Yasmin needs brain surgery but can't afford it

It is a sad and terrible indictment of the society in which we live that a woman like Yasmin McKillop might die because she can't afford the surgery that could save her life. Yasmin is a young woman, a nurse who cares for old people at my local hospital. She's one of those lovely people you take to immediately. She is married to my friend James, who is blind, and they have two young boys. And now, Yasmin has a brain tumour. The prognosis from surgeons at the public hospitals here is very poor, but there is a surgeon in Sydney who believes he can save her, if she can find sixty thousand dollars for the operation.

On a nurse's wage and James' invalidity benefits, Yasmin has no house to sell, no savings to draw on. Her family are just ordinary, working people. That kind of money is so far beyond the reach of normal people that it must seem completely hopeless to her family and friends.

In desperation, her sister, Mia, has launched an appeal. Mia is not a media-savvy campaigner with far-reaching networks into the circles where money like this is easily found. She's just a young woman who lives and works in a small, country town who loves her sister and is doing all she can for her. She has put up a Facebook page. She is talking to local people and local businesses - in Stanthorpe, one of the poorest towns in the whole of Australia. That's why we need to do something to help Mia raise that money and save her sister.

I know most of the people who read my blog are writers and working people too. I doubt we could raise that much money between us, but we can raise some, and there are plenty of other ways we can help. This is what I would like each of you to do.

1. Visit Mia's Facebook page and donate something to the appeal - even if it is only $5 - the price of a cup of coffee. The link is also at the bottom of this post.

2. Use the Facebook and Tweet this links at the top of this post to spread the word to your social networks. You can also Digg the post, or use StumbleUpon or any other sharing tools you like. Do whatever you can to help Mia get the message out to the world that Yasmin needs help.

3. Mention the appeal on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace, Twitter, and anywhere else you have an audience.

4. Write a blog post on your own blog - even if it is just one sentence with a link to Mia's appeal page, it might just help.

5. If you know a journalist, mention Yasmin's plight to them. A 'human interest' story like this might just be something they, or a colleague, are looking for. If the story made it into a State or national newspaper, or was mentioned on a popular radio or TV show, it would take the appeal to a level where anything is possible. Even if you don't live in Australia, mention it anyway. Generosity doesn't stop at national borders.

6. Write a letter and send it to your local newspaper, your local radio station, your local Rotary Club, anywhere you can think of where people might be willing to help.

I'm sorry to ask. I'm sorry to live in a society where I have to ask. Please help Yasmin and her family. Please do whatever you can.

The link to the appeal is http://www.facebook.com/Yasmin.Aid?sk=info

Hope For Intelligent Kids Who Are Unhappy

Nearly three years ago, I wrote a post called "Why Ordinary People Make Intelligent Kids Unhappy". It was immediately, and still is, one of my most popular posts. It is clearly an issue that concerns many people. Yet, looking back, I see it is a post in desperate need of a follow-up. The original post merely analyses the problem and offers no solace, and certainly no solutions. Most likely, many of the people who read the post felt worse after reading it rather than better. That's OK, I suppose. The world isn't here to make us feel better. It's just a place we need to cope with, and understanding what is going on in the world can only help us cope better. However, there are some things I could say that might make some people feel better, and it's about time I said them.

So here they are:

1. There is hope. I was a bright child. I was rejected to greater and lesser degrees by my family, my schoolmates and my teachers. Being clever doesn't win you many friends. Sometimes none at all. I grew up in a working-class city in the North of England. The people around me were poor, ill-educated and, almost without exception, ignorant. Most of them were also very stupid. Yet I found a way through. I was certainly luckier than many - my mother was bright and supportive, and I got a free, university-level education. I left the place I grew up in and went in search of better places. Eventually I found them. It's a very big world and there are many, many niches in it. Keep looking and you may find yours. It helps the search if you move to a major city.

2. Other bright people can sustain you, even if you never meet them. I'm not just talking about the Internet, here, although it's an obvious place to look for like-minded people. I didn't have the Internet when I grew up, but I had books. Read widely and read good stuff (on- and off-line). You will find that many of the people who became great writers also went through what we did. One of the best moments in my reading life was when I discovered J.D. Sallinger. In his short stories in particular, I often got that heart-stopping moment of recognition when I realised that this man knew my pain. Maybe Sallinger will do it for you too. Most likely it will be someone else. Just one word of advice - especially about the Internet. While it is easy to find fellow sufferers, and wallowing in misery together can be a relief for a while, in the end, you will get more of a lift out of positive, strong people. However bright you are, you're only human and you have the same psychology as we all do. Don't get locked in a downward spiral of self-pity with someone else. You'd both be better off on your own.

