"In praise of misfits, why business needs people with Asperger's syndrome, attendtion-deficit disorder and dyslexia" this week's Schumpeter column from the Economist rhymes in.
I can tell you these folks "Think Different" if I may borrow from Steve Jobs. I know them first hand. I also fear that too many of them are wasted and we cannot afford that. If we think they will be out-sized trail blazers of tomorrow then our education system must be more ambitious. Don't just accommodate them. Go much further: nurture them.
After a while you will learn that there is nothing new from the Economist. It is just simply helping ignorant business people and government leaders catch up what trail blazers and niche players already know. Where Economist fills the gap is in helping make connections across various islands of knowledge so that we get the picture of the forest. Actually there are many possible pictures but the Economist only provide a libertarian one.
I wonder will there come a time when fad chasers become stupid as they usually do and try to fake Asperger's syndrome. The other two is much harder to pretend. Already Hollywood has extolled geekiness as sexy after leading geeks became very rich peddling their craft.
As I read Mr. Brown account on his blog how he and others coordinated to find his missing daughter Faith, I was paying special attention to SMRT role.
Thumbs Up! SMRT. In some of my earlier posts the company didn't give me much nice things to say about them. I am happy to record this here. An emerging new SMRT post crisis.
NUS finally sent me the T-shirt weeks after my former classmate told me about. It was sponsored by another classmate now based in Vietnam. Quite nice but somewhat geeky. If I can still remember what my professors taught me, that must be the Reynolds Number for laminar flow.
I don't think I will be wearing it. I prefer to understate but the statement emblazoned across the back of was too loud for me. It is not a big deal to graduate from NUS.
Ghastly looking. The plumber showed this to me after he had sawn the U-bent of the waste water pipe off. My neighbor upstairs had a renovation contractor from hell. The dastardly act committed there which caused his kitchen to flood, but the solution is to be found at my place. What to do? Water flows from higher to lower ground.
They are so grateful we have been so accommodating. I think nothing of this but something else he said I would not forget for a long time - lucky for him we are not PRCs. If we were the Chinese mainlanders he would have assumed the worst. I don't want to record the details here. It is not difficult to find anecdotes that this group is not integrating well in our society.
I spoke to a HDB officer today. He told me some PRC Chinese had broken into a vacant rental apartment to occupy recently. This is only the latest of his many stories but I have no time to listen to more. My takeaway is we have a social problem and it is not easy to solve.
Am I not blogging the obvious? Many of us have unpleasant anecdotes to share. I am not even thinking about I know of someone who had experienced this or that category. Just during lunch with a couple of ex-colleagues today, one of them told me how his new PRC neighbor has the habit of leaving his front door open, talking at the top of their voices and standing along the corridor to smoke. This is not a HDB flat but one of the more upscale condos where people expect doors to be closed, neighbors to be considerate and well mannered.
I don't know how we are going to solve these problems. Everyone feels that the government must be more strong armed with them. We don't want to end in altercations with them and so regulatory and police powers are needed. I don't believe the carrot would work with them. In China the armed policed is larger than the regular police. Perhaps we need to take a page from Theodore Roosevelt playbook: speak softly but carry a big stick. I think many of us are speaking softly but we still lack the big stick. We gotta get our act together quickly as patience among Singaporeans is running thin.
Experience informs me that I am not afraid of the big tests, my weakness are the little foxes that run all over and ruin the vineyard. There are so many little irritating things bugging but I have trusted him and not allowed it to spoil my day. I could easily have snapped at others and spoil their day too.
As I settle down to start clearing my emails, I came across this one from Lorraine. It really makes my day. My kids should see this. If the spirit and mind is not defeated, nothing is defeated. Look at how with such severe disabilities this Japanese girl has grown up so beautiful with such a lovely voice :-)
And something that normally don't happen to help me along. An SMS from someone I rarely communicate with; and early enough in the day too as it gets more tiresome.
Blessing you with this... Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles, They shall run & not be weary, They shall walk & not faint... Isaiah 40:31 Blessed day!
Thanks [redacted], a timely message for me.
Felt led to bless you with this verse...God's unfailing love
Unfailing and always surprising. Do you know that the only way for a man to understand how a woman felt loved is for him to be loved by the Lord. I suspect many don't know this.
Whaa, that's deep indeed!
