| The
Main Story
Most people aren’t gonna like what’s coming. Well at least
not at the beginning. Truth is, I didn’t like it much myself when
I started, probably bout 20 years ago now. In fact I spent the first few
years trying to prove there were geniuses, or more to the point, that
my guys were geniuses – geniuses of popular culture – the
likes of Little Richard, Koufax, Dr. J.. fill in your own. Just like Einstein,
Mozart and the rest of them. You know, geniuses of rock and baseball and.. Only problem was after a couple years I realized it didn’t make any sense. Not Koufax or Little Richard. Genius. This genetic marvel who was somehow born to become a Mozart or Einstein or Picasso... somehow bound to rise to the top. Genius. It didn’t make any sense. And more to the point, Greatness didn’t either.
What I discovered wasn’t much fun.. cos it meant giving up
my heroes.. and that wasn’t easy, but there was no way around it. (at the time I had no idea what goldmines this would bring, eg, see "And you and me???" below.) What I discovered was simply that those who become ‘great’ – the Elvis’s
and Einsteins, the Mozarts, Michaels, and Marilyns, the lot of
them – have virtually nothing to do with attaining that status.
The
Basics
Achieving ‘greatness’ is not down to being born with some
supreme genetic potential which is bound to rise to the top; and it’s
not down to the individual’s heroic legacy of struggle, courage,
determination, and sacrifice (not that these things don’t happen,
it’s just that they don’t’ have much to do with becoming
‘great’). It’s simply down to the person – the
Mozart, Michael, or Marilyn – getting The
Right Kind of Problems
over
20+ Years of Development, problems which will eventually elaborate the person’s initial
genetic biases into those incredibly complex, powerful, and compelling
versions of intelligence, personality, and self – what I’m
calling Key Characteristics
-- which will be required to eventually solve the Key
Problems of their generation, the kind of problems all of the historical
greats, not to mention Elvis, solved for their generations. The whole
show is about getting the right kind of problems (and of course sufficient
organizational resources and personal supports to take them on) over the
20+ years of development. And this isn’t down to the individual,
to the Elvis or Einstein, the Mozart, Michael or Marilyn. No matter how
brilliant, unique, compelling they start out or end up. It’s down
to the person being able to gain access to the right kind of problems
over and over and over again. In short it’s down to attaining matchups
between the person’s characteristics and the problems/ resources/
support on offer by Organizations
& Teams over the course of those 20+ years of development (and beyond
when it comes to finally solving key problems of a generation).
Wait a minute. Mozart and Marilyn in the same sentence? Marilyn Monroe
a ‘great’?? Come on. Actually I think she is, but the truth is,
it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you use Marilyn or
Hitchcock or Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali or Louis Armstrong or Charlie
Parker or whomever you like as an example of a ‘great’ from
popular culture (noticing that with Hitchcock, and Armstrong and Parker,
what was mere popular culture when it occurred has now slipped over into
the realm of art & genius as the field of production – film,
jazz – went up-market, bit like Leonardo, Michelangelo and the lads
did during the Renaissance). Fact is the analysis comes out the same even
if we drop all but the classical greats (the Mozarts, Einsteins, Picassos
etc). It’s just not as much fun doing it.. Either way it’s
all down to getting the right kind of problems over and over and over.
And genetic potential?? That counts for nothing? Anyone could have become
Mozart or Einstein? Or for that matter Michael Jordan or Ali or Marilyn?
Of course not. Initial genetic biases obviously set limits on who can
get in the game. The problem is we don’t know what those limits
are, and even if we did there’d still be millions more born in any
generation who could become ‘great’ than who actually do.
For
instance, the classic psychological research on intelligence and genius
rising out of the development of IQ tests (and associated with the likes
of Francis Galton, Louis Terman, and his student, Catherine Cox, and their
estimates of the childhood IQs of historic geniuses; and more recently
with, eg, Hans Eysenck or The Bell Curve book) argued that the
top 2 to perhaps 5% of the population in intelligence (as they conceptualized
it – we’ll get to Howard Gardner later) had the potential
to become ‘greats’. Even if we take the limits set by their
estimates that still leaves us with a fair wack to choose from. In Ireland
today, for eg, we’ve
got a population of about 4 million. It wouldn’t have been all that
much different a 100 years ago. That gives us, say, three generations.
