For New Competence, a book-in-development, I am describing how formerly functional competencies have been replaced by new competencies. If you have any feedback and are willing to allow me to include your response in the book (with attribution), please leave a comment below the post.
Early in my career, at that first job after college, the boss, Mallory Factor, approached to ask, "Why do you change out of a long tie and into a bow tie at the end of each day?"
"I don't have time to go back to my apartment and change out of my suit, so I do this to draw a line between my workday and my evenings out with friends."
"Why's that?" he asked. "Why do you separate your worklife from your evenings out?"
"Are you kidding me? This is work. My evenings are play. I love my friends and our dinners out. Work is work. Play is play. So my tie helps me tell where I am."
Mallory laughed. And then he said, "You are living two lives. You see clients and work -- and me -- as one life. And your friends and evening fun as a second life. But it is a milestone of maturation to merge one's various lives into one integrated life. Your clients become your friends. Your friends become your clients. When that happens, you will find that you are living one life. And it is better than two separate lives."
"Not a chance," I said. "That sounds sad and soulless." I couldn't conceive of such a concession.
"Mark my words."
Mallory was right.
If you don't like your clients, you are in the wrong work. If you do not want your friends to be your clients, you are in the wrong work. If your friends don't want to work with you, do you have the wrong friends?
Old competence: separate the whimsy and indiscretions of youth far from the mercenary seriousness of the workday.
New competence: live one life, working with people you like, playing with people who work with you.
That was the problem reported to me by a Local Housewife. Here's what happened.
Where It Came From The Local Housewife's two kids had their wisdom teeth extracted. One received 20 Percocets. The other 20 Vicodin.
That's about 20x the amount of drugs I received when I had my wisdom teeth extracted.
Side story: when I was a kid, my orthodontist, Jake Aldrich, was an innovator. He figured that if my primary teeth were pulled prematurely, in scheduled phases, my secondary teeth would grow in straight — without the braces my sisters had enjoyed.
So I was sedated -- to sleep -- several times during my youth for the extraction of primary teeth.
Once I woke up with a dusty footprint on my chest.
But this story isn't about that.
Anyway, Local Housewife's kids received enough painkillers that the wisdom teeth could have been extraced through their cheeks.
What To Do With The Drugs? So what do you do with all the leftover drugs?
She could have sold them on the street for hundreds of dollars. But she's not that enterprising. Plus, she doesn't know the right people. (Or, perhaps, she knows the right people, but doesn't know which ones ache for opiates.)
And everyone knows not to flush them down the toilet because there are Wild Reports On The Interwebs about how that has increased the pharmaceutical quality of our drinking water. I don't believe those tales, but I am strangely addicted to our water. I'm always wondering, where is the next one coming from?
The most responsible idea would be to take them to the hospital on Bring Us Your Drugs Day, or Bring Your Drugs To Work Day, or whatever it's called when you can drive by the hospital and throw your drugs at their front door.
But that seemed dangerous. After all, drugs is drugs and even hospital personnel could easily resell the drugs in their own neighborhoods.
Anyway, Local Housewife had a better idea.
Smash the pills and throw them away. So she put them in a sandwich bag and hit the bag repeatedly with a hammer, until the pills were pulvarized.
But, looking at the Baggie with powdered opium in it, Local Housewife thought, "This is a Baggie with powdered opium." As a trained medical professional, she realized, "That's just another drug delivery form."
Fear is a powerful motivator in the suburbs. Local Housewife combined the Evil with the greatest grossness she could find: collected kitchen grease.
She placed the mess in the garbage bin in the alley. For good measure, she placed the dog's earth soil on it. "Very nice," thought Local Housewife. "No fool would mess with that."
Enter The Groundhog All summer, her modest crops have been devastated by a groundhog or woodchuck or whatever is grey and moves surprisingly fast across the alley though it appears to be nothing more than a furry toaster oven.
