A Meeting In Harare, 1999.

By November 1999, Robert Mugabe had ruled Zimbabwe since the early 70s .  He was a leader of the native African power grab as the colonial powers departed the continent.  Despite all the talk of democracy and fairness for the people, we now know these leaders just enriched themselves.

By the time I was travelling through Zimbabwe, these tactics had transformed themselves into 'land reform'.  In real terms, this translated to Mugabe arming gangs to intimidate white farmers, in some cases murdering them, until they agreed to leave their farms, or sell them at a fraction of their worth.  (The politics are more complicated than that, but I'm simplifying it as the politics aren't germane to this story).  The point is, there were active communities of gangs acting in anarchic ways all over the county.

Living in London, I'd seen articles in newspapers about Mugabe, and the unrest in Zimbabwe. I knew there was turmoil.  I'd scanned across photos, full of civic mayhem. But I hadn't read the articles - I was on my way to the sports page.

So when I decided to hike about 5 miles into Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, from the Backpackers Lodge on Kilwinning Road, I was relatively ignorant, or näive. I assumed it all happened elsewhere.

At that point, I'd been travelling through Africa for about two months, and travelling with Anniken, who I would later marry and have three children, for about a month.  African towns were often heart-wrenching visits, full of children begging for anything.  Mostly, these kids were full of life and humour, and nothing like the pathetic images the charities use to raise money. The kids were fun!  But behind the curtains, one could find the horror stories.  I didn't blame Anniken for not wanting to go into town, and was glad she hadn't later that day. So I went alone.

The route into Harare along Airport Road is pretty flat - it's a divided highway, fairly straight, with some neighbourhoods on one side and large fields on the other. It was a typical day in Africa, sunny and a bit humid. I set off early, maybe 9am.

I don't remember much about the journey into Harare. I did a little shopping. And as I departed, I held a plastic bag. I remember it dangling by my side. I know it was before lunch, as I was hoping to get back to the Lodge before the heat of the day. I wore cargo shorts, a t-shirt, and pair of flip-flops, for which I would soon be grateful.

I was probably about half-way back when I noticed, across the divided highway, a group of about 30 young African men who all looked pretty fit, like in their late teens or early 20s, turn from a neighbourhood side street onto the opposite side of the highway I was walking. The divide on this highway was pretty wide, and they were ahead of me, maybe 100 yards away.

A tingle chilled my spine. Like some sort of primal warning system, something about this group of young men felt menacing. I'd been travelling around Africa for weeks, through Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Even hitchhiking occasionally. I'd seen plenty of groups of young men. I'd never felt anything like this. I made an effort to neither quicken nor slow my pace. I was walking my direction, opposite side of the highway, and they were...

Just like that, running directly toward me.  Surely not, I thought, and looked behind me to hopefully find something else. Nothing but fields. They were definitely sprinting towards me.  I don't remember hearing them shout or holler anything; it's all very silent in my memory.  

Time slowed. They crossed the opposite side of the highway, and were racing across the grass median. Right at me. I dropped my bag. I looked along the highway for hope of rescue. No cars coming. They were closer now... what was happening? Getting nearer. I looked down at my feet, and realised that a) I've never been a sprinter, in the best of conditions I wasn't going to outrun these guys, and b) running makes you look like prey, and predators love a chase; even still, I needed the third fact, c), that I was wearing flip-flops, and running through the thicket would hurt like hell, to realise running was futile. 

In that moment, my heart seemed to stop racing, a calm came over me, and I made the decision that I believe saved me from... something.  

I walked toward them. Smiling. With my hand extended, to shake theirs.

By this time, they were nearly on me, and as I walked toward them, closing the distance, we met in the middle of my side of the divided highway, where about 30 men encircled me.  I'd been right - they were all pretty young and fit. One guy, about 6'4" and 250 lbs, with an Aaron Neville birthmark, looked and screamed at me in Shona, the local language. I couldn't understand what he said, but I tried to shake his hand. He wouldn't take mine, but the guy to his right would. I smiled. He didn't smile, but he took my hand. I then turned to the next guy, who also had an angry expression, but I flashed my gormless grin... and he accepted my hand, and even shook it, too. I smiled even bigger. I kept finding a hand to shake, avoiding the big guy, and smiling, as if I were a politician on some sort of tour, welcoming them to this side of the highway. You'll love it here boys, it's sunny!!

As I was looking for another hand to shake, a little guy broke through my extended arm, and pushed the big guy with the Aaron Neville birthmark - hard!  Started really yelling at him, and getting in his face like the piercing approach of a small dog you can't ignore - it has teeth, after all.

