My step-grandfather, Jack Delany, always told us, “you can make the Honor Society and be an All-American.”
You can be a nerd, and a jock.
Why not?
It’s like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Patting your head and rubbing your belly.
Holding two competing ideas in your mind is hard. But it’s worth it.
Truths that don’t align with stereotypes are what makes the world an interesting place to hang. It makes the dinner party worth attending.
But it also confuses the hell out of low rung types.
Even the smallest discrepancies, the slightest nudge to someone’s reality, can be like seeing the moon rise in the morning.
We’ve talked about independent thought, and this post is about independent actions. What we do on a day-to-day basis may seem at odds with one another, but they help keep us in balance. Keep us from rowing in circles.
My favorite example of this dichotomy is the gentle giant.
The Gentle Giant:
Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith) is a classic gentle giant and was my favorite character in the Police Academy movies. Remember when he got kicked out for flipping the squad car with Copeland inside?
Copeland deserved it, but that is beside the point.
What’s important to remember is what Hightower did after leaving the academy. He didn’t get a job as a boxer or a bouncer.
No, this mountain of a man returned to his true love.
He worked as a florist.
Surprise!
I’d say those occupations are pretty darn independent from one another. You want your thinking and your actions to work in this way. As Robert Heinlein said, “specialization is for insects.”
Diversify!
I’m not telling you to start flipping cars, and I’d never suggest you work as a florist.
But Prime Minister Winston Churchill spent quite a bit of time laying bricks. Not exactly in line with his work deciding public policy, so maybe you can push your boundaries a little as well.
What we are talking about is an old idea. The warrior poet.
Warrior Poet:
The Warrior Poet is both the fighter and the writer.
The Knights Templar, the Samurai, the Spartans, are all examples.
General Thucydides of Athens said, “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”
Every coin has two sides. I hope your life has even more than that.
This doesn’t make you a flip flopper. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite either.
It makes you human. Yin and yang.
It gives you dimensions.
And part of that is embracing the dichotomy of your day-to-day.
As for me?
I’m off to lift weights, pick some blueberries, and bake a batch of cookies with my daughter.
I think Jack would appreciate that. Hightower and Winston too.
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