But, man, that thing loves tomatoes and lettuce and beans. And not just any tomatoes and lettuce and beans. This thing loves the tomatoes and lettuce and beans that were meant for Local Househusband.
This summer, he got nothing.
So there is some bitterness about the Groundhog.
What Happened The next morning after Local Housewife corked the trash, the can was found turned over in the alley. Some creature had gone to the exact bag -- gee, was it the meat grease? -- and clawed into the bag.
Somewhere, deep in the suburban underbrush, there is a creature who is feeling very mellow (and more constipated than usual) -- and who is deeply disappointed by all the other trash since then up and down the alley.
Nothing since that morning has delivered the same buzz.
I split myself into little pieces several years ago.
I decided:
My hands work in Columbus.
My heart sits beside my beloved.
My soul walks in the Negev.
My imagination lives in New York.
My intellect is challenged in New Haven.
It's not that I must physically stand in each place to exercise the corresponding body part. I just imagine myself there, wherever I am.
This Is About New York Last weekend, I met eight friends for dinner in an Italian restaurant in New York City.
We chatted about what it means to be a New Yorker — and whether someone raised elsewhere can ever become a New Yorker.
Ancient History In college, a roommate from New York City annoyed me by calling New York, "The City." (To be fair, The State Of Being Annoyed is a choice and just about everything back then annoyed me.)
Anyway, the roommate persisted on referring to The City as if it could mean only one place. I would always demand clarification by asking, "Bridgeport? Do you mean Bridgeport?" Bridgeport was a post-industrial town halfway between us and the so-called City.
He would laugh (at my mock irritation and yokel perspective) and I would continue, demanding that the "Tri-City Area" was Columbus, Newark, and Granville.
This always went nowhere.
Until years later, I moved to New York and fell in love with The City.
The Question Who is a New Yorker here?
I asked for a show of hands at dinner last week. The college students at the table — and the working folks who had moved to the City within the past 12 months — didn't raise their hands.
Those of us who had moved there decades ago put up our hands. Including me.
"You, a New Yorker?" asked my daughter, just like a New Yorker, though she hadn't claimed the status for herself.
"Yes," I said. "I am merely on vacation in Columbus. To spawn."
"What am I? Spawn?" she blanched, just like a New Yorker. If she had replaced "spawn" with "chopped liver," she would have been a New Yorker.
I shrugged. "Whatever. So what's it going to take for the rest of you to become New Yorkers? When does someone become a New Yorker?"
What It Takes Nothing, was the first answer. You cannot become a New Yorker. Ever. You have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker. You can't convert.
And, he added, those of his friends who were born in New York were a little goofy, so it wasn't an ideal. The tablemates who had raised children in the City argued against this slander.
Another person said, "Five years. After five years here, you can claim residency."
Another said, "Two hurricanes." The recent storm is still a crisis for many in New York.
But it was this answer that most tickled my imagination:
You are a New Yorker only after you have had sex and been in a fight.
The answer had been offered quietly, from the end of the table. But I heard it.
And I probed. "So," I asked the person, "are you a New Yorker?"
"Not yet," was the quiet, smiling reply. "But I had a big date last night."
A better detective would have asked, "Which of the two ingredients do you still lack: the sex, the fight, or both?" But I didn't. Propriety prevented.
Plus, I already knew. Because sex in New York includes the fight that quickly follows. They come together, two for the price of one.
How can you ask a question that will get to the essence?
Of course, if you want idle chitchat, you can ask a question about something else: the weather, that tree over there, the painting on the wall. They aren't bad questions, but will they help you truly understand who you are meeting?
"I'm Mo." A few years ago, I was enjoying an informal dinner with our daughter's classmates and their parents.
I struck up a conversation with a dad, and — after an exchange of our names and daughter's names — I asked the question: "So what do you do?"
"What do I do?" he asked, somewhat surprised at the question. "What do I do? Is that the best you can do? That's the best question you have? What do I do? I'm Mo!"
