Paternity

[Westie]

I'm basically in-between being a student and really starting on that career path. It took me seven years to finish undegrad and grad school. I count my two years of grad school as being the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life.

 

And yeah, there's the academic world, and then there's real-world knowledge. You're talking about real-world knowledge that Brad has gained in being a CEO, which is not the same as academia. I was trained to be a public historian, which means that I'm supposed to serve as a mediator between the Ivy Academic Towers, and the public at large. I learned both academia and real-world knowledge as a result. I get what both sides are like, and I don't think either side is superior- they're just different.

 

I was in no way dogging Brad. I'm just saying that he isn't an academic, and since he isn't publishing articles or teaching kids in an academic environment, it would be a pretty fair assessment for me to make. That doesn't mean I think for a second that he doesn't have a lot of knowledge or could have done that field if he had wanted to.

 

With respect, what you gained is an academic perspective on real world knowledge, since you are yet to live in the "real world".  That's not to say you having experienced toughness or issues, because I know you have broad experience.  However, it is limited through the prism of academia, and through a certain "safety net" that exists for Students and young people in general.  You are also limited by your focus on youth culture, which again colours your perspective slightly.

 

I'm not saying this to beat up on you or anything, but if I were to presume to give anyone advice on embarking into the real world, it would be to "know your limitations".

 

West

[methodwriter85]

    I'm just baffled by the response I got, because I did not think it was offensive thing to say someone is not an academic, because by the technical sense of the word, Brad is not. After JP, the only actual academics we've had in the story were Whist and Max. I didn't say Brad isn't smart, or that only academics are intelligent. I mean, seriously, did I say anything that could be construed as offensive? Because that's how I felt about PrivateTim's response- like he was pouncing on me for saying something offensive, and I really can't fathom how or why anything I said was offensive. That's why I'm really confused here.

[davewri]

I think we can safely say that Mark is an "Academic".    Some of my best friends are Academics.

  I have a double major in Music History and Art History and also a  degree in Electrical Engineering.  That took seven years of college, so I know an academic when I see one.  What's the problem in calling someone an "academic"?

[vaessavoy]

I agree that Brad isn't an academic and that it shouldn't be a controversial statement. I think the more controversial statement would be to question whether he's an intellectual. Btw, I think Sam was an academic as well.

[JACC]

Marcel is an academic as well (he got a tenure track position in Montreal, cf. 'Bloodlines').

[Mark Arbour]

Are you a student still? Maybe you just don't get it?

 

Do you think the only place you grow as an "academic" is in school? That in a college is the only place that knowledge expands? Most people who work hard in high school and then college are doing so so they can get a great job and make something of themselves. Do you have any idea how much reading a CEO has to do to stay on top of what is going on? How many subjects he needs to an expert on? Any idea how much new knowledge Brad had to acquire to run a large defense contractor? JP knows a shitload about French Imperialism, but do think he knows dank about production lines, supply chains, labor negotiations, resource allocation, right sizing a company, long term strategic planning and all they myriad things a CEO is responsible for?

 

In the safe world of academia you can be a complete f-up and last for ever in your job. In the business world if you are complete f-up you might fool people for a while, but you can't fool them forever. Not even being a huge success in one business doesn't mean you'll be successful in another. Don't forget Apple fired Steve Jobs. It took him a while to figure it out.

 

Actually, there is only a "safe world" in academia for very few.  Besides, as you've noted, the rewards are entirely different, and so are the motivations.  A CEO is going to focus on making money (for himself and for the company, usually in that order), while academics rarely make all that much money.  In exchange, they have more stable jobs, and used to have good benefits and retirement plans.  But no professor worth his or her salt is going to sit around and do nothing.  That would be humiliating, to add nothing to the body of knowledge, and to largely be irrelevant.  Not all people respond to the same types of motivators. 

 

I've spent a considerable amount of time in both worlds.  The big difference in the academic world is how people think, something you get hit with in that first PhD class.  You are trained to question things, not to jump to conclusions, and to eschew dogma.  I'm not sure that kind of thought process is entirely ideal for a CEO, although one would hope he or she would have some of that objectivity.  CEOs need to make decisions with relative speed, something that may require subjectively avoiding facts or filling in blanks.  My experience in the academic world is that things move slower, because you have to get the necessary data together.  

