Podcast - Episode 0062 - Luck vs Hard Work

18 comments

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  • Antonia Dodge
  • April 21, 2015 at 8:04 pm

  I hope you don’t think that criticism is some sort of deal breaker in any way. When we say “we love feedback” we mean ALL kinds of feedback. We’re on a mission to continually become better in content, presentation and in who we are as people. The only real way to do that is to thoughtfully accept feedback of all kinds.

  I think your deconstruction of our podcast was a good one, and much, much deeper than we went. You’re right – we did craft it for a western audience and their concepts of superheros as colored by movies. I’m a pretty big geek in a lot of ways – i.e. I’ve been role-playing most of my life, and I’m a reader of graphic novels. I’m more a Sandman kind of girl, but I’m no stranger to either the Spiderman nor the Batman story lines (in their various incarnations).

  That said, most of our audience is not going to be familiar with the comic book versions, and so we were more using the meme of superheros to express an overarching concept.

  I fully appreciate that my understanding of eastern culture(s) is through the lens of western culture(s). The ideas that have primarily influenced my thoughts on this are books like “Language in Thought and Action” by S.I. Hayakawa, as well as things like Malcolm Gladwell’s assertions in “Outliers” about the connection between math scores and rice paddies. That is, in a culture that requires patience and precision to feed themselves, you’re probably going to have a higher likelihood of patience in precision in education.

  I recognize that it may appear that there’s a glamorization of eastern culture in America, primarily on the west coast. When I lived in Portland, OR, there was definitely a big sentiment about much more ‘pure’ Asian religions are compared to Christian hypocrisy. Interestingly enough, I worked for and became friends with a South Korean family who expressed the same was happening in reverse in their country. People were tired of the hypocrisy they saw in their native religion and were converting to the more ‘pure’ Christianity. (Which is basically what you indicated in your comment.)

  There is definitely a ‘grass in greener’ sentiment, and we definitely didn’t intend to perpetuate any misconceptions that one is superior to the other. Cause, really, I don’t think one is.

  That said, using the stories that come from each culture IS telling. I’m definitely not even a casual expert on eastern storytelling, so forgive me if I’m missing a cultural mythos that contradicts my assertions. And I definitively think it’s kind of silly to use the word “eastern” to encapsulate so many different countries cultures. At its root, though, everything I’ve seen etymologically DOES indicate there’s a sense that if you want to be awesome you have to put some elbow grease into it. In a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon / Hero sort of way. You don’t just get to be a bad ass ninja, you discipline yourself to be bad ass.

  Any time one works in dichotomies we’re already entering a world of inaccurate generalizations. But those generalizations can be useful if talking to an audience spoon fed generalizations their entire lives. Which the American audience (and Australian, etc.) is. Your comment is a far more fleshed-out and accurate description of both Spiderman and Batman. That said, Spiderman gained his powers by being bitten. The story line after is him coming to terms with it and the complications of what they might mean, but the powers themselves were providence. Batman DID work for his abilities, glossed over in the graphic novels or not. That is the etymology of it.

  And this is most definitely a distinctively western concept – I’m looking for my radioactive spider. Overnight success. I’ll be discovered and THEN I’ll be able to live my life. Our purpose in the podcast was to point out this western concept of ‘waiting for providence to ordain it’, and ask the question – could you maybe push to make it happen on your own?

  It was also to acknowledge that most success comes from a combination of the two – both elbow grease and providence, so work hard and keep your eyes peeled for opportunity.

  I hope everyone reads your comment so they can benefit from a deeper dive into the concept, and in case they came away with the misconceptions you feared might happen, your feedback can help add clarity to the conversation.

  I hope that wasn’t just me repeating everything we said in the podcast and can help explain why we came at the topic as we did.

  A

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  • Jian Wei Gan Lim
  • April 21, 2015 at 5:40 pm

  Oh boy.

  I’ve gotta say a part of me really doesn’t want to do what I’m about to do considering that I’d not too long ago written a glowing review for your podcast on iTunes, and written you an e-mail to thank you for helping to illuminate certain things regarding my personal life.

  That said, I’m a born and raised Malaysian with Chinese roots and a semi-dedicated Buddhist/Taoist (defining one’s spirituality in the Chinese culture is extremely difficult), and I’m also an avid comic book reader. Therefore, you’ve touched on two things of which I’m intensely familiar and while I don’t disagree with the conclusions you draw, the analogies you’re drawing for the basis of your models just take way too much out of context. I want you to know I still find you guys great, but this is one hell of a double-whammy and my writing juices are in top-gear today, so here goes.

