Will Smith on true friends.

I came across a great quote from Will Smith, the Hollywood actor/film star today. It went:

“If you were absent during my struggle, don’t expect to be present during my success.”

Brilliant.

If this is a real quote from Will Smith and not just a misattribution, my estimation of him has been increased by this pithy and oh-so-true remark. Everyone who has ever sought to achieve anything of real creative worth, must note this phenomenon, at some time or other. Especially when they actually create something worthy. All those people who were invisible, when you needed them, suddenly pop out, when you don’t. It is quite perturbing. There is a whole sub-species of Humanity who think that their fellow Man are so stupid, that they can be scarce, when their compatriots are struggling towards success, but suddenly be ever present when success comes at last. It is a particularly ugly behaviour.

Even a casual glance at the early lives of many geniuses, before they reached renown, reveals much private struggle, in which they strove to create their works, not infrequently against the indifference or unhelpfulness of those around them. I wonder at how those who stood by and did nothing to help, responded when the genius finally succeeded? Did they expect to be able to “cash in”, on the situation?

Will Smith’s wise words are worth bearing in mind, for anyone who is working towards a personal success of any significance. Observe the people around you. Note who is helpful and who is not. Note who is there for you, and who is never so. Never forget those who help you along the way – nor those who hinder you. When, finally, your success is yours. Note the responses of the very same people, good and bad: do they suddenly change? Do the once unhelpful or hindering types suddenly become profusely interested in you? If so, simply exercise your memory, and see them as they truly are.

Indeed, this is a particularly important matter for anyone who becomes rich, famous or both to bear in mind. Only those people who were supportive in your darker times, are worth your consideration when you begin to flourish. Those who were more noted by their absence, than their presence, should never be trusted, or given a moment’s attention – after all, they didn’t do so for you when you actually needed their help.

Fame and wealth make this situation particularly acute for their bearer. Many people are attracted to the famous or the wealthy, seeking favours of some kind from them, or even just the reflected glory of close association. Those people are easily sorted by the Will Smith Rule – above. The ones who were there, when you were “no-one”, are worth your attention, when you become “someone”. The converse is true for the others. When people you haven’t seen for twenty years suddenly start treating you as their best friend, it is time to start closing doors in faces...preferably ON faces.

From Will Smith’s remark, I read that he most likely experienced this too. It seems, however, that he saw through the sudden hangers-on. Good for him.

I would be interested in any anecdotes, from people’s lives, on any similar experience. Did personal success bring you a sudden avalanche of friends you never knew you had, sourced from among those who had become very practised at ignoring you, during your time of struggle? Stories below, please.

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.)

On racial purity.

Several years ago, a (then) friend of mine, who is no longer one, remarked, with a strangely gleeful face, that: “Your children are not racially pure…my daughter is.”

I thought this a most bizarre and inexplicable remark coming from a man whose first marriage had been to a fellow Caucasian – but whose second marriage (and two children by it) was to a Malay woman!

He seemed to have forgotten that two out of three of his own children were as mixed as mine were.

Anyway, his remark got me thinking. Does it matter that my children are racially mixed? Does it make any difference to me, in any negative sense – as my former friend implied it should? Clearly, the answer is no, it does not matter. The reason for this should be clear to anyone with the least understanding of genetics: my children by my Malay wife, contain exactly the same number of my genes as any theoretical child I could have had by a fellow Irish woman. My children are just as much my children, in a mixed race marriage, as they would be in a “pure blood” marriage. The situations, from the genetic point of view of what fatherhood means, are exactly equivalent.

I realize that my former friend was expressing a view, held by some, that there is something wrong with “impure” crosses. They see something wrong in mixed race children. I cannot agree with this view. Mixed race children are, by simple observation, frequently more attractive than either parent – so, they certainly do not lose out there. They are likely to be healthier than a “pure blood” child, since they are unlikely to have genetic diseases which require two defective genes, one from either parent. This is obviously so, since different races will have different preponderances of various defective genes: a mixed race cross is unlikely, therefore, to bestow a genetic disorder on a child. Thus, mixed race children can be expected to be healthy and good looking. They are also, don’t forget, just as much their parents’ children, as they would have been in a “pure blood” cross. So, I don’t see any disadvantage here, indeed there are certain advantages.

I have one qualification to this, though. I do think it would be a bad idea if ALL relationships were mixed race crosses. You see this would extinguish the individual races and their individual mix of abilities and disabilities, advantages and disadvantages and create blends between them that might not be as suited to particular environments as the uncrossed pure bloods would have been. So, some mixing is fine and, in fact, to be desired in some ways – but it is important, I think, that the full panoply and variety of human races (and mixes) is maintained – for in that variety, Humanity has a certain strength against changed circumstance and a range of challenging environments.

The Caucasian is in decline in the world. Caucasians are having fewer and fewer children. I, for one, would regret the passing of the Caucasian, should they decline to extinction (though I am not likely to live long enough to see it). Yet, that does not mean that mixed race marriages and biracial children should not be. Such children and such marriages contribute to the world’s diversity, and this can only be a good thing. It is my hope that all races and all racial combinations, persist for the long term – for in each such combination, I think there is something of lasting human interest to be found.