3. Work can help. Clever people tend to be good at certain things. They make good scientists, engineers, writers, and so on. Even in less intellectually challenging jobs - as administrators, planners, managers, etc. - they tend to shine. They might not get the promotions, they might not get the big bucks - for that you also need social skills which cleverness does not guarantee - but they do their jobs so well that they earn the respect of their peers. Respect isn't love, it isn't necessarily acceptance, it isn't even kindness, but it's something and it is not to be sniffed at. Respect from others helps you respect yourself - and self-respect helps in many different ways.

4. Don't worry about the meaning of life. There is none. Bright people are their own worst enemy when it comes to seeing through the crap. Sooner or later, you will conclude that there is no god, there is no deep meaning to the Universe, you have no destiny, and, in fact, there is no point to anything at all. That's fine, but you shouldn't let it worry you.

'Purpose', 'meaning', 'point' and so on are ideas that people come up with , they are not things we find in nature. The 'purpose' of the rain might be to make the crops grow, but we all know that is just a semantic confusion. The physical word doesn't have purposes, only people do. In the long term - the next ten billion years, say - nothing about humanity matters at all, not least your own little wants and needs, your hopes and ambitions, your loves and hates. However, we don't live in the long term. We don't live ten billion years. We live tiny, proscribed little lives. We flicker into self-awareness and are gone in a moment.

Yet, to us, in that moment, our own feelings, desires, and purposes are everything to us. And that is important - by definition. We are the creatures who give meaning to the world. We are the ones who provide purpose to the Universe. We are the ones that imbue existence with value. While we live, while we think and feel, we bring this into reality. You and I create the meaning of the Universe, quite literally. It is ours.

So don't feel shy about the purpose of your life. If you want an iPod, if you love the boy or girl next-door, if you have a craving for a swim, or to work in outer space, each of these is, in a very real sense, the highest purpose in the world - because it's yours, right now, and that, literally, is what matters in this otherwise indifferent Universe.

5. Find out who you are and accept it. The biggest advantage of being clever isn't that you can make money, or design cool stuff, or argue everyone else under the table, it is this: you can understand yourself and the people around you. If you don't understand yourself, you will always be doing stupid things that don't make you happy. If you don't understand other people you cannot love them and you will always be doing stupid things that don't make them happy either. It took me a couple of decades of very hard work to get a deep and thorough understanding of myself and to accept who I am, warts and all. It was the most difficult intellectual challenge I have ever faced - the most difficult emotional challenge too - but it was worth it. Well worth it. It requires strict intellectual rigour. It requires ruthless, painful honesty. It may require you to throw out many myths about yourself and your world that you cherish and hide behind. Don't waste that glorious brain of yours. It's caused you a lot of pain and heartache, set you apart, driven people away. Now, for once, get some good out of it. Use it for something that will really benefit you and everyone around you.

6. Never forget what you are. You are a human being. You evolved from ape-like creatures, who evolved from other creatures. As clever as you are, you are still an animal. You have the physiology of an animal and, importantly, the psychology of an animal. The kind of animal you are has psychological needs for the company and intimacy of its fellow animals. You can't fight your own psychology so try not to. Being cut off from the society of people is what is making you feel bad. Going along with that and cutting yourself off even more will only make you feel worse. The smart thing to do is to understand your animal nature and to start organising your life so that its needs are satisfied. I'm not talking about sex and eating and sleep and all those other 'drives' - although they are important - I'm talking about social interactions, social approval, gossiping, sharing rituals, and finding friends. Right now, those things may seem a million miles away from where you are - but that's what all the points above are about, getting yourself into a societal niche where you fit, finding people who like having you around, ditching false notions that will add to your troubles, and becoming so comfortable inside your own skin that you can face the world on equal terms and get what you need from it.

It will always be the case that you are in a minority. Always. But you don't need six billion people to accept you. You can make a great life with just a handful of close friends and family who see the way you are as a desirable quality, not a freakish aberration.

“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.” (William Blake)

I don't want to get all hard-nosed and cynical about it but why do people insist that you can achieve your dreams if you just believe in yourself and work hard? I know there are some cases where this has happened, but surely there are a thousand cases for every one of those where it hasn't.

I suppose ideas like this can persist because there is no evidence. How do you run a study where one group believes in themselves and works hard and another group doesn't - keeping all other variables matched between the groups? What's more, 'true believers' in the doctrine can always say of a failed case, "Well, she obviously didn't believe in herself enough, or she didn't work hard enough." So it's one of those irrefutable doctrines. And it simply doesn't square with my experience.

Certainly self-belief and hard work can be a big help when it comes to success, but so can blind luck, physical beauty, great talent, and good connections. Beauty? Oh yes. Trust me, I'm a psychologist. I've seen the studies that show that physically attractive people have more friends, more self-confidence, and are more successful. For men, it is also a big advantage to be tall. Tall men rise higher in life. If I hadn't been so tall and handsome, I might have had even less worldly success!