If this hadn't been in the home of a friend, if this weren't in the trusted community of parents, I would have quickly excused myself, collected my family and headed for the car. It would have felt threatening.
But you don't know Mo. And I'm not going to introduce you to Mo beyond these three statements. He's a fascinating fellow. He told me one of the funniest stories I have ever heard. (I recently told him I would like to get it recorded.) And his response to my question has reshaped how I meet people.
Mo was right. Asking Mo, "What do you do?" won't get to the essence of Mo. If he answers the question in the usual way, he would reveal a rich career of success, with a worthy turn. But it won't help the new acquaintance know Mo.
Because Mo isn't what he does for money. Because what he does is this: he's Mo.
In America, the question for the stranger in the next seat on the airplane may be, "What do you do?" But in Switzerland, boardered by so many other rich cultures — German, Austrian, Italian, French — it's more helpful to find out what nation has influenced your seatmate.
What he or she does for a living just doesn't tell you as much.
I Was Accused of Bullshit. During a business trip this week, I was seated at dinner beside an ambitious, successful, smart businessperson. He had already heard from me — I gave a short presentation before dinner, to introduce my workshop the next morning — so he knew something of me.
But, no, we didn't know each other well.
At dinner, he asked me who I would be voting for in the upcoming Presidential election.
"I won't tell you," I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because it won't tell you anything about me. You are asking me this question to know me better, but I assure you, my answer won't help."
"That's a bullshit answer," he said. Silently, I thought, "No it isn't, although bullshit questions deserve bullshit answers." But I waited for him to speak.
He did: "So, then, who did you vote for in the last Presidential election."
Again I demurred. I told him a lesson I learned from Danny Maseng, a brilliant scholar, a world famous songwriter-musician, an actor, an inspiring teacher, a friend — and a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces. At dinner one night, Danny said:
Some people, when they learn that I was in the IDF, ask, "Did you ever kill anyone?" I refuse to answer the question. Not because I am troubled by the answer to the question, but because — if I answer the question — they will think they know something about me.
But the answer to the question — whether it is "yes" or "no" — does not tell you anything about me. I don't want to establish a relationship based on their assumptions about the meaning of the answer. It doesn't mean anything about me.
I feel that way about the answer to the question: "Who will you vote for this fall?"
I told my dinner companion, "On the list of what makes me tick, who I am, my essence, Who I Vote For is way down that list, two-hundredth in importance, at best. Let's start somewhere else. Ask another question."
My Students (Don't) Know. At the end of each semester, I poll my students, asking for a show of hands. I ask: "Do you think you know my politics?" Everyone raises their hands.
"Who here thinks I am a Republican?" Half the hands are raised. "Who here thinks I am a Democrat?" The other half raise their hands.
I consider this a badge of honor. I don't think it is my role to tell them how to vote.
I just tell them that voting is important — and they must be registered to do it. (It's not too late to register. Here's how, in Ohio. If you register by October 9th, you can vote on November 6th. I directly register 100+ students every year.)
But they don't know how I vote. I think I become less of a teacher and less of a role model, if they are clouded by knowing how I vote.
But this isn't about voting. This is about the question to ask someone to get to know them better.
Here are some suggestions:
For what are you famous? Everyone is famous for something. Like my aunt for her apple pie.
What made you laugh today?
What did you learn today?
Where in the world would you go, for a visit, if you had unlimited time, money and courage?
If you had the perfect student, who would it be and what would you teach him or her? Could you teach it to me?
If you could meet your great-great-great-great-great-grandparent, what would you ask? And what would you ask your great-great-great-great-great-grandchild?
A hundred questions come to mind. What question do you ask when you are first trying to meet someone?
So, What Do I Do? People ask that question of me all the time. I meet strangers daily and they always ask the American question: What do you do?
Let me save you the trouble. If you ask me these days, I will answer, "I am an unlicensed rabbi serving non-Jews."
We laugh, and it leads to a meaningful conversation.
