Jeff Who Lives At Home - Movie Review

 

“What’s the greatest day in the history of the world? Today.” 

- Jeff 

Jeff Who Lives At Home is a movie about the greatest day in the world, shared by two brothers that are polar opposites. 

Jeff lives outside the box. He’s a burned out stoner, who at thirty has no job and lives in his mom’s basement. He holds a staunch belief in fate, that everything leads into something else, and everything falls into a cosmic orderliness.

Pat, the older brother, lives within the box. He supposedly has his life put together – he’s married, has a stable job, and is saving to buy a house. But Pat’s life isn’t as great as it seems, he has no awareness of what’s going on in his marriage, or how the puzzle piece of his life fits into a greater whole. Pat just lives by going through the motion without any sense of meaning. 

Jeff and Pat don’t spend much time together, they’re too different. But one day Jeff receives a phone call asking for someone named Kevin, and Jeff is convinced it’s his fate to find Kevin – and that Kevin will somehow lead him to the next step, so he departs his safe basement in search of his destiny. 

The rest of the movie is about their day together. 

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Jeff and Pat represent sides on an important life spectrum. On one side is office jobs and responsibility, and on the other side is artists and creativity. 

To some extent Pat’s side makes sense. You have to fit within the box of society. You have to pay your taxes, show up to work, and shower. 

On the other hand, by spending the time to reflect on life, you see the beauty of the bigger picture. You can find meaning in suffering, empathize with people's problems, and develop visions for a greater world. In short, you can develop a sense of appreciation for life. 

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An interesting piece of church advice I heard once. Take an issue like tithing an appropriate amount of money to the church - enough to sustain the church, but not too much that it's preventing you from paying your bills.  Congregations are always leaning one way or the other – and the job of a minister is to nudge the congregation more towards the middle, towards a balancing point. Either end of the spectrum, say not tithing or tithing too much, is going to be dangerous. 

I’ve met people like Pat – square and boring. You know they’ll end up with their 2.5 kids, 401 k’s, and car insurance paid on time every month. I’ve also met people like Jeff – irresponsible and draining on their families. You don’t know if they’ll ever stop talking about the meaning of life and writing about it on their blog. It’s hard to know where the balance point is, but it's probably important to find that balance.

But anyways, the movie’s great. Enjoy the greatest day in history of the world. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Chop wood, carry water

Last week I talked about how there are certain traits to people you would choose to "go to war with." These traits are usually lumped in as intangibles, non cognitive characteristics, etc.  I wanted to break down these traits.

So I’ll start with an important intangible. Staying at the grind, when the world is pushing you to give up. 

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I had a track teammate in college, Jake. When I think of Jake, there are several awesome races that come to mind, but I remember one in particular. It was the indoor track conference meet. 

Jake had come into the conference meet after a disappointing season, and he was seeded 8th in the 3000 meter race (about two miles). The top runner, Dee, was the heavy favorite. He was coming off a cross country title, and had been continuing with a big indoor track season. 

The race started out calmly with nobody taking a clear lead, until halfway through the race when Dee jumped into the lead and started pushing the pace. Several runners followed suit, perhaps hoping to catch second place or sneak a victory. Two laps later, Dee was cruising, and had dropped all but one runner. That one runner was Jake. 

He was hanging in there, having the race of his life. Not only that, he looked calm and in control. You could see him itching to make a move on Dee. Jake pushed and pushed, but Dee couldn’t be broken. 

Dee crossed the finish line a few comfortable seconds ahead of Jake, but Jake ended the day with a huge personal best, and he had eliminated all memories of a subpar season. He had outraced several of the best runners in the conference. You couldn’t steal the smile from his face. 

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I once told Jake that he was a champion. But not because of the day I just told you about. 

The five months before that incredible 3000 meter race, Jake had been waking up early and trudging through the Ohio snow to walk to the KAC (Kenyon Athletic Center) every morning before class. Lacing up his shoes, and hitting the indoor track to run an easy few miles. Mornings after staying up till the wee-hours writing an Indian History term paper, Jake was still at the track. 

It’s easy to get out and train when you’re having the season of your life. It’s easy to run when you’re going good, and cranking out PR’s left and right. 

It’s not so easy when you’re having a tough season. When you’re training as if you should be having the season of your life, but you aren’t. When you’re crushing workouts, but getting crushed in races. 

People start talking about how you’re overtraining. That you’re wasting precious time at college trying to live a hopeless dream. And you start to doubt yourself. 

Jake struggled through tough seasons, but through it all, he ran his miles, pounded his workouts, and showed up to work hard every day. Whether he had just crushed the field, or was coming off the worst race of his life, you could find him at the KAC. Putting in extra miles. 

You can rely on a guy like Jake. Maybe not for a breakout race every time he laces up his spikes, but you know he’s at the track every day, working hard. Chopping wood. Carrying water. And that counts for something. 

I would go to war with Jake. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Who would you go to war with?

