Man made thunder.

I sneezed, a few days ago, rather loudly, in front of my three sons. The wave of sound seemed to push them back a bit, particularly Tiarnan, four, as if it were uncomfortable to hear. I was catapulted inward and backward, then, at that observation, to my own childhood. I saw, then, that I had, in some way, become my father, or almost.

I shall explain. When I was a young boy, my father would sometimes sneeze in a way I had heard no other person ever sneeze, before or since. It was not the sneeze of a man, but more of the thunder of the sky. His sneeze was awesomely loud. It was as if someone had let off a fair sized explosive device, right next to my ear: AHHH-HOEEEE!, he would sneeze. It was the kind of sneeze that one would be unsurprised to find had knocked one off one's feet. I used to wonder at how he made so much noise. Yes, he was a big man, with a big chest...but still, that sneeze seemed impossibly loud. I sensed, when he sneezed, the great strength in him. I knew what such a loud noise meant: it meant POWER, of the physical kind. Only a very strong man, could make so much noise, with a simple sneeze.

I have lived forty two years, now. Yet, I have never come across anyone who ever sneezed as loudly as my father did, when I was a young boy. No-one else even comes close. Of course, that means but one thing: his upper body strength, lungs and ribcage, were much more powerfully built than any other person I have heard sneeze - he simply expelled the air, with more force, speed and power. So, what I was hearing, as a boy, was my father's relative strength, compared to the other people I encountered. Perhaps there are other people with louder sneezes still - but, if so, I have never heard them. I suppose, in a way, that leaves me impressed, in much the same way that I was as a young boy.

When I sneeze, now, I see, from the reactions of my children, that they think me loud. Perhaps I am the loudest sneezer they have ever got to hear, in their lives, so far. Yet, I know something they don't: that my sneeze is a whisper, set alongside the ones my father used to explode with. I am a strong man, relatively speaking...but nowhere near as strong as my father was, as a young man. Indeed, perhaps, he is still stronger than me. Even so, when I sneeze now, I feel connected to my father, all those years ago: I feel as if I have become, as he was: the thunderer to my children, the possessor of explosive lungs.

I haven't told them, though, that my father used to sneeze much more loudly than me. I haven't told them that I am a mere echo, in the sneeze department, that my father was. Some day, I shall. But for now, they shall labour under the misperception that their father is the loudest sneezer in the world. Perhaps they will get to hear my father sneeze, one day: then my secret will be out. I am just, as my father used to say: "A chip off the old block"...but he is the Old Block, entire!

If I listen, within, I can still hear my father's thunderous sneeze, still call it to mind. Though I have grown up, it still sounds like thunder...the loudest noise a man's lungs ever made. Isn't it funny the bits of childhood that one holds onto? I have held onto a sneeze, perhaps because it always startled me, to hear how loud it was, each and every time it happened, despite my knowing in advance, just how loud it would be.

For me those sneezes were more than just sneezes: they were the essence of my father, for one of his more notable characteristics, one which no-one could miss, was his physical strength. Each and every time he sneezed, he was announcing that strength to the world. He was saying, without words: "This is who I am!".

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Today, I watched a Western film with my sons. It happened to be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Now, before you start imagining that Malaysia is broadcasting old Westerns, I would like to point out that I got it on DVD, in a local store. It was in the "classics" section.

I grew up with Westerns. I used to watch them with my father. He was particularly fond of the genre and I remember well his excitement as he watched the films. He would identify strongly with the hero and become very engrossed in his every action. Indeed, at key moments he would lean forward towards the TV screen, clenching his fists, in the tension of the moment. I see, now, that this is evidence of his capacity for imaginative involvement - but at the time I just used to think how much he liked these films.

So, I suppose, in many ways, I associate Western movies with my father. It was almost always with him, that I watched them. Thus, it was a telling moment when I bought a Western movie to watch with my own sons. I suppose I was just being my Dad, to them. Now, I should point out that they had never seen a Western film, before. The genre is not popular in this part of the world and one has never been on TV here. Then again, the genre is no longer popular. New Westerns are not being made. Thus, for them, it was a new experience.

They watched intently. Mainly, though, they waited to see what would happen. I think the pace was unfamiliar to them. Modern movies are faster and linger less on expressions and character. The boys did not know what to make of a movie that wasn't always leaping onto the next scene as fast as possible. I didn't realize, until I watched this with them, how much the pace of modern movies differs from the ones I grew up with. Now, movies are a race, then, they were a stroll.

Ainan criticized the lingering shot at the end as the Good receded into the distance: "I don't even know why they include that.", he puzzled. "It is for atmosphere.", I informed him, knowing that it didn't fit his ideas of what a film should be.

"Did you enjoy it?", I asked Ainan at the end.

"Yes.", he confessed.

I was glad, for a moment.

"But not as much as other films".

I understood, then, that the childhood I knew was gone and I could not even bring a piece of it, into theirs. Their world was different. Their expectations were different. Even what a film shouuld be, was different. I had grown up in more leisured times - in the sense that a film, then, was allowed to take its time to tell a story. Now, stories have to explode across the screen - and that is what kids expect.

