Kevin Vogelsang

Back in July of 2009, I published my friend Luis Fernandez’s essays on the five most important lessons to learn in life on the blog.  I wrote an introduction and some notes to supplement the essays.

This body of writing has now been published as a physical book.

As Luis pointed out, there is something different, and special, about publishing in book format, as opposed to digitally.  It feels immortalized, written in stone.  It feels like a bigger step.

The prospects of digital publishing are very exciting to me.  But, something special still exists for books.  People have said, “The same thing that happened to records will happen to books.  People will stay attached to them  for a while, but they’ll quickly move on.”  I’m not so sure it’s quite the same.

The publishing industry has become a big focus of mine. This represents my first foray into physical publishing. Exciting things are happening.  Books can now be printed on-demand.  Self-publishing platforms have matured.

Of course, Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, maintains that there is no such thing as “self-publishing.”  People that self-publish, that keep doing it, and are good at it, just become publishers.  “I was a self-publisher once,” Tim said in an interview.

There’s a whole new set of tools out there now that can be used to spread and distribute information, ideas, and insights.  This is incredible.  These tools have brought Luis’s essays to the world in a new medium.

You can purchase a copy of “The 5 Things to Learn in this Life” here from CreateSpace. As far as the Author’s margins are concerned (and consequently Luis’s daughter’s college fund), this is the best place to purchase right now.

For added convenience, you can also purchase the book on Amazon.

Luis’s book is currently only available in paperback.  As I learn my way around the publishing world, it’ll become available in digital formats (ex. on the Kindle) and hardback.

I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned about the publishing world as I go through this process.

-Kevin
3.2.2010

From April 17^th, 2007 to August 18^th, 2008;  Luis wrote these essays for me based on the premise of a question I posed at the dinner table when I was a sophomore in college: What are the 5 most important things to learn in this life?

The fact someone was so committed to delivering an answer speaks to the value of these essays.  Like I said, I asked the right person.

And to Luis, you wrote well, and I listened well. All I can say is, you done good, and we thank you for it.

Chapter 1 of the Guest Essays: Things to Learn in this Life

• Luis’s Introduction
• Taking Responsibility
• Accepting Help
• Communication
• Laughter
• The Tranquility of Reflection

Kevin
7.25.2009

The Tranquility of Reflection

When you first asked me if I could tell you the 5 things I thought were most important to learn in this life, I was pretty sure that either you or I was going to bullshit the other of us, I didn’t know if it was going to be that you weren’t going to really listen to what I had to say or if it was going to be me that wasn’t going to really say anything. I was positive one of the two would happen, if not both. Over time though, the question really started to take hold of me and I realized that it was an opportunity to really think about what I valued in life and to share it with someone, and not just let those thoughts roll around in my head for a while taking different forms whenever it seemed appropriate. I decided it wouldn’t be me who wasted our time; I wrote that first prologue without any idea of what the 5 things would be.

This last one, I didn’t know would be a part of this list until after I’d written the letter on communication. That’s when I realized how important reflection was. And it’s not easy to do, either. There are so many occasions in life when making an impulsive decision is so much easier. Not only making it is easier, but not thinking about the decision after you’ve made it is also easier. Not thinking is probably the easiest way to go through life and to forget you’ve gone through life at the same time.

For me, reflection provides a wealth of benefit. There have been so many experiences throughout my life that had I not reflected on them after they occurred, I would simply have forgotten they happened to me. [When you learn to reflect, to think upon the days behind and those ahead, you will start to remember your experiences with a clarity that allows you to fully utilize previous experience, especially when you find yourself in a situation that repeats some aspect of your previous experience.] You may even have more stories to tell. Unique experiences will float to your mind that relate to just about any situation that arises in the natural course of your life and that of those around you. Others will comment, “You’ve been through so much, I wish my life was that interesting.” And you will know that you haven’t gone through more, you’ve just had the benefit of reflection. Reflection enhances recollection.