As for my former friend’s remark about my children not being “pure blooded”, I admit, I was surprised that he should not only say such a thing, but think it. He seemed to take pleasure in the fact that my children were “mixed” and “not pure bloods” – as if they were somehow inferior to his daughter, thereby. In the end, I understood that he needed to think such things to defend himself against an unavoidable fact: my children are a lot brighter than his. He was looking for a way to reason that his child was superior to mine. He chose “racial purity”. It was jarring to hear such thoughts, in a post-Nazi world. I would have thought that the ideals of racial purity would have been muted, by the events of the nineteen-forties. However, he did not seem to have this historical awareness, despite his father’s wartime service against the Nazis.

My own view is that all races and mixes between races, have their utility and special place. All should be respected and valued – and all should be preserved. You never know when a particular race, or racial combination, might prove vital to the interests of Humanity – so it seems wisest to preserve them all, against future need.

In case you are curious, it is not my former friend’s remark about my children not being pure blooded that ended our friendship – but something else that he did (a deception). Ultimately, I would rather he was more concerned with purity of heart (his own), than purity of race. Then, probably, we would still be friends.

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.)

The true value of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is marketed as a social network for professionals. It is also one of the ways people use to look up old friends, perhaps from University, school, or previous jobs.

Most people think of the value of LinkedIn, to be in the networks it allows you to form. However, I personally don’t think this is its most valuable attribute. That value lies in something more subtle than a network. LinkedIn’s true value is not in who joins your network, but in who doesn’t.

I have recently become active on LinkedIn, although I have supposedly been a member for a couple of years. I say “supposedly” because in all that time I never logged in and never did anything on LinkedIn, at all. Now, my recent activity has involved a lot of checking for the presence of old friends on the database and sending them an invitation. The responses have been instructive. There have been two types of response: the quick acceptance, either without notice, or with an accompanying note – and the complete failure to respond. In my case, of 19 invitations sent, 14 have resulted in acceptance and 5 have responded only with silence. I find these ones the most interesting. Of these two of them are people I have worked with and the rest are people I had considered old friends. That these people, whom I had lost contact with, but still considered warmly, should ignore my request to join me on LinkedIn, is very instructive indeed. It says that, perhaps, my memories of them are undeserved, that the lingering warmth I feel for their inner image, within me, is inappropriate. It prompts me to re-evaluate my personal history.

Further examination of those who ignore my request is even more instructive. One of them was once considered my “best friend”. Yet, he has ignored my request now, for over a week and a half. Why has he not accepted? There is, perhaps, a clue in the number of his connections. He has HUNDREDS. He may actually begrudge me the advantage that would accrue upon accessing his network, given that mine is new and much smaller. There might be some selfishness at work here. Either that, or there are things I just don’t know about my former best friend, at all.

Then again, there is another LinkedIn member who has ignored my request. In this case I cannot be entirely certain that I have the right person, but it is extremely likely that I do, since he is in the same industry and has the same rare name. He is a writer, or as he puts it: “Independent Publishing Professional”. He is actually a best selling literary writer, whom I first met about 17 years ago, unbelievable as that is to write, now. Those 17 years seem awfully brief. I met him regularly, over the space of about six years in the 1990s, then a couple of times in the last decade (since I had left the country). However, it should be noted that I met him many times, and we had many conversations. I considered him a good friend. He, too, has ignored my request. In his case, I do wonder if he is, again, guarding his contacts, most of which are in publishing/writing. He knows that I am a writer. Perhaps he feels competitive.

LinkedIn is a test of the solidity of one’s relationships and friendships. If an overture to an old friend is ignored, then it allows one to reconsider whether that “old friend” was much of a friend at all – or whether they are too shallow to remember one, over the intervening years.

In a way, therefore, though disappointed, I am as grateful to those who refuse my LinkedIn request, as to those who accept. Those who refuse to join me on LinkedIn are letting me know the true nature of their feelings and thoughts towards me. They are letting me understand how little, perhaps, I really knew them at all.

So, here is a big thank you to all those who have joined me on LinkedIn – and just as big a thank you to all those who have refused to do so. You have spared me much time, in my future life, from considering you. Thanks.

(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, 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.

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.)

A strange case of serendipity.

Sometimes life seems stranger than one understands.

A few days ago, someone I had not heard from in five years emailed me. We used to meet regularly but parted ways and just stopped meeting one day. Five long years passed and I never saw him once in all that time. I wrote back to reestablish contact and asked him how he had been and so on.

Then, two days later, I went to the East of Singapore to visit a new born child...a cousin to my boys. Upon leaving and going home, and passing through the MRT, a familiar face smiled at me.

"Hello Valentine!". It was the partner of the friend I had not seen for five years. Standing beside her was my old friend.

How odd. He had only just written to me two days before - and now I was meeting him by chance at an MRT station I never normally visited.

The meeting was a brief reintroduction flavoured by a mutual astonishment that we should meet by chance shortly after emailing.

Given this kind of occurrence, it is easy to think how some people might come to believe in "magical" explanations for things...but I prefer a more grounded term: serendipity - for was not the happy chance that we should meet so shortly after expressing a wish to, serendipitous? Yet, boy, did it feel strange.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)