After we parted last time, it came back to me that you once had said your paternal grandfather had been self-employed. Do I remember correctly?
Good memory. He had his own practice.
Practice... You know that's business.
Profit maximizing wasn't his goal. As a proof, he left little upon his death.
In other words, he failed as a businessman.
Hush! He engaged in professional activities loftier than fleecing, and in his spare time, he drank at home and wrote poetry. It's a mystery to all of us how he ended up with so little for his children and grandchildren.
I can tell it's a bad idea not to talk about money. What about your other grandfather?
Ah, he chose to be unemployed.
Another poetry writing type, making no money?
Kind of. You see, business and poetry do not blend well.
I'm afraid very good counterexamples exist. Tsujii Takashi, a.k.a. Tsutsumi Seiji in corporate circles, is well known in both business and literary worlds. Better known is Wallace Stevens who was a lawyer and Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Another Pulitzer poet, William Carlos Williams, was a medical doctor. Federico García Lorca was not in any business, but if he went down in history as a poet, painter, pianist, and composer before dying at the age of thirty-eight, he must have had awesome marketing skills.
What can I say... I'm blessed to have failures on both sides of my parentage!
Now, now, don't be so maso...
I mean it. When I was about ten years old, my father told me how lucky I was that he wasn't a Nobel Prize winner.
He said that?
Yes. He happened to know a scientist whose son could not bear the expectations as an offspring of a Nobel Prize winner.
Counterexamples! Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie: parents, daughter and son-in-law in physics and chemistry. Niels Bohr and Aage Niels Bohr: father and son in physics.
... Mediocrity runs in my family. A wonderful excuse not to be outstanding in anything! What more can you ask from your parents?
One more piece of evidence against what you said earlier. May I?
Go ahead, another punch in the face wouldn't matter at this point.
The other day, I saw you coming out of what you would call a fancy and glitzy store, with bags seemingly full of purchased items. If I am not mistaken, you took advantage of a big sale.
Some activists like to be seen on the street in style, you know.
You who criticize consumerism, materialism, labor abuse and...
At least, I'm a formidable bargain hunter!
You who claim to have been disciplined not to talk about deals and money...
Trust me, I entirely avoid talking about prices.
And pretend that whatever you own is expensive!
By instinct, I'm into bargains. By lineage, I am not supposed to talk about deals. By nature and upbringing, I am drawn to beautiful, artsy and high quality objects and goods. By conviction, I am not for buying more than I need to survive. Have pity on me, I get totally confused sometimes!
I'm glad that I have a much better reason than you do to celebrate Mother's and Father's Days.
Good memory. He had his own practice.
Practice... You know that's business.
Profit maximizing wasn't his goal. As a proof, he left little upon his death.
In other words, he failed as a businessman.
Hush! He engaged in professional activities loftier than fleecing, and in his spare time, he drank at home and wrote poetry. It's a mystery to all of us how he ended up with so little for his children and grandchildren.
I can tell it's a bad idea not to talk about money. What about your other grandfather?
Ah, he chose to be unemployed.
Another poetry writing type, making no money?
Kind of. You see, business and poetry do not blend well.
I'm afraid very good counterexamples exist. Tsujii Takashi, a.k.a. Tsutsumi Seiji in corporate circles, is well known in both business and literary worlds. Better known is Wallace Stevens who was a lawyer and Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Another Pulitzer poet, William Carlos Williams, was a medical doctor. Federico García Lorca was not in any business, but if he went down in history as a poet, painter, pianist, and composer before dying at the age of thirty-eight, he must have had awesome marketing skills.
What can I say... I'm blessed to have failures on both sides of my parentage!
Now, now, don't be so maso...
I mean it. When I was about ten years old, my father told me how lucky I was that he wasn't a Nobel Prize winner.
He said that?
Yes. He happened to know a scientist whose son could not bear the expectations as an offspring of a Nobel Prize winner.
Counterexamples! Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie: parents, daughter and son-in-law in physics and chemistry. Niels Bohr and Aage Niels Bohr: father and son in physics.
... Mediocrity runs in my family. A wonderful excuse not to be outstanding in anything! What more can you ask from your parents?
One more piece of evidence against what you said earlier. May I?
Go ahead, another punch in the face wouldn't matter at this point.
The other day, I saw you coming out of what you would call a fancy and glitzy store, with bags seemingly full of purchased items. If I am not mistaken, you took advantage of a big sale.
Some activists like to be seen on the street in style, you know.
You who criticize consumerism, materialism, labor abuse and...
At least, I'm a formidable bargain hunter!
You who claim to have been disciplined not to talk about deals and money...
Trust me, I entirely avoid talking about prices.
And pretend that whatever you own is expensive!
By instinct, I'm into bargains. By lineage, I am not supposed to talk about deals. By nature and upbringing, I am drawn to beautiful, artsy and high quality objects and goods. By conviction, I am not for buying more than I need to survive. Have pity on me, I get totally confused sometimes!
I'm glad that I have a much better reason than you do to celebrate Mother's and Father's Days.
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