  First off, we’ll get your discussion on the contrast between Eastern and Western spirituality out of the way since this really wasn’t discussed as much in the podcast. Now, you’ve discussed Eastern spirituality before and your approach to it did always strike me as slightly myopic. Since we’re getting into this discussion now, I think it’s a good opportunity to address some of the issues with your approach.

  Overall, you’re making an incredible amount of assumptions about Eastern culture. There is a grain of truth to most of your assumptions, but a lot of them seem like they’re drawn from the Hollywood version of Eastern culture. You seem to be going about this with the agenda to establish a dichotomy between Eastern and Western thought, and while it exists in some respects, it’s really not as clear cut as you make it. The dichotomy you intend to establish early in this podcast is one based on the means of reaching the spiritual zenith. You contextualise Eastern culture as achieving this through individual effort while Judeo-Christian societies achieve this through the grace of an unreliable supreme power.

  There are some cringe-worthy generalisations made about Eastern thought in the section where you discussed it. Giving credit where credit’s due, you make a fair point about individualism in Eastern spirituality. Certain sects of Buddhism do teach that the path to enlightenment can only be achieved by one’s own efforts. A perfect metaphor to describe this process is that when an individual seeks to relieve himself, it is something he must do of his own accord. Likewise, the discovery of ‘the Way’ is not something that can be taught, but which must be discovered by oneself. Most schools of Buddhism and Taoism are agnostic in the sense that a spiritual power does not exist that can guide the individual to enlightenment.

  But that’s only certain schools of Eastern religion. The grassroots religious traditions of the Chinese race do incorporate an incredibly potent reliance on aid from a higher power. In this case, the higher power is one’s own ancestors and the general idea is that once a family member passes on to the afterlife, they become a deity of sorts that watches over the family. Consequently, we pray to our ancestors in much the same way that Christians pray to Jesus or God to bless us. Fortune plays an appreciable role in the spiritual lives of most ethnic Chinese, and there is the belief that filial piety to one’s deceased ancestors can move them to change our fortunes for the better (or conversely, change our fortunes for the worse if we do something to dishonour them). I haven’t even gotten to the various deities in Chinese mythology that many still pray to, even those who don’t traditionally engage in religious practices. Shintoism and Hinduism have similar traditions along those lines too so it’s frankly more than a little silly to claim that Eastern cultures don’t incorporate enlightenment through divine aid into their frameworks. The entire basis of Confucian societies is that you are not yourself, but your family as well. What you do affects the image of your family and vice versa, and that holds through even when a member of the family passes on.

  Now, truth be told, I understand why you have these misconceptions considering your positions. There are many properties of Eastern culture that are alien to the West, and it is tempting to conceptualise the unknown East in terms of it being so unlike the known West. I do not expect that you have had much opportunity to interact with Eastern culture and certainly most of your exposure to Eastern thought would have been filtered through a Western perspective. A certain undertone to your discussions on Eastern though seems to be that it is more ‘enlightened’ than the West, and while I cannot say for sure whether or not you realise it, you are making an assumption that is ultimately centered entirely on the Western perspective of things. Consider how all of what you find mysterious about the Asian culture must seem to those who have grown up with it. Admittedly, as I understand it, most Asians nowadays do opt to be atheist, but most of us still have had to grow up within these contexts. And you know what? We find Western culture as fascinating as you find Asian culture. Hell, I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen Christian imagery in Asian entertainment that I’m pretty is completely inaccurate. Yeah, I get that to you, being raised in the Christian tradition comes with a lot of drawbacks based on how piety must be paid to an entity that you’re not even sure exists. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that another culture being ‘different’ is an indication of it having a higher or lower value. Most Asians will tell you how sick they are of having their worth being contextualised by their families, and I know tons of people here who’d love to lead the “Western life” even though they don’t seem to have a full grasp of what it means. The other side’s always tempting, but I think it’s always a good idea to sit back and seriously consider how things actually would turn out if one were born and raised in that new environment, and then make a decision from there as to whether one would necessarily be happier in a new context.