[I don't like to repeat posts, but this one has been much on my mind. It first appeared here in 2007.]
Taxi Driver
Well, the job interview was weird, but they offered me the job. I went to work, 22, living with my girlfriend in her summer rental on Mercer Street near New York University.
After two weeks, the Big Boss -- Mallory Factor, PR Man -- returned from a long business trip. Or something. I don't remember where he was, but I do remember that it was odd that I'd been hired without his inspection. I figured he'd give me a look now, on his first day back, and bless the decision or give me the heave-ho.
Mallory's first day back was a busy one. Too busy to check out the geeky English major who'd been hired as an entry level goober. I could tell the place was busier and tenser with him back.
At the end of the day, Mallory hollered for me -- a friendly holler, as hollering goes -- and said, "I'm sorry that we haven't had a chance to talk. I thought we might be able to today, but the day was so busy. How about we share a cab home? That would give us a chance to get to know each other."
I said, "Sure."
And off we went. This is when I learned that when you share a cab with the boss, the cab goes to the boss's place first and then the boss gives you money for the whole ride.
The ride from our offices in Times Square to his luxury tower near Lincoln Center was a 15-minute crawl. Mallory asked me all about myself. English major. Yale. Acted in college productions. Ohio. The Columbus Academy. Stockbroker father. Three older sisters. Staying with girlfriend down by NYU. Where else I almost got a job. Where I didn't. Rubino's Pizza. My job interview.
The taxi turns the final corner and his building is in sight. He says, "I guess I've been asking all the questions. Do you have any questions for me?"
Time For Only One Question? "Uh, sure," I said, having no questions for him. So I threw out this one: "Have you ever contemplated suicide?"
I'm not sure where the question came from. I hadn't been contemplating suicide, at least not more than as a social phenomenon in the newspaper.
But Mallory was quite taken aback. He probably thought that the firm had made a terrible mistake in hiring me. I'm not blasting those who contemplate suicide. (They need our love.) But what kind of new employee, who gets one question to ask the Big Boss, asks that?)
His answer was an immediate and urgent, "NO. NO. NO. NO." His eyebrows were placed in that serious face you use when you are really, really serious. Like when you are training a puppy. He must have thought, "Why is this Ohioan asking me if I've ever contemplated suicide? Maybe he's despondent. Maybe he thinks I'm despondent. Maybe he thinks I should be despondent. In any case, I'm going to say 'NO. NO. NO. NO.' until the cab stops."
So the cab stops, Mallory puts money on the seat, and he backs out of the door. The cab starts rolling again, down the street, on the way to my girlfriend's apartment.
Suddenly, the cab stops hard. The cabbie turns around, looks at me, and says in a great New York accent: "THAT was a great question. Whatever you learn about him from now on out, you already know one important thing: he's a liar."
On the Death of SpeakerSite I long thought that the best thing to happen in business was big growth and profit. I still do.
I long thought that the second best thing to happen in business was survival — and the worst thing was going out of business. I have re-ordered those for many occasions.
Survival Can Be Toxic Survival — not thrival, just survival — can lull the business owner into complacency. The thought starts arising: "Oh, it's easier to continue rather than shut it down. After all, it pays the bills."
But paying the bills is not our goal. That's a minimum expectation. It is not why we are here. It is not the meaning of life.
And continuing on? For how long? A week? Fine. A month? O.K. A year? That's a high cost to pay.
A Mentor Calls My lifelong friend and mentor, Jon York, called me five years ago. He sensed some restlessness in me. I was still at my advertising desk at Young Isaac, an agency I owned.
"What do you want to do next?" asked Jon.
"Oh, I figure that I'd like to teach full-time," I said. "In about five or ten years."
Jon paused. Then: "Five or ten years? Huh. I don't know about you, Artie, but when I want to do something, I kind of want to do it now."
These words were very helpful. They fished me out of the water. I was drowning in survival.
The End of SpeakerSite This is newly posted over at speakersite.com.
