A wealthy man in the making?

I try to see, in my sons, the men they will one day become. I look for underlying attitudes, outlooks, beliefs, habits, and patterns that may persist through time and define the adults they will one day be. It is not something that I do with effort, but something which I do with reflexive automaticity. In gazing on them, today, I gaze, too, on the tomorrow that shall come, one day, in which our eyes are level and they are men.

Fintan, for instance, shows a particular attitude to money that foretells of richer days, for him. Fintan is not a great spender, of money, he is a saver. He gathers together the notes he is given, counts them, accumulates them, and puts them carefully away. He knows his personal wealth, to the dollar - and asks about such matters as whether he can open a local bank account, in Malaysia (he already has one in Singapore). He is not, as most children are, focussed on immediate spending and the transformation of temporary wealth into even more temporary pleasure. No. He thinks of growing his wealth, of becoming richer, by virtue of having more cash to hand. He forestalls spending and chooses instead to wait.

You might wonder why a little boy of seven is concerned with saving money. Well the other day, he gave a peep into his psychology. He mentioned that he wanted to put the money in a bank account so that "When I am bigger I can buy houses and cars..."

That is quite a surprising little plan for a little boy of seven years old. He is already planning for his lifestyle and trying to ensure his own security. He wants to make sure he has his own house to live in and his own car to drive - and he is starting NOW on the work necessary to get him there.

His mother studied him, a few nights ago, as he counted his money...and remarked: "You will be the richest of my sons, Fintan." He didn't look up from his counting, so intent was he on those numbers flashing through his mind.

Indeed, Fintan may be the richest son, one day - for he has the greatest interest in money and the most far sighted outlook towards it.

I am beginning to understand, about Fintan, that he has a very long term vision for his life. Though he is at the beginning of it all, his eyes look not on today, but on a far tomorrow, on a world that is not yet, and plans his place within it. Fintan is a man of tomorrow, living only temporarily as a boy of today. Fintan is already guiding himself through an adult world that is not yet, positioning himself for success within it and developing the attitudes and habits that will allow him to flourish.

I wonder at him, now. Why is he so intent on the future? Why does he not live, entirely, in the moment, as most little boys do? What is it about him that makes him so aware of the unseen parade of his life ahead of him?

As ever, I get the sense that Fintan may turn out to be a very surprising son, indeed. No boy who thinks so much of the man he is one day to be, can fail, at the very least, to lead an interesting life, in some way.

I look forward to whoever Fintan becomes and hope that I am around, to see it.

In the meantime, Fintan, keep on gazing on tomorrow!


(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.)

The wisdom of planning ahead.

I have often wondered whether Mankind is a truly intelligent species. I am led to wonder because, on the whole, Man does more stupid, than intelligent things. Mankind is more remarkable for its moments of utter dumbness, than its peaks of intelligent action.

Now, many of you might be moved to argue with me, over this. Yet, it only takes a little reflection on what Man actually does, to realize that it is true. I will give you one example: New Orleans. Most of you will remember that Hurricane Katrina demolished this US city, some years ago. What you might not be aware of, is that this was entirely avoidable. You see, for many years before Hurricane Katrina, disaster planners would use New Orleans as an example of what could happen in the event of a hurricane hitting the US. They even ran a simulation not long before the actual hurricane hit (a year or so, I think). In that simulation, they calculated the devastation that would be caused and all agreed that it would be terrible indeed. Yet, what did they do to prepare for it? Nothing much. As I have noted, Mankind is stupid. When confronted with the knowledge that certain death and destruction is going to occur, sometime, in the future, in a particular locality, the collective will of Mankind is to do nothing about it. People would rather "save money" now, than worry about a "hypothetical" disaster later. Of course, this makes said disaster inevitable, when it could have been avoided. I am even led to propose a principle: there is no such thing as a natural disaster, only human inaction, before it. Hurricane Katrina was as much a product of a human unwillingness to prepare for the future, as it was a result of the movement of air, over water.

What gets me about this, of course, is that the cost of not preparing for the future, is always greater than the cost of actually doing so. There is, in truth, no money to be "saved" by doing nothing to avert predictable disasters.

Another disaster waiting to happen to Humanity, is bird flu. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has occasionally showed itself, over the past decade or two, in Asia, promptly killing most of the people it infected. Indeed, the World Health Organization website says that "avian influenza can reach a mortality rate of 100% in 48 hours of onset". So, bird flu is something to be feared. It is also something, one would have thought, to prepare against. Just imagine that bird flu, say H5N1, mutates to become readily transmissible between humans. Just think what would happen once it boards planes around the world, from China (a likely source), to scatter widely about the Earth before anyone notices. (China has a history of hushing up disease outbreaks, which leads to the world being unaware of what is happening until too late). Imagine a disease as infectious as the common cold, or typical flu, but with a fatality rate approaching 100%. It could destroy the human race.

Yet, what, precisely, is the human race doing about it? Zero. As far as I am aware there is no real preparation for this eventuality which will, eventually, occur, without any doubt. It is just a matter of time. Somewhere, in a rural area of, most probably, Asia, a sick chicken is going to make a child sick and that child is going to kill the world.

What can we do about this, you might ask? Well, it is simple really: make a stockpile of vaccine that immunizes against all the strains of H5N1 that have been noted so far and give two shots to everyone one can find, on Earth. Now, some of you might object that we can't know what the proposed highly infectious strain of H5N1 looks like. It might differ significantly from the known strains. Well, this might be true - but I have read something which is very hopeful on that front. Some people were immunized against a 1997 strain of H5N1. Later, their immune reaction was tested against a 2005 strain of H5N1 - and CONSIDERABLE cross protection was noted. Thus, immunizing against the known versions of H5N1, would probably confer a significant degree of protection against future strains. It may, for instance, turn it from a disease which kills, to a disease which merely makes people sick. Another benefit is that it might shorten the period that specific immunization might take, needing, perhaps, only one shot, rather than two, of a vaccine, to confer specific resistance.

So, here we have an example of something Mankind can do to prevent millions, perhaps billions of human deaths. Indeed, something which might even save the human race. Yet, no nation is doing it. They prefer, instead, to wait until disaster strikes, to wait until people are dying en masse of H5N1, before trying to protect against it. The problem with that is that the lead time for producing a vaccine is about 6 months. Thus, in that period, a pandemic H5N1 could kill millions or billions of people.

It seems that Mankind is so enamoured of money, that "saving" it now, is worth more than the death of the human race, later.

I hope that H5N1 never becomes pandemic. Should it do so, one thing seems most likely: the human race will be completely unprepared and millions of people will die. Should you be among the survivors, remember this: all those deaths were unnecessary, caused only by the collective unwillingness of Mankind to prepare for the future.

(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.)