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/

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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.)

Heath Ledger: "Natural Causes" or Karoshi?

There is speculation on the internet that Heath Ledger, the actor, may have died from "natural causes". This is said because rumour has it that the toxicity level of the drugs in his system would have been insufficient to kill a man.

I don't know if this is true. The official autopsy report is not yet out. However, granting that it is so, then we have to look elsewhere. Some are saying that he just had a heart attack. This sometimes happens, even with young, non-obese people. Sometimes, people have an undiagnosed heart defect or disorder and the first thing they know about it, they are dead. This may be so. However, there is another explanation: karoshi.

Karoshi is a Japanese concept - it means "Death from overwork". Let us look at Heath Ledger's life in the last few months: he was filming non-stop; he was sleeping very little; he spoke of being "stressed out"; interviewers described him as "twitchy" and "on-edge". He was a man who clearly was pushing the limits way too much. It could just be that he is a victim of overwork - a death by karoshi.

Again, we come back to the realization that his fame killed him. Whether it be suicide, accidental overdose or overwork/karoshi, Heath Ledger's work as a film star is what killed him.

His case is a reminder that, no matter how "well" our careers are going, no matter how many "opportunities" are coming our way, no-one should ever set aside a reasonable degree of rest and peace and quiet for it. To do so, is to risk an early demise. Perhaps employers in general could learn a lesson from this example: don't push your staff too hard - if you value your employees isn't it better to push a little less hard and let them get enough rest, so that that employee is able to continue to contribute to the company long-term rather than burn-out/breakdown/drop dead?

Everyone should be allowed to rest - and not just rest in peace.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Heath Ledger, actor, dead in NYC

Very recently, Heath Ledger starred in The Brothers Grimm, on TV, here in Singapore. He came across as a skilful and interesting actor. Today, he is dead at just 28 years old.

Whatever the cause of death is eventually established to be: suicide, or accidental overdose of sleeping pills, look the most likely - the true cause of death is his fame.

Let me explain. In an interview in November, Heath Ledger complained about being "stressed out a little too much", he noted that he had trouble sleeping (for which he was using Ambien sleeping pills, which barely worked, for an hour at a time). Indeed, at times, he was only sleeping two hours a night, for extended periods. Here was a man coming apart, unable to do the most natural of things - get a good night's sleep.

It is clear from this that he was unable to cope with the pressures of fame, or the responsibilities of his job. It was obviously too much for him. Fame killed him as assuredly as if it had shot him. Why? Well, if he had not been in the "stressful" position he was in, he would, presumably, not be unable to sleep. He would not be taking sleeping pills. He would not have taken an accidental overdose of them - or felt pressured enough to kill himself with them. In short, that which made him, also unmade him. His fame which led him to great success, also assured his end.

If someone is going to tread the path to fame, I think they should be of resilient stuff. They should be the type of person who does NOT feel the pressure; who does NOT get "stressed out". They should be calm individuals unbothered by the great responsibility of ensuring that 100 million dollar pictures succeed. Heath Ledger, it seems, was not one of those centred individuals. It would, therefore, have been a longer life, for him, had he chosen a less pressured and public life. Such a life is for the hardy - not those sensitive enough to find it impossible to sleep simply because they have a major role in a film. There are, in fact, those who would sleep easier for having such a role. It all depends on how you react to the situation.

It is a pity. He was a decent actor who brought life to each role. He had only just begun. He was, it seems, however, not strong enough a person to walk the film actor path, for long.

In his short life, he appeared in diverse roles, from his most famous role in Brokeback Mountain, to the forthcoming role as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight", as Bob Dylan in "I'm not there" (during the filming of which, he couldn't sleep), Lasse Hallstrom's "Casanova", "10 things I hate about you", "The Knight's Tale" and, of course, Terry Gilliam's "The Brother's Grimm".

Unlike many young people who die before their time, Heath Ledger will be remembered for the filmed work he left behind. That, however, does not diminish the inherent tragedy in a life cut short, a promise unfulfilled.

What he should have done is do what he had tended to do early in his career: turn down roles. He evidently needed a break from the stress. He should have retreated to somewhere quiet away from the hubbub of the film star's tumultuous world and calmed himself, and learned to do what all of us find so natural: get some sleep.

When "Dark Knight" comes out, I am going to make a point of seeing his last performance.

Good night, Heath Ledger: sleep well.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and six months, and Tiarnan, twenty-three 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)