Phineas Taylor Barnum: The Real Greatest Showman

Vicki and I just returned from watching The Greatest Showman. We were immensely entertained. No assaults. No rapes. No torture. No murder. No spaceships. No superheroes. No explosions. I'm afraid it is doomed to fail at the box office.

The movie stimulated my curiosity about the real P. T. Barnum so I went to the source of the weird and wonderful, The People's Almanac, Volumes 1-3, the 1980s best sellers by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. Not much there so I checked my favorite easy access reference, Wikipedia that had 12 printed pages, plus 43 references and a page of recommended books on Barnum. Here are some interesting tidbits:

• Although credited with coining the phrase, "there is a sucker born every minute," the attribution is incorrect. Barnum had too much respect for the general public and would avoid disparaging his customers. No one seems to know who coined the phrase, but some unknown, shady gambler is the chief suspect. 
• Barnum falsely known as the "Prince of Humbugs," debunked hucksters and exposed fraudulent manipulators. A master of marketing, he celebrated event promotion and advertising as long as customers received value for their money.
• Barnum believed that marketing requires an intuitive understanding of capricious public approval that without constant reevaluation, review and creativity would fail abysmally: i.e., those responsible for marketing The Greatest Showman better know what they are doing if they want to avoid my box office prediction. 
• Charles Stratton, "General Tom Thumb--the Smallest Person that Ever Walked Alone," weighed 9 pounds at birth, attained 35 inches at maturity, and was five-years old and 25 inches tall when he began working for Barnum who made him extremely wealthy. "The General" owned a yacht, a stable of thoroughbreds and, when he died of a stroke at age 45, had a life-sized stature placed over his grave by Barnum. When his diminutive wife died 35 years later her tombstone read, "His Wife." 
• Barnum marketed the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind's American tour so well that 40,000 people greeted her at the docks and another 20,000 at her hotel.
• Tickets for some of the "Nightingale's" concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them at auction. He netted the equivalent of $14,300,000 from the tour.
• Barnum, who became know as the "Shakespeare of Marketing," created America's first aquarium, organized flower shows, beauty contests, dog shows, and the most popular, baby contests, changed public attitudes about the theater which had previously been thought of as a "den of evil" by starting the nation's first theatrical matinees to encourage family attendance,  and by opening the show with a temperance lecture to lessen the fear of crime. (Boy, that is a long sentence for a Texan, a compound-complex sentence for an English major.)
• Barnum who served four terms in the Connecticut legislature as a Republican supported the temperance movement and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Later he became a progressive mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• He began the Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Circus after he was 60 years old.
• Barnum contributed significantly to Tufts University including donating the hide of Jumbo the Elephant to raise money. Jumbo remains the school's mascot.
• Barnum so successfully promoted his own autobiography that at the end on the 19th century the number of printed copies was second only to the Bible. I just purchased a Kindle copy and will keep you posted.
• Just before his death Barnum had the newspaper print his obituary so he could read it. 

 

Leonardo Lessons

The life of Leonardo da Vinci offers a wealth of life lessons. Here are some, most of which are taken verbatim from Walter Isaacson's biography:

• Be curious. Being relentlessly curious about everything around us is something each of us can push ourselves to do, every waking hour, just as he did.
• Retain a childlike sense of wonder. Never cease to stand like awed children before the world in which we are born.
• See things unseen. Look for the message beyond the obvious, behind the curtain of what's visible. What is seen is temporary, what is not seen is eternal.
• Get distracted. Leonardo's willingness to pursue whatever shiny subject caught his eye made his mind richer and filled with more connections.
• Respect facts. Let's be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.
• Procrastinate. "While painting The Last Supper, Leonardo would sometimes stare at the work for an hour, finally make one small stroke, and then leave. He said that creativity requires time for ideas to marinate and intuitions to gel. 'Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least,' he explained, 'for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.'"
• Think visually. Solve problems with the mind's eye.
• Indulge fantasy. The ability to make connections across disciplines--arts and sciences, humanities and technology--is the key to innovation, imagination, and genius.
• Create for yourself, not just for patrons. I used to censor myself with concerns about what you, the reader, would think about my essays, what you wanted. When I began writing for myself about those things I enjoyed or intrigued me, I became more creative and liked what I wrote more. I hope you did, too.
• Collaborate. Genius starts with individual brilliance. It requires singular vision. But executing it often entails working with others. Innovation is a team sport. Creativity is a collaborative endeavor. 
• Take notes, on paper. Leonardo wrote 7,200 pages of notes and scribbles that, miraculously, survive today. I have been a note keeper most of my adult life but my scribbles have not survived. If I saw, heard or read something interesting I would jot it down of a piece of paper. Then, later, I couldn't find the paper. Or I would put the material in a notebook, perhaps filling 15-20 pages and misplace the notebook. Last year I began keeping notes in a 9.75 inch x 7.5 inch Composition Book that I take with me wherever I go (if I don't forget it which, sadly, I often do). I have stuff in it like unusual sir names; the reason James Earl Rudder didn't win the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts at Pointe du Hoc during WW II; notes on M-theory; Shakespeare lines and quotes from others; theology notes. It is a treasure trove, for me anyway. You might like keeping your own notebook of interesting and random ideas.

