Working

I was giving some thought to the concept of working, a while ago. As I mentioned, my sudden fears about our finances (which are real enough, but likely overblown) had led me to think about going back to work - which, ineluctably, led me to thinking about how difficult that would be. I have never been a person who could casually find a job, or create a job, or anything of that sort. I've heard it said that one significant difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans create jobs, and Democrats don't. I don't believe that, but I do think that there's a difference of mind set between people who create work and those who merely do it.

I am always tickled to hear of high schools that teach entrepreneurship. These are no-kidding programs that deal in real money and really make and sell a product or a service. There's usually a fair amount of academic withholding of rights and authorities along the way (else I imagine we'd hear of high schools who outsourced their product to the High School of Technology in Bangalore), but these kids are getting the real experience -- much like the kids in those 'own a child' programs have the real sense of what its like to have a child of their own, as they lug around a life-like mannequin for 48 or so hours. The kids come out of the entrepreneurial program with the awareness that it is possible to make and sell products, and it is possible to make money or go bankrupt by so doing.

But thats not the only way that people get these insights. Silicon Valley, of course; say no more. I get the impression that if you work in that environment, and you're a reasonably young, fairly bright person, you almost can't avoid being part of a startup or twelve; the people move from one to another to another like lemmings. Along the way (nature/nurture? Not sure which is the dominant force), they get the feeling that anything is possible, that making and selling a product, that having a business is as natural as breathing. My hunch is that this experience isn't for everyone; they likely have their own version of drones and whatnot, but I'd be surprised if more than a third of the working class fell into that category. The others just naturally assume that startups happen, and if not today, then certainly pretty soon. You might go to work for someone, but its just as likely that they'll go to work for you, next time around.

I've never known anyone like that, and I've never been a person like that. The most that I've been able to do is vaguely sense that there are people who can do it, and generally think that those people might even exist in this time zone. But to actually be one of them -- to be a job creator, not just a job user; to see possibilities for products and services, and then to actually put together a package and sell it; if it works, great, if not, fine, we'll come up with something else -- thats almost been as far from me as speaking fluent Greek. Someone can do it, I'm sure. Not me. Not anyone I know.

But every so often, I wonder: why should the kids have all the fun? Is it because when you’re young, you think that you’re invulnerable, or because you’ve got all this resiliency, or all this time to recover? Whatever, I wonder: why can’t we teach adults to do that entrepreneurial dance? How do we switch on that gene? Or is it something that you're just born with, like perfect pitch?