Dear SpeakerSite Members,
As you may have seen on SpeakerSite Marketplace yesterday, we have decided to shut down SpeakerSite. This means everything: both the Community (SpeakerSite 1.0) and the Marketplace (SpeakerSite 2.0) are going away.
Both the social network and marketplace profiles will remain as-is until February 29th, 2012, so you can access your information during that time before disable existing features and remove the data. If you have used our tools to book speaking engagements (or to book speakers), any agreement that you made is solely between speaker and event planner and will not be affected.
Thank you for being a part of the worldwide SpeakerSite community. We were — and, who knows, still are the world's largest social network of public speakers. So, what happened? It's that old story in the new world: while we made a lot of friends, SpeakerSite did not generate enough revenue. All the same, we are very grateful for your kindness and collaboration along the way. Truly: it has been a delightful, heart-warming, life affirming experience. We're proud that we were, with you, a force for good: supporting the emergence of many new and seasoned speakers, providing entertainment and enlightenment for audiences, and helping to democratize public speaking.
If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to reach out. We wish you every success in public speaking. Don't let our disappearance dissuade you. SpeakerSite gone? Piffle. You still have a message. And every message has an audience.
With affection and admiration,
Artie and Rob
What happened? I don't know every reason why we didn't secure enough revenue, but here's my favorite. a lack of demand from the side of the market with cash.
The buyers (meeting and event planners) do not perceive a need for a solution. Buyers with few transactions each year can muddle through by asking around. Buyers with many transactions each year already have a pipeline of alternatives. We speakers (a broad group with very little in common) swamp the marketplace. As a result, the buyers do not seek efficiency.
I don't know of any direct substitute. While our implementation could have been smarter, better, faster, I don't think that's what put us out.
There are other reasons. When time weighs heavy on my hands, I'll make a list of them. But that sounds like a dreary way to spend the day today.
Admiration I am filled with admiration and affection for all the people with whom I worked.
At the top of that list, of course, is Rob Emrich, in whom I would never hesitate to invest. He's a role model.
My father wrote a few letters, some of them gems, most of them driven by his obligation to be attentive to his youngest child — which can produce gems.
Still. A telephone call. During the workday? Very rare.
Personal Phone Calls We only ever had one conversation about family telephone calls during the workday. I was driving, Alisa beside me, my father and mother in the back seat.
My father didn't understand why some of his colleagues called home every day or, even more so, several times a day. "What is there to talk about? If there were an emergency, of course, a call makes sense. But, otherwise, it can wait. After all, we'll be home together in just a matter of hours."
Frankly, I don't call Alisa unless there's a question or concern — or a delight. I don't just call to say, "Hi. Remember me?" Alisa is busy. And, I trust, she'll remember me, even if I don't call.
But I thought my father should know of my red-blooded love for my wife, so I told him that I call Alisa throughout the day. "Hello, baby," I said, trying as hard as I could to summon up Barry White. "Hello, baby. I gotta have you. I gotta have you right now."
Much laughter in the car. My parents knew that I was kidding. Alisa knew I was kidding. I knew I was kidding.
But I wish I had not been kidding. (Barry White was right.)
But this isn't about Barry White.
I answered the phone.
Dad: "Hi, it's Dad." Artie: "Hey, Dad! What's going on?" Dad: "Are you busy?" Artie: "I am now. I'm talking to my father. He doesn't call often, so it must be important." Dad: "I'm wondering if you have ever given thought to becoming a stockbroker."
My father was a stockbroker. He had entered the field around the time I was born. So he had been at it for more than 25 years. And he had built a strong reputation for ethical professionalism.
Artie: "Haven't thought about it lately. Why are you calling?" Dad: "Well, I'm looking toward my retirement. It will be in a few years. And, if you ever wanted to become a stockbroker, this would be a good time. You could take over my clients. That would be a lot easier than starting like I did, with a lot of cold calling. So, now would be your best opportunity to become a broker." Artie: "Thanks. That's nice of you. What if I say, 'No.'?" Dad: "Then I'll just turn everything over to Bill. So consider this a one-time offer."
