Victor Rozek
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As I See It: The Other Final Frontier
October 10, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn its 123 years of existence, National Geographic magazine has explored some inhospitable landscapes. Intrepid adventurers have hacked across the Amazon jungle, inched their way through underwater cave systems on the Yucatan Peninsula, and pulled sleds in sub-zero temperatures through ice and snow until they ran out of North. But in this month’s issue they tackle what may be the most impregnable and unfathomable landscape of all: The teenage brain.
Teenagers have been the source of parental discontent since Ayla roamed the Neanderthal frontier looking for a split-level cave. Neanderkinders no doubt lost their spears, failed to tidy up the
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As I See It: Celebrating Ignorance
September 26, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreAt one time, bloody bandages were hung on poles to dry after patients were bled by physicians. It was the origin of the now innocuous red-striped barber pole. Of course, the association of barber poles with primitive medical practices has long been lost because bleeding is no longer an unchallenged medical practice. But that’s the way of certainty: it crumbles like a stale cookie.
Certitude is a beast with a short life span. What people believe, what they live for, die for, and kill for, changes as surely as the seasons. Truth is mutable and yesterday’s facts become today’s folly.
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As I See It: Going Silent
September 12, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMy first IT job was working swing shift computer operations for a Silicon Valley wafer manufacturer. In those days, disc packs were removable and resembled layered cakes consisting of a stack of platters coated with oxide icing. Each evening I would run a long series of sequential jobs. The process needed to be expeditious if there was any hope of finishing by shift’s end, which meant starting the next job as soon as the preceding one ended.
But even if I wasn’t glued to a monitor, the movement of the heads across the platters provided an accurate indicator of progress.
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As I See It: Paying Attention
August 22, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read more“How the hell did this happen?” The late fiction writer Robert B. Parker called it “humanity’s cry.” For those not paying attention, that always seems to be the question, after the fact. Why are jobs so scarce? Why did the deficit explode? What happened to the economy? Tardy but reasonable questions given the misinformation surrounding our seemingly rapid decline. If you’ve lost your job, or are fearful of losing it; if you’re searching for work but can’t find it; if you’re unable to make your mortgage payment, or know someone who has lost their home, it’d be nice to at
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As I See It: Piling On
August 15, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThere’s a phenomenon that takes place in extreme mountaineering that is perhaps illustrative of human nature. Teams ascending the highest peaks like Everest and K2 will often come upon a solo climber from another group who is clearly in trouble and in imminent danger of death. The nearer the summit, the more likely that person will be left behind. Granted, the margins at altitudes well over 20,000 feet are small, and the choices limited. But there is a “me first, me at any price” ethic that essentially says: I paid for this, I trained for this; this may be the
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As I See It: Barry, Barry Bad
July 25, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMore often than not, ethical behavior seems to be determined by distance–either real or virtual. The Internet provides a daily reminder that the more removed an offender is from the outcomes he creates, the more emboldened he becomes. And the corollary is also true: The more remote the victim, the easier it is to harm her. Stealing an old woman’s money from the safety of Nigeria is easier than mugging her in Des Moines.
Technology offers criminals, the mean-spirited, and what Hannibal Lecter described as “the free-range rude,” a high degree of immunity from discovery and retaliation. It’s as if
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As I See It: An Icy Place Apart
July 11, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreOver the years, I’ve learned to avoid locations with life-threatening names. There’s a reason why places like Death Valley, Cardiac Ridge, and Hammerhead Bay sound dangerous. Survival rates decline for people who frequent them. So, what am I doing pounding across a body of water known as Icy Straight in an open skiff? The craft is little more than a glorified rowboat with a large outboard motor. There’s freezing wind blowing off the 45 degree ocean and rain is pelting my face, while I huddle in an orange Gumby survival suit made of rubber and foam.
All things considered, I’m
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As I See It: Nostalgic for Normal
June 20, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read more“To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.” At least that was psychologist Carl Jung’s dismissive opinion. For something that is hard to define, “normal” gets a bad rap. It’s like being average: everyone wants to be thought of as above average, but not if it means being abnormal.
What’s considered normal may simply be a matter of numbers and context. If enough people buy a pink car, we become a pink car nation. If pink cars become obsolete, the next mode of popular transportation becomes normal. Then there are sub-groups that contextually delineate normality. If you’re wealthy,
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As I See It: The Improvement Industry
June 6, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThe moment humans started walking upright, someone was probably trying to improve their posture. In all likelihood there was a Cro-Magnon version of Tony Robbins, hairy, charismatic, with an enviously large cave, who made a living telling his fellow troglodytes how to evolve. Humans, it seems, have a self-improvement gene that, in spite of our best efforts, has unaccountably survived. That’s how we know never to stand under the back end of a woolly mammoth.
The self-help field has a vexingly long history dating back almost as far as writing itself. Long before Egyptians twittered their way to regime change,
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As I See It: The Finer Points of Relating
May 23, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read more“How you do anything is how you do everything.” This is one of those intriguing truisms that grew out of the personal growth movement. Although by no means absolute, there is enough verity in the observation to make it useful for identifying patterns of behavior. For example, it could explain the irritable workplace demeanor of a parent with a teenager at home.
To understand why, you have to reference the work of John Gottman, a psychologist who has spent the better part of his career studying the nuances of relationships. He analyzes married couples the way an entomologist would consider