A perspective on old age.

It is a privilege to get old - because so many never get the chance.

So, if you are old, and feeling a little less well than you used to - consider the alternative: dying young. Is that really better?

I am middle aged. I have no idea whether I will ever be old one day - but I say from this vantage, I expect to be grateful to have gotten there, if I am so lucky to live so long. I think everyone should because we all, along the way, live to see others die much younger than ourselves having lived lives tantalisingly incomplete and unfulfilled. If a person lives so long that they have fulfilled even one of their dreams and been happy enough along the way, then that is something to be satisfied in. So many have so much less, in life.

Recent events have prompted me to reflect on life and death a bit...hence the motivation for this post. I might write more in another post.

Keep on living!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

The despair of an artist.

An artist chooses a life without a predictable outcome. No artist can possibly know whether or not they will succeed in their own lifetime, at the outset of their career. Thus, it is that artists must gamble on a success that may never come. This leads some to despair, when their long sought recognition does not come, in the passing of the decades.

Many years ago, I was invited to an art exhibition. The work was pretty good, in its own way, though not my kind of work. I studied each piece with self-conscious care, for a very good reason. You see, the artworks were by a recently deceased artist, who was the father of my, then, girlfriend’s landlady. I studied each work with particular care to show my respect. The artist had, in fact, committed suicide, in despair at the recognition which had never come to him.

I have never forgotten that evening. What marked it out for me was the gaze of my girlfriend’s landlady. She looked not on her father’s works, which were, no doubt, very familiar to her, but on the guests. She scrutinized each and every face, to see their reactions to her father’s work. She wanted to see that they liked it, that his life’s work had some meaning for them. There was a sadness in her, a watchfulness and an expectancy which had a flavour all of its own. This art exhibition had been organized by her, to let the world see her father’s work. In a way, she was trying to give him in death, what he had lacked in life: recognition. The venue was a very slick one. I remember that well. It had the air of “high art” about it. So she was really trying to ensure that his work would be seen in the right way. There were many people there that night – so she had managed to get a good turn out, too. I studied my girlfriend’s landlady as much as I studied the art. There was something very vulnerable about her. She really needed everyone to enjoy her father’s art. She really needed, in a kind of desperate way, for his work to have meant something.

It was a very sad thing to have to watch. She was trying to do for her father, in death, what life had never done for him. Perhaps she felt she should have tried sooner, whilst he had been alive. Perhaps she felt that what she did now, was too late. The exhibition was her gift to her father – it was also an act of mourning.

Recognition often comes slowly to artists. There are so many artists in the world, each competing for attention, that it is quite easy to be overlooked at first – or even for a very long time, indeed. It is a cliché that an artist should be discovered after death – but that does happen, as we all know. Quite a few artists made modest names, if at all, during their lifetimes, and only grew to legends after death. Perhaps that was what motivated my girlfriend’s landlady’s father to commit suicide – perhaps he saw it as a career move, a means to propel himself to fame.

It should not be this way. All artists should be recognized and supported during their lifetimes. The only way this could happen is if the means to create a name for oneself, were more immediately accessible – the galleries, the magazines and the newspapers. Yet, they are not accessible, and have limited slots available. There is also the matter of taste. Sometimes, innovative work is overlooked, because it does not conform to the tastes of the time: it is only much later, sometimes long after the death of an artist, when tastes change, that people are able to appreciate work. So, that, too, is a factor. There needs to be some means to recognize work independent of the tastes of the time – and that seems an almost incurable condition.

The only practical answer to all of this is for the artist themselves to become immune to the response to their work. An artist should learn to work on, irrespective of the response to their work and to be content whether or not it is accepted. This is the only solution to this age old problem. The artist must learn not to care for success and recognition – for only then will they not miss them, and despair over them, should they not be forthcoming in a reasonable time frame.

I realize that this is a difficult solution. I am proposing that artist’s create without thought of success. Yet, that is what a true artist would do – create because they have to. Perhaps that is why some artists built great oeuvres despite a lack of worldly success: they did so, because they had to. They created because to do otherwise would destroy them.

No artist should kill themselves because they are not being recognized. The answer to that situation is to continue to create good work and to continue to try to reach out and show the work. If luck is with the artist, recognition will come, some day. Despair must not be entertained – for to yield to it, is to destroy all the potential the artist has – and, despite my girlfriend’s landlady’s father’s possible motivation, that is never a good career move, and does not enhance the likelihood of recognition in any way.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Patrick Swayze's net worth at the time of his death.

No. This title is not my idea. It is a quote from the terms a web searcher used, from Littleton, Colorado today. They googled: “Patrick Swayze’s net worth at the time of death.” I must confess, I was flabbergasted at such a query. It spoke of a most distorted value system that invokes a belief that the measure of a life, is found in personal wealth. There are many ways to measure a life, but none of the meaningful methods involve a consideration of wealth. A billionaire is not more worthy than a penniless poet. One beautiful poem adds more to the world than all of Bill Gates’ fabled wealth. Such a poem also has the power to touch more lives, than any fortune ever could.