Not sure about out being deep. It's the Lord's grace through faithful obedience. The pre lessons came from Mother Teresa. Watch the love between our Lord and her and add God's personal intervention. I am sure He does this to many people but lots more are not in yet.
I know what you mean... It's one personal, intimate relationship with the Lord. I love because He first loved me.
Yes! And any woman who discover this before she gets married might no longer want to. It's up to God to arrange. It's a gift.
So it's kinda if you know what it means but you always also find more meaning to it as we live by faith.
Yes, it's this love relationship with Him that compelled Mary to pour expensive perfume on Jesus' feet & wipe them with her hair. It's this kind of relationship that compells one to say "I LOVE YOU, LORD" from one's inner spirit. Thank you, . God bless your day.
And it's so much easier for a woman to identify with Mary than a man. God's surprising and incredible grace to women because of Eve. Who would have thought of this! So how are men to understand? He needed to be loved by Christ like a woman so that he will learn to love his wife, and men to stop seeing women as sex objects. With a richer flavor we just got back to where we started.
It's a love of the highest order, perfect & unconitional, a love way above all, so full, pure & sacrificial to die for us so that we can be with Him forever to enjoy His presence & riches.
I feel a little sad. She didn't get it. Christians who are good students of the Bible always have answer to anything you throw at them but their answers is causing them to miss it!
I must be patient. If they do not have experience analogous to some of us, how would they know? It is all in the Lord's hands. Most of all I pray and wish that the one the Lord had used to teach me this would also share the same gift. I was utterly shocked it didn't pan out as expected. In a way it was like Paul believing the Second Coming was very near but it has been two thousands years since. What Joseph story? We haven't gotten to the end of it yet. Why I asked why, I was given Job's story. We are not given to understand so that he will make all things beautiful in His Time.
Every believer cherish Romans 8, but as they grow it is Romans 9 you will get to. Looks like many refused to get there.
I became of this of this from John Mauldin's regular letter. What a gift of hope and praise to the Millennial generation. My observation concurs with his findings and the older generation often misunderstand and complain too much about them.
Here is the transcript of Neil Howe's speech
To the Class of 2012
Neil Howe delivered the following commencement address at the University of Mary Washington on May 12, 2012.
At a commencement address, speakers often go on too long. This I won't do. I may not succeed as well as Salvador Dali, who famously delivered the world's shortest speech, only four seconds long. He announced at the podium: "I will be so brief I have already finished," and then sat down.
Commencement speakers also like to intone about "today's youth generation." And this is fine. Except that they then go on to talk at length about their own experiences in their own youth and tell you: Because this worked for me in my generation, it will work for you in yours. This should alert you that these speakers have no idea what a generation is.
Let me clarify. A generation is a group of people who share a basic outlook on life shaped by their common age location in history, their common "generational setting." The renowned sociologist Karl Mannheim called this "eine Generationslagerung," which I promise you is both the longest word—and the only German word—that you will hear from me.
"Youth," on the other hand, is just an age bracket. It's like an empty hotel room that different generations move into with their own baggage, and then soon leave. Sometimes that room swells with sweet music, sometimes it throbs with death metal, and sometimes it's utterly silent. But it's never the same.
Bottom line: All of you Boomer and Generation X parents are essentially unlike your children—and were not the same even when you were kids. And you Millennial Generation graduates are essentially unlike your parents—and will not become like them as you grow older.
So how, exactly, are you different? Well, start with the obvious: pop culture. Believe it or not, parents, your kids have never known that America, Chicago, and Kansas are the names of rock bands, not just places. Or what about technology? Ever notice the blank stares when you tell them roll up the window, turn the channel, or dial a number? Or what about current events? For as long as Millennials can remember, NATO has been looking for a mission, China has been peacefully rising, Brazil has been building shopping malls, and Boomers Bill O'Reilly and David Letterman have been hating on each other in plain view of millions.
Now these markers are interesting, but if there's one big idea I want you to take away from my remarks, it's that generational differences go much deeper.
Consider. You Millennials grew up in an era of rising parental protection, never knowing a time without bicycle helmets, electric plug covers, Amber Alerts, and fifteen different ways to be buckled into your minivan seat. We, the parents, grew up in an era of declining parental protection: Our moms and dads told us, "We don't care where you go so long as you're home for dinner." As for seatbelts, we were told if there's an accident to just throw up our hands to protect our heads. As kids, we never saw a "Baby on Board" sticker. "Baby Overboard" would have been more appropriate.