And even if we take the tough cut, the 2% figure, that still gives us
80,000 potential greats per generation in any field. You multiply that
times 3 to cover the 100 years… and what you got? Almost a quarter
million potential greats in any given field. So let’s take literature,
and what have we got? Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Heaney.. maybe one
or two others.
So much for genetic bias. Let’s get back to the general line of
argument re getting the right kind of problems over and over again. How
do we end up with the Yeats, Becketts, and Heaneys; the Mozarts, Michaels,
and Marilyns, instead of the other 100s of 1000s, millions, who
might have become the ‘greats’ of their generations? The trick
of course is to gain access to the right kind of problems, plus organizational
resources and personal supports needed to take them on, over the 20+ years
of development.
Arrival proposes that there are four types of matching processes
which are essential to achieving this. Two of these occur repeatedly over
the course of development, not only for those who eventually become great,
but for numerous others as well. These two processes are familiar and
well documented within the existing research literature. One is Continuous
Matching which is crucial if only to keep up with one’s peers.
This can be seen for eg in the development of NormaJeane/Marilyn’s
perfect self doubt.
The other is Cumulative Matching
which results in a particular individual gaining access to the organizational
resources and personal supports required to take on increasingly more
challenging problems in relation to developing key characteristics, developmental
opportunities which are unavailable to others who would similarly have
benefited from them. Such cumulative matching is repeatedly evidenced
in developmental studies of outstanding talent in numerous areas. This
can be illustrated with reference to Woody
Guthrie becoming a wordslinger.
Before we consider the other two types of matching which are essential
to attaining ‘greatness’, let’s consider how it is that
the person gains access to both continuous and cumulative matching in
the first place, ie, how it is that future 'greats' are selected and socialized
for particular types of problems. This brings up the question of Community
of Birth and Links.
Community
of Birth and Links
From the outset the problems a child learns to solve pretty much come
with the territory, with the Community of Birth, meaning the family and
the various communities/ organizations it has, or can create, Links with
overtime. Thus it's not surprising to discover that the 'greats' of the
classic fields of 'genius' - art, science, literature, classical music,
philosophy, etc - tend to start out pretty much the same way Voltaire
and Darwin and Picasso did, ie growing up on the right side of the tracks
- a fair "distance from necessity" - in a "world of taste",
a world where - in Pierre Bourdieu's words - "what is acquired in
daily contact with ancient objects, by regular visits to antique-dealers
and galleries, or, more simply, by moving in a universe of familiar, intimate
objects 'which are there', as Rilke says, 'guileless, good, simple, certain',
is of course a certain 'taste', which is nothing other than a relation
of immediate familiarity with things of taste, a sense of belonging to
a more polished, more polite, better policed world, a world which is justified
in existing by its perfection, its harmony and beauty, a world which has
produced Beethoven and Mozart and continues to produce people capable
of playing and appreciating them".
On the other hand, the 'greats' of boxing - the Ali's and Dempsey's and
Sugar Ray's - all grew up on some other side of the tracks, in worlds
where they would have acquired a different sort of 'taste', where they
would have learned about different kinds of problems, the kind of problems
that come with growing up in a "world of pain", in a world where
your daddy worked all night at a "produce market" and your mama
worked all night in a "convalescent home", and there still wasn't
"enough lunch money" to go around; in a world where you "slept
in your clothes when the heating bill couldn't be paid" and "put
cardboard in your shoes to cover up the holes", where kids in the
street "beat you up for your lisp, for your shoes, for whatever you
had in your pocket"; in a world where "all your life, when you
got mad you fought", or "you lost respect"; where you were
"fighting grown men" by the time you were fourteen; where you
knew all about pancake noses and "cauliflower ears" and "bruises
the size of icebergs" long before you ever stepped into a ring.
Of course learning how to box or paint or write or shoot hoops is only
the half of it. That's the half every kid's after, that every parent would
happily pack their kid off to boxing club or music school, to summer camp
or talented youth program to have a wack at. That's the public bit. The
gold stars and merit badges, scholarships and trophies. That's the easy
bit. But there's another half and it also comes with the territory, either
side of the tracks. But nobody's after that half, leastwise not in public.
That's the "schizoid" thinking of a Newton or a Kafka, the "manic-depressive"
traits of a Balzac or a Michelangelo, the “obsessional” behavior
of an Ibsen or a Stravinsky. What you might call the hazy shrouds and
thunderclouds, the black and broken nights of it. In short, the personality
and self that's also got to be cultivated, just as surely as the intellectual
skills, in every generation of 'greats'. It's the personality and self
it's gonna take to solve the key problems of a generation. Same as with
intelligence, the only way to socialize the next generation of 'greats'
is to match them up with the right kind of problems. The kind of problems
that, eg, gave Hitchcock his fear of an overwhelming and chaotic world,
that gave Woody Guthrie his terror of intimacy, that gave Norma
Jeane her perfect self doubt. In short the kind of problems nobody's
after - the kind that only a family can provide.