There’s more. Reflection brings new wisdom to upcoming decisions. The benefit of clear-headed thinking is without parallel. As humans, our decision-making is strongly influenced by our emotional state. When we make impulsive decisions, we are guaranteed to make a decision strongly influenced by emotion. Often times, these types of decisions can lead us into situations that are unfavorable. If at least we can learn to reflect over the decisions which are a few hours or a few days away, then we greatly increase the chances that we will put ourselves in favorable positions throughout life. And for those decisions that we make impulsively, at least we will have formed the habit of reflection, and we will learn from our impulsive decisions and we will increase our ability to think on our feet.

On the other hand, without reflection all of life is in danger of becoming a pile of photographs. The memories are there, but they lack order and coherence. We might remember different experiences, but those memories may fail to bring us new wisdom.

Reflection is the binding force for all the four things which precede this letter.

I hope these letters have answered your question. At least I hope they’ve given you new things to think about or brought old things back into the light. At the VERY least, you know my mind a bit better. I’m sure if you ask someone else there will be some repeats and some new things.

Luis
8.18.08

Laughter

I don’t think this is much of a revelation to anyone, but I know this list is incomplete without including laughter as one of the important things to learn in this life. Laughter is the universal social lubricant. When you can laugh everything is easier. Some people say that’s what alcohol is for, but it’s not the alcohol that makes things easier, it’s the laughter that results from the alcohol. Many people say that alcohol is necessary in their lives precisely for the role that it serves as a “social lubricant,” I think we’d be much better off if we concentrated on learning to laugh rather than avoiding the whole learning thing by using alcohol to stimulate laughing. We’d definitely avoid all the terrible accidents that result from drunkenness including drunken driving accidents, fights, drunken falls, poisoning, etc.

I digress, this letter is not about the evils of alcohol, but about the value of natural laughter. It’s hard to imagine a child that doesn’t laugh. If we do see a child in a solemn mood, what do we do instinctively? We try our damnest to make him crack a smile. We distort our faces, turn him upside down and throw him around like a rag doll, push his carriage around like it’s a race car, you know the drill. Why do we do that? I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m going to propose that part of the reason has to do with how easy the kid is perceived to have it compared to us. He sits around all day, doesn’t even have to get up to poo, doesn’t even have to chew his food, and (at risk of sacrificing my integrity) gets to suckle on breasts anytime, anywhere. He should be laughing all day long, stopping only to sleep.

As children our days were occupied with figuring out ways to cram the most fun possible into 24hrs. The only thing getting in the way was our annoying parents whose only task in life seemed to be making sure we had as little fun as possible. The world consisted of two forces, our will to laugh and the force of the belt hitting our exposed backside. We made all kinds of promises to ourselves “When I grow up, I’m going to have Coca-Cola everyday!” “My house is going to have hidden rooms and slides in the walls and 10′ x 10′ beds!” Who knew that these things required real honest labor to acquire?

Anyway, eventually we reach our teens and things start to change. We go through a terrible place called high school where all the good times suddenly come to a screeching halt. Some of us fail classes, some need to start supporting our families, some lose their virginity to predator “boyfriends,” some get betrayed by “best” friends, some don’t get into their top choice college, some become “responsible” adults, and some decide to be “free spirits.” Just about all of us stop building blanket forts in the living room.

After high school, we tell our little cousins and siblings “Enjoy it while it lasts, I wish I was 7 again, that was the perfect age.” And all the adults are telling us, “Have fun in college, they will be the best years of your life.” “What?” we think, I didn’t think it could get any better than when I was 7 and each summer day lasted for 48 hours. So, we are rejuvenated, we look forward to college life, and a new era of laughter, a fresh beginning away from the trauma of high school and the oppression of adults.

Of course, we get there and it feels like high school, looks like high school, has all the high school students, what could possibly be so great about college? Ah yes, no parents. Those pesky parents that never let us stay up on school nights are gone. It is time to laugh again. Unfortunately, something is drastically wrong: it still feels like high school with classes, broken relationships, and new student groups, and I’m not having the “best years of my life.” How do I get back to the laughing days of childhood? Drugs, sex, and alcohol, naturally.

And I’m back to talking about the evils of alcohol.

So here’s the problem: we want to live like we did when we were kids but we have too many problems that don’t allow us to laugh like that anymore. How do we fix the problem?

