To mark the 20th anniversary of the IT industry’s Y2K excitement and the subsequent Dot-com bubble pop sequel, the time feels right to publish an article I wrote in February 2000 for which I never found a channel to publish. It’s remained hitherto unseen by anyone. But before I take you back 20 years in my own words, here’s a table that will provide you some references points to anchor your mind in the direction I’ll be taking you:
* This was the best I could do – please feel free to correct me if this is wrong.
** Benji Madden & Joel Madden are members of the rock band Good Charlotte, and were born on the very day of the Dot-com Bubble Burst.
OK, so with those references points, here it is, my original unpublished February 2000 story in its full, unedited, sardonic originality:
From the industry that brought you such memorable Three and Four Letter Acronyms as Y2K, CBT, IBM and RTFM comes a new epoch of nomenclature that will save litres of laser printer ink and oodles of OOS cases. Gone are the days of TLAs and FLAs. The computer industry has moved on to e-LAs. That’s Electronic Letter Acronyms.
In the early days of personal computing – the 70s and 80s – people began using computer-based communication facilities to send each other messages. To distinguish this new form of message communication from the traditional hand-delivered postal mail method, the process was called “electronic mail”. People soon became tired of this long and unwieldy phrase and so it was sensibly shortened to “e-mail”.
Within a decade, this term has become a household buzz-phrase. Soon after, the abbreviating of the word electronic to a simple e- crept into more than just mail. Now the industry is spiraling out of control with new e-LAs crawling out of the ether daily. There are e-go maniacs clambering over each other to create the next e-LA. We’ve got e-commerce, e-government and e-business, egad.
There are “experts” on national television claiming that the new millennium is “the millennium of e-commerce”. If we’re still talking e-bollocks in the year 2500 let alone 2990 then I’ll eat my e-hat, wires and all. This statement is as ludicrous as claiming in the year 1000 that the new millennium would be the millennium of the feather pen.
The real reason for this flurry of e-LAs is that the computer industry has a surplus of consultants post-Y2K and the IT Marketing and Sales teams are looking for ways to get them employed and generate a post-Y2K buck.
It’s only a matter of time before some TLA-loving e-gghead puts binary-one and binary-one together and comes up with the first e-TLA hybrid like RTFe-M.
One new e-nnoying trend that is emerging in this new naming spree should be shunned by all e-phobes and purists alike. This trend involves the creation of an e-LA from a non-word, and example being “e-conomy”. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this referring to the “electronic conomy”? What on earth is a conomy? A gathering of short criminals? Two other equally offensive terms are e-tailer (electronic tailers for sheep?) and e-vent (electronic vents?).
What will this e-revolution mean to the topology of the English dictionary? No longer will there be a fair and reasonable balance between A and Z. We’ll all be using three volumes: A to D, e-, and E to Z.
Where will this e-LA wave end? How many e-diots will be left washed up on the beach of e-Hype? This e-xasperating e-vil must be stopped. We must be e-mancipated from the tide that has reached e-mergency levels. Let’s end this e-poch e-mmediately.
2020 Postnote: It’s pleasing to say that the e- prefix lost as much popularity as the Dot-com investors lost money.This story was borne out of frustration with the level of IT hype that had built around the millennium, and my tolerance burst in February 2000. The Dot-com bubble burst on 11 March 2000 was, in my view, a necessary hype correction in a maturing IT industry.
Stop. Please don’t answer this question. Millions of people already have. Or they have published a ‘Letter to my younger self’. The Internet now has ample advice for the 1.1 billion youth on earth!
Having reflected on this question for some time, I have some advice of my own for insistent would-be answerers to consider before responding.
But first, let’s recap with some warm-up revision:
At times you’re going to question whether you made the right decision, you’ll feel alone and frustrated at your lack of progress. Don’t worry, it’s going to work out.
Mike McRoberts (TV3 NewsHub Anchor)
Be smart about what it is you want to be when you grow up.
Wendy Williams (host of The Wendy Williams Show)
Keep your options open, keep going and don’t give up. Accept everything that happens to you and then leave those things in the past.
Helena Sonar (2010 NZ Mental Health Media Grant Fellow)
You’re going to over estimate what you could do in a year and you’re going to underestimate what you could do in a decade, or in two, three, or in my case now four [decades]. Allow yourself to think in terms of decades.
Tony Robbins (self-made millionaire and motivational speaker)
I wish I could go back and tell that fella to start running, stop eating crap and stop drinking heaps of piss and just knuckle down, but that’s just what I had to learn.
Aaron Smith (All Black Half-back, 2012 – present)
An interesting and diverse arrangement of advice that gives me both hope and indigestion.
What is the purpose of this question?
