Nothing goes to waste. Neither a minute nor an experience, good or bad.
This is not pre-destination. It is how our brain stores and evolves. Millions of calculation, prediction, reflection and reinvention.
Like technology which evolves, so do we. We made a mistake. We did it again. Then we learned. Both David Brooks and Jeremy Rifkin talked about Empathic Civilization and how men have come to relate emotionally.
We (men) were taught at an early age to hunt, to conquer and move on.
e.g. the All-terrain man (NYT Magazine March 20-2013)
If we failed, shake it off with whiskey and move on.
Tough guys don’t dance, or buy-in to empathy, emotional intelligence or group therapy.
Yet studies like the Grant Study found that men do learn from mistakes and adjust in due course.
Partly because the nature of warfare has changed (from hard to software), partly because of women have moved further in the workplace (which gave birth to a bunch of stay-at-home dads).
Whatever the reasons, we do see a generation of sensitive men emerge (or titles like “The End of Men”.
Men who use I-pod, I-phone and I-pad.
Men who drive electric cars (which Tom Wolfe calls the Elf, in his latest Back-to-Blood novel). Men who could be President (Clinton) or just be big-dog supporter of our currently re-elected President.
Not much ego there. Just collaboration across the aisle and across the ocean.
We are living in interesting times: Outgoing Chinese President, and incumbent US President.
We wouldn’t hear comments as back in Watergate days “I would run over my grandmother for the job” (Chuck Colson).
Now, it’s 2012. The world is tweeting, sharing, Liking, posting, commenting and crowdsourcing.
Utopia? Not quite.
But much better. More empathic a civilization. The late stage of evolution. Grown men do drink milk. Wear tight pants, and do yoga. Yes, I know how you feel. Nothing goes to waste. Those hours of watching and feeding the kids.
It’s well worth it. The bonding at bed-time reading. We have become role-models. For me, I hope my generational “curse” stops here. (unlike the final scene in Exorcist where the young priest, tormented so much he had to take his own life to end the never-ending downward spiral).
I hope for my girls a much better life than mine.
Nothing goes to waste. We transmit those DNA strands and a few variables of our own. It happens to be the first stage of empathic men, last stage of Alpha male.
God bless Aimy and Maily.