I remember well and fondly those childhood days watching Westerns with my father. However, my sons will not have such memories of watching them with me. Times have changed. The world has moved on and what once was, cannot be again.

Yet, it was good to see how they would respond to it. It taught me, at least, how different their expectations are, nowadays. I somehow doubt that they will ever go to the trouble of showing their sons a Western, someday.

I wonder what they will remember of how I brought them up? What will they one day show their sons? (Or daughters?) Will they ever do anything, in memory of me?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

On the genetic inheritance of gift

My father was an enormously strong man, in his youth. His strength would have been legendary, had he lived in earlier days, that lauded such things. As it was, however, he found daily uses for his strength, in the way he went about tasks. He was a man who could lift furniture upstairs, on his own. He had no need of the help of another. He could move objects that would be unmovable, at all, to a typical man, with casual ease. Many a time, as a child, I would wonder at the strength he applied to his daily tasks, in the garden or about the house. Unseen by me, he would apply his strength too, in his business – but for privacy’s sake, I am not going to say what that business was. That his strength was an asset to him, even in modern life, is clear, and in some ways, had he not been strong, he would not have been the success he became (for reasons I will leave undescribed, for they would tell too much about his life – and that wouldn’t be fair).

Now he was an enormously strong man – and I inherited some of that from him, for I have always been a strong man – stronger than most men – yet, not as strong as him, I think. The strength has been handed down to me, somewhat diluted.

I look at my sons, now, in particular, Ainan, and no longer see the strength there, at all. You would never guess, looking at Ainan, that his grandfather was of great physical strength. Ainan does not possess the build that promises a large musculature to come: his is the slightness of the eternal academic, not the strength of a fearsome warrior of old, as, no doubt, our forebears in the old celtic world, were.

So, why do I discuss this? Well, looking at Ainan today, in relation to me, I felt our disparity in strength, and remembered my father’s greater strength before me. Is this, then, the destiny of all genetic gift? Is it to be lost little by little, generation by generation, until all is diluted to nothing? Looking at the decline in strength from grandfather, to father, to son, it might seem so, but all, as usual, is not what it seems.

If we look wider than a single line, we see a different story. I have three brothers, two of whom are stronger than me. I am the shortest male in my family, (though six foot tall) but not the lightest, though the two I estimate to be stronger than me, are both heavier and taller than I am.

My father’s genes have spread wide and each of his children carry half of them. He bore gifts of the mind and gifts of the body – for his mind is good, very good – and his body, in terms of strength, in particular, was most well equipped.

Looking at my brothers, I can see that my father’s qualities of mind appear in them in various admixtures – and so too his strength, in various proportions. I don’t know how many genes are involved in the gifts of the mind and the body – but we each have half of them. It seems, from observation, that there must, for strength, be more than one gene involved – for one can see a gradation across the sons: from quite strong, to strong to very strong to ferociously strong.

My father’s gift of strength lives on – and it is possible that one of his sons is stronger than him, in one way – for one son is six inches taller than his father, allowing him an advantage of scale, even if, for his size, he is weaker.

So, too, is it with my children. Ainan missed out on the gift of strength, it seems – but his brother Fintan did not. Fintan is thickset, well-muscled and, like all Cawleys, stronger than you would estimate. So my own gift of strength has not been lost – it is just not evenly distributed amongst my sons.

I do not know whether Fintan will be as strong as me, or whether, like one of my father’s sons, stronger than his father – but that he has inherited greater than common strength is clear. So, the gift goes on.

I would think it is like this with all genetic gifts. Looking both wide and deep, one will see that the gifts pass into one branch of the family, but miss others – and then further branch again, passing into some lines and not others and so on, forever. Nothing will be truly lost as long as one rule is adhered to: have several children – so that each may bear half the genes and so at least half of each gift, onwards.

I ponder this question because Ainan has certain mental gifts which were evident in my childhood and, no doubt, were anyone around to watch, in my father’s before him: how many more generations can this continue?

The answer is, I think, forever – as long as each generation has enough children so that some – well, at least one, - expresses the gift in question and may pass it on.

As it is in our family, so it is in yours. Whatever gifts you have in you, may be passed down – you just need to have a kid or three. Don’t worry that some have it and some don’t – (or some have more and others have less) because all bear some of it, onwards.

Now all I have to hope for is that I become a grandfather, one day – and watch the story begin to unfold again. There would be satisfaction in seeing that genetic continuity at work. I only hope my children want to have children when they grow up. We will see.

(I should add that even my father is not the strongest man in family legend – there were much larger and stronger men, still, in our background. Looked at physically, therefore, there is evidence of decline in strength over many generations, I would say. (In the direct line, there is decline…but the genes spread wide and are around somewhere). Once, it seems, my forebears had a use for such strength – otherwise they would not have evolved to be so strong, I would think. Looking at the history of the area and of the family, I would say a lot of that would have something to do with the war-torn history of the Land of Ireland, in times, before the gun, when strength was a man’s greatest defence – and offence, too, I might add.)

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)