Even now, I don't know who was more shocked, me or the big guy, but I remember looking in his eyes and feeling a bit of relief.  For whatever their reasoning, his aggression was more in keeping with the situation than the little guy's protection, who was was clearly berating the big guy. Even if he spoke in Shona, so I will never know for sure, I believe he said, "Can't you tell this guy's retarded! Look at his stupid smile! He's not a farmer, and he's too stupid to know when to run. Now, come on you big oaf, let's go smoke a cigarette." 

Then, as quickly as it began, they dispersed. Melted away. I stood there for a moment, somehow vacantly calm. I'm glad Anniken wasn't there - who knows how I would have reacted if I'd felt the need to protect someone (although they may not have bum-rushed me had she been there). And I'm glad I wore flip-flops.

Mostly, though, what I learned on the side of that highway in Zimbabwe in November 1999 was this: even when there are genuine reasons to be afraid, acting through fear is the wrong thing to do; and if, when you are afraid, you can look down, gather your nerve, and then raise your hand with a smile to greet the world, you'll be surprised by the sort of situations that will actually work.  

Thank you, crazy gang in Harare.  

Ideas on Parenting, footnote link.

As you can tell, I've not been in writing mode lately.  It's for good reasons, I've been stretching myself creatively on other projects - with my work as an artist and directing some short films.  So the blog has taken a back seat.

But I just came across a TED talk I'm going to be watching again and again.  Although the delivery is a bit dry, not everyone can be Sir Ken Robinson, the content is fabulous.  Somehow he's taken some of my Spartan leanings, and worked out how to add the softness my approach has needed. I can't wait to put this stuff into practice.

I hope you find it useful, too.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_feiler_agile_programming_for_your_family.html

In Defense of Pranksters.

This week, a prank my company created has been getting lots of press attention, prompting a deluge of critiques and celebrations on the art of pranking.  Did it go too far, or not far enough?  Was it funny, or a sick joke?  And of course, how would you react if it happened to you?!

I’m a big fan of a good prank and have given this topic more thought than most. I don’t think we do enough practical jokes in the world, and this blog will share some of my thoughts.

Let’s clarify what pranking really boils down to – it’s playing a joke on someone.  It’s fun.  But it is distinctly a joke on that person, not a joke with that person.  When we were children, we all pranked each other; often that involved hiding and jumping out to scare each other.  Pranking, or punk!ing, as Ashton calls it, has innocent origins.  However, most of us were also victims or instigators in some fairly malicious teasing – children can be cruel.  So what separates a prank from humiliation?

There are four main criteria.  Firstly, the actual act itself – a prank is a situation anyone would find awkward; it’s not a personal attack.  For instance, we knew in this prank that Alex had a slight fear of flying.  So Plan A was to charter a plane, attach some smoke canisters to the outside of the engines, like at air shows, and fake a double engine failure while the pilot dropped a few thousand feet.  We knew it’d be easy to film Alex’s terror, while he was actually completely safe.  But then we realized that as it’s a minor fear of Alex’s, it was too personal, and might have had the unintended consequence of sabotaging all future airborne travel for the poor guy!

The second is that a good prank must get the ‘pranked’ to play along.   Information should be exposed during the event from which, really, you ought to deduce it’s a prank.  But you don’t… and down deep, you’re playing along.  When Alex, Fred and Leo were arrested in LA, it was 7am.   They had slept for 2 hours after a big night. The arresting officers mentioned vague allegations from 4am the previous night, and claimed the officers had already reviewed surveillance tapes, identified the accused as the likely suspects, and were here to arrest them.  Really?  How would they know the accused names?  Or which hotel they were staying at?  What about warrants?  And however they did this, they worked it out in 3 hours?  Even Jason Bourne isn’t hunted down so quickly.

A good prank also needs to reflect the intended victim’s relationship to risk.  The fact is that Alex Tulloch is an alpha male.  He’s charismatic, confident and going places.  He would have laughed off a boring prank and, here’s the kicker, he nearly laughed off ours.  On several occasions he says to the police, is this a prank?  Somewhere deep inside, he knew this was too crazy to be real.  In truth, I will admit it was too long, but only by about 5 minutes.  Because 10 minutes before we end the prank, Alex finally looks at the policeman and says, “This is really happening…”  And it is only at this moment the prank has even worked.  It is only at this moment we have provided him with that gasping, roller-coaster moment of genuine fear (while actually being completely safe), that pumping of adrenaline, that primal edge of life stuff that actually helps us appreciate living - as close to the 'elixir of life' we're ever going to find.

This is why I can’t actually ask you how you would react to this prank.  Because I didn’t play this prank on you, and if I did play a prank on you, I’d think of a different one!