  Anyway, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s look at the Batman-Spider-Man dichotomy you’ve established. As I said, I agree with you that there such a dichotomy does likely exist. However, I do not believe Batman or Spider-Man are the best representatives of the positions you’ve assigned them because a stunning amount of context was ignored to make your comparisons work as well as they did. Again, I can understand to some extent why you made the errors you did because it’s likely you’re basing these characters on their cinematic versions rather than their comic book counterparts. I can see why it makes sense to do so because hey, you’ve got a huge audience, and that’s the version of the characters they are most likely to be familiar with. That said, I become less inclined to accept these errors in judgement when taking into consideration how many of the contexts you’ve failed to mention do themselves also appear in some form in the characters’ cinematic incarnations.

  Now, you specifically contextualise this comparison based on the origins of their abilities. That’s all well and good, but when you fail to take into account how their powers play a role in their respective stories, you’re missing out on the bigger picture. Spider-Man’s origin story is essentially a deconstruction of the “Power through Bug-bite” tale. Yes, Spider-Man gains power, but look what it leads to. It inflates his ego so that he attempts to become a wrestler, which further boosts his ego such that he assumes that stopping a hoodlum is beneath him which ultimately leads him to the death of his uncle and father figure. Now, would things have turned out differently had he not gotten the bug-bite? Who knows, but the point is that the bug-bite had lead him to committing the biggest mistake of his life, and well… let’s just say there’s a reason Peter keeps wanting to quit being Spider-Man. Hell, that’s one of the major themes of Spider-Man that is prevalent even in the movies; power does not guarantee happiness and instead only obligates one to sacrifice the things one wants. Peter’s powers are often described as a “curse”, and it shows. Sure he can do any amount of amazing things but they effectively are more trouble than they’re worth. No amount of wall-crawling’s going to help him pay the bills, and incredible agility doesn’t guarantee having a date. To make matters worse, it’s the mundane life where Peter’s heart lies, but his powers always mean that when danger arrives, he has to prioritise what he wishes he could give up over what he truly wants. Spider-Man is the story of the burden of power, and that ultimately, sometimes a blessing isn’t all it’s cut out to be.

  Batman’s a different story. In fact, it’s different enough that I’d say there isn’t even much of a dichotomy between him and Spider-Man because their respective emphasis are on two entirely different spectrums. There’s an idea of predestination to the Batman character, and a much more potent focus on symbolic power as a gift. The moment Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down and Bruce swears to avenge them, we know he’s already got a mission in mind. Compare this to Spider-Man, who even after deciding to become a crime-fighter, isn’t so much a general launching a campaign as he is a glorified firefighter. It’s no surprise that at least in the comics, Bruce’s training is almost always glossed over. It simply is of no interest to the reader how Bruce became Batman. It is only important that Bruce is Batman. And why that is important is because Batman is a symbol of power, something incorporeal and incorruptible. Batman is an idea rather than a character, and to actually demonstrate any effort on the way to becoming Batman is to sully the image of the imposable immortal figure that Batman represents. The comics tend to show Bruce breezing through his training, but to the Nolan trilogy’s credit, it does go a long way to humanising Batman by showing how difficult the training was. But all the same, once Bruce becomes Batman, the Bruce Wayne element becomes unimportant. Only the mask matters, and that’s essentially the main theme of Batman’s story.

  As demonstrated, the major themes of both characters have very dubious overlaps and I think it only goes to show how drawing a comparison on the two based on powers works on very flimsy premises. Power is a burden in Spider-Man’s story, while it is a gift in Batman’s story. Power traps Peter in a life he doesn’t want, while it is only true exercising power that Bruce is genuinely himself. The value of power in both stories has such a fundamental contrast to one another that a framework based on that quality simply isn’t very effective.

  Now, while I have ragged on at some length, I hope you don’t take it as meaning that I see absolutely no value in your work. I still do, and I still appreciate the impact you’ve made in my life. Yes, I vehemently disagree with the means you used to reach your conclusions in this podcast, but I understand where you’re coming from. And even you don’t agree with the contextualisations I’ve introduced, it’s not something that’s necessarily going to reduce my respect for you. I’m not going to say I think this particular episode was good, but you obviously worked as hard on it as you do for every other episode, and at the end of the day, I’m still going to look forward to your next podcast.

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  • Michael
  • April 20, 2015 at 11:05 pm

  I really like the idea behind this podcast. It reminds me of Owen Cook’s video:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWAOVEicnlw

  Near the end of that video he talks about just putting it out, putting it out – dont wait for your ideas to be perfect, take action and your ideas will be more articulate with time.