You Millennials were raised to be special—very special—and to trust your counselors, support groups, and smart drugs to keep you feeling pretty good about the world, like a Sims character having just the right digital balance. We, the parents, knew we weren't very special, didn't trust anyone to advise us, and thought staying away from counselors was a sign of toughness. When you came to college, there were long orientations and immersions, and many of your parents clutched teddy bears and wept. When we came to college, we jumped out of the car and tried to grab our suitcases before our parents sped off.
You Millennials were raised to be team players—and you are, with community service, group projects in the classroom, and clubs for everything. And, above all, you are team players with digital technology that connects you all to each other on Facebook, and smartphones that you take to bed with you. We, the parents, were a lot more into competition, rebellion, and defying the mainstream. We did not "friend" each other. Our generation invented the "personal" computer. Personal, as in "mine and not yours," and certainly not part of the corporate mainframe our own parents bequeathed to us. Growing up, our biggest fear was that Big Brother might someday install cameras in our rooms. Our biggest joy was hearing Steve Jobs announce that " 1984 won't be like 1984." And now, our biggest surprise has been to see our kids connect with each other by installing their own cameras in their own rooms!
As a generation, you Millennials have a surprisingly conventional outlook on life. Surveys show that as you grow older you wish to become good citizens, good neighbors, and well-rounded people who start families. Violent youth crime, teen pregnancy, and teen smoking have recently experienced dramatic declines, and for that we congratulate you.
Most startling of all, the values gap separating youth from their parents has virtually disappeared. You watch the same movies as your parents, buy the same brand-name clothing, talk over personal problems with them—and, yes, feel just fine about moving back in with them. When I travel around the country, I often ask people now in their 40s or 50s how many songs on their iPod overlap with what's on their kids' iPods. The typical answer is 30 to 40 percent. Let me tell you, back in my days on campus (later known as "the days of rage"), we did not have iPods, but if we had, the overlap would have been absolutely zero. Everything about our youth culture was intentionally hostile and disrespectful of our parents. That was the whole idea.
People sometimes ask me, "What does it mean that one generation is different from another—that Millennials, for example, are different from the Boomers or Gen Xers who raised them? Does it mean that some generations are better than others?" And I say: No. There is no such thing as a good or bad generation. Every generation is what it has to be, given the environment it encounters when it enters the world. History shows that whatever collective personality a new generation brings with it is usually what society needs at the time. As such, youth generations tend to correct for the excesses of the midlife generation in power, and they tend to refill the social role being vacated by the older generation who is disappearing.
To avoid speaking in code, let me rephrase this as follows. The Millennial Generation is correcting for the excesses of Boomers and Gen Xers who today run America. I need not remind you what those excesses are: leadership gridlock, refusal to compromise, rampant individualism, the tearing down of traditions, scorched-earth culture wars, and a pathological distrust of all institutions.
The Millennial Generation is also reprising many of the hallmarks of the original G.I. Generation, the so-called "Greatest Generation," who are now passing away. Like the Millennials, the G.I.s grew up as protected children and quickly turned into optimistic, consensus-minded team players who, in the dark days of the 1930s and ‘40s, saved our nation from turning in the wrong direction at the wrong time.
Igor Stravinsky once wrote that every generation declares war on its parents and makes friends with its grandparents. Yet again, that has happened.
So all of you parents out there: Be proud of this new generation. They aren't like you, but they are what America now needs. They don't complain about the storm clouds looming over their fiscal, economic, and geopolitical future; they try to stay positive. They don't want to bring the system down; they're doing what they can to make it work again. They worry about you a lot. And they want to come together and build something big and lasting, something that will win your praise. Beneath their tolerant, optimistic, networked, and risk-averse exterior lie attitudes and habits that may prove vital for our country's healing and for our country's future.
No one knows what challenges this Millennial Generation may eventually be asked to bear. Hardly anyone expects them to become America's next "Greatest Generation." But someday you can say you heard it from me: That is their destiny, to rescue this country from the mess to which we, the older generations, have contributed, perhaps a bit more than we ever intended—and, in so doing, to become a great generation indeed.
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