A HIP EXUBERANT HIGH ENERGY MOUTH WATERING SENSUAL DELICIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL YOU ARE DUMB IF YOU DON’T GET IT MOVIE REVIEW OF “THE GOLDFINCH” FOR BRAINY PEOPLE by Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator and Trial Attorney

“THE GOLDFINCH” IS A MOVIE FOR BRAINY PEOPLE

Other reviewers who put down this movie didn’t get it.

Everyone has a point at which they break down.

One bad thing after another happens to the main character in the book THE GOLDFINCH and in the movie THE GOLDFINCH.

That is why the book THE GOLDFINCH is 800 pages long and the movie is 2-1/2 hours long.

I spent five days writing a movie review of THE GOLDFINCH.

It took that long to describe in detail physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically what is happening and what happened in the movie.

The many stories told in the subplots in the movie are about the importance and difficultly of making sense of people we don’t know as bad things are happening.

This movie is about the importance and value of friendship.

The takeaway from this movie is the importance of friendship.

The friendship of the Russian Drug Lord Kingpin (played masterfully by actor Aneurin Barnard) saves the life of the main character in the movie.

The movie makes it clear that it is too late to get a friend when you need one.

Get friends before you need one.

THE GOLDFINCH is a cinematic masterpiece.

Hip people will love this movie.

Smart people will love this movie.

Psychologically oriented people will love this movie.

Literate people will love this movie.

Fashion oriented people will love this movie.

People who love movies will love this movie.

This movie will become a cult classic with broad appeal.

The acting in this movie is superb.

The cinematography in this film is fantastic.

The screenplay is fabulous.

Different strokes turn on those who are awake then those who aren’t.

I loved this film.

In my review (below) I explain you are dumb if you don’t see THE GOLDFINCH

BACKGROUND

I saw THE GOLDFINCH on Monday night, September 16, 2019.

Many reviewers think this movie is going to bomb.

One reviewer thinks this movie likely to become one of cinema history’s biggest flops after making only $2.6 million at the US box office on its opening weekend.

Another reviewer, the Wall Street Journal reviewer, thinks it’s the worse movie ever made, at least the part he didn’t sleep through.

WHAT IS THE GOLDFINCH MOVIE ABOUT?

While I was watching THE GOLDFINCH I didn’t know what it was about.

At the end of the movie, the person I saw the movie with said, “The characters were better than the story!”

I agreed because I still didn’t know what the story was about or even if there was a story.

After thinking about the movie intently on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and discussing the movie for about two hours with a very intelligent couple, I concluded the movie does tell a story as it is sending a strong important message.

The important message THE GOLDFINCH sends is knowledge gives you an edge, lack of intellectual flexibility and doubt will get you into trouble because love and expectations of appropriate behavior trump everything.

Accurately and quickly communicating emotions to one another is of critical importance to the human species.

You never know what is going to decide your future.

THE OPENING SCENE

In the opening scene the main character (a young well dressed man) is in a hotel room in Amsterdam about to commit suicide.

The next scenes are flash backs to a series of events that happened in his life – some just happened and some he caused.

These events lead to him being in that hotel room in the opening scene -ready to give up on life by committing suicide.

NEXT FEW SCENES

In the next scene the young man who was about to commit suicide in the first scene is a small young boy richly and stylishly attired holding his mother’s hand in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.

We can tell from the clothes he is wearing and from the clothes she is wearing that they are wealthy members of high society.

Such attire is expected in many places and situations in Manhattan and you will not be seated in some formal restaurants if you don’t comply.

After a brief dialog with her son, she leaves her son – near a gift shop – to look at a painting in a nearby gallery.

Immediately, or soon after she leaves her son, there is a loud explosion, a bomb explodes.

The screen is filled with bellowing smoke, dense clouds of smoke make the contents of room in which we are looking invisible.

Eventually the boy becomes visible in a thick smoke filled room.  The boy is surrounded by dead bodies.

The young boy begins to search in another smoke filled room for his mother.

He sees an old distinguished looking well dressed man sitting up.

He goes towards the old distinguished looking well dressed man.