It’s useful to consider why this question might be asked. I assume it is asked because there are audiences who are interested in people’s answers. There are likely to be many reasons that the answer is of interest, if not value, to those audiences, including:
Self-promotion – for the answerer’s own benefit (more than the audience’s)
Allowing personal reflection – for the answerer’s personal development
Feeding curiosity – for those following the answerer
Uncovering lessons and learnings – for those who might benefit from the answer
Providing encouragement – for those who respect the answerer
Accelerating others’ development – for those who aspire to succeed in the same way or field as the answerer
Typically, the person asked this question is senior, experienced and successful in their field. I’ve observed that the question is either answered for reason 1 above, or more generously for one or more of the last three reasons. And the target audience contains young people who the question asker feels could do with a leg-up.
But I see flaws in this question
Other than the small issue of time travel not yet being possible, this question has various flaws.
Who had a younger self that would actual listen to any advice an older version of themselves had to offer? As youth, the closest we have to an older version of ourselves is our parents. And let’s face it, when you were young, you probably listened to your parents less than 20% of the time. This is not to say you didn’t respect them and love them, but you can love and respect someone and still not pay a lot of attention to their advice – especially when they enter the “I have some words of wisdom that you must take heed of in order to survive, succeed or avoid catching a cold tonight” zone.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
Anon (although Mark Twain has been credited with saying it)
Moving past these two technicalities, let’s consider how this wisdom is experienced by an audience that wishes to learn from someone they may admire or aspire to be.
Like the audience’s parents, the advice provider is likely to be of an older generation. The lens they use to frame their world and therefore their advice is forged from yesterday’s experiences. The trans-generational gap between advice provider and receiver will result in the advice being experienced as historical, parental, if not irrelevant. This experience may be improved to an extent by the advice-recipient’s degree of admiration or aspiration.
But there’s a deeper flaw in this question that gnaws away at a fundamental privilege (and challenge) that all young people have, and that is the opportunity to create their own future.
Do our younger selves really need a leg-up? Do we really want our youthful enthusiasm, naivety and curiosity to be modified early by advice from someone 10, 20 or 40 years older? After all, what has made these people wise, successful and admired by many are the experiences they had along their way to that wisdom and success. It’s more than likely there was no fast-track, short-cut injection of sage advice that got them there. Their journey got them there.
Are we attempting (and at risk of creating) hot-house growth – that is accelerated growth in unnatural conditions to expedite production of a more perfect person. Sure, tomatoes grown in hot-houses may be easier and lower-cost to produce, and look great. But they will never beat the holistic quality of a home-grown tomato, nurtured in your own back yard. As we grow up, is there a need to rush to a finish line, or should we take the time (and weather the storms) we need to optimise our qualities?
What might be a more beautiful question?
I never expected to be able to use the phrase ‘a more beautiful question’ so soon after finishing a wonderful book with the same title by Warren Berger. But, for me, the question at hand is less useful and certainty less beautiful than it could be.
How about asking youth “What advice would you give your older self?” – a more fascinating question to consider. Have them project 30 years forward, ask them to imagine where they are and what help they may need from their youthful self. Even better, challenge them to record that advice and store it away as an advisory time capsule to be re-discovered by their older self.
Warren Berger quotes MIT’s Joi Ito, who says that “…to be lifelong learners (instead of just early-life learners), we must try to maintain or rekindle the curiosity, sense of wonder, inclination to try new things, and ability to adapt and absorb that served us so well in childhood. We must become, in a word, neotenous (neoteny being a biological term that describes the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood).”
So the advisory time capsule containing youthful advice may just come in very handily, should there be a risk that the older version becomes grown-up, adult-like and, worse still, staid.
Another interesting question for grown-ups is “On what topics do you think your younger self would be interested in taking advice?”. This could stop the line of inquiry in its tracks, as the question asker and answerer consider the possible reality that the answer could fall on deaf (and probably ear-bud-wearing) ears.
Of more value and interest to a broader audience (i.e. society) is surely the answer to “What advice would you give your younger self?” provided by people who have been unfortunate or unsuccessful (in some way, so far) in their own lives. I imagine there would be a lot to learn in answers to this question from the bankrupt, divorced, homeless, and criminals, for example. In fact the neotenous qualities I foster are calling me to action that would have me gathering and sharing such answers – let’s see what time I can find for that fascinating future project!
For now, I’ll tolerate this question for the simple and primary value it represents to the answerer – providing them a chance to reflect on their own journey from youth (at best).
…and what advice would I give my younger self (if forced to!) you might ask?
I’d answer this question as follows:
Simon, if you ever get asked “What advice would you give your younger self?”, reply “None, the path my younger self will make for himself is his path not mine”.
2019 Simon to 1990 Simon
[Does this question grate with you too, or do you enjoy reading people’s answers? Do you like my alternatives? What is your answer?]
Mid-afternoon on Thursday 21 February this year, I got an
offer from a good friend. He said “Hey, I have a spare ticket to Jordan
Peterson this evening, do you want to come?”.
I responded, “Who is Jordan Peterson?”.
I wondered: A musician? A poet? A stand-up comedian? An Inde
Rock band from Seattle? An international politician?
Completely naive to this chap, his philosophies, ideologies and
even his existence, and with little time to deliberate let alone Google him, I
committed. And I’m glad I did.