A) Turn back time, literally.
B) Have fewer problems

We can’t turn back time since we don’t have a flux capacitor, so solution A) is out. We can’t get rid of our problems because they are 1) our responsibilities such as work and family and without these things we don’t have the means to have fun anyway (after all we do need to eat) and 2) problems that arise out of the normal, chaotic flow of life. So solution B) is out too.

I propose a third solution, and it’s not new. I think I wrote a bit about this idea when I wrote about taking responsibility. The solution I propose is investing ourselves in everything that we do to the extent that what we do is not simply a task to accomplish but a real part of us. Let’s think back to our childhood days again; why did we have so much fun? Wasn’t it because we were never worried about anything except what we were doing at that time? We could play for hours and not even realize we were hungry because we were completely invested in playing. The same concept should and can apply to us now. By investing ourselves completely (i.e. playing) in our responsibilities and problems we eliminate them. No more responsibilities or problems means no more excuses for not laughing according to our problem statement above.

And the fun doesn’t end with us. Learning to laugh is so valuable because laughter is also incredibly contagious. Once we are able to start laughing, those around us can easily recognize that not only are we in a good mood but that we are never in a bad mood. They can tell that it is not a fake happiness but a real honest serenity and light-heartedness. Our mood helps lighten other people’s loads and the more laughing heads we have the less responsibility there is collectively. What a wonderful world… a world without responsibility? Is it even possible?

Learning to laugh unassisted (I feel like I’m writing about sports and performance enhancing drugs), is important for our own lives so that we can finally fulfill all the dreams of our childhood and have fun 24/7. Laughing is also important for those around us; once we learn to laugh individually we can stop perpetuating the myth that our best years are in college and free students to focus once again on their primary task while in college: learning to become productive and capable citizens of the human/world community.

I think one last point about laughter bears mentioning. It’s important to note that there is a difference between the ideas I’ve outlined above and another popular alternative with which they can be easily confused. That is laughing AT your responsibilities. Laughing at your responsibilities is exactly the kind of laughter that is to be avoided. You cannot make a mockery of your responsibilities by laughing at them and reducing their gravity, and, simultaneously hope to learn to invest yourself in them. Rather, learn to invest in your responsibilities first and then the laughter will be natural. Understanding the difference between these competing types of laughter is important.

Addendum: I realized after writing this letter that an example might be instructive. Let’s take the common and annoying experience of being stuck in an airport waiting for a delayed flight (this also happens to be the situation I find myself in at this moment). There are at least a few ways to respond to this situation.

1) Annoyance and sulking- characterized by calls to anyone who will listen to your complaints, or if no one answers the phone, complaints to all those sitting around you.
2) Sarcastic acceptance- characterized by loud laughter and proclamation of “acceptance” of the situation to friends and family as well as those around you.
3) Panic- characterized by a need to be updated every five minutes on the status of the delay, and often accompanied by animated requests for flight change and requests for assistance before other passengers
given your “unique” situation.
4) Serenity- characterized by an understanding that the flight status will not change based on your will, also characterized by a conscious decision to use the time to accomplish other things.

I don’t mean to imply that passive acceptance of an inevitable crisis is to be a virtue. To the contrary, serenity implies a calm and contemplative outlook, if there is indeed a need to find an alternative flight regardless of the delay then that alternative should be pursued in a reasonable, persistent, and dedicated manner. Serenity implies an ability to remain composed in any given situation because of an internal commitment to always find a best course of action or inaction.

Some courses of action that could be undertaken in this situation are reading, writing, sleeping, shopping, meeting new people, exercising, eating, contemplation etc. A person that “takes responsibility” in this situation finds a best course of action and commits himself to it. In committing himself, he ceases to worry about any other things unrelated to his chosen task and can therefore enjoy freedom. Freedom brings joy and a heart full of laughter.

Luis
10.1.07

Communication

Before I travelled to China, I had always been intrigued by the Chinese language. I was intrigued because so many people said it was impossible to learn. I was always doubtful and wanted to prove everyone wrong. Now I’ve learned Chinese, and in the course of learning I’ve realized that the more intriguing thing isn’t the difficulty of languages, but the subtleties of communication; especially communication across cultures.