The old man points to a painting on the floor in the rubble; he tells the boy to pick up the painting and keep it.

The boy picks the painting up and puts it in a bag.

The man takes a ring off one of his figures and gives his ring to the boy.

He tells the boy to bring the ring to an antique furniture dealer in Manhattan.

He tells the boy to ring a buzzer located in an alley behind the antique store to meet the man to whom he is to show the ring.

The boy is instructed the back door will be opened after the boy pushes a buzzer on a wall in the alley next to the door.

From the clothing the old man is wearing, the ring he gave the young boy, and from the both of them being in the Metropolitan Art Museum we know the old man is a very wealthy, knowledgeable, debonair art aficionado and the young well dressed boy is a member of a wealthy high society family.

The director has played to our expectations of what rich high society people look like.

We believe we know “what” and “who” the young well dressed boy and the old distinguished looking well dressed man are because of what they are wearing.

THE STORY PROGRESSES

We learn that from a newspaper article that is shown on the screen that the masterpiece (THE GOLDFINCH) was destroyed in the explosion at the Metropolitan Museum and that the boy whose mother was killed by the bomb exploding in the Metropolitan Museum has been taken in by a high society family.

We see well and expensively-dressed Nicole Kidman talking to the young boy in her home.

We know from that scene that Nicole Kidman is the mother in the high society household who has given refuse to the young boy.

We see that the furniture, furnishings, wall paper, and carpets in that home are elegant.

The collection of furniture and furnishings meets our expectations of what a wealthy high society home will look like.

However, in real life, home-life is not wonderful in that home.

The man of the house, Nicole Kidman’s husband, is a sociopath.

ADOPTIVE FAMILY’S SOCIAL PATHOLOGY

In the next scenes, we are shown the young boy’s adaptive family eating dinner at a formal dinner table.

At the family dinner table the father creates arguments and disputes.

The father is aggressively dominating and verbally abusive.

We see: There was no pleasant conversation at the dinner table.

The dinner table was not a place where soft music was playing, pleasant conversations were taking place, or a place that had the emotionally soothing and pleasantly intoxicating glow of friendship in action.

The family dinner is chaotic experience, not a cozy restful interlude after a full day, not a place where one can find order, predictability and/or orderly pleasant rituals bring practiced.

THE STORY CONTINUES

In a series of succeeding scenes the young boy’s father appears.

He has an imperious manner.

He is wiry and energetic.

He is compelling, a likeable talker.

We have previously been told, the young boy’s father had walked out on his wife (the young boy’s mother) and had abandoned the young boy when the young boy was quite young.

The young boy’s father suddenly walks into Nicole Kidman’s house accompanied with a dazzlingly sexy girlfriend, announces that he is the boy’s father and that he has come to take the boy with him to his home in Las Vegas.

The father tells Nicole Kidman that he is a successful musician who lives and performs in Las Vegas.

I could tell from the clothes the father was wearing and the loudness of his voice that he was not a successful musician.

He is a breezy person who glad-hands people.

His clothes and demeanor are out of nowhere, so out of place, that the suspicious amongst us (myself for example) suspect the young boy’s father is up to no good.

However, in real life we tend to judge a person’s honesty based on their demeanor.  Well-spoken, confident people with a firm handshake who are friendly and engaging are seen as believable.

Some people believe over evolutionary time the face developed into a billboard for the heart. They believe a person’s demeanor is a window into their soul.

That is – to put it mildly – nonsense.

A liar can act like an honest person.

We later find out that the young boy’s father is an emotionally disturbed person.

Looking backward, as we learn more about the father we realize the clothes the young boy’s father wears as the movie progressed – from the moment he appears in the movie throughout the entire time he is on the screen – in hindsight match exactly how we think an emotionally disturbed person would dress.

The clothes the father wears as the movie progresses coherently carries the story forward.

THE NEXT SCENES ARE SET UP TO PROVIDE US WITH EVIDENCE THAT THE YOUNG BOY’S FATHER IS A DESPICABLE EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED PERSON

After the young boy’s father appears in the movie, viewers struggle to assess the father’s honesty, his intent, his character.

