifully playing a musical instrument, or expertly troubleshooting a complex electronic circuit, the hand of the master is guided by wisdom gained from the humiliation of uncountable failure.