A child prodigy on the secret of the afterlife.

Computers influence us in many ways. Today, Ainan posed a question that deliberately played with that influence on our lives.

“What if when you die,” he began, with whimsy in his eyes, “you see a high score screen?”

I laughed uproariously...so loudly I no doubt worried our neighbours. He joined me in laughter, though his lungs couldn’t muster the same volume.

Then, I sobered up.

“In a way, you do. At least other people do.”

Ainan’s gaze tightened on me, in curiosity.

“You see when a celebrity or a rich person dies, newspapers tend to report the net worth of their estate at the moment of death. This is a kind of high score that summarizes your life achievements.”

“How do they know that?”

“There are people who track the wealth of celebrities and rich people.”

“Why do they do it?”

“Because some people find that interesting.”

He looked perplexed. Clearly, Ainan didn’t find this a meaningful datum about a person – and that perplexity was encouraging, for it bespoke of a deeper way of looking at the meaning of people and their lives.

There are other “high scores” they could focus on, but usually don’t so much. Were they married? (That is a life achievement.) How long was that marriage? Did it endure lifelong (a testament to stability)? How many children did the deceased have? How many grandchildren and great-grandchildren? How long did they live? What were their greatest achievements? What made them happiest? What would they most like to be remembered for? How many books did they write? How many did they sell? How many patents and papers did they have to their name? How about music compositions or works of art? Or articles in newspapers? How many and how important were their life works? Whom did their life touch? What effect did they have in the world, or on their family and friends? Did they make a positive contribution to life, society and the environment overall? Were they honest? Were they warm, loving and kind? Did they help others or predate upon them?

I could go on forever. There are so many more meaningful ways to assess a life than to declare a person’s net worth. Sadly, we live in a world that values wealth more than all the other indicators of a worthy life put together.

As for Ainan’s question: “What if when you die, you see a high score screen?”

I could have answered, but didn’t, until now.

“They are called biographers.”

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.) 

Book Review in the Star

Yesterday saw the publication of my first book review in the Star newspaper. This was on "Steve Jobs - The Man Who Thought Different" by Karen Blumenthal.

The Star newspaper is Malaysia's largest circulation English daily newspaper. Recently, they invited me to write book reviews for them. The review of this Steve Jobs biography is the first fruit of that.

Originally, I wrote a review of about 1,400 words, in which I said fully what I thought. This had to be cut down to 999 words. However, this was further cut before publication, to 856 words. Tellingly, my most critical passages were cut from the piece - the parts in which I was most blunt about Steve Jobs' true character and less flattering side. It seems that the Star didn't want me to express those thoughts so clearly. What remains hints at what has been removed. From my point of view, it is a pity that I wasn't allowed to say what I really thought, because what I had wished to say, needs to be said about Steve Jobs. He wasn't what many people think - although I must say he was very good at personal PR and creating a positive image. The underlying truth was rather different, however.

Please read my review here:

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2012/7/27/lifebookshelf/11686256&sec=lifebookshelf

Let me know, below what you think of it. I will post the full unedited version soon, to allow you to read my analysis of Steve Jobs' character in full.

Happy reading!

Thank you.

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.) 

Arfa Karim Randhawa, child prodigy, dies.

Arfa Karim Randhawa, a Pakistani child prodigy known for being the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, has died aged just 16 years old. Without warning, on the 22^nd December, she suffered a severe epileptic fit and fell into a coma. On December 29^th, her doctors said there was no possibility of survival. They proved right. She died yesterday, despite showing seeming signs of improvement in the previous days.

Remarkably, perhaps, prayers were said for her by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and a number of other government officials commented on her demise, including the Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani. Her passing has occasioned a degree of national grieving, with public figures, such as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, Altaf Hussain saying that Pakistan had lost a “precious talent”.

Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing, before she could fulfil the life of promise that seems to have been hers, by birthright, is a harsh reminder of how fragile we all are and how suddenly life can come to an end, when we least expect it. Yet, there is also something of note about Arfa Karim’s passing: that anyone noticed or cared. I am sure that other 16 year olds in Pakistan were busy dying on Saturday, too...no doubt many did so – but the world simply neither cared nor noticed. It is Arfa Karim’s prodigiousness, her early show of talent, that brought her to the attention of Pakistan and the wider world. This explains an observation many have made: that child prodigies seem to die younger than other categories of exemplary people. I have often seen searches for this, arriving on my blog. Well, it is time, perhaps, to explain this seeming phenomenon. It is not what it appears. I don’t believe that child prodigies are fated to die young. It is just that when they do die young, people notice. I am sure that they die young no more frequently than any other type of person dies young. Being prodigious does not portend a short life. It portends the possibility of an unusually productive life, if the prodigy is given the right opportunities. Early death is not part of the seemingly Faustian pact. Arfa Karim Randhawa has died very young. We notice her death, because of her early achievement in computing. Had she lived an ordinary life, with ordinary achievements, no-one, but her family and friends, would have noticed her death. We would not then say that, “Non-prodigious children die young”. In just the same way, we cannot say: “Prodigious children die young”. They don’t. It is just that because of their early fame, they are noticed in a way that other early deaths are not. Of all categories of achievers, child prodigies come to notice earliest. Thus, the early deaths among them are noticed, which drags the average age of death down, for child prodigies. In other categories of achiever, early deaths mean they are not noticed or counted in for consideration: they are invisible, so they don’t bring the mean age at death, down.

Thus, although Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing is very sad for those who knew her and, it seems, even for Pakistan, itself, it should not be seen as evidence that child prodigies die young. I am certain that they are, in truth, no more likely to die young, than is anyone else.

My condolences to Arfa Karim Randhawa’s family and friends. May she rest in peace.

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.)

The meaning of immortality.

About ten years ago, I had a conversation with an American academic. The conversation, itself, was much longer than this snippet, but it is this exchange that has stuck with me.

"Shakespeare is immortal.", she stated, firmly, as if it were an irrefutable truth.

"So, what good does that do him?", I asked, utterly unconvinced, "He's dead."

She seemed taken aback by that. It was if she had never considered the fact that he was dead, simply because he was still known. She fell into a long silence. Clearly, she had no counter to that.

I have always thought that "immortal" was a strange term to apply to famous dead people. They are not "immortal". They are dead. They are just as mortal as anyone else. Being dead, they gain no direct personal benefit from their posthumous fame, at all. Indeed, fame is little compensation for death. I think they would all rather be alive, and unknown, than dead and famous.

Unfortunately, at this time, death is not optional - and so most people would settle for at least being remembered after they are gone. However, until the day when people are truly immortal, I object, in principle, to calling dead people, "immortal"...how about just calling them, "unforgotten", or "still remembered" - for that is what they truly are.

(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.)