Communication is an essential skill. Without communication there is no hope for personal or world peace. Personal peace relies on our ability to share our experiences with others. World peace is simply an extension of the “shared experience” principle. We can’t hope to get along with others if we cannot communicate our experiences and perspectives with each other. Even worse, we can’t hope to grow in experience without communication because we would be forced to live out all experiences individually rather than build on the experience of others. It is the dream of people everywhere to achieve communication by direct connection of the mind. In the absence of such a development, we must learn to communicate as best as we can, at least for our own personal happiness.

When most people speak about communication, they speak about the ability to “talk to anyone” and communication skills. Some people seem to believe that there is a set of communication skills that only some people possess, and they all have to do with being comfortable talking. This isn’t the type of communication I believe is important to learn. Being able to talk is only a small part of communication. I’m sure you’ve met plenty of people who can talk all day and not communicate anything. To my mind there are at least 4 ways to communicate, here are some:

Speech
Writing
Listening
Manners

Each of these is extremely important in one setting or another. People of speech are needed in diplomacy (sharing experience for persuasion). People with writing skill are needed in history (sharing experience for societal benefit). People with listening skill are needed in counsel (sharing experience for personal benefit). And people with skill in physical communication are needed for intimate communication (sharing emotional experience, wordless experience).

I believe learning to do each of these has value, but it is enough to learn to do at least one of these extremely well. If you learn how to speak extremely well, you can be the voice for people of similar experience. If you learn to listen, you can be the counsel of people with different experience. If you learn to write, you can expose the
experience of all objectively. If you learn to communicate with your body, you can bring people together who all share the same human experience. Those who are able to learn all of these will become the leaders of all people.

The importance of learning to communicate is magnified in the modern day simply because so many people of dramatically different backgrounds have been exposed to each other in a historically short period of time.

Communication is the key to living with each other and for each other. Alone we can do nothing, and the only way that we can associate with each other is by communication. Learn to do one type of communication  well, if possible two. Sometimes the most effective communication is simple: laughter.

Luis
8.26.07

Accepting Help

Learning how to accept help seems like such a simple thing to learn, but I think it is rarely practiced. Yet the benefits of learning how to accept help are probably better than the benefits gained from learning any of the other 5 things I will talk about. If the benefits are so extraordinary, and accepting help is such a simple thing to do, why is it rarely practiced? The problem is that accepting help is not as simple as advertised. Let’s take a few examples where you might want help as you age:

A) Tying your shoe

In the first instance, we have a child of about 4 years and he needs help tying his shoes. We’ve seen how children react when they’ve got an untied shoelace; some children tug at their mother’s leg and impatiently stick their foot out to get their laces tied so they can get back to the urgent job of playing. Other children ignore their untied laces as long as possible; only when they’ve fallen 3 or 4 times will they reluctantly go to the nearest adult.

If that child could just ask his mother or siblings to teach him how to tie his shoes, his life would be so much better, he could play all day without having to find an adult; he might even be able to teach the other kids and become the “hero” and “leader” of the group. But the child can’t see that, it’s annoying to ask for help: the other
kids are watching and waiting, remember.

B) Trouble in a class

When you are in school, the worst thing that can happen is being humiliated. Your peers and what they think of you are everything to you. You’re the best athlete in school, but you are having trouble in English class. Instead of asking for help you decide you’re just going to be the dumb jock. If only you’d ask for help, you could be the best
athlete AND a leader in class. How are you supposed to know that kids look up to smart athletes way more than they do idiots? and that after you graduate you’ll be much better off being smart than dumb.

C) Difficulty managing a group of people

At work, our whole value to a company is based on our ability to do a job. We can’t ask for help to do our own job. What would be the point of being in a position that you can’t even do? The people I manage would quickly realize that I can’t do my job, and they would stop doing theirs. It’s hard to see that by asking for help, even from our
own people (the ones we are managing) we are actually showing that we care about how they can be best managed. And these people would be much more appreciative and more responsive employees. Who knows what
managing success could do for our careers?

