Awhile back I commented that I had developed an annoying habit of picking up new books to read before I finished the one that I was currently reading. Times 10. It now takes me approximately five years to finish a book. So, you probably shouldn't loan me any if you want to see them again any time soon. My sympathies go out to Barry, who loaned me THREE books back in January. And I still have them.
Currently on the docket:
I came across Outliers after reading two other books my Malcolm Gladwell and it is by far my favorite (although they are all well-written and interesting). It challenges all of our assumptions about rags to riches stories and self-made [wo]men. Similarly, it challenges the notion that if people are not successful (or for that matter, if they're on welfare or homeless) it's because they're lazy or chose that life. In the last chapter, Mr. Gladwell states:
It is impossible for a hockey player, or Bill Joy, or Robert Oppenheimer, or any other outlier for that matter, to look down from their lofty perch and say with truthfulness, "I did this, all by myself." Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.
Hmmm. Good food for thought.
1 comments:
mmm, such a good quote. we like to resist that idea because it runs so counter to the american notion of the self-made man -- but the reality is... rarely is success an individual accomplishment. there are always systems, and privilege, and circumstances, and so many things we have no control over....
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