A Cozy Read

With all the hoopla associated with Christmas, family gone, leftovers eaten, wrapping paper and cardboard boxes in the dumpster, decorations down, and the artificial tree stored (artificial trees outsold natural trees this year, 60% vs 40%), I have been able to settle down with Walter Isaacson’s new book on Leonardo da Vinci.

Several features make the book unique: It is printed on premium grade glossy paper that make the numerous illustrations pop; Isaacson gives a rather detailed overview of Leonardo’s life in the first few chapters before discussing da Vinci’s major contributions so that chronology does not interrupt the flow of achievement. Although written by a scholar of the highest degree, the writing style makes the book easy and enjoyable to read. The last chapter discusses Leonardo’s self-taught traits that allowed him to will his way to brilliance (makes great blog material that you can count on reading here). 

The book has many magical nuggets unminted by my mind. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the alliteration. In more prosaic words: the book had a lot of stuff I didn’t know.) Here are just a few:

·      A light background makes an object look bigger than a dark background

·      Leonardo was a producer of pageants and plays. He used his artistic and technical skills in stage design, costumes, scenery, music, mechanisms, choreography and automatons.

·      The incredible perspective tricks that contribute to the majesty of The Last Supper.

·      His ability to show intentions of the mind through gestures in his artwork. Leonardo wrote: A picture of human figures ought be done in such a way as that the viewer may easily recognize, by means of their attitudes, the intentions of their minds.

·      The design of a cathedral should reflect the proportions of the human body as depicted in The Vitruvian Man.

These are just examples. If I were to write about all the things I learned from Isaacson’s book the information would fill a small volume…and I’ve read less than half the book so far.  

I’ll close with this intriguing statement from Isaacson:

The fact that Leonardo was not only a genius but also very human—quirky and obsessive and playful and easily distracted—makes him more accessible. He was not graced with the type of brilliance that is completely unfathomable to us. Instead, he was self-taught and willed his way to his genius. So even though we may never be able to match his talents, we can learn from him and try to be more like him.

Why not buy the book and, in your mind’s eye, join me in a cozy read nestled next to a warming hearth, the hubbub of the holiday fading away.

Five Questions for 2018

If you enjoy challenging yourself with New Year Resolutions contemplate these five questions:

1. Assuming you had a billion dollars how would you use it?
2. Assuming you had all the time available to do whatever you wanted, what would you do with your time?
3. If you knew your life would end in one year what would you do in that one year?
4. If you had 24-hours to live is the world better because you lived?
5. If you had 24-hours to live did you become the person you wanted to be?

 

The Enduring Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit doesn't change things. It changes the way we look at things.

Instead of appearing when we ask for it, or when we expect it or when we pray for it, the Spirit of Christmas flows out of us waking and sleeping. 

The Christmas Spirit helps us better see the decency and nobility in others. We are more generous in giving, more liberal in praise. The Christmas Spirit encourages compassion for the weak, empathy for the mournful; gives us a tender smile, a robust laugh. 

Bestowing supersedes acquiring. Peace replaces disquiet.  Kindness, goodness, gentleness prevail. An enduring Christmas Spirit uncovers the divinity that blesses us all.

The Season of Joy

Almost all of us, at one time or another, have had a fleeting experience of ecstatic joy. A measure of music, the look of a child, a recalled memory, a  landscape, a sunset or a moonrise may kindle this moment of ecstasy. 

These sweet sensations reveal to us the essence of life, as though the universe opened a window to our soul disclosing for an instant the depth of God's inscrutable compassion, mercy and tenderness. 

The appreciation and gratefulness engendered by the Christmas season releases our senses to these experiences of joy. The childlike receptivity engendered by the season opens our hearts to the love of Jesus for us all. 