Bill Grafton and my father had worked at adjoining desks — and, later, adjoining offices — for a long time. Every afternoon, one of them would slide the quaint pass-through window that connected their offices, and ask, "Flip you for it?" One would flip a coin, the other would call heads for tails, and the loser would go to the little shop in the building lobby and buy a Hershey bar for them to share. High finance in Columbus, Ohio.
Artie: "One-time offer? Pressure's on. May I ask you a few questions?" Dad: "Sure." Artie: "Do you like being a stockbroker?" Dad: "Not a day of it."
That wasn't terribly surprising. My father was a consummate professional. He never told me the names of his clients. That was confidential, not his story to tell. I first learned who some of them were when they visited his deathbed. Even now, more than 20 years later, people are telling me that he was their broker.
Long after my father died, I met one of his clients at a community lunch. He told me: "Twenty-five years ago, when I had just I graduated from college, I was a bike messenger for a big law firm. Every week, [Big Lawyer] gave me an envelope and told me to run it over to Art Isaac. It was money for investment. I'd hand it to your father and say, 'Whatever you're buying for Mr. [Big Lawyer], buy me one, too.' At first, I was kidding, but your father always bought me a single share of the week's stock. I probably paid for it, but he never charged me a commission or a penalty for an odd lot transaction. In the end, I had a nice nest egg. I thought that was very kind of your father, to be so generous with a bike messenger."
He was kind, but he was no fool. I bet my dad figured, "Hey, if this guy is bringing me an envelope with cash in it every week, I'm going to be as nice to him as I can be!"
Back to the phone call. My father admitted that he didn't much care for the work. I knew he didn't like the clients who called, surprising him by barking out the name of a new company, and demanding to immediately know all about it. He didn't like scrambling around his desk reference materials for instant knowledge. And he really didn't like the clients who were angry — at him! — when their own investment decisions produced losses.
Anyway, he claimed to not have liked a day of his brokerage career.
Artie: "Oh. Well, the second question: would I be any good at it?" Dad: "I don't think so. I don't think you have what it takes." Artie: "Nice. Thanks. O.K. Last question: are you calling my sisters with this same offer and similar flattery?" Dad: "No."
I figured that either (1) as a man of his generation, he didn't think that his girls should be stockbrokers or (2) he loved them more than me. Probably, though, it was primogeniture. That's when the career and wealth of the father flows to the eldest (or, in my case, only) son.
Artie: "Really? Well, thanks for your answers. I've given them a lot of thought during the past 15 seconds and I think I'll pass on the invitation. No, thanks." Dad: "All right. Love you." [click]
He was a sweet guy, but this wasn't a sweet call. This call was inspired by Bill, I'll bet. My father and Bill had probably discussed my father's retirement and Bill's acquisition of my father's book of business. And Bill had, wisely, said, "I think you'd better check with Artie, first."
I like the idea that Google searchers will find this story of my father — Arthur J. Isaac, Jr, of blessed memory — in a deep search of Barry White. To help that along, I offer this Google poetry: Arthur J. Isaac, Jr. and Barry White. Barry White and Arthur Isaac. Artie Isaac loves Barry White. Barry White never met Artie Isaac. Love to love you, Arthur J. Isaac, Jr.
"May I Tell You A Story?" He didn't say why he wanted to tell it. But, as he shared, his motive appeared: he was processing a brutal fact of his life.
Here is the story, a story of love and loss. He said:
At college, back in the '60s, I was in love with a young woman. She was a delight and we were soulmates.
As we faced graduation, we mutually decided to let our careers take us to different cities. We intentionally discontinued our relationship, one thing led to another, and we fell out of touch.
