Learning Greatness from Giannis and Tiger

 

Buried deep in an otherwise pleasant GQ article about supremely likable NBA mega-star Giannis Antetokounmpo is this thunder bolt of a quote:

In the end, greatness is fundamentally isolating. What you have to do to achieve it separates you from everyone else in a way that is difficult to undo.

And immediately I'm taken to this Tiger Woods commercial from the late 2000's, in which he lists all the pleasurable things he can do on a rainy day, but then notes that he doesn't get rainy days because he's always working at his craft.

I'll never be as good as the Greek Freak is at hoop or Tiger was at golf, not by a long stretch.  But there is something to be said, being both the president of a consulting firm and a dad who desires to be active in his kids' lives, about how much of a grind it is to do this.  Success, it is said, is something that everyone wants but few want to pay the true cost for.  

There will, God willing, be time in my life for the "rainy day activities" in Tiger's commercial, for the un-separating from people and pleasures referenced in Giannis' quote.  For now, not so much.  Waking up early, banging out emails late into the night, sweating every detail to take care of clients or co-workers or family members and then making sure it actually gets done day in and day out: I choose this, I love this, I know what it is costing me and I am happy to pay it. 

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 306

 

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "A Queer History of the United States," by Michael Bronski.

These anarchist writings about homosexuality are a radical break from most thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They argue that sexuality is natural and positive, that sex can be solely about pleasure and, if consensual, should not be the subject of any laws. These basic precepts about sexuality, and homosexuality, that are present today in the LGBT movement—both its liberatory and civil rights sides—find their roots in anarchist thinking.

Even the government displayed its own ambivalence. In 1943 the federally funded National Research Council, Penguin Books, and the Infantry Journal jointly published Psychology for the Fighting Man. A guide for young men new to the service, it forthrightly and calmly addressed men’s fears about homosexual impulses:

A soldier can take what comfort he may in the knowledge that other men are confronted with just about the same problems as he is and that, while they may never find an escape from them, most men manage to endure them and do not allow them to impair their efficiency seriously.

It helps to work hard. It helps to avoid the company of those preoccupied with sex.

It helps to get as much fun as possible. Companionship with the other men and the varied social activities of camp life keep a soldier from lonely brooding and day-dreaming. So does the intensive activity of campaign and battle. For those who enjoy them, athletic sports—boxing matches or ball games—are diverting and healthful.

The guide also noted that some homosexuals in the military were not conflicted about their sexuality. It advised that if such men “readily apply their interest and energy to the tasks of army life” and “if they are content with quietly seeking the satisfaction of their sexual needs with others of their own kind, their perversion may continue to go unnoticed and they may even become excellent soldiers.”

At the same time that it was distributing Psychology for the Fighting Man, the military was beginning to purge homosexuals. In 1941 secretary of war Henry Stimson ordered all “sodomists” be court-martialed and, if found guilty, sentenced to five years of hard labor. The courts-martial quickly became too costly. In 1942 Stimson allowed Section 8 discharges—called “blue discharges,” after the color of the paper on which they were printed—for homosexuals. A Section 8 discharge was not a dishonorable discharge, issued after a court-martial, but neither was it an honorable discharge. The Veterans Administration quickly determined that a Section 8 discharge precluded a former service member from entitlements. These included access to health care at a VA hospital and accessing the numerous benefits of the GI Bill, such as college tuition, occupational training, mortgage insurance, and loans to start businesses. Worse, a Section 8 discharge often meant that the former service member was unable to get a job in civilian life.

The army alone issued between forty-nine thousand and sixty-eight thousand Section 8 discharges. As the war drew to a close, Section 8 discharges were given more frequently. Homosexuals were not the only ones affected. African Americans were discharged, often for protesting civilian and military Jim Crow laws, in such disproportionate numbers—22.2 percent for a group that made up only 6.5 percent of the army—that the national black press started a campaign against the practice.

For homosexuals, receiving a Section 8—which essentially indicated mental illness—could be devastating. Women and men were often committed to hospital psychiatric units for examinations, grilled about their sexual thoughts and practices, and forced to give names of their sexual partners. Many men were physically and sexually abused, and public humiliation was commonplace. In some places, homosexual servicemen were rounded up and placed in “queer stockades” until they could be processed. More than five thousand homosexuals were released with Section 8 discharges from the army, and more than four thousand from the navy. Margot Canaday notes that the military stepped up purges of lesbians after the war, when women were supposed to go back into the home.

The implicit inclusion of homosexuals in the military, juxtaposed with official discrimination, complicated the homosexuals’ relationship to the ideal of American citizenship. This model was to be enacted in numerous ways over the next decades. While visibility brought benefits to homosexuals, it also brought opposition, particularly the stigma of a pathological identity. As Canaday notes, “What was an inchoate and vague sort of opposition between citizenship and perversion in the early twentieth century became a hard and clear line by midcentury.”24 The effect of these witch hunts was personally traumatic. Pat Bond states that at her base in Tokyo, over five hundred women were sent home and discharged. She vividly recalls a specific tragic incident: “They called up one of our kids—Helen. They got her up on the stand and told her that if she didn’t give names of her friends they would tell her parents she was gay. She went up to her room on the sixth floor and jumped out and killed herself. She was twenty.”