It isn't even a confusion between necessary and sufficient causes. As I say, working hard might help, but it is neither necessary, nor sufficient, for success. Some of the most downtrodden people in the world also have to work the hardest. That's why they're called the 'working classes'.

Yet some people believe it to be true, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Or do they? Maybe the people who insist that, if you follow your dream, you will, one day, succeed, are deliberately ignoring the evidence because they have emotional needs that won't allow them to accept it. Maybe they say these things because they are too naive or too dumb to be aware of the many cases where they are patently false. A lot of people seem to say it (especially in self-help books and autobiographies) because they succeeded and would like to persuade themselves, and us, that it was their mighty moral fibre, the stuff that kept them believing in themselves and working hard despite all the setbacks, that led to their triumphs.

Here's a little quiz:

1. If you are born in America, work hard, and believe in yourself, are you:
a) more likely to become rich and famous than someone similar born in an African village?
b) more likely to become rich and famous if your parents are already rich and famous?
c) more likely to become rich and famous if you are young, beautiful and talented?

I think people who say that self-belief and hard work are all you need to succeed actually mean well. They're probably thinking of a case they've heard about where someone who was immensely talented and, by hard work and belief in themselves (and with some luck, and, probably a bit of help from some well-off and well-connected friends or family members) managed to achieve their dream. And then they've seriously overgeneralised it to apply to the rest of the world. They don't actually want to buoy people up on waves of false hopes just so that those people can come crashing to earth in late middle age and spend their declining years in a state of bitter regret and depression. At least, I hope not.

In Memory of Yuli

Today, I buried my cat, Yuli.

Wifie and I took him to the vet this morning because he had been unwell and he had quite suddenly gone deaf. Suspecting an infection that had spread to his ears, we were stunned to find he was dying of a particularly aggressive form of bone cancer. The cancer – which was quite clear in the X-rays, was eating away at his jaw, was constricting his throat, and was probably inside his cranium.

We agreed with the vet that euthanasia was a better option than letting the poor little guy choke to death, or starve to death. So we petted him talked to him and cried while the vet gave him a sedative and then a lethal injection.

Cats tread very lightly on the Earth. All that Yuli left behind were a few plates and a bowl and a brush for his fur. That and a grieving surrogate mother who had cared for him and loved him, enjoyed his company, and marvelled at his quirky personality for seventeen-and-a-half years.

And me, of course. In my gruff, masculine way, I'd grumbled about him and pretended not to like him as much as I really did. But I'll miss him. I already miss him.

So we cracked a bottle of champagne and had a wake for our lost friend. We buried him in one of his favourite places and we toasted him and reminded each other of all the good things and all the bad things about him. And we laughed and cried and remembered him.

The Most Popular Posting On Earth

Is popularity among your goals, plans and hopes? Well, here is the blog posting that is going to make me famous, the one all my friends will be blogging about in their own relatively unpopular blogs. And I don't need to waste your time dealing with boring topics like sport, Iraq, jobs, work, careers or Microsoft. I don't even need to post a photo. All I need to do is write a couple of empty paragraphs that contain the top 100 most popular tags from Technorati's current listing (each shown in green bold text here). What fun! What entretenimiento! (which is entertainment in Spanish by the way, no need for your school or college Greek on my Weblog!)

Of course the easiest way to be popular on the Web is to talk either about movies, TV and celebrities, or about technology and the Internet. Articles about art and photography, religion and philosophy, science and politics all have their place but if you really want to score big, just mention Apple, Google, MySpace, podcasts, or Linux, or regurgitate any item of tech news you can find about events involving them. The blogsphere clearly devours a daily smorgasbord of culture, current affairs, fashion, style, shopping, music, photos, videos, reviews and sports but it is computers and the Internet that really click a blogger's links.

Perhaps someone should make a movie of the life of a blog reader. He (of course it's a he) would be at home, pursuing his tech hobbies, taking an online quiz perhaps, but plagued by dreams of the supernatural. Concerned about his health and wellness, his diary, or journal if you will, shows an increasing obsession with parties and nightlife, pets and animals as he slips into a personal hell of random romance and relationships. He tries travel, shooting terabytes of video, writing awful love poetry and worse software in exotic places. He neglects his business in the automotive industry, spurns his family and starts work as a survey design specialist for a media and marketing company that gets bought up by YouTube. Yet miscellaneous (misc.) thoughts, like pictures from his favourite multiplayer games, return to haunt him. The mysterious word 'moblog' runs in his head like música in a Spanish film (or la musique in a French one). In the closing scenes, he is saved by writing 'My Life in Food' and other funny books ('Allgemein Noticias' being his most popular and the best example of his quirky, multilingual 'humor'.)

There now, that should do it. I can hardly wait for my readership to go through the roof!