Viewers ask themselves:

• Why did the young boy’s father show up out of nowhere?
• Why has the young boy’s father come out of nowhere to take his young son from a rich stable life in Manhattan to live with him in Las Vegas?

When viewers see where the father lives and how he lives in “his house” in Las Vega – viewers learn one alarming fact after another about the young boy’s father.

Viewers learn the father is a gambling addict who is perennially in debt.

The home the father lives in is located in a large failed housing tract development on the outskirts of Las Vegas —  almost all the the other houses in the failed housing tract are empty. They are boarded up. They have for sale signs posted on them.

They have been foreclosed on; they are boarded up; they are for sale.

Viewers wonder:

• Is the father a squatter?
• Does the father own the house he is living in?
• Does the father, the father’s girlfriend, and the young boy have the right to be living in the house the father is living in?

After the young boy, and his father, and his father’s glitzy sexy girlfriend arrive at the father’s home, the father tells his young son he has made a lot of money and that he wants to put $10,000 in a bank account to be there for his son to use when his son graduates from high school and goes to college.

The young son believes his father.

Next the young boy’s father tells his young son that he [the father] needs his son’s social security number in order to open a savings account for his son

The young son believes his father.

The young boy’s father asks his young son to tell him his social security number.

The young boy gives his father his social security number.

As the story/film progresses, the young boy continues to believe his father, that his father had good intentions, until he couldn’t anymore.

When the young boy gave his father his social security number he didn’t suspect anything was amiss.

He had no doubt that everything was okay.

In real life accumulating evidence to overwhelm our doubts takes time.

A PROFOUND FRIENDSHIP TRANSFORMS THE YOUNG BOY’S LIFE

While living in an almost deserted housing tract on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the young boy strikes up a friendship with another young boy.

The other young boy is a Russian, actually a Ukrainian.

One day the young boy asks his Russian friend where he is from.

Russian gives the names of many countries, and explains that his father is a mining engineer and that they travel from country to country where his father works in mines.

The Russian also tells the young boy that his father killed a man in a mine recently, and that is why they left that country.

As the young boy is leaving his friend’s house one evening, he looks back and sees the Russian father has come home and is vigorously beating his son with a stick.

If you know that many of the horribly violent men in history who were psychopathic murders (such as Adolph Hitler) had abusive fathers you have a foretaste of what is going to happen as the story progresses.

BACK TO THE MOVIE: These two boys appear to be the only two kids living in that huge housing tract.

They go to school together.

ASIDE: It was not clear to me whether they were going to middle school or to high school together.

The story/movie progresses.

One day, the Russian boy visits the young boy’s house.

In the young boy’s house the Russian sees the young boy’s father’s girl-friend very sexually sunning herself in a bikini in the backyard next to a backyard swimming poo.

The Russian boy opens a cabinet in the kitchen. In the cabinet, he finds a clear see through package full of pills with the marking V marked on the package.

The young boy tells his Russian friend that the pills are his father’s girlfriend’s vitamins.

The Russian replies: “No they are Vicodin, a powerful narcotic.”

From that point forward, the Russian friend supplies the young boy with drugs when they hang out together.

There follows many scenes.  In those scenes the two of them (the Russian friend and the young boy) are taking drugs together and getting high together.

One afternoon the boy’s father comes home.

He confronts his son in the kitchen of their home,

1. “I need $65,000 to purchase a restaurant.”
2. “Call your mother’s attorney. Tell him you want to go to a private school. You need $65,000 to pay tuition.”
3. Then he slaps his son in the face.  Then he says, “Do it, now!”

The boy calls a law firm and asks to be talk to his deceased mother’s attorney.

The boy is put through to the attorney.  When his mother’s attorney comes on the line, he tells his mother’s attorney he needs $65,000 to pay  tuition to go to a private school.”

The attorney replies,

1. “Glad you called.  I didn’t know how to get in touch with you.”
2. “I am not allowed – by the terms of your mother’s trust fund set up for you – to send you money for school tuition directly.”
3. “Give me contact information for the school, and I will send the money directly to the school.”
4. “By the way, someone tried to use your social security number to get unauthorized access to your trust funds.”
5. “Do you know anything about that.”