D) Raising children

We can’t ask help with our kids, everyone else has problems with their own kids. Besides I don’t want them to see how bad my kids are.
E) Going to the bathroom

When I’m old, I’d sooner die than let someone wipe me. I guess my grandchildren can live without hearing my life experiences.

Help is actually a very hard thing for us to accept. We have a hard time accepting help in school, asking for directions, and doing our jobs. Accepting help is somehow a tremendous sign of weakness. If I ask for help in school, it is an admission to my classmates, but more importantly to myself, that I don’t really know the material. If I ask help for directions, it is an admission that I am a foreigner in this place. If I ask help in a job, it shows that I am not fit to do the job I was hired to do. The truth is that when we ask or accept help, we feel that we are somehow not fit to be in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Making matters worse, many of our friends and coworkers enforce this notion by jeering at us and making fun whenever we do overcome our fears and actually ask for help. It is a negative feedback loop. We behave just as rats do when presented with food but everytime they touch it, they are electrocuted, eventually they are conditioned to avoid the electrocuted food. If each time we overcome our fears and ask for help, we are ridiculed; eventually we stop asking for and accepting help.

How can we avoid this negative loop? The way forward is found in changing our perspective on help. Until now we have been concerned with our own vulnerability. We need to instead focus on the tremendous opportunity.

1) Help is an opportunity to excel in what we are doing rather than “just get by.” When we ask for help it is usually because we think we could be doing better, help is a chance to do better.

2) Help is an opportunity to meet someone new. We often see a good-looking girl in a strange setting and think “If
only I could approach her, maybe she’d be my girl.” If we have something we need help with, all of a sudden we have something to say to the unapproachable girl.

3) Help is an opportunity to influence people. My father always says, “If you want to influence people, you first
must allow them to influence you.” When we allow someone to help us, we allow them to influence our lives; they now have a “stake” in our success. Part of human nature dictates that when we have a stake in something, we take an interest in that thing and its course. In this case the helper becomes interested in us, presenting us with the
chance to share ourselves and our perspective.

4) Help is an opportunity to see beyond the status quo. If we always stay within our own capabilities, we cannot expect to grow in experience. When we accept help, we accept a new perspective. This change in perspective is an opportunity to see a new way forward in small things, but occasionally in large things. When I was in Phoenix interviewing for my job with Intel, I was trying to get into the Phoenix Suns game. I ran into a kid who needed a cell phone to call home. I was reluctant at first, I didn’t know if he was going to steal it or something. I gave it to him, then after he made his phone call, I decided to ask for help, too. He told me the best place to watch a Phoenix Suns game was to go to this bar down the street. I thanked him and went on my way. The “seeing beyond the status quo” happened when I got to the bar and a lady was standing in the doorway trying to sell her COURTSIDE tickets for $20. I snapped one up and 10 minutes later I was seven rows from the floor.

Have you ever heard a company say in its presentations to prospective employees, “Our biggest asset is our people”? Forget the company, YOUR and MY biggest assets are the people around us, and we have 6 billion of them waiting to offer us their services free of charge.

Once you realize that being able to ask for help is a tremendous sign of strength rather than a weakness, you might feel like you’ve learned something, but HOW do you ask for help? Well, you just learn the 3^rd Thing to Learn in this Life… (my personal favorite)

Luis
8.26.07

(Luis sent this to me on April 17th, 2007.  I was originally the sole audience, so I’ve added comments and clarifications in parentheses and italicized to reach the broader audience of the VogelWorks blog.  If you didn’t catch my introduction of my friend Luis, you’ll find it here.  You should certainly read it first.

Here’s a thought to ponder along the way:
I don’t think any of the “things to learn” will surprise you.  But, what should also surprise you, perhaps to a greater degree, is how many people haven’t learned one of these important lessons and how glaring it is when they haven’t.)

~

I’ve been thinking alot about your question whenever I have a quiet moment. I have to say that I don’t know that I am even qualified to answer this question having only survived not even 24 years so far. But still, I think the question is really a great one. Maybe unintentionally so. And I intend to give you the best answer I can…..

Taking Responsibility

Responsibility is an understanding of your role in any given moment, and taking it involves embracing that role.
Before discussing responsibility further, there is an important clarification that needs to be discussed concerning taking rather than accepting responsibility. The difference is not trivial and perhaps some reflection would be appropriate to gain an intuition.