 

There are shitty CEOs out there, most of whom ended up in their positions because of who they were (birth).  But to get to the top in either field requires an amazing skill set, albeit a different one.  

[samjones1]

I am finding this discussion of academic vs. "real world" knowledge very interesting. I think some I the disagreement here might be related to your specific fields of study. Law research, as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to law journals, is very practical in its application. History research, on the other hand, seems rather less about the practical. No less important, but perhaps more difficult to apply in our everyday lives.

 

I am ABD in a business related field. I can tell you that CEOs aren't reading what we are writing in journals. Sure, some of my colleagues package their work in a more applied form and write books on management or strategy or whatever to help inform practice. A lot of them also consult to provide insights into organizational affairs. Those are things done for moneu, however...we don't get "credit" for books like thay, generally speaking. What my colleagues are doing for academic research, however, is often very disconnected from practice. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. In my field, for example, the practitioners don't even care about some constructs we (the academics) view as important because they simply don't focus on them as part of their everyday work. Even though the work we do is insightful ( at least we think so), nobody really cares.

 

Of course someone can be intelligent and learned without having an academician's focus on topics and information. It's like the difference between applied and pure mathematics...one might make derivative trading models, and the other might calculate surface space for geometric shapes that can't exist (oversimplified here, but illustrative). I think that is all Methodwriter is trying to say here, and I think he's correct. Just because someone knows a lot of information doesn't mean that he's academic.

[methodwriter85]

Of course someone can be intelligent and learned without having an academician's focus on topics and information. It's like the difference between applied and pure mathematics...one might make derivative trading models, and the other might calculate surface space for geometric shapes that can't exist (oversimplified here, but illustrative). I think that is all Methodwriter is trying to say here, and I think he's correct. Just because someone knows a lot of information doesn't mean that he's academic.

 

Thank you. That was exactly what I was trying to say. I tried to stress again and again that I don't think Brad's unintelligent, because he clearly is. I'm just saying that we haven't had a protagonist who's been an academic since JP, and it looks like we might wind up getting that with Will, which is pretty cool. I'm basing this off of Mark's comments about how JP sees in Will a kindred spirit in terms of their pursuit of knowledge.

[PrivateTim]

    I'm just baffled by the response I got, because I did not think it was offensive thing to say someone is not an academic, because by the technical sense of the word, Brad is not. After JP, the only actual academics we've had in the story were Whist and Max. I didn't say Brad isn't smart, or that only academics are intelligent. I mean, seriously, did I say anything that could be construed as offensive? Because that's how I felt about PrivateTim's response- like he was pouncing on me for saying something offensive, and I really can't fathom how or why anything I said was offensive. That's why I'm really confused here.

 

 

Gee maybe it was standing on a chair and screaming at the top of your lungs until your face turned red and the muscles in your neck bulged:

 

(YES, I KNOW THEY SENT THEIR KIDS TO HARVARD-WESTLAKE, PRIVATE TIM. I STILL THINK IF THEY WERE HARD-CORE ACADEMICS IT WOULD HAVE COME ACROSS IN THE STORY LIKE IT DID FOR J.P. IN HIS TWO STORIES, OR HELL, LIKE IT DID FOR ANDY SHARPE IN CROSS-CURRENTS EVEN THOUGH HE WAS ALSO A MAJOR PARTY BOY)

 

Or maybe this:

 

I agree that it's nice that we seem to be getting the "Academic" back into CAP. Brad and Robbie went to Ivy League schools and are very bright, but neither of them seem to have the same level of academic spirit or thirst for knowledge

 

You act as if the "thirst for knowledge" can only be exhibited and accomplished in a formal university setting or that the thirst for knowledge has to be pursued in that setting.

 

Then there was this.

 

He's just not someone who made the choice to dedicate their living to the grooming and pursuit of esoteric knowledge

 

Okay now granted I don't know what that word esoteric means, I think it is one of those fancy foreign words, but I was always told to use context to decipher meaning so I am going to guess "esoteric" means "completely useless" because when I substitute "completely useless" for esoteric in the sentence above, it makes a lot of sense.