The boy hangs up the phone without answering.

The father is enraged, silent for a stunned moment.

The story told in the film continues.

An ominous looking man knocks on the door of the home while the father is gone.

The young boy opens the door.  The stranger asks if the boy’s father is home. The boy says, “No.”

The stranger gives the boy his name, then asks the boy to pass along to his father the message that the stranger came to visit him.

During a later scene in the movie, the young boy’s father’s girl friend and a bunch of her friends are shown in the living room crying.

The young boy asks, “What is going on?”

The girl-friend answers, “Your father drove into the desert.”

The young boy responds, “So?”

The girl-friend responds, “Your father will not be returning. He is dead.”

At that point in the movie, the young boy decides he must leave, he must go back to Manhattan to seek refuge with the antique’s dealer’s partner who he met shortly after the bomb explosion that killed his mother and killed the distinguished gentleman – the distinguished gentleman who gave him a ring and told him to take a picture laying in the rubble to an antique furniture shop.

The young boy packs his things, including the bag that he thinks contains the picture he picked up in the rubble after the explosion in the Metropolitan Museum.

The young boy has not touched the picture since he wrapped it in newspaper and packed it in his bag so long ago while looking for his dead mother in the rubble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The young boy tells his Russian friend they must go to Manhattan, they must escape right away.

In the next scene, the young boy is standing next to a taxi cab with his Russian friend, he tells his friend, “Come with me. We must go now.”

His friend replies, “I can’t go right now.  I’ll come join you tomorrow or the next day.”

In the next scenes we see the young boy in the cab, then in a bus, then on a train or a subway, traveling alone to Manhattan.

THE YOUNG BOY HAS BEEN TAUGHT CRITICAL SURVIVAL SKILLS

Earlier in the movie we were shown a series of scenes in which the young boy goes to the antique shop, meets the distinguished man’s partner and meets the young girl that was with the distinguished man in the gallery when the bomb explosion killed his mother.

The young boy is “taken in” by the distinguished gentleman’s partner when he shows up at the antique furniture store and shows the only man there the ring the distinguished gentleman had given him.

While the young boy is living with the high society family the distinguished gentleman’s partner becomes a “father figure” to the young boy.

The young boy visits the gentleman’s partner and the injured girl while he is living with the high society family and when he returns to Manhattan.

The distinguished gentleman’s partner teaches the young boy critical skills for survival as he is becoming a “father figure.”

The young boy’s “father figure” teaches the young boy skills that will enable the young boy to be self-sustaining, self-sufficient.

He teaches the young boy about antique furniture, how to restore antique furniture, how to make antique furniture reproductions. how to tell the difference between an antique piece of furniture a restored piece of antique furniture and a reproduction of a piece of antique furniture, and how to talk about antique furniture.

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

The young boy lives with the nice man (father figure) in the Antique Furniture Store when returns to Manhattan.

The antique furniture shop succeeds wildly as a result of the young boy taking on the role of salesman.

One day, by chance, he meets the Nicole Kidman’s eldest son on the street.

The eldest son tells the young boy (who is now a young man) that his brother and his father are dead.

He is sure his mother and his sister would love to see him.

He goes with the eldest son to their home – where with great surprise and warmth he is greeted by Nicole Kidman and her now beautiful daughter.

A warm relationship ensues, so warm that the daughter and the now young man decide to marry.

ANOTHER CHANCE ENCOUNTER

One night while the young man is out, he sees the woman he is about to marry with another man.

He steps into a flower shop so that the woman will not see him.

From the flower shop he sees her lovingly kissing another man.

ANOTHER ENCOUNTER

A creepy customer comes into the antique furniture shop.

He tells the young man (the former young boy) that he bought an antique that really wasn’t an antique. It was a reproduction of an antique.

The young man tells the creepy customer there must have been a mistake, the antique furniture store will buy back that piece of furniture, give the man his money back.

The creepy customer tells the young man, “That is not what I want.”

The young man replies, “Of course, we will pay you a $10,000 premium.”