The question of what process provides for the continuous arrival of problems,
whether of the right kind or not, for the developing person, comes down
to a matter of Links -- the links the person has within various organizations
(initially the family), and from them to other communities/ organizations
to which they are linked. In this regard it is useful to note that the
person is always - like a snowflake in a storm - a tiny part of the much
larger, ever changing worlds around it. In terms of relative power, I
find it useful to think of 4 such worlds embedded one within the other
like Russian dolls, ie, the personal, the interpersonal, the institutional,
and the societal. The person's position and power to influence these worlds
can vary sizably over time, and in the case of those who become 'greats'
within a field or society, such influence can be considerable. However,
early on in the crucial early years of development, when the person (child,
adolescent) is still hugely dependent upon its closest interpersonal organizational
ties (usually family) and the contacts which these provide to other organizations
(eg extended family, neighbors, schools, church, camps, clubs, community
groups), it is the organization - not the person - which determines the
sorts of problems which are accessible to the person. While the child
will inevitably seek out those problems which fit best with s
interests/ characteristics, the extent to which e gets exposure, let alone continual exposure, to what eventually
turn out to be the right kind of problems, will depend upon what paths
are taken by the larger organizations (family, school etc) to which e
is tied. These paths are taken in response to the complex and ever changing
problems faced by the organizations and the worlds they are embedded in,
of which the individual child/ adolescent is but one of many, and typically
not a dominant one.
Thus, for example, the sequence of 'aunts', temporary placements, and
even eventual marriage to James Dougherty - all of which were crucial
in providing Norma Jeane with continuous exposure to the right kind of
problems for accelerating the development of her perfect self doubt,
hunger for love, and survivor morality - was due to
Norma Jeane's ties with her legal guardian, Aunt Grace, and the contacts
which this provided. These links were driven not by Norma Jeane, but by
the decisions Aunt Grace made in relation to her own life, eg, re pursuing
her own personal interests and her relationship with Doc. Equally, the
years of intense daily exposure to Uncle Jacob and his “merry little
science" of algebra which Einstein got at just the right time in
his childhood, was due not to anything about Albert but rather to his
father and uncles' personal and business concerns which resulted in their
two families sharing a house.
In short, the kind of problems the developing person is exposed to will
depend upon s links - the basic, interpersonal links that e has within
the family and the kinds of problems this brings overtime by virtue of
s positioning here; and the 'looser' external links to various organizations
in the external worlds which are made possible by virtue of s family's
positioning and repositioning within them.
Beyond
The Basics
If
attaining 'greatness' were down to nothing more than initial genetic biases,
community of birth, and links to the necessary continuous and cumulative
matching opportunities, then obviously, even within a field, noone would
ever get there. Instead of Yehudi Menuhin or Isaac Stern we’d still
have the ‘San Francisco Cohort’, those 70 classical music
prodigies of the 1920s and 30s, prodigies who are now long since forgotten
(cf Goldsmith, 2000). In this regard Arrival argues that two
additional matching processes are required to separate the ‘greats’
from the ‘couldda beens’, the Darwins from the Wallaces, Matthews,
and Chambers; the Michael Jordans from the Magic Johnsons, Larry Birds,
Dr Js, and Big Os.
One of these is Chaotic Matching in which events in the societal (wars,
depressions, booms, etc), institutional (cuts, expansions, mergers, etc),
and/or interpersonal (births, deaths, moves, etc) worlds surrounding the
person create fortuitous access to opportunities which turn out to be
critical to furthering the person’s development along the road to
greatness. This analysis by the way has nothing to do with the mythical
way in which chance, or luck, is usually discussed
– and hence dismissed – in accounting for it’s role
in the achievements of the great.
Chaotic Matching
(and hence Spwins) can be seen
in the development of Bill Russell
from an “easily forgettable” high school player to the “great
center” of the Boston Celtics who “revolutionized the nature
of basketball” while leading them to 11 NBA titles. It can equally
be seen at the end of the game, for eg, in the chance events that happened
to give Watson & Crick the ideal combo of team and organizational
resources for taking on the key scientific problem of their generation
– the riddle of The Double Helix.