 

Thank you. That was exactly what I was trying to say. I tried to stress again and again that I don't think Brad's unintelligent, because he clearly is. I'm just saying that we haven't had a protagonist who's been an academic since JP, and it looks like we might wind up getting that with Will, which is pretty cool. I'm basing this off of Mark's comments about how JP sees in Will a kindred spirit in terms of their pursuit of knowledge.

 

Will is a 14 year old and all I've really seen him pursue is cock, alcohol and drugs. He does his homework and wants to do well on it, but so far we have no idea why. He has never, ever that I remember mentioned any kind of interest in anything career wise. I don't recall him wanting to be a "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, or a cowboy, policeman, jailer, engine driver, or a pirate chief". Maybe he once mused on being a psychologist, but I don't remember.

 

What exact field of study has Will exhibited this "thirst for knowledge" in?

 

And what is an "academic", the noun? Here is what Webster has to say.

 

 

Definition of ACADEMIC

1 : a member of an institution of learning

 

2 : a person who is academic in background, outlook, or methods

 

I think #2 does describe Brad because it is his background and his outlook and I think it effects his methods. One characteristic I see in people who like to be in control is never looking stupid; it might be okay to be ignorant for a while, but not long. So when Brad went from being a mere investor in a defense contractor who looked at financials to actually being responsible for running the company I think based on all we've seen about him he does have a thirst for knowledge, but now it is about manufacturing processes, research & development and other aspects now related to his job.

 

When Brad was strictly an investor he still had to have the thirst for knowledge exhibited by his pouring over company research and financials from Hoover, Russell, Mercer, etc in addition to his in-house research staff. He wasn't going to read the esoteric (remember the definition) Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis on how Russell, Mercer, et al get to their numbers, but he does need the information to form judgements.

 

CEO's don't read esoteric journals to get knowledge, but they have to acquire knowledge in a great many areas to be successful.

[sat8997]

Will is a 14 year old and all I've really seen him pursue is cock, alcohol and drugs. He does his homework and wants to do well on it, but so far we have no idea why. He has never, ever that I remember mentioned any kind of interest in anything career wise. I don't recall him wanting to be a "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, or a cowboy, policeman, jailer, engine driver, or a pirate chief".

 

Okay that made me laugh.

[Mark Arbour]

... a cowboy, policeman... 

 

A construction worker, an indian.  

 

Wait!  He wants to join the Village People!  

[Mark Arbour]

Chapter 98 is our last chapter where Wade is the narrator.  There are two more chapters left after this (99 and 100), both narrated by Will.  

[MJ85]

That scene in the kink room makes me think that it's a question of when, not if, Matt goes too far. I mean since they're not exactly experts...

[methodwriter85]

Gee maybe it was standing on a chair and screaming at the top of your lungs until your face turned red and the muscles in your neck bulged:

 

I have a tendency to throw tantrums at times. I think that's a character trait of mine that Mark wrote subconciously into JJ. My bad.

 

Anyway, Mark, what a nice way to resolve Wade and Matt's relationship woes. Of course, they've got the major question on the horizon of what happens after their '02 graduation from Stanford, but that can wait for another day.

 

I like that Wade is considering helping JJ...it's important that they get along, because if JJ's going to be coached by Tiffany, Wade's going to need to be comfortable with JJ.

[rjo]

Sorry, hearing that this story is ending brings me great sadness. When this part of the saga started Riley and Maddy had just been born. All things were new. For the first time in the history of CAP someone outside the family told the story. True Wade told part of it when Matt was sick but this was a new beginning. Wade and Will have lead us through so much! Will has grown from a boy to a young men and Wade has been healed. Before this he couldn't have exchanged rings with Matt, Now he could. Mark has shown us what the relationship between father and son means, and how it can be broken but also restored. How even in at weakest it is strong. A 100 chapters, it seems like a lot but in my mind never enough. Mark I am sure this you're best story. Thank you so much for it.

Edited March 15, 2013 by rjo

[centexhairysub]

I laughed, I cried, I came; what more could anyone want from a story......

 

BRAVO!!!!!

[methodwriter85]

   The other thing I liked? Matt and Wade saying "partners", not "husbands." In a couple of years, you'd start to hear that terminology change- I think when Will settles down he'd considered his guy a "husband", but it was much more common to hear that term back around 2000. Back when I was 14, I was at a summer camp, and I asked my two male camp counselors if they were "partners". I was such a dick at that age. LOL.

