A few weeks ago I read an absolutely amazing book. “Outliers” is the latest from the incomparable Malcolm Gladwell – the man responsible for “Blink” and “The Tipping Point.” In “Outliers,” Gladwell looks at what makes people successful in their respective fields.
What makes a man (or woman) successful, Gladwell says, is not so much where he was born, if he got good grades, what school he went to, or even his God-given talent in his area of expertise. Gladwell relates story after story to prove that what matters is as arbitrary as the month a person was born – or quite frequently the year – and how much time he or she puts into his work.
Gladwell cites what he calls the 10,000-hour rule. The idea here is that regardless of natural ability, what is really necessary for mastery in a given area is 10,000 hours of practice. Here’s an example: Music students were divided into two groups – one group of children with a natural musical ability, and another group of children who simply enjoyed playing. Over time, it became clear that the students with the natural ability had *nothing* on the other children if they didn’t put in the practice. Less-talented children who practiced did just as well if not better than the children with natural ability who practiced sporadically.
The Beatles, in their early years, had a gig in Germany that required them to play for 8-hour stretches. Bill Gates had access to computers at a time when such a thing was unheard of, especially for a 13-year-old boy. “Outliers” gives example after example of successful people who had the right opportunities in front of them to make them great. I know I’m not doing this book justice; I couldn’t possibly do it justice. This is one of those instances where I’m afraid I must insist that you read it for yourself. It will blow your mind to bits. But there is a point to my story lurking on the horizon, and I’m getting there.
I took my first piano lesson at the age of three. I loved playing and I had a knack for it and in particular for sight reading. I took lessons every week from age three to age … fourteen, probably. And even after I quit I continued to play at home for my own enjoyment – and still do. I had good instructors – great instructors, themselves gifted musicians. And I practiced at home, I really did. But I find that, at the age of twenty-five, I’m simply not that good. There are a number of twelve-year-olds out there playing as well as I do. I don’t mean to put myself down; I can tackle Rachmaninoff and Debussy with the best of them. But twenty-two years after my first lesson, I am not a concert pianist. It used to bother me, and I used to get depressed when I heard a piano played well. But no longer, for I now know why.
I’ve calculated that over the years, I’ve practiced 6,000, maybe 6,500 hours. Quite a lot, but not enough. It isn’t that I lack the talent or the skill set. I simply never spent enough time at the piano. My gift for sight-reading meant that more often than not, if I didn’t like a song I was assigned, I’d glance at it on my way to my lesson, and play it for the first time for my teacher (and I got away with it about 75% of the time). Had I really applied myself, practiced the piano instead of reading or turning cartwheels, I could easily have gotten to 10,000 hours, and I’d be at a concert hall somewhere, dazzling a well-dressed crowd.
I knew I didn’t practice enough. But I didn’t just want to play the piano. I wanted to be a kid. I wanted to play softball and read and dress up my Barbie dolls and color and swim and laugh and play. So many times I’d set a timer for the hour of piano practice I’d been prescribed, only to succumb to soul-sucking tedium after thirty-five minutes.
So I’m not a concert pianist. You know what? I’m okay with that. My vanity is such that what matters is not what I have achieved but what I could achieve if only I’d apply myself. I’m okay with that.
Particularly since I was born in the wrong month for ice hockey.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
11 January 2009
23 December 2008
Book me
If he had occasion to embarrass me, my father had one story in his arsenal that he turned to first, and I’ll paraphrase it here for you.
“With every kid,” he’d say, “things are different. They’re all born with their own personalities already in place. And you wonder what they’re going to be like, who they’ll be. You wonder what their little voices will sound like when they learn to talk, and what sort of things they’re going to say.”
Here I typically buried my face in my hands.
“It was the same with Jilly Bee,” he’d continue – he always called me Jilly Bee – “we wondered what words she’d learn when and what her voice would sound like, if she’d sound like her sister at all.
“Then she learned to talk. And she talked and talked and darned if the kid didn’t talk all day long. We couldn’t shut her up. We’d be watching TV and she’d be chattering away during the show and we’d have to try to shut her up until the commercial break.”
It seems I was a bit of a chatterbox. But looking back all I can figure is that for the first 18 months or so of my life, I couldn’t talk, and once I learned I felt I had to make up for lost time. So I talked and talked and talked. Even in my sleep, as my sister complained.
Teaching me to read was a matter of self-preservation for my parents. I could read to myself out loud, in a room other than the one the TV was in, and they’d get a little peace. I imagine that my siblings helped me out a bit, and my parents read to me. In any case I could read fairly well at three, and at 3 ½, I got a library card.
I’ve always been a fan of libraries. I go in, and I get to take their books. Any books I want! I can just take them! I got such a kick out of that as a kid. I was used to going to stores with my mother and hearing that no, I couldn’t have this or that, because it was too much money. But in the library, it was all free! I was hooked. Fines in those days were about a nickel a day for an overdue book. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
Many years later the library moved to a new home, one much bigger than the closet-sized city building it had been in before. I hated it at first. It didn’t feel like my library. It smelled funny. It was on the edge of a cliff. I had my reasons. But I lived in a town without a bookstore, so I went to the new library.
At the start of my senior year of high school, the library had an opening for a shelver. On a whim, I applied, and much to my surprise I got the job. They’d never hired a teenager before, so I was rather flattered, although I suspected my literacy and familiarity with the library had more to do with the decision than anything else. That, and the fact that three of the librarians had known me since I was three and started coming to the library. In any case, I started working there most days after school.