The creepy customer replies:

1. “I know who you are.”
2. “You are the boy whose mother died in the bomb explosion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
3. “I know you have the painting that went missing after the explosion, “THE GOLDFINCH.” “I want you to sell it to me.”  “I will pay you $500,000 for it.” “If you don’t sell it to me I will report you to the FBI.”

The young man replies: “You are crazy.” “I don’t have THE GOLDFINCH.” “Report me to the FBI.”

After the young man and the creepy customer part company, the young man calls is drug dealer.

He tells his drug dealer he needs to purchase some drugs.

The drug dealer tells him to go to a bar, meet and talk to so and so in the bar.

ANOTHER CHANCE ENCOUNTER

By chance the young man then runs into his boyhood friend, the Russian boy who supplied him with dope while he was living with his father in Nevada on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

The Russian boy is now a young man, a very successful young man.

The Russian tells his boyhood friend, that he has been searching for him.

He tells him that he owes is success as a drug dealer to him.

That night when he didn’t go into the taxi cab he had something important to say, but didn’t say it.

He wanted to tell his friend that he had taken his painting; he wanted to tell him he saw the painting in the bag, decided it was valuable and took it.

He now wants to make amends.

The young man tells the successful Russian Drug Dealer Kingpin that he wants to return the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Russian Drug Dealer Kingpin tells him he no longer has the painting, but he will help the young man get it back.

THIS IS WHERE, WHILE WATCHING THE MOVIE,  I BEGAN TO SIT ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT

What happened next in the movie was not only suspenseful and dramatic it was simultaneously unbelievable and believable.

I recommend that you see the movie to find out what happens next.

LOVE STORIES

THE GOLDFINCH is a movie of interrelated tender sub-plots.

Each sub-plot [standing-alone] is a hip highly biased – full of editorial content – portrayal of the human condition.

Each story portrayed in each sub-plot presents a myth destroying message.

The idea that people’s behavior and demeanor – the way they present themselves on the outside – always presents an authentic and reliable window into the way they feel on the inside is debunked.

Dishonesty and stupidity are everywhere.

EXTRAORDINARY

The acting and costuming in THE GOLDFINCH are extraordinary.

The cinematography is spectacular.

VALUE LADEN SHORT STORIES

There are many value laden short stories – subplots – in this movie.

My favorite character is the Russian boy (masterly played by Aneurin Barnard) who becomes the young boy’s life long loyal friend.

RISKING LIFE AND LIMB

This Russian boy risks his life and limb doing a “favor” for his best friend.

What the Russian boy does for his friend – the main character – and how he does it in this film is suspenseful and complicated.

What the Russian boy does for his friend is shown at the end of the film in a series of action scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat.

HEAD AND HEART

My favorite sub-plot in this movie takes place when the main character leaves his finance at a party they are at, ostensibly celebrating their upcoming marriage.

He tells her he is going away for a few days.

She knows he will never be coming back.

He walks out on her because while he was on a walk alone a few nights before the party he saw her kiss another man.

He knew then that she loved the other man.

When he confronts her, she admits she loves the other man but tries to convince him to marry her anyway.

She tells him that he and she are a good social match;  that he marrying her will make her mother (Nicole Kidman) happy and will make her happy also.

HE WANTED IT ALL, HER HEAD AND HER HEART

He refused to settle for a good social match.

He wanted his wife to love him with a full heart.

It wasn’t enough for him that they got along, that she was smart and pretty, or that she was a member of a big shot distinguished social family and that he likes her mother.

SUPERB ART

This movie is as polished as a movie can be.

CONCLUSION

THE GOLDFINCH is a 2-1/2 hour film about making sense of people.

The truth about someone is not a hard and shiny object that can be extracted if only we look deep enough and hard enough.

Success in making sense of people is no accident.

MUTUALITY (like the mutuality the Russian boy and the main character have in the movie) is necessary for building an integrated identity and maintaining strong emotional ties.

Obtaining friendship takes time.

It takes perseverance.

You can only know one aspect of a person at a time with certainty.

Observation of people affects the properties of the person being observed.

