You Stand Alone

This is a bit of a different type of article. I wouldn’t normally write something like this, but it has been bothering me for a few weeks and only recently have I been able to understand why.

First, let me start with a story. My father was very different from most and from that, he provided me with many lessons in ways people would not really understand.

Dad liked to go to the bar, drink beer, and shoot pool. In fact, it was a pasttime of most of the men on his side of the family. Because of this, my grandfather had a pool table at his house. Whenever the family would get together for holidays, we would shoot pool.

Dad didn’t play with us much because he was good at it and we would just lose, but he played with me more than others because I always wanted to try to beat him.

In all my youth, he won every game. I got better as I got older, but never good enough. One time he beat me and I got angry. I could not understand why he, being my dad and all, would not just throw a game and let me win. He knew that was what I wanted, so he just had to let it happen.

Well, when I got angry, Dad wasn’t gonna have it. He told me, “There will always be someone who is better than you at something. You can’t get mad at that person for their ability. If I let you win, what does that accomplish?”

And he was right. What he was telling me is that I wouldn’t get any better if I wasn’t willing to fail. He didn’t want me to win. He wanted me to be good enough to beat him. If he let me win, then I would quit trying to get better.

And one day I did. After a summer away from home at a research appointment in Indiana, where I played my colleagues in pool daily and I also turned 21, I returned home and Dad took me to the bar for my birthday. He still won most of the games, but not all. I beat him once and told him I understood why he never let me win.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, I am seeing an awful lot of people who are upset with Hunter Biden being popular on Substack rather quickly.

This has been bugging me for a couple reasons.

1. The man has been through enough, cut him a little slack for doing exactly the same thing we are doing, using Substack to share our work and our opinions.

2. Based on what I learned from Dad, you can’t be mad at him for the position, power, ability, or talent that he was born with and/or given.

When I first picked up the drums thirty years ago, I wanted to be the best drummer ever. Yet, after one year on the drumline, in walks this kid who can do everything. The man was pure musical talent walking around.

Did I get angry that I would never be as good as him? No, I did everything I could do to learn from him. Maybe I would have been angry if I had never lost so many games of pool.

The point I am trying to make is that placing yourself in a “competition” with someone is pointless. Life isn’t a competition, it is a marathon. You keep running because you will definitely lose if you stop.

I will never be close to being as popular as Hunter Biden, and I am fine with that, especially if it meant my most intimate mistakes and secrets were put on display for the world.

Would you trade your life for his, or just his subscriber list? You can’t have it both ways. He paid for his platform and I would not want that burden.

Sometimes it is hard to understand why you are working so hard and getting nowhere. I understand how that feels daily. But, like Dad tried to get me to understand in his own crazy way, every ounce of work matters.

I didn’t know I was going to finally beat my dad that day. It was the accumulation of 21 years of work. And since then, I almost never play pool anymore. I accomplished what I set out to do and I didn’t need to do more.

Dad never let me win because he didn’t want me to quit. Don’t feel like what you do doesn’t matter because someone can do it better.

All that time I was losing to my dad, I was beating a lot of other people. When my wife and I were dating, we wound up at a party with a pool table where I amazed everyone with a simple bank shot I had pulled off a thousand times. They were astounded that I told them exactly what was going to happen beforehand.

Maybe I wasn’t as good as my Dad, but I was better than most. The same is true for the drums. I was, and still am not, as good of a drummer as my friend from high school, but that doesn’t matter. All of my hard work has made me better than most.

Hunter Biden is not a threat to your work. He is a distraction for your pride.

To paraphrase my Dad, someone’s advantages are not your disadvantages. Don’t worry about what other people are capable of. What are you capable of?

I can nearly guarantee you that Hunter Biden isn’t comfortable with math the way I am, because most people aren’t. He probably can’t play the drums like me. If I tried to paint something, it will look like a child’s finger painting.

Believe in yourself, trust in your work, and accept what comes of it. The worst thing you can do is try to change yourself based on the success of someone else.

I have been quiet here lately because I have been working on a book that I have wanted to write for years now. It went from 5,000 words to 21,000 words in a few weeks and there is much more yet to go.

Would I like millions of people to read it when it is finished? Absolutely, but what matters to me is that it influences just ONE other person. That wave of entropy will grow over time and that is all that matters to me.

Do what you believe in and don’t worry about anyone else. Your success is not in your number of subscribers or how much money you make. Your success is in everything new that you learn how to do.

It is the journey that matters, not the destination.

• Dr. C