The Parallel Lives

During the first World War, Henry Ford brought suit against the “Chicago Tribune,” because a reporter wrote that Ford was an “ignoramus.” At the trial, the newspaper’s attorneys peppered Ford with trivia questions, each designed to prove Ford’s ignorance.

To each question, Ford replied, “I do not know.”

Feeling exasperated, Ford said, “If I should wish to answer these foolish questions, I could call in men who could give me the correct answer. Now why should I fill my mind with useless details, when I have men who can supply me with all the facts I want?”

James Herriot, the English veterinarian, turned writer,” told a story of a simple guy in Darrowby, who displayed one unique and useful talent. He could imitate a fly.

When Herriot and a herdsman tried and failed to herd six cows into the farmer’s barn for a tuberculosis test, the herdsman called in the simple guy. He arrived on a bicycle and began to make a buzzing sound that the cows hated. Herriot said, “All the cows come running.”

The two stories above show how people drop into various slots: a capitalist, a reporter, an attorney, those who know trivia, those who do not, a veterinarian, a herdsman, and a simple guy who could imitate a fly.

As a woman or man strides through life, when busy assembling education, credentials, and experience, slots for various careers open and shut. A choice to focus upon one career means a multitudes of others close shut. That is the downside to specialization.

Shakespeare described this fact best. In “Julius Caesar,” Brutus tells Cassius,

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

Some of my jobs: student, farm hand, teacher, coach, house painter, roofer, field scout, accountant, columnist, biographer, and sales. Teaching adolescents was the hardest job ever.

Mark Twain said, “I never had but two powerful ambitions. One was be a river boat pilot, and the other a preacher of the gospel. I accomplished the one, and failed in the other, because I could not supply myself with the necessary stock in trade, religion. I have given it up forever.”

How do people select the right person for a job? When people in the north in mid-nineteenth century came to understand that slavery was immoral, they looked to find someone to lead them in a fight against the white Southern slave-holders. The Northerners picked Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln understood that if he hoped to change people’s thinking on slavery, he would have to join a political party. With a party’s collective power behind him, he could change the law.

He could seek to amend the Constitution. He could reorient the Supreme Court. He could abolish slavery. He could set free the enslaved, and eradicate the dreaded chains and whips.

Last Sunday, Democratic party officials asked Joe Biden to step aside, convinced that he could no longer fight the MAGA juggernaut. Party officials looked to Vice President Kamala Harris. A slot opened for her. They tagged her as the right person for the job.

The next day, she stated, “I was elected Attorney General in California. Before that I was a courtroom prosecutor. I took on perpetrators of all kinds.

“Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

In seven sentences, Harris declared her intentions. To run a Presidential campaign like a prosecuting attorney, to hold Trump accountable for his words and actions, to pin down his embellished and fabricated statements, and to demand truthful answers and responses.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,” and women. Indeed, the tide rolls in for some, out for others. “We must take the current when it serves.” The current pulls some forward, others away. “On such a full sea are we now afloat.”