A person can be instantly affected or known by some thought or event taking place near or infinity far away.

Be that as it may, making friends and being friends with other people are two of the most important things you can do.

 

Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator, and Trial Attorney

 

Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

A Serious Conversation On How To Be A Success And Happy At The Same Time (Part One) – by Gary S. Smolker

Introduction

My friends keep me constantly engaged in honest and heartfelt conversation – via e-mail – about serious and fundamental things.

The author of each e-mail gives pointers (shares his or her ideas) on how everyone who wants to enjoy success and happiness should “follow-through” in performing a few simple tasks in their daily lives.

Below are redacted copies of a few of those e-mails.

The first of the redacted e-mails that follow gives the bare outline of what the author sincerely believes one ought to do to be a success and happy at the same time.

The other redacted e-mails which follow in this article contain comments on the ideas expressed in the first e-mail (copy below) and expand upon the ideas set forth in the first e-mail.

Below is a list of the dates and subject matter of each of the redacted e-mails shared with you in this article.

Table of Contents & Index to the Smorgasbord of Ideas Exchanged in the Copies of E-Mails Which Follow

First E-Mail (dated January 27, 2015) sets forth, in less than 100 words, “Golden Rules for Success.”

Second E-Mail (dated January 27, 2014): Praise of the “Golden Rules for Success.”

Third E-Mail (dated January 28, 2015): Supplement to “Golden Rules”

Fourth E-mail (dated January 28, 2015): The need to have a purpose in life

Fifth E-mail (dated January 28, 2015): “Love what you do”

Sixth E-mail (dated February 4, 2015): What an individual needs to do to achieve great things and to build a stronger future

Seventh E-mail (dated February 4, 2015) Asks the question: “What better fits your busy schedule, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?”

Eighth E-mail (dated February 4, 2015): Devoting Time To Your Real Passions

Ninth E-mail (dated February 5, 2015): Taking Chances

I. “Golden Rules for Success”

E-mail sent Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 8:12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) to GSS:

Gary-

One doesn’t need 9,600 words to describe or explain how to be a success and be happy at the same time.. God told us to Obey Him and leave all the Consequences to Him… He also said that we reap what we sow, more than we sow and later than we sow…  We basically have 2 choices in life… follow the Flesh and reap all of it’s “rewards” which are temporary, or follow the Spirit and reap His rewards that are long (eternal is a long time) lasting .. one cannot serve two masters.. one can’t be on two opposing roads at the same time and once cannot serve someone or something (I know there were 2 double negatives)… you might call it yin-yang or good vs evil but we cannot be in two different and opposing places at once…  So sow success – be generous and kind and trustworthy and happy towards others and you shall reap success which will bring happiness.. and more than you sowed!

Mo

II.  Compliments on Job Well Done

E-mail sent Tuesday, January 27, 2025 at 8:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) to GSS

Mo says it so well.!

Ray

III.  Comment on Job Well Done and My Experience with Mo

Ray,

Mo is brilliant.

Mo gets right to the point.

Mo identifies the issue, explains the choices and comes to a “rational”/ logical conclusion.

I totally agree with Mo’s point that the first requirement for becoming a success and happy is to have a reason for getting out of bed in the morning, i.e. it is necessary (a) to have a purpose in life, (b) to have a purpose for living.

I also totally agree with Mo’s second point that it is necessary (a) to have a positive outlook, (b) to see yourself as a work-in-progress, (c) to be willing to deal with difficulties, (d) to be an individual who believes he or she can change and grow, and (e) to believe that the more you labor at something the better you get at it.

The reasons I totally agree with the points made above is because I believe:

• The mind is a learning machine.  
• We are agents of our own development.
• People may differ in intelligence, talent and ability, but great accomplishment, and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from being born “smart” or with a “talent.”

My first interaction with Mo occurred 30 years ago. 

I called Mo out of the blue to discuss a problem.

Mo did not know me, but knew the person who had given me Mo’s name and phone number.

In spite of not knowing me, Mo was kind and generous towards me and made it clear that she was happy to help me.

About twenty years later, I had my second contact with Mo.

