Success: A Falacious Ideal

Success is a problematic goal. The word "success" itself acts as an absolute. According to the explicit English lexicon, you can either be successful or unsuccessful. You can't interpret success in varying degrees--again, according to the dictionary definition. Although the same could be said about other attributes that are dependant upon our human judgment (i.e. ugly and beautiful, fat and skinny, smart and stupid), success is a nebulous deviation from these other classifications.

We will take first the category of weight. I will not focus on scientific measurement because those in and of themselves could be argued, I guess. I wouldn't argue them, but someone would. I will concentrate on aggregate perception. If a man (in this and subsequent cases, I will use "man" so as not to sound sexist) is overweight, and you ask 100 people if he is overweight, an overwhelming majority of them will say that he is. If a man is ugly, a majority of people will say that he is ugly (or at least unattractive). There will always be the few who think that overexaggerated features (such as a kaiser roll-sized nose) are unduly becoming, but the aggregate opinion will lean towards the side of "dang, that ugly!" However, success is different. There will never be a majority opinion because the proverbial tape measure used to quantify it is existentially relative.

A most basic definition of success is "someone better off than me." In other words, you define what determines success. Within that definition, there are constantly variable categories of success: money, family, position with God, pairs of shoes, number of children, record of the football team (which is the way we Boiseans measure success ... Go Broncos! 13-0, baby!), etc. I don't think that we can label anyone who is better than us in these categories (whichever ones we use as our "tape measure") as unsuccessful. For example, I do not feel successful yet because I do not have a college degree. Therefore, anyone who has a college degree is successful. Once I have a college degree, the tables will turn. Then, anyone without a college degree is unsuccessful and anyone with a college degree and a job will be successful. Once I have a job, the unemployed will be unsuccessful and those with a higher-paying job than mine are successful. And so it goes.

If we were to say that those underneath us in any given category are successful, we are saying that we have already crossed the plane of success and are far above it. In other words, we have already achieved success. If we are successful, then why progress? After all, since success is absolute, we have nowhere to go. After all, if God had intended us to somehow achieve beyond success, why didn't he give us the word "successfuller"?

This is admittedly an oversimplified "success model," but the principle is true. And it's vicious. We cannot let our happiness be dependant upon our success or else we will never attain either of the two. We can never be successful, but only closer to success than we were yesterday. That's what I'm trying to do. If my goal were success, then failure would be my only option. And failure hurts like a well-executed wedgie.

Apple my eye

Apple's image is a lie; I hope that everyone realizes that. The image that they are trying to portray--and that they have successfully portrayed, I might add--is a "let's stick it to the man" fringe group of liberal non-conformists. It really was. Just look at the induction of the Macintosh into the market: an anti-1984 campaign that was meant to give the common man what he deserved--a cheap personal computer. It appealed to proletariat and empowered them. And look at Apple now.

There is recent controversy in Europe over iTunes--that you can't play music that you downloaded on iTunes on other portable media devices. Recently, Norway banished iTunes for this very reason. I am not arguing who is right or who is wrong here, but I just think that it is ironic that Norway has essentially stuck it to the man, which is now Apple Computers. What does this make Apple? Well, hypocrites.

The advertising campaigns that Apple uses are geared to the young generation. A generation that likes to at least pretend it is making the world a better place. A generation that drives hybrid cars and refuses to wear leather shoes. It is a generation that will sign petitions to stop the fat-cat capitalists from killing children in Iraq. This is Apple's market. However, the business is moving in an opposite direction.

During the recent Consumer Electronics Show, all of the major electronics companies were unveiling their breaking technology. All of the companies, that is, except for Apple. They were holding a show of their own, which was not an underground gathering, but a soiree sordid with elitism. The company unveiled the iPhone, which is a name that was already trademarked by a VOiP provider. They knew that it was trademarked, but went ahead with the iPhone anyways, which is the corporate version of a distinct and inconsiderate "up yours." In short, Apple is now the man; the world now has to find a way to stick it to them.

My inaugural blogging

I have always wondered what this would feel like. It is refreshing, really. I am now blogging. Anthony P. Sheehan, blogger. I like the way that sounds.

I just moved to New York City a couple of weeks ago for an internship at a public relations firm in Times Square. I admit that it's a change from my lovely (a.k.a. uneventful) hometown of Boise, Idaho (I acknowledge that as a gross understatement). The first week I walked around bright-eyed and frightened as I tried to figure out which way was uptown and which way was downtown. As I would wander and bite my nails, I was shoved out of the way and "politely" asked to step aside (New York uses "dumbass" in the same context as Boise uses "please," as in "Get out of the way, please/dumbass."). I have now acclimated myself to the atmosphere to a certain extent, but I still feel like people can still smell my Idaho-ness as I walk down the street. I have tried everything, too. I bought a Knicks hat. I avoid eye contact with everyone. If people ask me directions, I point to my watch and pretend like I know where I am going. But it just doesn't work. I don't strike up a conversation unless I have a direct connection and a selfish motive (which is every New Yorker's mantra). In short, I disguise myself as a New Yorker. But I fall short.

I am still something different. I am still timid when I order doughnuts in the morning, and I don't even know what a felafel is. I answer "yes" every day to the shish kabob guy on the corner to a question I don't understand. I still gawk when I see a street performer or a Hasidic Jew. After thought and consideration, I now realize that no matter how hard I try, I am plagued with chronic un-New Yorker-ness, and there is no cure.