A Brief Thought on Thinking

Thinking begins with listening to ideas from all viewpoints. 

The challenge for me is this: When I hear  thoughts that conflict with mine I have a tendency to get angry instead of listening. 

It would be easier for all of us to listen to all viewpoints if we could eliminate the bombast, vituperation and aspersions that we tend to cast upon people with ideas different from ours. 

I guess we could say that listening and learning begin with love--with respecting and honoring the other person and their point of view.

Think About It

A few days ago I wrote about finding a name for our four-person reading group. Initially I decided to call us the 4-winds after the four characters--mole, rat, badger and toad in the children's novel, Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame because the four characters had such different personalities. After thinking about it I decided to call us the Windy-4, because all of us talk the leaves off the trees. So, the Windy-4 it is.

Well...the Windy-4 decided to read and discuss How to Think by Baylor scholar Alan Jacobs. The book is difficult. Not difficult to read. The sentence structure is bold and crisp. The book is little: 5"x7", the spine is less than 1/4 inch wide, 157 pages. The kind of book when you pull it from the shelf you say, "Oh, I can whip through this in a couple of hours and go watch Stranger Things."

Not so. The first person Jacobs mentions is Daniel Kahneman, the Noble Prize laureate in economics for whose work on decision making is fascinating, important, and requires time, much time to digest. With the mention of Kahneman's name we know we are in for some heavy stuff.

As I began to turn the pages of Jacobs book, the pages didn't turn quickly. It took an hour to read 12 pages. Not because the vocabulary was obtuse (it wasn't), not because the sentences were convoluted (they weren't), but because with every page I had to stop and think.

Jacobs quoted T. S. Eliot, words that Eliot wrote almost a century ago but seem to be written for today's audience:

When there is so much to be known, when there are are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not.  

Eliot concludes, When we do not know, or we we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts.

Think about that. In our liquid modernity world where knowledge flows and advances at nano speed we become so overwhelmed that we don't stop and think about what we are learning. We then tend to substitute emotions for thoughts.

We are likely to go with the consensus. What our neighbors think. What our friends think. What we read on the Internet. And in a vicious cycle we pick those neighbors, friends, Internet users because they "think" like us.

We get pleasure from sharing values we know are socially approved by our group. We are happy when we are around those who share our ideas and unhappy, even angry, when others threaten our beliefs.

To quote Jacobs: "Social bonding is cemented by shared emotion, shared emotion generates social bonding. It's a feedback loop from which reflection is excluded."

We become invested in not thinking about things in order to be part of our crowd.

The first step to knowledge is knowing what we don't know. We become clearer thinkers when we think about what we are thinking. Think about it.

The Name Game

I am trying to think a name for our reading group. Sort of like the Inklings, an informal discussion group that included C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and other scholars associated with Oxford University who discussed narrative fiction and encouraged fantasy writing between the early 1930s and late 1949.

Because they were writers they called themselves the Inklings. And they were humble scholars thereby, perhaps, having a double entendre to the name Inklings, as in they had only a glimmer of what is going on.

The Inkling name wouldn't fit us because we have no idea what is going on. I guess we could call ourselves the Glimmerless. Or the Inklingness since none of us has written a book...well, I've written a few but no one reads them so Inklingness would still fit, but that name doesn't come rolling off the tongue. So I reject that one.

Since I intruded on the group of three making us a group of four, I thought we might be called the Fourth Wheel but that name does not indicate a group.

Then I discovered that we only discuss theology books. I found out this way: Somewhere I had read that Jimmy Buffet's new book, A Good Life All the Way, made a Best Books of 2017 list.

I thought his new book would interest our discussion group because Jimmy Buffet is:

• An "island escapism" musician with umpteen gold records
• A successful business man with two restaurant chains
• A Broadway script writer
• An author of two children's books
• And--get this--one of eight authors who have reached number one on the New York Times best seller list in both fiction (Tales From Margaritaville) and nonfiction (A Pirate Looks at Fifty).

The other seven?: Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace, Dr. Seuss, Mitch Albom (Mitch who?), and Glen Beck (Glen Beck!). See what you learn when you are looking for a name.

A Good Life All the Way was rejected by our nameless group because Buffet is not a theologian. I guess we could call our group, The Buffetless (another double entendre because we don't have a buffet when we meet...sorry--it's getting late). Or because we are such a dull group, we don't even have a bucket list, how about the Bucketless Readers.