Since then I have had many pleasant contacts and interactions with Mo.

Mo has always been kind and generous towards me and has always expressed her genuine happiness to be doing whatever I asked her to do.

Gary

IV.  Work At What You Love And You Will Love Your Work

E-mail sent on January 28, 2015 at 8:40 a.m. PST to GSS

Sounds good and I believe he’s correct.

I also preach “work at what you love and you will love your work.”

It does not matter much what one chooses to do for their life’s work as long as they love what they are doing, they will have a happy life and enjoy their work.

When that happens success happens and when success happens happiness happens.

So, be happy in your work, love your work and you will enjoy life.

Being helpful and generous to others brings great joy to the giver.

It’s not all about “me me me.”

Share your happiness and success!

Paul

V. “Love What You Are Doing”

Paul,

I couldn’t agree more with you.

You have to love what you are doing.

Here is what Basketball Hall of Famer John Stockton, has said about that:

“Much of my success has come from many hours of hard work, but I readily admit practice was most often fun, and never a drudgery for me.

” You have to love what you are doing.

According to Stockton, in his teenage years that meant, “you’d rather give up going out on Friday night to go shoot the ball, even if it’s by yourself at the gym or on the courts at the park.

“I spent many lonely Friday and Saturday nights shooting, sometimes in a snowy driveway.

“I made many, many mistakes during games and you have to see past those as a leader.  You can’t say, ‘Oh my’, and pout about how poorly you shot or what kind of pass you made.  You have to look forward and then try to share that with your teammates if they start pouting.  I’d say ‘Come on, we got the next one; pick us up.’

“I was able to forget my mistakes and other people’s mistakes and continue to advance.

“My dad’s philosophy on life remains key; ‘It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up that matters.’

“It’s those kind of traits that you can’t teach.  And really, that’s the key, you love it so much you want to stick with it.”

Stockton entered the Hall of Fame in 2009.

Stockton was on the 1992 and 1996 Olympic gold medal U.S. basketball teams.

He holds the NBA all-time assist record –

• 15,806 assists, the most in NBA history,
• 1,164 in one season, still tops, and 
• 14.5 per-game assist average in one season, also a record.

Here is what his coach Frank Layden at Utah Jazz has said about Stockton, “Nobody thought he was going to be this good.  But the thing was, nobody measured his heart.”

VI.  What Individuals Must Do Achieve Great Things And To Build A Stronger Future

E-mail sent on February 4, 2015 at 9:49 a.m. to GSS

Gary,

I believe everyone is capable of achieving great things.  

We are all part of a large and diverse society which has achieved magnificent things in the past couple of thousand years.

Everyone can find something productive they are good at and they enjoy doing.

I believe if we are to build a stronger future there are two things that have to happen before we can truly achieve a state of serenity.

First and most importantly, I think we need to accept that the mold of how to be successful is presented to us at a very young age may not always be the right path for everyone.

This mold of do well in high school so you can get to a good college and make something of yourself is an illusion which sets a standard that not everyone is willing or wanting to meet.

I myself have friends with masters degrees in different fields and they regret going down that path and getting into all this debt for the promise of a better future which is not necessarily true.

We need to understand and accept that everyone has a different outlet and that we are not all the same.

Let our kids choose who they are.

We have no right making these decisions for them.

What I propose is once a student reaches 11th grade, let him choose a field (arts, design, engineering, etc.) and prepare them to become successful in this field.

Give them classes that will prepare them for their college classes in that field or for that field itself.

The second step to making our society stronger is really valuing our education and its power and effects.  

We currently live in a society where one may put off getting an education because of the expense of it.

If we want a stronger future, we need a better education system that educates everyone.

Take a note from other countries that pay their students to go to school and be educated.

This is a very rough idea of what we should do to better our future.

I truly believe that if we all try to make this world a nicer place to be in every day, then trying “to save the world” may not be as difficult as we make it seem.

Thank you for your time.

VII.  What Better Fits Your Busy Schedule – Exercising One Hour A Day Or Being Dead 24 Hours A Day?

Or,

Thank you for your reply to my question, “How can we build a stronger future?”

