Noel

When I was a youngster, under-achievement was a kind of ideal. You did your homework and studied, but you tried very hard to give the impression that you did not study really hard. It was cool to do fairly well in exams, but you avoided being seen as a bookworm. It was great to be good at sports, but you never gave the impression that you trained too hard. Or, if you had talent at music or art, you showed it off, developed it, but never let on that you worked feverishly at this.

My father expressed his dismay at how we were frittering away our talent. We who were, eventually, going to take charge of the country and run it! This was the 1960s, just before independence and we were aware of this. But it did not mean that we were not to be cool, to fit in, to be one of the guys!

Years later, I met a poem by Larkin which was dedicated to Sally Amis (daughter of renowned poet Kingsley Amis) at her birth. In the poem he wished for her not that she would be beautiful or brilliant, but that she be ordinary; and :

'Have, like other women,

An average of talents:

Not ugly, not good-looking

Nothing uncustomary.'

He ends by saying:

'In fact, may you be dull

If that is what a skilled,

Vigilant, flexible,

Unemphasised, enthralled

Catching of happiness is called.'

Brilliant

The recent focus on the life of Michael Jackson has brought this poem forcibly to mind and at the same time made sense of our natural boyhood instincts. It seems that so many highly 'successful' persons are beset by personal problems. I mean the supremely gifted and talented in the arts or sports who have made full use of their outstanding talent, the very brilliant who have developed their intellectual skills to the fullest and all others who have become very rich and famous. It may not be simply the developing of their talents but also the fame and fortune that accompany this. Fortune alone can do it too as the sad stories of the lives of the children of the very wealthy suggest to us.

So the question is, is Larkin correct? Is it easier to be happy as 'one of the crowd' an average Joe or Jane, making a reasonable living, having a couple kids, a car that can carry you around and an occasional holiday in the US or on the north coast? In fact, in the past, this was the 'American Dream': a job that paid well enough for a house in a good neighbourhood with an extra bedroom for visitors and a white picket fence, a couple kids whom you could afford to educate through college, a dog and two cars.

And then, with the coming of the age of acquisition, it all changed. Persons began to be 'judged' by how much they possessed. Even pastors began to deliver a prosperity theology, and everyone began to worship the rich and famous, the bold and beautiful.

People became obsessed with their lives. And then paparazzi emerged. Many persons lay much of the blame for these persons' unhappiness squarely at the feet of this segment of the media - which in many parts of the world is setting what is the normative attitude of the press.

Rich and famous

To be rich and famous makes one's life automatically a 'reality show' with cameras and recorders following you around.

Michael Jackson's lost childhood is a matter of record. The impact this had on him is tragic in that we believe there was a deep under-lying unhappiness in the man as he struggled to cope with this loss. If you argue that he lost his childhood in order to give the world so much pleasure, even inspiring some persons, I ask: was it worth it? Or better yet, would you wish this on a child of yours?

Keith Noel is an educator. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.