And perhaps most compelling such chance occurences can also be shown to
have been essential to the development of Albert Einstein from a precocious
teenager to the “Helmholtz of his generation”, to the young
physicist who was now ready to take on the problem of relativity.
The
fourth type of matching process considered in Arrival is Catalytic
Matching.
This type of matching serves two essential functions in relation to an
individual attaining ‘greatness’. First, it rapidly accelerates
the development of the person in terms of key characteristics, visibility,
and links, with the result that the individual is clearly differentiated
from others who were recently peers within the field. this sort of catalytic
acceleration is most easily seen in the case of child prodigies such as
Mozart.
In addition there is Catalytic Acceleration
to Greatness,
a process which skyrockets the person to fame, the person who is now acclaimed
as having solved key generational problems of the field/society. Opportunities
for such accelerations are more than rare. They practically don’t
exist. The person has to have those 5 key characteristics all honed up
to take on the problem, e has to be in right place at the right time to
match up with needs/interests of powerful institutional forces capable
of sizably influencing public opinion right in the midst of some major
societal/cultural change. You’d get much better odds on winning
the lottery, bit like Elvis did
back in the 1950s. Similar analyses can be made for other 'greats', and
Arrival does so for Monet, Lincoln, and Madonna.
And
as for Heroes?
So
what’s your best bet re becoming a ‘great’? No surprises
here, in fact everybody already knows the basics. First off, get yourself
born into the right kind of family. not just one that gives you that top
2-5% genetic boost for starters – there’s 100s of 1000s, millions
of those around -- but equally and much tougher to come by, one that has
right history, connections, values/expectations.. what Robert Albert termed
“eminence producing families’ (1983). You know the ones that
go full hog for it, for making the contacts, the links, the ones who know
where to look and know what it takes to get there, that organize themselves
‘round putting the in hours, cash, sweat it takes to get junior
geared up for say Harvard, or Oxford, or maybe the Dallas Cowboys. The
ones that’ll give you a fair shot of getting matched up with the
right kind of problems for years, at least as far as intellectual problems
go. Course that doesn’t guarantee a whole lot, not when you consider
where,eg, Elvis or Hitchcock or Newton or Haydn or Renoir came from. Still
we’re talking odds, upping the odds.
Unfortunately that still leaves you with those other key characteristics
that’ll equally need developing, the ones related to personality
and self. You remember Balzac’s depressions, Ibsen’s obsessions,
Norma’s Jeane’s perfect self doubt. Not much problem
getting the right kind of family. Plenty of those around. But getting
it to match up with the one you’ve got pushing the piano lessons
or math crams or sports camps… and even if you pull that off, where
you gonna find that talented schzoids program? that essential obsessive
personality coach?
And beyond this you’ve still got 20+ years of chaotic matching to
deal with. Those handy little chance events happening in your world or
the ones around you, or maybe the ones around them, those chance events
which may or may not show up just when you need them to get/keep you on
course, to give you access to those essential problems and resources,
to give you that wee jump on the competition. You know those lottery jackpots
like Norma Jeane picked up when she was "dropped off" at the
Bolenders for the first 7 1/2 years of her life; like Woody Guthrie got
when that oil boom hit Okemah just as his "intellectual curiosity",
his desire "to know", to "take part in parental roles"
were all skyrocketing; like Hitchcock got when World War I handed him
free access to a university education. Like Elvis and Dali and Van Gogh
got with the death of a brother. Like Einstein got from moving in with
his uncle. Like Bill Russell got for being McClymond’s only graduating
‘splitter’.
And beyond this what’s the odds the nation, or even your field,
is gonna be hungry, roaring, barking just as you happen along, key characteristics
in hand, all honed up for action… like say Beethoven, Darwin, Newton,
Einstein, and Elvis did?
Think about it, what’s the odds of you getting the right kind of
family on all counts, followed by all those match-ups with the right kind
of problems/resources over and over and over those 20+ years of development,
then ending up in the right time and place to have a shot at a key problem
of your generation? Well take something simpler, much simpler. Take billiards.