Taking involves a deliberate act of seeking and obtaining something. I think some dictionaries might even describe it as the act of seizing. On the other hand, accepting involves a non-refusal of something which is handed over or offered to you. Both result in the acquisition of something, but if you are following these definitions, then hopefully you have noticed the key difference. Taking involves an active involvement in the acquisition of the thing, whereas accepting implies a degree of passivity in the actual acquisition process.

This subtlety makes a large difference in how we approach different responsibilities and situations in our lives.

Consider something as trivial as doing a houseworks (Sunday morning chores at our fraternity house, no relation to VogelWorks…). Houseworks starts at 9AM, one brother waits until the WB (the guy in charge of running houseworks) wakes him up at 9:30AM, at which point there are no jobs left except washing dishes. He does his job without complaint. Another brother wakes up at 9AM and is ready to go to work. He does work on his own floor without complaint. For the WB, it’s much easier to deal with the second brother especially since he doesn’t have to find him. For the second brother, work is much easier as well, he is doing his duty on a floor with which he is familiar and he will probably be done sooner than the brother who attends at 9:30. In addition, this second brother has a good chance of being considered for other offices since he is known to be well disciplined by the other brothers.

The benefits of waking early are obvious from the long term perspective of future rewards (nominations for offices in this case), but the important thing to note is that the brother taking responsibility for his houseworks had only one thing in mind when he woke up at 9AM: he was seeking and embracing his role at that moment. He simply intended to do his duty and finish in a timely manner. The nominations for offices came as a result of his demonstrated discipline, but seeking office was not his motivation. This is important.

The lesson to learn is to take responsibility and NOT to take responsibility because it will bring you closer to your goals.

It happens to be that when others notice that you take responsibility for small things, or in other words, when you seek to embrace your role in small matters, they will entrust to you much larger matters. This is what taking responsibility means: embracing roles.

The second part of taking responsibility is the responsibility part: the ‘understanding your role in a given moment’ part. Learning how to find your role in a given moment or situation is a challenge.

Here is another trivial example to demonstrate the point:
Imagine that you live with 5 people in a house. You all share a single bathroom. One afternoon you enter the bathroom and you notice that the floor is strewn with toilet paper, the sinks need cleaning, and the
shower drains are all clogged with hair. The only reason you came into the bathroom was to urinate; an objective easily accomplished regardless of the current state of the bathroom. What do you do?

A) Clean up the paper, showers, sinks, and in your enthusiasm anything
else you can apply a sponge to. All before you urinate.

B) Leave everything as is. Urinate, possibly on the floor, and leave
without washing your hands.

C) Something in between.

This problem requires the development of another ability: discernment.

It’s hard to know what to do, if anything. Discernment is the ability to understand what action is needed given several possibilities. It is the ability to execute good judgment.

In this case, if you clean the bathroom, will your house mates realize that they need to clean after themselves? If you leave it as is, will it ever be cleaned? If you clean part of it, will anyone even notice? Can you alert your house mates and organize a cleaning day, but what about the state it is in right now; who’s going to fix it now? There
are so many questions to ask in such a seemingly trivial situation, that when you start to think about other more significant life events you may become overwhelmed. How do you teach your child? Do you help him with his homework, or let him do it on his own?

In light of how difficult it is to acquire the ability to discern, how can we hope to find our role in a given situation? Which responsibilities do we take if we can’t even make a good judgment?

That’s exactly the point.

What?? Huh?? What do you mean ‘That’s exactly the point?’

The reason learning to take responsibility (read: embracing a role) is so important is that only by taking responsibility can we start to understand how to discern and find the best role for us in a given situation. In the above scenario, if we cannot discern the best course of action, let’s choose to take some responsibility for the cleanliness of the bathroom, any responsibility. Let’s pick up the toilet paper. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time, and can have a large impact on the perceived cleanliness of the bathroom. By taking a small level of responsibility, you have invested yourself in the state of the bathroom, and new ideas might start entering your mind. Maybe at some point, having cleaned the bathroom yourself, and having understood what it takes to clean it, you might realize that you are also able to assign cleaning jobs on some equitable basis, making your house mates much happier people to live with and the bathroom much cleaner at the same time.