Recognising that I knew Jordan Peterson as well as Jordan knew
me, my friend provided me a gentle warning that he could be a “little controversial
at times” as we walked to the event. That was certainly helpful to know prior
to passing the protestors at the entrance to the venue, who were there demanding
equal rights for the transgender community.
As we entered the building and made our way to the
auditorium, I closely surveyed the audience, noticing the wide array of ages,
backgrounds, and races as well as a moderate gender skew in favour of males.
A public address announcement sparked up to advise that
there were strict rules preventing the video or audio recording of the talk,
and that heckling from the audience would not be tolerated. It wasn’t clear to
me, the alien in the room, whether this last bit was a joke or dead serious. What
a great pre-gig gag for Bill Bailey to have the same recording played before his
shows.
Jordan B. Peterson swept on to Wellington’s Michael Fowler
Centre stage 15 minutes late, to what I can only describe as a creepy standing
ovation. I had searched him up before arriving and glimpsed Google’s summary,
which described him as “a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of
psychology at the University of Toronto”. In my assessment, the associated images
presented him as a learned, middle-aged, wannabe-hipster who looked like a
relaxed and interesting character.
The standing O was creepy for me, as I’d only experienced such
things when Dire Straits came on stage at Lancaster Park in 1986 for their much-anticipated
Brother’s in Arms tour, or when Brendon McCullum scored New Zealand’s first
ever triple century at the Basin Reserve. I couldn’t conceive how someone I’d
never heard of just five hours earlier could be receiving a standing ovation
from a three-quarter full Michael Fowler Centre after arriving 15 minutes late
and without having said a word. I still can’t.
He started
off slowly, shaping a one-way discussion with the audience that he apparently chose
minutes before, back stage. He decided tonight would be about Toxic Masculinity.
As his mellifluous, well-constructed eloquence and pacing back-and-forth across
the stage unfurrowed a story of his rural Canadian upbringing, we got to learn
of his friend. A depressed chap. Primarily his father’s fault we’re told, but other
factors such as alcohol, drugs and oppressive Canadian winters surely didn’t
help.
Peppered throughout was quips and jokes, sub-stories and rhetorical questions put to the audience.
There were moments of truth that truly resonated with me. And there were moments of cringe, that made me want to break the trance of hypnosis I feared the audience were under. Like when after spending some time turning Us (the audience) against Them (anyone who utters the evil and upsetting phrase “toxic masculinity”), Jordan acknowledges a French feminist writer who he admires greatly. To me, it simply felt like a “Some of my best friends are gay” moment.
Just
like Jordan, the phrase ‘Toxic Masculinity’ had also miraculously passed me by.
So I had this privileged position of being able to listen to a speaker on a
topic, where both were unencumbered by baggage accumulated through prior knowledge.
Seeing the lather that Jordan was working himself and the audience into over Toxic Masculinity, I really struggled to understand his concern. Sure there’s toxic masculinity. There’s also toxic femininity. Hell, there’s also toxic waterways. Sadly you don’t have to go far to find most of these things.
But
if you want to do something about fixing any of them, is turning people against
each other really the best way to go about it?
Would
those concerned with the health of our waterways, for example, be served well
to get a group of like-minded individuals in a room and set them against ‘the
others’ who are causing the pollution? Perhaps pouring their efforts (and money)
into understanding the causes of the pollution, understanding the people who
are contributing to it (even befriending them!), and creating education campaigns
may be more constructive and productive.
The structure and delivery of his talk felt designed to appear as if a conscious stream of thought. A spontaneous delivery of his deeper thoughts and concerns, all focussed on improving society and humanity in general. However, the occasional pause during delivery to allow himself to gather his emotions, steel himself or have a subtle sob – it happened when he was recalling the precious time his father had invested in him as a young boy, reading books to him at bed time, and it happened when his ‘good friend’ story approached the suicide bit – felt a little manufactured to me. Almost as if they were contrived to provide evidence of his femininity.
My ersatz
radar was triggered by these choke-points, other smaller aspects of his
performance, and the finale.
He
took two questions “from the audience” electronically, and I was left wondering
about their authenticity. Were they really from the audience or were they patsy
questions Jordan had submitted himself?
One asked “What is the difference between ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘non-toxic masculinity’?”. The other asked something like “I have delayed my suicide to attend your talk tonight. I want to take my life and will very soon, to teach my family a lesson. What advice do you have for me?”. His answer to this was two-part and, to a layman, sensible, pragmatic, grounded, compelling and hopeful.
My
overwhelming feeling from the two-hour Jordan B. Peterson talk was that it was intellectual,
artful, polarising entertainment.
But
it’s not entertainment like you’d expect from Bic Runga, Maya Angelou, Bill Bailey,
or Coldplay.
I had answered the question I had first asked upon hearing his
name. He is a cult figure.
[I have purposefully written this as the ‘alien’, ignorant to the baggage Jordan B. Peterson has amassed and the pundits have gifted him. Part 2 will follow once I’ve read his book “12 Rules for Life” and done some Internet research on the character. I’m looking forward to how my informed views may alter these uninformed ones]
Thinking Allowed 