For me, it is particularly telling that the search originated in the USA. America is a country in which the dollar and its pursuit have been elevated to be the highest endeavour – that, and fame – creating a country of people who seem unable to place real value on life’s varied endeavours. There are many ways to contribute to the world which don’t necessarily result in great personal wealth – but that does not make them any less worthy than those that do. Being a banker, for instance, is not the highest life a human can live – though it is one of the more remunerative. However, being an artist, or a poet or a composer, contributes much more to humanity, ultimately, than any purely financial endeavour. Such pursuits enrich human culture, for all time and leave the world a greater place, by their lives, than the world was when they entered it. Yet, few can make a living, never mind become wealthy. Those who seek to measure the world in dollar terms will always miss what is of true value.

Love of the dollar is also why Singapore is such a soul-less place. Very few Singaporean parents are happy to hear that their child wants to enter a creative profession, prone to financial risk. They all want to hear that their children want to go into Medicine, Law or Finance – anything that makes good, secure money. The result, however, of all this love of money, is a country which fails to truly live. Life in Singapore, consequently, has the feel of living in a manicured wasteland, where no-one is truly allowed to breathe, and those with the most ability to “breathe” are shoved to one side, in favour of those who conform most to financial aspirations.

If you want to know the “worth” of Patrick Swayze’s life, you should look not at his bank balance, but the films on his IMDB page ( http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000664/ )– for that is what he loved to do. Measure the worth of his performances, in those films, if you would, and you will come to a better appreciation of the “measure” of his life. A man is measured not by what he owns, but by what he loves to do: in his passions is the true magnitude of a man to be found.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Syahidah on Steve Jobs' death.

Today, I informed Syahidah, my wife, of Steve Jobs' death.

She remarked: "An apple has lost its core."

I thought this rather witty, and apt - for the image and meaning summed up the situation very well.

Mr. Jobs was only 56. This is rather young to be dying in the modern age - however, his life, though shortened, could not have been more influential, nor have touched more lives than it had. RIP Mr. Apple.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Missing the point of life.

What do these people have in common?: George Clooney, Hugh Grant, Jennifer Aniston, Ricky Gervais, Cameron Diaz, Winona Ryder, Eva Mendes, Jessica Biel, Helen Mirren, Margaret Cho, Jacqueline Bisset, Janeane Garofalo, Jay Leno, Kim Cattrall, Kylie Minogue, Lara Flynn Boyle, Opray Winfrey, Renee Zellwegger and Robbie Williams.
Have a think. What is the common trait?

You probably thought: “they are all “stars””. Well, yes…but that is not what I am reaching after. Each of the famous people named is child-less. They are not parents and except for one (Hugh Grant), have never expressed any interest in having a child. Hugh Grant began to mutter about fatherhood as a possibility at 49…but almost two years have passed and he has yet to do anything about it.

From my point of view, each of these famous people is missing the point of life. It is almost certain that none of them will have any children, in life. When they die, their uniqueness, such as it is, will die with them. None of the particular elements that went up to make their individual gifts will be passed on. They will be completely lost, as if they had never been (except for media records). In a very real sense, these people, at whom most of us look up to, as if they are outrageously “successful” are each, in actual fact, complete failures, in the only sense that really counts: in evolutionary terms. The four and half billion year chain of life, that gave rise to them – an unbroken chain of succession – ends with them. They are thus, total failures. They are the end-stop, of all the multibillion year striving that engendered them. There is something terribly tragic in that. Of course, what is most tragic is that none of them seem to realize it. They are too superficial, too concerned with their “personal freedom”, to understand what they are doing, or what they are losing.

I do not have success on the scale of any of these famous names. Yet, in another sense, I am far more successful than any of them. I am a successful parent, with three unique children. That is a kind of success that, in my eyes, outshines all that they have achieved in their media-hyped worlds. If I am fortunate and my children go on to have children, and their children, children and so on, then I shall have descendants spreading out through time, into the far future. Those famous names, however, will nothing behind but their names. Which is worth more…a legion of children…or a name? Life is ever greater than a word – whatever those famous people might think, now. Then again, it is possible that I will leave a name, as well as my children and grandchildren in this world. I might leave both types of legacy. That type of dual success is forever barred to Hollywood’s childless couples.

The common man might not see my life as “successful” as a Hollywood star – but in the way that really counts, I am far more successful, and accomplished. My life is lived with an understanding of the true purpose of life – theirs is not. I have given life to the world…but all they have given is entertainment. Set against each other, side by side, a life of entertainment does seem rather trivial by comparison. They have chosen a life free of substance, rich in triviality and fleeting sensation. They have set themselves free of children, so that they are “free” to enjoy themselves the better. Now, that is a choice we can all make – to choose pleasure over parenthood – but pleasure is always a fleeting thing, that needs to be forever sought again – parenthood is forever, or at least for life. It is not difficult to see, for me, at least, which, ultimately has the greater value.