 

 

I feel like we won't see much of Wade & Matt next story.....  I feel like it was a goodbye until a future CAP story where Wade is 35....

 

Maybe not next story...but Wade and Matt have some serious issues to work out when they graduate from college in 2002. Did you notice that they never really did have that conversation about what happens when their Stanford years are over?

 

Or not. It all depends on what Mark wants to do with them. This really could work as their "happily ever after"...of course, when you have a happily ever after, it's hard to do another story with them unless you wreck it, like what Mark did with Brad and Robbie for Millenium. I'm not sure how receptive the fandom would be, though.

Edited March 15, 2013 by methodwriter85

[Mark Arbour]

The next  chapter of Paternity will probably post later tonight, in time for St. Patrick's Day.  Expect it around 12-12:30 CST. 

[Daddydavek]

I'm assuming you mean Central Daylight savings time as we went off standard time last weekend.....

 

 

edit:  Based on your posting time--you did!   Thanks!  Loved it....   Well most of it.  Suicide is always a tragedy.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Daddydavek

[JimCarter]

Wow never would have 'thunk it', but Jeff and  Lark getting to know each other might make a good story telling pair next.

[methodwriter85]

   I remember you and I kicked around the idea of Shane killing himself, and I gotta say, it was very well-done. I had a friend(he wasn't a close friend, but he was my science partner sophomore year) who killed himself during the summer of '09. I didn't know about it until around September/October, when I noticed his dad was asking people for remembrance stories about Billy on his Facebook. We had this mutual friend, who basically told me that he jumped off a bridge the summer after he failed to graduate from college. I was so shocked- this was a guy who had gone in front of a crowd sophomore year and tried his hardest to pull off a stand-up comedy act. (Not entirely successful, but I thought he had major guts for doing it.) Billy was going to be a school teacher, if  I remember correctly. It's still pretty hard to think about all the potential life experiences this guy gave up...I mean, he was only 22. There's so much he's missing.

 

      I think you've done a good job of capturing those emotions. I also loved you played JJ's breakdown- he's feeling like shit, but sometimes you've got to tear everything down to the studs before you can rebuild. I loved, loved, LOVED that Will and JJ finally had a bit of a tussle- not a full-blown fight or anything, but I thought they were overdue for a scuffle, and I loved Will realizing that JJ is actually much stronger than he looks.

 

      Finally...Lark being Jeff's dad. Good on the people who guessed that. It's not a legacy character, so to speak, but it's always nice when Mark brings in characters that have connections to other characters.

Edited March 17, 2013 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

So here is the interesting angle right now. Will suspects that Scott Slater is Lark. Does Will have the right to tell Jeff he thinks his father is alive? What if he talks to his father and Brad tells him, "you can't tell Jeff". I think a lot of people think that would be an easy answer. But what if JP and Stef ask him to not tell Jeff? Is it Will's call to make? (at 14 years old) I get that Will is mature for 14....  looks acts like 18 yada yada, but even at 18 you really don't have all the answers in life yet. When will Will figure out what the Rolling Stone's already knew, "You Can't Always Get (Do) What Ya Want"?

[Mark Arbour]

So here is the interesting angle right now. Will suspects that Scott Slater is Lark. Does Will have the right to tell Jeff he thinks his father is alive? What if he talks to his father and Brad tells him, "you can't tell Jeff". I think a lot of people think that would be an easy answer. But what if JP and Stef ask him to not tell Jeff? Is it Will's call to make? (at 14 years old) I get that Will is mature for 14....  looks acts like 18 yada yada, but even at 18 you really don't have all the answers in life yet. When will Will figure out what the Rolling Stone's already knew, "You Can't Always Get (Do) What Ya Want"?

 

I think you'll flnd that Will has discovered enough maturity through his various crucibles that he handles this situation pretty well.  

[centexhairysub]

Gave a review last night after I read the chapter but had a busy day and just getting to the forum, I really enjoyed every aspect of this lastest chapter.  I thought the writing and how the situations played out rang so true to life.

