What am I doing while unemployed?

I'm doing anything to increase my human capital, both in very job specific ways, and in more general ways.

Of course, I spend most of my time on my job search, continually tweaking and improving my resume and cover letter, contacting people I know, maintaining professional relationships, educating myself on how companies and recruiters think,

I read articles from my RSS feeder, Google Reader, as well as from people I follow on Twitter. These articles hail from Morningstar, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Reuters, ESPN, New York Times, Financial Times, Investors Business Daily, and many more. I want to know what's going on in the business world, the United States, the entire world, and my local community. I read many opinion articles which shape my views on issues that matter, such as the financial crisis, the stimulus, the Iraq war, climate change, political scandals, education reform, green technology, bailouts, government regulation, and more. I'm learning how green technology and government regulation will shape the jobs I'm going to have. I'm learning how the US deals with foreign nations via trade and diplomatic relations affects my life in the US. I'm learning how businesses and businessmen think, what they want, what they need, and how I can help them.

I read books for the same reasons: they make me think, they show me great writing, which make me a better writer, and they expand my imagination. I've read over 15 books in the last two months, ranging from "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, a fictional book about a socially inept, but intellectually brilliant man, still living at home with his mom. I read "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol, a discourse about the poor state of our public education. I read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, which showed the interplay between true brilliance and genius and unique opportunity. I read "Three Cups Of Tea" by Greg Mortenson, which showed the power of education, and how the dedication of one man can change an entire region. "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer, "On Writing Well" by Bill Zinsser, and "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut were a few of the others. A diverse collection to be sure, I'm continually expanding my mind.

I keep track of vocabulary words I don't know, write them on flash cards, and then learn them. Sclerotic, pleurisy, obviate, scofflaw, polemic, dystopia, cabal, and greenhorn are some of the most recent ones.

I run and do situps and pushups, making sure my health is solid.

I watch movies. Movies are a part of everyone's lives, perhaps taking us into a different world, making us laugh or cry, giving us a different perspective on something, or simply capturing our attention for a few hours. I watch all kinds of movies: drama/thrillers like Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Chinatown, Serpico, Unbreakable, Casino and Donnie Brasco, comedies like A Mighty Wind, Idiocracy, and Intolerable Cruelty, and others like Elegy, Before Sunset, Super Size Me, Son of Rambow, and Speed & Angels. These movies keep expanding my mind and give me more ways to relate to people.

I write. I write to express myself, as many people do. I write about things I find interesting, things I find important. I write because it forces me to think. I write because it forces other people to think. Writing is the conveyance of my abstract thoughts into a concrete form. I write about the economy, about books I read and movies I watch, about fantasy baseball and real baseball, and about my life.

I do this because some company will hire me, and will be getting a critically thinking, well-read, culturally literate, current events literate, business world literate, imaginative, eloquent, and succinct writer, diverse thinker, analytic problem solver. And every company that turned me down will be kicking themselves in the future. I can promise you that!

Books

9-A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole

This is a masterpiece by Toole. Ignatius' character has depth, aplomb, occasional sophistication, and often insolence. Every half page or so yields a belly laugh. Highly recommended.

8-How We Decide-Jonah Lehrer

Another one of those "brain/thinking/decisions" books. But this one beats the rest with its fantastic writing. Lehrer writes engagingly and colorfully, bringing interest to an over-written subject.

7-Outliers-Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell's third book does not disappoint. He seeks to explore how the incredibly successful and influential arise. He finds that while innate genius and skill helps, unique opportunities do much to shape a person's path in life. He thinks we should examine those opportunities and make them available to more people, enabling a larger amount of people to become highly educated and successful, benefiting those around them.

4-Savage Inequalities-Jonathan Zokol

Zokol examines the bleak state of American education, specifically urban schools. The lack of facilities, qualified teachers and administrators, and lack of incentives to improve is appalling. Zokol wrote the book in 1992, and I can only imagine how much worse schools have gotten since then. Education improvement and reform needs to be a priority for policymakers and citizens alike.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I am currently reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. So far it's really captured my interest and stimulated my thoughts. I'll be writing about it in this post, updating at the end as I read.

Gladwell delves into the world of the genius', the prodigies, the experts. How have they gotten to where they are? Is it innate talent, unique opportunity, extreme dedication?

In chapter 1, Gladwell talks about opportunity. he shows how those who were lucky enough to be grouped into the advanced or the elite early on in life, reaped the benefits of better instruction, more instruction, better competition, and better opportunities. Because of age cutoffs, hockey players that are born early in the year are at a physical maturation advantage. As a result, those players born early in the year are accepted onto club and travel teams at an early age, and are more privileged all the way up. They become they best because they were lucky enough to have been born in January, February, or March, not because of innate talent. Bill Gates had unique access to computers and programming opportunities all throughout his childhood. Gladwell doesn't want to underscore innate talent; he wants to illuminate the effect opportunity has.

In chapter 2, we learn about the 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell posits that 10,000 hours are necessary to become an expert in a given field. He points to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, The Beatles, Mozart, and Bill Joy-the creator of UNIX. While extremely innately talented, all showed a special devotion to their craft. Gladwell finds that rarely does a "special talent" float by on less than 10,000 hours. Also, rarely does a "grinder" put in the 10,000 hours and not become an expert.

In chapter 3, we learn why two people, both with an IQ above 150, will not both succeed at a high level. He give the example of two people, both with fantastic IQ's, who are given the task of listing the uses of a brick and a blanket. The first one:

Brick-To use in smash-and-grab raids. To help hold a house together. To use in a game of Russian roulette if you want to keep fit at the same time (bricks at ten paces, turn and throw, no evasive action allowed). To hold the eiderdown on a bed tie a brick at each corner. As a breaker of empty Coca-Cola bottles.

Blanket-To use on a bed. As a cover for illicit sex in the woods. As a tent. To make smoke signals with. As a sail for a boat, cart or sled. As a substitute for a towel. As a target for shooting practice for short-sighted people. As a thing to catch people jumping out of burning skyscrapers.

The second one:

Brick-Building things, throwing.

Blanket-Keeping warm, smothering fire, tying to trees and sleeping in (as a hammock), improvised stretcher.

"Which of these two students do you think is better suited to do the kind of brilliant, imaginative work that wins Nobel Prizes?"

Gladwell uses this fantastic illustration to show that intelligence (high IQ) alone does not guarantee being an outlier.

In chapter 4, we learn that upbringing matters. Practical intelligence is as important as analytical intelligence. Those born into middle-class and wealthy homes know how to share information and ask for attention. They know what to say to whom, when to say it, and how to say it for maximum effect. They have the knowledge to read situations correctly and get what they want.

In chapter 5, Gladwell says, "Those three things--autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward--are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it to be satisfying." 149

Also, "...if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires." 151