Such events illustrate an ongoing struggle between legal principles, which categorized homosexual behavior as a crime, and the more “enlightened” principles of medicine, which viewed homosexuality as an illness. As medicine’s power to define homosexuality grew, so did the implications of what it meant to be homosexual. Psychiatry, which had once defined homosexuality simply as a sexual act, now defined it as a psychological state, present with or without physical acts. Many psychiatrists believed that homosexuality should not be punished, but as a profession, they believed it could be cured.

In addition, many heterosexual feminists and civil rights advocates held biases against homosexuals. Some heterosexual feminists felt that open lesbians in the feminist movement would give credence to the accusation that feminists were all man-hating lesbians. The irony is that the feminist movement’s fundamental critique of sexual power differences, inequalities in the workplace, and the legal inequities and problems faced by women in relationship to family, marriage, and children were all first articulated by the Daughters of Bilitis. Issue after issue of The Ladder contained articles and letters describing the problems faced by women. Heterosexual feminists never acknowledged their debt to lesbians.

Wittman’s combination of community building, constructive dialogue, goodwill, trust, and fun was a mixture of New Left organizing, homosexual playfulness, and the single most important directive of gay liberation: to come out. (The term “coming out” had not been in common use before; previously the metaphor had been about coming into the homosexual world.) For gay liberationists, coming out was not simply a matter of self-identification. It was a radical, public act that would impact every aspect of a person’s life. The publicness of coming out was a decisive break from the past. Whereas homophile groups argued that homosexuals could find safety by promoting privacy, gay liberation argued that safety and liberation were found only by living in, challenging, and changing the public sphere.

The Historical Jesus

 

In a multi-cultural city in a multi-cultural time, it is appropriate to give room this season for all expressions of "holy-days."  And, even within the Christian tradition, there are folks who just celebrate the Western trappings of Christmas - Santa, trees, gifts - without any of the spirituality, whereas there are others who place more weight on the Biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus from a religious standpoint.  

Not making any value judgments here, just stating facts.  Also factual is that Jesus was not born on December 25, nor was he a white dude with blue eyes.  I'll pause here for a minute to let that sink in. 

I personally have a particular faith perspective, and I admit my own blind spots - the things I don't know, and the things I don't know I don't know.  I could say more, since this is my blog and therefore my space, but I'll leave it at that. However you celebrate, I wish you peace and safety.  

 And I commend to you, whatever your faith persuasion is, to consider the historical Jesus.  He is more interesting and more accessible than you might think.

2021 Books I've Read

 

Here are my ratings for the books I read in the past 12 months.  In case you've forgotten, the scale goes like this: 1 - pass, 2 - some good some bad, 3 - recommended, 4 - can't stop raving about it, 5 - fundamentally changed my worldview. 

Please weigh in with recommendations.  If you have been following this list over the years, you see an evolution in greater diversity in authors and topics, although still overwhelmingly non-fiction.  I welcome hearing about must-reads.

 

Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving (Rocca) 3

That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row (Masters) 4

Disposable City: Miami's Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe (Ariza) 4

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Hazareesingh) 3

Take It Back (Abdullah) 4

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (Meacham) 4

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Wilkerson) 5

HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time (Aronson) 3

We Can’t Talk about That at Work! How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics (Winters) 3

This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are (Warnick) 4

Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling (Hess) 3

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear (Bondeson) 2

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Caro) 5

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know (Grant) 3

The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work (Nixon) 4

The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success (McArdle) 3

The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results (Knight) 3

The City: A Global History (Kotkin) 3

Assume Nothing: A Story of Intimate Violence (Selvaratnam) 3

The Tradition (Brown) 2

Conscience of a Conservative (Goldwater) 3

Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta (Kolodiejchuk) 3

Washington: A Life (Chernow) 3

Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America's Greatest Inventor (Gelb/Caldicott) 3

The Incredible Dr. Matrix: The World’s Greatest Numerologist (Gardner) 3

The Enlightened CEO: How to Succeed at the Toughest Job in Business (Fifer/Quick) 2

The Age of the Customer: Prepare for the Moment of Relevance (Blasingame) 2

A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (Witham) 2

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Best Investment Advice for the New Century (Malkiel) 3

The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (Kenneally) 4

Girl on a Train (Hawkins) 4

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) (Vanderbilt) 4

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (Diamond) 4

Mindscape: What to Think About Instead of Worrying (Witmer) 2

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Miles) 4

Native Speaker (Lee) 4

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram (Frier) 3

Personal History (Graham) 4

Begin Again: Your Hope and Renewal Start Today (Lucado) 3

Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life (Bishop) 3

13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do: Raising Self-Assured Children and Training Their Brains for a Life of Happiness, Meaning, and Success (Morin) 4

Truman (McCullough) 4

Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard (Gray) 4

The Shapeless Unease  A Year of Not Sleeping (Harvey) 2

A Promised Land (Obama) 4

Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius (Nasar) 3

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy (Danko) 3

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't (Silver) 4

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Gladwell) 4

How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers (Rubenstein) 4

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (Burkeman) 3

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times (May) 3

Black Buck (Askaripour) 4

The Year of Magical Thinking (Didion) 3

The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Shell, Moussa) 3

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Odell) 3

The God of Small Things (Roy) 2

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store (Flanders) 3

A Queer History of the United States (Bronski) 3