What’s the odds of shooting a 9 ball break, say, six times in a
row? In tournaments in the States, the 9 goes in bout once every thirty-five
breaks. So let’s say we’re talking Wimbledon, US Open... just
the very best players, and drop those odds to 1 in 30 for getting a single
9 ball break. And 6 in a row? 30x30x30x… that comes in at about
1 in 730,000,000. The likes of Willie Mosconi and Frank Ives never even
came close. And it wasn’t as though they weren’t trying. So
given you’ve got the genetic goods to start with, I’d say
the odds of getting that 20+ years of the right kind of problems over
and over and over, then ending up in just the right time & place to
have a shot at the big one… well they’re definitely better
than 1 in 730 million. I mean Elvis and Einstein and the rest of em pulled
it off. So it’s definitely possible. Only hitch is, of course, that
doesn’t leave a whole lotta room for the likes of genius, struggle,
and courage.
You know, the stuff heroes are made of.
the stuff
the stuff
And you and me???
still
Jeeezus that was fun. Now what hell am I supposed to do with this Ronaldino jersey.. my McEnroe autographs. and a Sampras... and Venus too. yeah right here. photo and all.
well how bout this.. forget heroes, forget the greats, forget being a couch potato. think bout yourself for a minute. what kind of hero you gonna be..
what's around, that feels like you.. within a click or two or five.. worth a bit of a go, bit of a chase.. the kind of problem that's right for you.. that'd pull you in and stretch you a bit…
Forget bout becoming great, forget bout your heroes.. the ones you never saw when they were you.. the ones you only saw after 20 25 years of prep.. 20 25 years of getting the right kind of problems.. the 20 25 years before the sky shifted again and those last few problems fell right into place, and Baaa woooom!! it's Marilyn.. its Michael.. its Elvis ..its Einstein
Forget bout becoming great. might as well blow your bucks, euros, yen on lotto tickets. better odds than chasing fantasies.
Remember the thing bout snowflakes? (Ha, you skipped that little SideStory re Spwins, didn't you.) snowflakes blowing cross winter skies.. Mozart, Einstein, Marilyn, me, you.. all caught in some kind of snow blower.. no matter what your genetics.. even if you couldda been a Brando.. a Callas.. hell, a Tiny Tim.. remember the odds (three generations of Irish, maybe 240,000 potentials… and what we got – Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, and Heaney). so forget that fantasy nonsense. if youre gonna blow your time and money, like I said, blow it on the lotto. defo better odds.
and speaking of better odds.. how bout finding some wee problem that feels like it might be you.. like maybe those months years I spent shooting hoops out in the back yard.. under dad's lights at midnight .. dreaming bout being Cousy, Hot Rod Hundley.. and hey, let's face it, I'd do it all over again even without any heroes.. right now. well if I could see the rim.
the right kind of problem for me.. and it paid off. I mean come down to Morans some night. some Thurs nite, say 10ish. Irish sweat dancing. all feet and shoulder fakes. hell I mustta made it on to 3, 4 camcorders last summer.. gonna be signing autographs out in Toledo, Des Moines, Fresno... defo. any day now.
So go for your problems.. the ones that feel right for you.. the ones that stretch your strengths.. just like little Wolfie did there on daddy's clavier.. and Einstein with Uncle Jacob and his “merry little science” of algebra.. Go for your problems. and forget the sky. forget those snowstorms we're all blowing around in. Forget greatness, heroes, fantasies. Chase up your kind of problems and when the sky starts leaking, falling in.. Hey that's what's it’s there for... to keep us all blowing round, bouncing off track, brollies snapping... no prob. just head down to Artane Castle and pick up a new one. 4 euro oughtta do you.
Forget heroes, greats, fantasies. Just grab your skateboard, wetsuit, flippers, brolly… Spot your dream. the kind you can have a wack at. Give it a chase. See where it goes..
And one other thing - don't be beating on yourself every time that dream gets blown away. You’re not responsible for the weather. neither was Mozart, Elvis, Einstein. they just did same thing you gotta do.. over and over and over again. Head down the Castle. grab up another brolly. who knows where storm’ll be blowing you next. all you can do is have a go.. give life a chase.. plenty of places you could end up.. I mean figure it this way... can’t be any worse than Morans. and it sure as hell won’t be some couch potato fantasy farm. You know, the kind that’s “on special” worldwide these days. even down the Castle.
the stuff
the stuff
the stuff
For a few more thoughts re the wider implications of Arrival, go to:
What's It All Mean?
still
still
The
information and quotes in the above discussion come from many sources.
Aside from Robert Byrne (1996) re 9 ball breaks, the rest of them (including,
eg Catherine Cox, or Richard Herrnstein & Charles Murray of The
Bell Curve fame) are all available in Arrival.
see: Sources.
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