So, which would you rather be: a Hollywood star, who is forever childless, or a parent of several adorable children? Would you choose the spotlight, or parenthood?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Is Macaulay Culkin still alive?

The question is not my own. Today a searcher arrived on my blog with the terms: “Is Macaulay Culkin still alive today in 2011”. That gave me pause. However, another similar question compounded it: twice in the last couple of days I have had searches for the former child prodigy Kim Ung Yong: “Kim Ung Yong, Date of Death” and “Kim Ung Yong Died...”. They are basically the same search. They embody the assumption of death, for someone who was once prominent and famous, but who now leads a quieter, less public life.

What is really sobering about these searches is where the Macaulay Culkin search was from: Grove City,Ohio, in the United States. One would have thought that an American would know that Macaulay Culkin was still alive...but apparently not. I didn’t note where the Kim Ung Yong searchers were from.

The stories of Kim Ung Yong and Macaulay Culkin have certain similarities. They were both famous as children. They both showed great promise. Then they both elected, as adults, to lead more discrete, less prominent lives as adults. In both cases it is not clear to what extent this is choice or happenstance. Whatever the case, they have both slipped from public view – yet both are still alive.

It is interesting that some members of the public assume that these once prominent children have died, since they are no longer prominent as adults. This is quite sad and speaks of the expectations of the general public towards such figures. Everyone has a right to conduct their lives as they wish. If a person who is famous as a child, wants a quieter life as an adult – then that is their choice. They should be free to make that choice. It seems, however, that, in some quarters they are not. The simple fact that they have chosen a less public adult life leads to the assumption that they must have died young. They didn’t die. What died was their wish to sustain a public image and presence.

Macaulay Culkin has largely stopped acting. We don’t know the reasons for this. Kim Ung Yong, has chosen to work as an academic in a minor provincial University, rather than have a more visible position. He has published 90 papers in his field, hydraulics. So, he continues to contribute – but in an area that is not high profile or likely to attract attention.

I feel the public should not expect anything of such people. They should let them be and choose their own lives – even if these lives might disappoint the expectations of those who followed them as children. Everyone’s life, is their own – and is not lived for public consumption.

So, carry on living quietly, Macaulay Culkin and Kim Ung Yong. Enjoy your lives in the way you want – even if some people out in the world, think you are dead because of it. None of it matters. The perceptions of strangers do not count. What counts is whether Macaulay Culkin and Kim Ung Yong enjoy the lives they lead. I hope they do. They should also be allowed to live those lives in peace and free from public pressure.

So, just be what you please, Culkin and Kim. I, for one, believe in your right to do so. Have happy lives.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html
and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, 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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks. You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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 living a life of significance.

I always listen to the words of "great men" and "great women", for what they say of the life they have led. Now, whether or not Vidal Sassoon could be considered "great", he is certainly successful and I remember what he once said of his life. He expressed regret into having gone into "hair" and wished he had done something else with his life.

I remembered his words, today, and they reminded me of how important it is to check whether the goals one sets for oneself are actually worthy of achievement, in the first place. Vidal Sassoon didn't think much, in the end, of his life work. He rather rued that he had chosen something as trivial as hair to build a life around. I have seen this kind of thinking in many successful people. They mature as they get older and realize that the goals they set themselves when younger were not really worth achieving: life is so much deeper than the choices they made.

So, if a life is to be lived well and worthily, the first thing to consider is what, ultimately, would make a meaningful life? Is the glittering path laid out for one by the society around, actually worth treading on? So many people lead lives that are externally successful - by which I mean that other people adjudge them successful (usually in material terms) - but do those lives actually have meaning? I would suggest that that question should be answered, first, before embarking on such a life. Otherwise, at the end of a long, successful career, one could end up like Vidal Sassoon, looking back on his life and thinking of how pointless it was and how he would rather have done something else.

A significant life has a different meaning for different people: for some it means to be socially connected, for others it means to be rich, for others still it means to be famous - for many it means to help others, for a few it means to create lasting works in either science or the arts. Whatever it is that is significant to you, and you alone, should be what life is built around. One should never live a life that is significant only to others (meaning that fulfils the common values of the society in which one lives) since, too often, those external values are not in alignment with one's core inner values. The values of modern societies often seem a little too shallow, a little too materialistic, to constitute a purposeful and meaningful life, for deeper people - or people who mature into deeper people as they get older (like Mr. Sassoon).

Only you know what is of value to you. I wish you luck in living a life that fulfils those values - irrespective of what society actually thinks of your goals. It only matters what you think of your goals.

Be significant!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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