When you first entered the bathroom, all you cared about was relieving yourself. A few hours or weeks or months later, after cleaning up some toilet paper, you have taken charge of assigning jobs, because you have discerned that this is the best role you can take to help keep the bathroom clean. All this time you are gaining management experience, that you start to enjoy, and perhaps that changes how you approach your work life. Did you think that’s where it would lead? No, but it did. And that’s the best secret about life. When you revel in the small matters, when you take an active role in the small things, one day you wake up, and look around you and see that you’ve just accomplished something that you’ve never dreamed you’d accomplish or even enjoy.

Take responsibility. Embrace your role. Have you ever noticed that the most affable people you’ve met are those that love what they are doing at that moment? That has been my experience at least.

What happens when you make a bad judgment (since you lack discernment) and take on a role that you cannot fulfill? You learn the 2nd Thing to Learn in this Life (coming soon).

Luis
4.17.2007

I’m happy to announce a new category on the VogelWorks blog: Guest Essays.

I’m also very happy that the first series of guest essays have already been delivered to me, and I’ve had them for some time.

Back in 2007, I was a sophomore in college at MIT.  I was a member of a fraternity and lived in the fraternity house at the time.  At the end of one of our meals, as usual, I was hanging around talking with people lingering after dinner.  I’ve always pondered what some people would think of as the “arcane truths of the world.”  My nature demands it.  But, we all ponder these things from time to time.

At the end of this particular meal, I turned to my friend Luis, the acclaimed “super senior” of my era, and said, “Luis, I’ve got a question for you, what are the five most important things to learn in life?”.  And that’s the beginning of the story of Luis’s essays.

What’s important for the reader to understand is why I would specifically ask Luis this question.  I strongly believe that the messenger is the message, so I’ll have to tell you a few things about Luis and this question.

First and foremost, I asked Luis this question because I respect him.  I’ve met very few people that have the balls to stand up for what simply is right, especially when it’s hard, like Luis does.

To illustrate, a friend of mine once sent a YouTube clip out to an email list I was once apart of.  In the clip,  a man waiting in line on his cell phone was attacked and badly beaten by another man while a group of men in close proximity simply pretended not to be there.  I share this seemingly random anecdote because Luis once found himself in not so different of a situation, except he did the exact opposite.  Luis attempted to help a complete stranger that was being beaten by two other men.  While some have questioned the decision, if you know Luis, you understand.  Luis could never stand aside while this was happening to someone.  It simply wouldn’t be right.

Secondly, Luis is a person that I would describe as “unbounded.” Things like fear, language, money, distance, sickness, political unrest, or whatever obstacle you can possibly think of, don’t stand in Luis’s way.  I think I can put all those in one paragraph. Some years before I arrived at MIT, Luis made the decision to take some time away from school and travel the world.  And by travel the world, I mean the entire world.  Luis left school and started a painting company.  He saved up enough money and prepared diligently for his travels.  He started in Japan and biked, walked, flew, and boated his way through Asia, Eurasia, (I forget all the checkpoints) and down into Africa.  He did this himself.  He found ways to communicate with the people, and he found ways to go places that are usually inaccessible to foreigners.  He made it into countries like the Congo one way or another.

Lastly, I asked Luis what the 5 most important things to learn in life because I knew it be important to him.  Between his travels, family, and own intellect, Luis is a very wise man.  He also understands the importance of learning.  I know this because, even though I wasn’t around to experience all of it, I know he has thought deeply about the world, it’s people, himself, and learned a lot.

And I was correct.  Luis delivered the first part of his essays to me on April 17th, 2007.  Over the course of the next year and a half, he wrote six essays to complete the series.

Not bad judgment on my part in choosing who to ask such a loaded question in passing at the dinner table.

And for these reasons, he deserves the spot as the author of the first set of guest essays on this publication.  It may be tough finding the second “Guest Essayist”, but I’m sure someone will rise to the challenge. Enjoy.

Kevin
7.14.2009