So far, a frequent story. He continued:
A few years passed and I was transferred to a different city, placed in an office, seated at a desk, and — at the very next desk — there she was. Imagine that! What a coincidence! Kismet? I don't know. There she was. And she was as delightful and well-matched for me as ever.
But, while we were separated, she had married. She was happily married. But here I was. There she was. And she was married. Happily married. I understood.
The old man raised a finger, to stop me from commenting. He continued:
Time passed.
One or the other of us eventually left the company and the city.
More time passed.
It happened again. This time, I was traveling and we bumped into each other. Just like that. Can you believe it? A complete coincidence, again. What are the odds? Anyway, we were suddenly together. And between us: all the old feelings of admiration and longing. We chatted with heart, and a fact was quickly revealed: she was available, she had divorced.
But now I was married. Happily married! And so on. The situation had reversed to the same effect. Our conversation was limited by propriety; our meeting and parting, to a genuine embrace.
Time passed. Again, we lost touch.
He paused. He continued:
That phrase — "but I was married" doesn't convey the value of my marriage. You know of my marriage. Legendary. The envy of others. But, more than that, the treasure of my life. The font of our children. My wife, our love, were, to me, everything.
I had met his wife. I had heard about their love. I nodded.
He was quiet. I waited. Then:
As you know, my wife died several years ago. Cancer. Untimely. Awful.
And, so, naturally, I have increasingly wondered, where is my friend, my college girlfriend, that woman who I thought was my soulmate, but never knew because our good lives interrupted us?
I don't know. I just don't know. I can't find her. I don't know where she is.
We sat quietly. He clearly feared the worst. That she was gone. Dead. Or disappeared.
I muttered something about how — now, with Facebook — that won't ever happen to my children and their lovers, how people of the social networking generation can be gone but remain easily found.
I wondered why the old man didn't pay a private detective $100 to find his lost friend. If I suggested this to him, I'm sorry I did. The idea is too obvious. If he had done it, it obviously hadn't turned up anything. If he hadn't done it, he had a reason. Perhaps his reason was old-fashioned mores: one just doesn't do that. Or perhaps he placed True Love in the hands of Lady Kismet.
We all know this pain. The ache in the heart. A pressure in the chest.
I've seen it — and felt it — in childhood. In high school. In college. Beyond.
She said "no." Or "no more." Or "you? really?" Or, worse nothing of all. Once she spoke Russian.
I don't think any of their judgements were wrong. Each was following her heart, as she must. (And, to be fair, at times, I was the one saying, "no." Those times don't hurt as much. Huh.)
Still, when my infatuation wasn't met in kind, I was left, holding my bruised heart, not knowing what to do, feeling humiliated, embarrassed. This seems pathetic, that I should have had the maturity with which to address the challenge: distraction, learning, recovery, renewed adventure.
I chose only distraction, the weakest of the alternatives. I placed my broken heart in the trunk of my car and drove on.
What is the cure? I thought I knew. Here's what I thought were the cures:
Time. Doesn't it heal all wounds? It doesn't. Decades pass, but heartache merely goes cryogenic, as easy to thaw as a frozen meal — Heart: Ready To Eat.
Next. Isn't new love, a true love the antidote? It isn't. The perfect marriage — of which I know, for mine, if not perfect, is surely the least imperfect — isn't a cure. The new relationship is a heart transplant, not a heart repair. The old heart lies beside the photograph, still beating its retreat in the trunk of the car, good for little else. Except, of course, to remind us we are alive.
Maturity. Don't we ever grow up? Not I. Another widowed friend in his 70s recently spoke of the pain. His heart was freshly broken. Not, this time, by bereavement. But rather by a week of dinners, on a vacation that had to end. "How dear," I thought shallowly. "How real," he felt deeply.
We are all freshman at the senior dance. We are all at summer camp.
Is this is a high-class heartache? After all, many of us are so contented in fruitful relationships.
But there are those whose heartache is based on loneliness. We must respect their sorrow. It must be greater. But from here, with these hearts on the floor, we can't tell.