I throughly agree with what you have said:  Everyone deserves to receive an appropriate education, including giving children in school an opportunity to flex their intellects.

Although the goal of education in the U.S. is for all children to maximize their potential, the focus of funding has primarily been on the most vulnerable children, such as those with disabilities, who are rightly guaranteed a free appropriate education.

Today researchers, policy makers and teachers pay little to no attention to high-achieving students.

Many such students spend their days in school unchallenged – not being stimulated, or “learning” material they have already mastered.  They are bored to death.

This country, and the world, needs to develop its human resources to the full.

The failure to develop talented students means that fewer of them will become future innovators of products and services; creative thinkers to solve major social, economic, technological and environmental problems; or performers writers directors set directors musicians, etc. to entertain, inspire and soothe our souls.

If we are to nurture a cadre of capable leaders, we must commit to gifted education instead of assuming that academically gifted children will be successful no matter what their educational environment.

Lucky for me, I was in high school in 1957, when Sputnik took the world by storm.

The launch of Sputnik (by the Soviets) prompted the U.S. government to fund extra educational enrichment programs which infused attention and resources to talented youth – through the National Defense Education Act.

I benefited from that.

While in high school, in Palm Springs, California, through the National Science Foundation, at no expense to me or to my family, I attended a summer program at Cal State Northridge, at which I met other high school students from all over the state of California – one of whom became a life long friend.

Also, while in high school, at no expense to me or my family, I attended a National Science Fair competition in Albuquerque New Mexico, at which I met other high school students from all over the United States.

I was given special educational opportunities while in college: I was provided with a laboratory in which to work on my “own” research project at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California while I was an undergraduate attending the Berkeley campus of the University of California.

Additionally, Proctor & Gamble gave me a high paying summer job – between my junior and senior years as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley – as a “trouble-shooter” on projects Procter & Gamble designed for me to work on in Procter & Gamble’s manufacturing plant in Sacramento, California.

In the summer between graduating from UC Berkeley and attending Cornell University as a graduate student, the U.S. Navy employed me at a high paying summer job at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland.

I have no doubt that a key to developing talent may lie in giving students lots of opportunities to pursue their interests.

A 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.”  

I’ve seen that play out in various jobs I’ve had during the past fifty years.

For more than fifty years, I’ve seen exceptional thinkers successfully launch their arrows into the unknown.

Not one of them was/is afraid to fail. 

They all all succeeded tremendously.

The progress of the world depends almost entirely on education.

You can get your education from the college of hard knocks or elsewhere.

I personally do not believe in coloring by the numbers solutions to novel difficult problems.

I am a strong proponent of experience that helps form good judgment and constant purposeful training/learning.

Recently, one of my more vibrant friends – concerned about how many hours a day I work and who believes that I work non-stop seven days a week – sent me a card which reads, “What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?”

 VIII.  Actions And Inactions Produce Results

Email sent February 4, 2015 at 11:32 p.m. PST

“What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?”

That is actually very interesting.

Some people may actually choose the latter and not even realize it.

It’s sad to see how little time people devote to their true passions, living a life that may seem busy and happy but is actually empty and lacking all life and color, not due to what their schedule looks like but what they seem to be doing (or not doing) with that time.

Or maybe I’m reading into it too much.  

Either way, it is an interesting statement.

Thank you for your time.

Please feel free to send me more of these emails.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk about these things on a serious level.

Sincerely,

Or

IX.  Taking Chances

I agree with you that many people don’t understand that they are making decisions by default – they are deciding whether or not to do something by default.

Here is how the author J. R. Rowling refusal to take chances:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you have failed by default.”  – J.R. Rowling

The beauty of disappointment (failures) is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Learning from your errors (failures and disappointments) can turn errors into stepping-stones to your success.

The world is moving and anyone who contents themselves with present accomplishments soon falls behind.

The Gary Smolker Thoughtful Person Club

I’ve started a “Thoughtful Person Club.”

 To join “The Gary Smolker Thoughtful Person Club” send your name and e-mail address to me by e-mail at GSmolker@aol.com.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 by Gary S. Smolker