Overnight Success

3 thoughts on “Overnight Success”

1. Well, sometimes it does, MMM. An old friend of mine is a physicist, made some brilliant discoveries at MIT while a grad student. (Grandson of a Nobel laureate whose name you’d recognize.) Hasn’t done squat since, though paid a handsome U.S. government salary to not do so. He feels he can never equal the achievements of his youth and has become jaded, cynical and, well, uncreative as a result. (And sadly, increasingly miserable to be around. He was once the best standup comedian this side of New York and willing to dance ’til dawn with all the girls.)

   So though overnight success is not impossible, merely improbable, it often requires greater strength of character than many of us have to avoid its long-term deleterious consequences, especially if creativity drys up when you’re twenty something, the band goes away and all those cheering folks you thought were friends find another idol. It can leave you quite miserable and alone.

   And on that cheery note, good Sir,

   Cheers,

   J.

2. Well the thing is that this friend of yours didn’t make these discoveries overnight, I bet there was a lot of work, research and tests that led up to those discoveries. The success part is just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s so much underneath to make that tip visible.

3. You’re right of course; the analogy isn’t especially apt.

   Genius is what? one-tenth inspiration and nine-tenths perspiration? His problem is having achieved such success at such a relatively young age and then…

   Reminds me, MMM: Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard in ’77, yesterday received an honorary doctorate there. Held it up and said, “I’ve been waiting 30 years to say this. ‘See, Dad, I said I’d go back and get my degree!'” 🙂

   Ah, well, enough frivolity–back to this wretched term paper I’m a tad behind on.

   May I guess that the fatakta phone line to your home is still inoperative? Sorry. (Don’t bother looking up fatakta–I’ve tried. It’s much corrupted from the original Yiddish and is used by folks of all ethnicities from New York city–notably my Italian colleague–in place of a standard English word, which is shorter, certainly, but begins with the same letter.)

   Can’t you hire an electrician to check that line out, or am I hopelessly naive? I mean, our line was dead for sometime before it was discovered that squirrels had gnawed through it. (The cable company just so wanted to believe the I needed a new cable modem–someone finally arrived with a ladder and went up and had a look. After being inspired by a little side money for himself.)

   Yes, yes, getting to work.

   Cheers,

   J.

Comments are closed.