We're looking at old hearts in the trunk, pained that we cannot live two lives at once. Driving on.
Will someone please call a surgeon Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart That you're deserting for better company? I can't accept that it's over...
In the fall of 1978, I arrived at Yale to a class welcome by the then new president of Yale, A. Bartlett Giamatti.
Bart talked funny. He couldn't help it. He'd read too much Dante.
During his Welcome Address To The Incoming Class of 1982, he compared his own summer of 1978 to ours, filled with uncertainty about arriving at Yale: for us, as freshman; for him, as the new president, a freshman of sorts.
But he didn't say it that way. He said, during the summer,
"The worm of apprehension bit deep in the bud of anticipation."
I recall we applauded the line. It was perfect. The phrase washed over us with delight, the intellectual joy of realizing that, yes, in fact, we had arrived at a special place, where words are discretely chosen, arguments are deeper, authenticity is pursued.
And we all knew — we felt it in our bones — how the worm would not let that bud alone.
Bart and Me Bart eventually advanced his career toward his true love. More than Yale, baseball. He left Yale to become president of the National League and eventually Commissioner of Baseball.
As President of the National League, Bart courageously banned Pete Rose from baseball. It's a long story that many might remember: the popular player, called "Charlie Hustle" for his grit and determination, was destined for the Hall of Fame, but gambled on baseball. So Bart banned him. I don't think Mr. Rose was even allowed to come watch a game, except at home on his television.
Still now, decades later, Pete Rose remains the only living human who is ineligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. I think he needs to die first. And even then?
At the All-Star Break that summer, 1988, The New York Times asked sports fans, "Who are the league M.V.P.'s at this stage?" I responded briefly with this published letter. (When I didn't hear from Mr. Giamatti, I sent him the clipping from the newspaper. He responded with this keepsake.)
Bart was soon elevated to Commissioner of Baseball. Back then The Commissioner was a position of courage, an independent power, staring down both players and owners, as an advocate for neither, rather as a single-minded defender of the Integrity Of The Game Of Baseball. After Bart died, his lawyer and long-time friend Fay Vincent (and chief investigator of Pete Rose) became the eighth Commission of Baseball. Mr. Vincent expelled George Steinbrenner, who was later reinstated.
Unless the current Commissioner — coincidentally known as "Bud," as in "the bud of anticipation" — wishes to write me a letter and set me straight, I believe the Commissioner now serves the owners.
Great Reading One of the best essays ever written is about baseball, by Bart Giamatti. You don't have to love baseball to love this essay, this writer — and his son, the actor Paul Giamatti. (Here is "The Green Fields of the Mind.")
But This Isn't About Baseball. This is about the worm of apprehension, biting deep into the bud of anticipation.
New Bud, Same Worm Tomorrow morning, we drive our elder child to college in New York City.
We were supposed to leave this morning.
But the Hurricane Irene rages toward Manhattan, expected to arrive at the original college drop-off time.
Our family is already worm-bit. Now, we hope for the best for all in the path of Irene.
And we wait for a chance to leave apprehension behind, shake off the worm, and get to the future.
All my life, I have thought of his immortal phrase: "The worm of apprehension bit deep in the bud of anticipation."
Remember my grandfather, Andy Sokol, of blessed memory? Net Cotton Content is named for him. (That story is here.)
As a self-made man, a true-life, up-from-the-boot-straps Horatio Alger, my grandfather didn't have much patience for people who kvetched about their daily problems.
He preferred to get on with it. Solve the problem. Ignore it. But, most of all, stop complaining.
Here's How He Stopped Complainers. Andy would simply hand them a small card. He had a stack of these printed, back when printing was a much more hands-on, more expensive activity.
They were business-card sized, but they were big enough to produce a laugh from everyone — and get the conversation back on track.
Of course, this was before the invention of the Complaint Desk. It was before we were a service economy.
For Andy, the customer was always right. But not every complaint was worth the time it took to voice.
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