I need to come up with a name that reflects our religious leanings. The Theologians is out. Too prosaic. As is the Seminarians.

The name of our group needs to be catchy. Like the name I have for our weight lifting group of three--the Three Muscleteers. The Four Seasons...no. The Four Aces...no. The Four Down...that might work if we were drinkers, but sadly being (fake) theologians, we are not.

I better quit. This is getting ridiculous. I'll come up with a name in the middle of the night.

Anyway this blog wasn't a total waste. You learned something about Jimmie Buffet that I wager you didn't know. But who is Mitch Albom?

A XXXL Heart

Two articles well worth reading in the December 11, 2017 Sports Illustrated honor Houstonians J. J. Watt and Jose Altuve as Sportspersons of the Year.

For those who took an early trip to Mars on the NASA/Space X Red Dragon and missed the aftermath of the 1000-year Houston flood,  diminutive (5'6") Jose Altuve rocketed the Houston Astros to a World Series winning orbit.

According to Tom Verducci who wrote the story on Altuve, "There have been some 19,000 major league players. Only two of them 5'6" or shorter ever had 1,000 hits and 75 homers: Altuve and Hall of Famer Hack Wilson, who was born in 1900."

Four starters on the 2017 Little League Champions from Lufkin, Texas (Go! Panthers) are taller than Altuve.

In September 2006 the Astros invited Altuve to tryout. After the first day he wasn't asked back. He was too short. Too little. Too young. 

His father told the 5' 5" 140 pound, 16-year-old to return. Don't listen to them. Just play ball. Uninvited, Altuve returned birth certificate in hand and commenced to pound line drive after line drive.  He signed a free agent contract that evening.

After reaching the majors Altuve hit .276, .290 and .283 his first three years after which his father told him, "I think you can hit .320."

The next year Altuve hit .341, winning the first of three batting titles. The power of a father's belief. The power of a father's words.

Altuve said:

"A lot of people tell me now I'm their inspiration. They say, 'I don't play baseball,' and then they mention whatever--engineer, doctor, college student, high school student--but they're hurt because for some reason people feel shame about themselves or embarrassed because they are short or skinny or fat or whatever. That was something I never had in me. I was short, but I was O.K. with it. I didn't care. I still don't care."

The Worried Well and the Worried Unwell: Life Management or Medication

I just received an interesting question on medication vs. management skills for college students. When do students deserve medication for stress and when would students benefit from management skills training?

To answer that difficult question let's first look at what's normal. Many may disagree with my definition of normal human behavior, but here it is anyway. We are normal if we are able to:

• Love that includes:
• Love of self = wishing ourselves well, accepting ourselves despite our frailties, and developing our talents.
• Love of others = extending (but not overextending) ourselves for the other's emotional, intellectual, and physical growth.
• Love of God = a spiritual relationship with a supreme being or in my case, and the case of many others, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
• Work = providing for ourselves in a way that benefits others.
• Recreate and Relax = enjoy ourselves in a way that brings no harm to ourself or others.

All of us have distractions, desires, disappointments, despairs, despondencies to some extent at sometime in our lives. (If we don't have a few of these characteristics at one time or another, we are in denial and most likely abnormal.) 

So to answer to the first part of the question is easy. In my view all of us would benefit from management skill coaching and most certainly all college students would benefit from intra-and interpersonal skill training. If I were running the world,  Life Management 101 would be a required course for every high school and college student. 

Two decades ago I wrote a little book---Leverage Your Time, Balance Your Life---that I hoped would help all of us live more useful lives. Since we can purchase the book on the internet for one cent it obviously didn't help as many as I would have hoped. 

Now to answer the difficult part of the question: What students deserve medication and what students don't? With a few exceptions, the prevalence of mental illness in college students is similar to the prevalence of mental illness in non-students. Those with schizophrenia and other psychoses, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, severe panic disorder with agoraphobia, and major depression benefit from medication and medical treatment. Medical treatment does not exclude these students from Life Management 101.   

Now let's get to two hazy areas: social anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Attention Deficient Disorder seems to be on the rise. This diagnosis provides a huge dilemma for me. Who to treat and who not to treat? College students (and the rest of us) love Adderall for reasons all on this planet know. Adderall is a miracle drug for those with ADD. Unfortunately students can fake the symptoms of ADD very easily. In an ideal world those claiming ADD would have a battery of extensive psychological tests. Unfortunately these tests are extremely expensive or may be unavailable.  