Steve Nash is a point guard on the Phoenix Suns. He’s a back-to-back MVP winner, in ’05 and ’06, one of the best players ever. But he could never get to the NBA finals, and this ate at him. Here’s a paraphrased passage from Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball: 

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Falling short in ’05 and ’06 hardened him. Before the ’07 season, Nash spent the summer mulling over the two years before, when he won back-to-back MVP awards, but still couldn’t make it to the finals. 

That summer he decided the only thing left for him to accomplish was a championship. Then, he thought long and hard about how to get that championship, ultimately cutting off his hair, and getting in unbelievable shape so he wouldn’t wear down in the playoffs. 

That year, Nash was on a higher plain. He used the first forty minutes of a game to get his teammates going, then took over in crunch time if his team needed it. Sometimes he’d even unleash the “Look there’s no way we’re effing losing this game!” look. 

You know Nash’s team will never get blown out – they’ll be fighting until the very end, and he’s the reason. At the end of the day, Steve Nash can’t play defense, and he has a back that could go out at any second, but you could go to war with Steve Nash, and really, that’s all that matters. 

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Who would you go to war with? 

This is one of the top questions I think about. 

Many NBA players are gunning for their moment in the spotlight, their brand, and cash. Guys like LeBron James - rolling in highlight reels, shoe deals, and conversations of best ever. Then, there are players like Nash – flying under the radar, loyally sticking to his team, and quietly being one of the best players of his era. Who would you rather go to war with? 

Of course, you’d line up behind Nash. 

I have a hypothesis about war guys. If you asked a group of people who ran in the same social circle, “Who would you go to war with?” They would come up with the same few names, and those few people would share common qualities. 

 

Guys like Billy Beane have a career because they figured out ways to analyze value better than other baseball teams. While other teams were courting flashy homerun hitters, Beane went after scrappy guys who racked up walks. 

The market inefficiency goes beyond sports. Take science - scientists are hired based on their publications, but is that really the best way to find good scientists? 

A resume can tell you a lot, but it doesn’t tell you if the person likes science or if they can come up with their own ideas. In science there are inefficiencies – hire the scientists with the best publications on their resume, and you might not get the best scientists. There are scientists that you could plug into a lab, and they’d have an impact on the environment, and swing it into a productive space. You could say they’d have a Nash-like quality on the lab. 

My hypothesis is that we are bad at analyzing other people's value. We overvalue certain qualities and undervalue other ones that would actually produce a good society. 

So anyways, I want to overanalyze the qualities of these war guys, except this is already too long so I’ll start next week.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

The Voice from the Ether

The voice from the ether called out. 

“At this time, you may approach the prompt at the door.” 

Ten individuals in suits, all lined down a hall. Each one a mere six steps away from a door. In response to the voice, all ten of them simultaneously stepped up to the door. 

I see the white sheet taped to the door for about four seconds until my head snaps back into place and I start reading. 

“There will be a lego construction in front of you when you enter the room. Your partner, to your left, will have lego pieces. Explain to your partner how to put together the lego construction.” 

I had been warned about the teamwork station, so this wasn’t unexpected, but it was still a little strange. Here I was, having spent the last six years cranking out science classes like Physical Chemistry. In those years, I had also invested a chunk of mental energy to daydream about how to solve global poverty and wondering about the molecular machinery underlying iron homeostasis. 

What was I doing playing with lego’s? 

The voice from the ether came again. 

“You may enter the room. You will have ten minutes to discuss the prompt.” 

My partner to my left was an Indian fellow with a name tag, Rajiv. I was thinking he was about my age as he reached for the door. I wondered where he was coming from. An awkward second past, as I was thinking to myself, and I realized, shit, I should go in too. 

So it begins. 

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This was my day at the University of California – Los Angeles. I was interviewing for a coveted out-of-state spot at the medical school. And I was nervous. But why were they asking me to play with lego’s? 

At UCLA, they use the “MMI” or the multiple mini interview format that I’ve talked about before. In the MMI-style interviewees talk to ten admissions members and receive a grade from each one. This is different from the usual style of interviewing where you only get to talk to one or two people. The topics are complex, ranging from ethical topics to personal challenges. The theory behind MMI is that there are certain intangibles that admission committees cannot get from your online application. 

For instance, patients want doctors to be sensitive, but there are plenty of nerds with stellar grades and no empathy that get over the med school admissions hurdle. 

I love the idea of MMI - it gives a chance to under-the-radar applicants. Medical schools get so many applications that it’s impossible to give everyone a fair look. Accordingly, most schools have an unstated threshold for grades or test scores. It’s inevitably unfair to the applicants who have on-the-border grades, but have great intangibles, such as: the discipline to wake up early and study medical research instead of sleeping in, or a sense of presence to stabilize their work environment. 

Of course, these are only a subset of the intangibles that you’d need to be a good doctor, but the point is that by only picking med students based on grades, the medical world might be missing out. 

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I walked in behind Rajiv. 

“Hi Rajiv, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s Ken. I hope we can work together today and help each other out.” 

 “Nice to meet you, Ken.” 

 “Ok, I have a truck in front of me.” 

And we were off. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.