I loved it. It was heaven. Every book in town was at my disposal. I got my grubby hands on new books the instant they were processed (and many times I got to type out the labels, apply the barcodes, and cover them). Not only that, every day before I started work, I could access my account and check on the due dates of the books I’d checked out. I could renew them myself if I needed to.
When I moved to Gilbert, one of the first things I looked for was the public library. And I found it – less than two miles from my house, it was a monster of a building, with easily twice the number of books I was used to. I didn’t know any of the employees, I didn’t know where anything was … and I couldn’t renew my own books.
None of this stopped me of course. I checked out book after book after book, often filling up my card. But the thing you have to remember about me is that I’m sort of an idiot. I had the darndest time remembering to renew my books before they were due back, or remembering to turn them in on time. I had so many books out that I didn’t read most of them. And fines were no longer the nickel I was used to. I think it was a quarter per item per day.
A few years ago, I had a period of six months where three times, I owed more than sixty dollars in overdue fees. Once I owed more than 100. I was gainfully employed and not in much debt so I managed, but I felt sick about it. I am at heart a very cheap person, and I realized that for the money, I might as well be buying my own books to keep forever instead of borrowing. So I started going to bookstores and I never looked back. I’ve been to the library building twice in the past three years, and both times I just went in to vote – I didn’t even go in to the main library where the books are. No books checked out meant no fines. And bookstore books had the advantage of not smelling like the last person who checked them out, as is so often the case with library books. And I can read them at my leisure with no pressure and no time limit. They are mine, to do with as I please.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I own a good 5,000 or so books (that I know of). It’s self-defense and a very twisted sort of cheapness. And it works.
“With every kid,” he’d say, “things are different. They’re all born with their own personalities already in place. And you wonder what they’re going to be like, who they’ll be. You wonder what their little voices will sound like when they learn to talk, and what sort of things they’re going to say.”
Here I typically buried my face in my hands.
“It was the same with Jilly Bee,” he’d continue – he always called me Jilly Bee – “we wondered what words she’d learn when and what her voice would sound like, if she’d sound like her sister at all.
“Then she learned to talk. And she talked and talked and darned if the kid didn’t talk all day long. We couldn’t shut her up. We’d be watching TV and she’d be chattering away during the show and we’d have to try to shut her up until the commercial break.”
It seems I was a bit of a chatterbox. But looking back all I can figure is that for the first 18 months or so of my life, I couldn’t talk, and once I learned I felt I had to make up for lost time. So I talked and talked and talked. Even in my sleep, as my sister complained.
Teaching me to read was a matter of self-preservation for my parents. I could read to myself out loud, in a room other than the one the TV was in, and they’d get a little peace. I imagine that my siblings helped me out a bit, and my parents read to me. In any case I could read fairly well at three, and at 3 ½, I got a library card.
I’ve always been a fan of libraries. I go in, and I get to take their books. Any books I want! I can just take them! I got such a kick out of that as a kid. I was used to going to stores with my mother and hearing that no, I couldn’t have this or that, because it was too much money. But in the library, it was all free! I was hooked. Fines in those days were about a nickel a day for an overdue book. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
Many years later the library moved to a new home, one much bigger than the closet-sized city building it had been in before. I hated it at first. It didn’t feel like my library. It smelled funny. It was on the edge of a cliff. I had my reasons. But I lived in a town without a bookstore, so I went to the new library.
At the start of my senior year of high school, the library had an opening for a shelver. On a whim, I applied, and much to my surprise I got the job. They’d never hired a teenager before, so I was rather flattered, although I suspected my literacy and familiarity with the library had more to do with the decision than anything else. That, and the fact that three of the librarians had known me since I was three and started coming to the library. In any case, I started working there most days after school.
I loved it. It was heaven. Every book in town was at my disposal. I got my grubby hands on new books the instant they were processed (and many times I got to type out the labels, apply the barcodes, and cover them). Not only that, every day before I started work, I could access my account and check on the due dates of the books I’d checked out. I could renew them myself if I needed to.
When I moved to Gilbert, one of the first things I looked for was the public library. And I found it – less than two miles from my house, it was a monster of a building, with easily twice the number of books I was used to. I didn’t know any of the employees, I didn’t know where anything was … and I couldn’t renew my own books.
None of this stopped me of course. I checked out book after book after book, often filling up my card. But the thing you have to remember about me is that I’m sort of an idiot. I had the darndest time remembering to renew my books before they were due back, or remembering to turn them in on time. I had so many books out that I didn’t read most of them. And fines were no longer the nickel I was used to. I think it was a quarter per item per day.
A few years ago, I had a period of six months where three times, I owed more than sixty dollars in overdue fees. Once I owed more than 100. I was gainfully employed and not in much debt so I managed, but I felt sick about it. I am at heart a very cheap person, and I realized that for the money, I might as well be buying my own books to keep forever instead of borrowing. So I started going to bookstores and I never looked back. I’ve been to the library building twice in the past three years, and both times I just went in to vote – I didn’t even go in to the main library where the books are. No books checked out meant no fines. And bookstore books had the advantage of not smelling like the last person who checked them out, as is so often the case with library books. And I can read them at my leisure with no pressure and no time limit. They are mine, to do with as I please.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I own a good 5,000 or so books (that I know of). It’s self-defense and a very twisted sort of cheapness. And it works.
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