He Thinks He can do Anything

My wife said to me about my 30 something son, "He thinks he can do anything!" I said back to her, "That's because he can!" Even after 15 years I guess my wife still doesn't understand the men of my family. My father and his father were my most unforgettable characters I have ever met. They both were John Wayne like. They were not warm fuzzy guys, even though my Dad was one of the funniest people I have ever known, always making wise cracks, always a man's man. Both were about 6 foot 2 1/2 while I"m about 6 foot 4 1/2 like my uncle Bob. I never thought I could compete with Dad so I became a ladies man instead. He never completely understood this about me but at least I had many girlfriends and my own things that I excelled in that I made a point to be different from my Dad's best qualities.

My son has a 150 IQ. So even though he was born dyslexic we didn't know it until his teens. So it took him some time to fully understand his strengths and weaknesses. But basically on a computer and science level he was always a genius. I can remember when he taught himself C++(a computer language) after I had taught him to program in Basic years before on my 1978 4k TRS-80 that I bought from Radio Shack in 1978 for about 600 dollars. It was our first home computer with a black and white screen, 4k memory and one could input programs from a cassette recorder. So at least one could store the Basic programs after one wrote them.

Anyway, my son just married for the second time, this one is 23 and he is 35. However, in some ways emotionally they are on the same page even though mentally and life experience wise he is a very grown up and worldly 35. So when my wife said to me, "He thinks he can do anything!", my only useful response was, "That's because he can."

However, there is a caveat to that. The qualities that my son, I, my father, and my grandfather share is what I would call the knowledge that we can accomplish anything we put our minds to. I suppose it is a ruthless quality of always succeeding and never attempting anything unless we are sure to succeed. It is a quality that one found in pioneer people of the past 3 centuries in the U.S. that survived it all. It is also what amazes the world about Americans, their can do attitude. It doesn't matter what it is they will find a way around it or find a way to fix it if it is the last thing they do. It is a ruthless determination to survive well no matter what.

With Global warming, terrorism and nuclear proliferation we all need to think about how to reapply these qualities on the world stage so that quality of life for all mankind can not only be restored but also improved.