 

I thought that it was especially poignant that Will was who Shane said goodbye to and thought how Will handled telling JJ was just shattering.  I don't know that I agree with the decision of the family and therapist to have Will tell JJ but the writing and the aftermath was just spot on.  I think that Will's family and others forget that Will isn't an adult in actuality.  I think that while Will has grown and matured tremendously over the last few months; there are still positions that I don't know that he should be put in and this might have been one.  While I think Will handled himself exceptionally well, JJ may associate Will with this encounter in a negative light and I could see this causing issues down the line. 

 

Mark, you wrote the scene with JJ with so much authenticity that I just have to say Bravo...  You have been able to shine a light on how we view mental illness in more than one way in this story and I just have to say thanks...

 

I did so love being right about Lark/Scott being Jeff's biological father.  I don't know how or why it came to me but it did in the middle of the night.  As I stated in my review; I am not sure how Lark/Scott will react to being a father but often people suprise us in the best ways possible.  I can see Will being really conflicted in how he handles this; he is going to want to tell Jeff that his father is alive and well and living in Hawaii but he can't be the one that makes that decision.  If Will wants to be treated like an adult; then he is going to have to act like one.  I can see Brad having to involve JP in reaching Will on this.  I do think that Jeff will find out about Lark/Scott but only after Lark/Scott is advised and some discussion on how safe it will be for Jeff to actually be made aware of the facts.  Alexandra C. is still alive and still very wealthy; it would not do for her to discover that Lark was still among the living, plus she might try and strike at Lark through his son. 

 

Just when I am not sure how another story in the CAP saga will measure up, you go and do something as great as this; Mark, I really believe your talent is truly remarkable. 

[methodwriter85]

Mark, you wrote the scene with JJ with so much authenticity that I just have to say Bravo...  You have been able to shine a light on how we view mental illness in more than one way in this story and I just have to say thanks...

 

    Mark's been incredibly respectful about portraying mental illness, and he really takes our input. I remember there was this storyline in Bloodlines, where Cole had tried to kill himself. Originally, Cole was just going to go back to his dorm afterwards, but having experienced something along the same lines, I knew there was no way that Cole would be allowed to live on campus without having demonstrated to residence life that he is no longer a threat to himself and the community. I insisted on this, and Mark worked out the great little storyline of Cole living at Escorial for a quarter.

 

     I spent my 22nd birthday in a psychiatric care ward, getting treated for suicidal ideation. I had what amounted to a complete nervous breakdown at the end of 2007, and it took me until the summer of '08 before I lifted out of my depression. It sucked to go through it, but in the end I think the experience made me think a lot about how I interact with people, the kind of relationships I chose to have, and what I needed to do in order to make sure I never get like that again. Five years out from that experience, I haven't had anything remotely close to that kind of prolonged depression again, and I think it's because I forced myself to go to the bare studs to figure out why my thought process was the way it was. I also had an incredibly good therapist.

 

     Mark did a fantastic job recreating what that kind of environment is like.

 

      It'll be interesting to see if JJ will have a permanent recovery from his depression, or if he'll have more occurences. I think a time that would be ripe for it would be late 2005/early 2006, when there's going to be enormous pressure to medal at Torino. JJ would also be vulnerable to tabloids looking for dirt, and there's definitely a lot of material there, starting with how he was concieved. I can already hear Johnny Weir calling JJ the "incest crackwhore baby."

 

 

I am bummed at the loss of the Shane character because I thought he'd be a good partner for Will in a future story.

 

     Shane's loss probably creates a void in the fictional West Coast junior figure skating scene, which means that JJ will probably have a chance to step up and try to fill it.

 

    I thought Shane served as a cautionary tale to JJ about what could happen to him if he made his life entirely about figure skating and had no real identity outside of being a figure skater. It'll be interesting to see, a few years down the road, how JJ's processed all the stuff that's happened to him. I think what happened to him between the summer of 2000 and this point will take him years to fully process and heal from.

 

    It kind of felt like Mark took JJ, who had been the last "innocent" one in his generation because of his delayed adolescence, and just smashed all that to pieces. It's definitely dramatic and I thought the storylines were good, but man, I wish JJ'd been able to hold on to his childhood for just a little longer than he was able to. It's not like he's John or Will, who had basically grown out of being one- JJ's was just taken from him before he was ready to let go of it.

Edited March 18, 2013 by methodwriter85