Right or wrong this is a nutshell summary of what I do: After an extensive history and mental status examination, I administer (in person) a pen and paper test that contains the symptoms of ADD, bipolar illness, depression and the major physical illnesses. I then, if possible, talk with some significant other about the student's symptoms. I discuss in detail the side effects and abuses of Adderall and have the student sign that I have done so. If all seems appropriate, I give a low dose trail of Adderall and reassess a week later. The patient's report dictates options. To continue to receive Adderall the student must show improved grades. (There is much, much more to a treatment decision and followup than is written here.) 

Now to social anxiety, another college student illness on the rise. First and foremost these students benefit from Life Management 101. Some may require psychotherapy and in certain severe cases I may prescribe an SSRI and, on some extremely rare cases, a very low dose benzodiazepine. In my experience, the vast majority of social anxiety students require no medication.  

Thanks again, reader, for this extremely difficult question that merits a book to answer. 

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Please comment: A personal story you would like to share? Any ideas you would like to contribute? Any disagreements?

That Festive Holiday Season Aborted

This morning became the happiest day of the year when Vicki told me that we would be alone for Christmas.

Wende and family were going to his parents in Derry, Maine where they plan to watch It reruns all Christmas day. Brad and family plan a holiday with her parents in El Paso to enter the Fry-an-Egg-on-the Sidewalk-Christmas-Day contest. Plus all the cousins, aunts, and uncles are going elsewhere. As I was running around the house like Jimmy Valvano looking for someone to hug Vicki cried, "But we will miss all the fun."

"Yes," I replied, "You will miss five support hose in your Christmas stocking and I will miss a half-dozen brown and grey striped neckties:

• And we won't have five grandchildren jumping up and down on our bed at 4 o'clock in the morning yelling, "Has Santa Clause come yet." 
• Little Billy Ray won't be putting away his Lionel New York Central Steam Streamlined Train Set to play with the wrapping paper and box it came in. 
• Betty Jo and Mary Beth won't pulling the legs off Debbie the American Girl Doll to see who gets to change her outfit. 
• Uncle John Dale won't smash Uncle James Henry's Texas A&M coffee cup with his UT paper weight. 
• Aunt Sarah Sue won't drink all the spiked punch before breakfast. 
• We will miss the political arguments instigated by Cousin Tommy Joe wearing his red Make America Great Again baseball cap. 
• We'll miss the Catholics and Plymouth Brethren arguing over infant baptism. 
• We'll miss the dry turkey, soggy lettuce, molded cream cheese, spoiled potato salad, loose salt shaker top, limp celery, soda-less chocolate cake, runny pecan pie. 

"But, what are we going to do on Christmas day?" Vicki asked with Brazos River tears cascading down her face.

• We'll sleep late and get up around nine-thirty, see who wins the race to the toilet, and hop around freezing until the furnace comes on. 
• Then I will stare at the mirror for fifteen minutes trying to decide if I'm going to shave while you swab Oil of Olay on your neck. 
• We'll take our medicine for hypertension, atrial fib, heartburn, arthritis, diabetes, and wash down 30 vitamins to prevent Alzheimer's with 64-ounces of Metamucil-laced Gatorade. 
• For breakfast we'll have one slice of partially burned toast, decaf Coffee, and a big glass of prune juice while yelling at the newspaper for printing negative news. 
• After that we will watch reruns of The Price is Right, Family Feud, and Let's Make a Deal until having a lunch of cheese, fruit, crackers and V-8 juice. 
• Then we will have an exciting card game or two of Go Fish, take a four hour nap before a supper of fish sticks and broccoli. By then we will be so worn out we will go to bed just as the sunsets.

"That's the same thing we do every day," Vicki shouted in her tent meeting preacher's voice.

I don't know about you but I'm going to spice up my life by burning all those P. T. Barnum family letters we get in our Christmas cards. You know the ones that brag about:

• Jenny Lou becoming fluent in French before she was toilet trained
• Willie Jack almost pitching for the New York Yankees until he dislocated his shoulder while attempting to sign a 10 million dollar contract 
• Hank Boy catching a bass that was bigger than Shamu the Whale
• And the all the fun the Brown family of seven had visiting every Park Service Campground in their pop-up trailer.

"What am I going to do for fun,"Vicki pleaded like a wet puppy on a stormy night.

"Let's invite all our friends from assisted living and party like fools until seven o'clock."

 

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Please comment: A personal story you would like to share? Any ideas you would like to contribute? Any disagreements?