Finally, a good prank has to come from a place of love.  It is a gift of the most shocking proportions.  Think about it.  When Alex, Leo and Fred realize it was a prank, they enjoy a flash of euphoria - I’ll wager one of the greatest of their lives.  Pranking requires forethought, planning and usually some type of expense.  How many times have you bought someone you love a gift with less than 5 minutes’ effort?  We all have.  And we all know it didn’t show our love and hoped the recipient didn’t notice.  But you can’t pull off a decent prank with 5 minutes’ effort.  Throughout the planning of this prank, one thing that was completely obvious was the love Ben has for his buddy.  He wanted to treat him to an experience of a lifetime, to produce the best prank in the history of pranks.

And I think we did.  

Thoughts about Fitness. Part 3.

During the darkest years of the Great Depression, from 1929 - 1933, Americans living in the midwest were subjected to a famine of nearly biblical proportions.  It was the great 'dust bowl', with crops failing over huge swathes of landscape.  It was also one of the few times in history where such an intense famine hit a first world country with good doctors and records.  Hence, we know something surprising about it.  During a period of mass starvation, where people seemed to struggle to exist, life expectancy actually increased.  And not just a little - by 6 years.  

A couple of years ago, I lost a bunch of weight (about 50 pounds in 4 months), and wrote a couple of blogs about both the ideas and practices that helped me do this.  In the 2nd of those blogs, I made the following comment:

"It turns out, hunger can be incredibly good for you.  Various research suggests it acts as a natural anti-depressant, increases alertness, and can be good for learning."

I have a confession to make.  I was exaggerating a bit.  I had found a couple of studies online, but not that much.  Mostly I had felt the benefits of hunger, so I blogged about them.  Since then, I've come across some really interesting stories, and hard science, to take my understanding a lot further.  I had speculated that hunger could be good for you, and suggested that, from an evolutionary perspective, we would have benefitted "if hunger helped improve our vision and hearing", but even my wildly unscientific blog did not suggest that hunger could make you live longer.  Could there be a link between the famine of the 1930s Great Depression and increased life expectancy?

A recent BBC Horizon programme looked into this very question.  According to Professor Valter Longo at the University of Southern California, a clue lies in a group of South American people most of us would call midgets.  They actually suffer from a rare condition, but the clue lies not in their height, but how they die.  Or rather, how they don't die. They don't die from cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.  Despite the fact that they smoke and drink and live just as unhealthily as the rest of us, they don't die from the 'big three'.

As it turns out, the condition they have means they have very low production of Insulin-like growth hormone 1 (IGF1).  The fascinating part is what IGF1 does in all of us, not just the midgets.  When we have a normal amount of IGF1, our body is in drive mode, and produces lots of new cells to cope with the demands of every day living.  However, with low levels of IGF1 our body stops producing new cells and - this is the fascinating bit - starts repairing the cells we already have.  With low IGF1, DNA damage is more likely to get fixed.  The theory goes in people with low IGF1, like our short South American friends, their cells are constantly repairing themselves which prevents certain diseases from ever developing. 

I was blessed with a gene pool filled with cancer, alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease.  Every single day my parents, in their early 70s, break a new family record for longevity.  If there's a way to get my cells to repair one another, I probably need it.  So what affects IGF1, and can I reduce my IGF1 production?

As you probably deduced, food plays a big part.  The food which seems to accelerate IGF1 production the most is protein.  So that's meat, my favourite food group.  Great.  But it turns out that all food stimulates IGF1 production, so to get really low levels of IGF1, the BBC programme recommends fasting.  So all my other favourite food groups.  Wonderful.

I've never fasted from food before.  My usual excuse is that I'm too busy, but in truth, I've never seen the point.  If fasting actually helps my body repair itself... I can see a point.  The typical 65-year old in America today takes 8 drugs a day.  Modern medicine is amazing, but living to 70 or 80 is abnormal for most of us.  In all likelihood, old age will be a regiment of drugs, side effects and regular visits to the doctor.  To me, this sounds even less wonderful than fasting.


The very tiny, minuscule, silver lining to the massive grey cloud is that fasting is being studied by loads of scientists and there are quite a few being recommended:

• The old-fashioned way: four days without food, several times a year.  You can have all the water you want, and up to 50 calories per day.  Apparently, day 1 is the hardest, and day 2 isn't that bad.  
• Alternate day fasting.  Eat anything you want on day 1 (so far, so good), eat 1 small meal on day 2 of about 500 calories.  Repeat.  This one is fantastic because you really can eat anything you want on day 1, you just have to keep to the single meal on day 2.  It seems easier, but you really have to keep on alternating... like, forever.
• The Five-Two Fast.  Five days of normal eating, followed by 2 days of 600 calories a day.  The beauty of this one is that you can choose the same two days each week, and just work it into your normal life.

None of them are easy, I suspect.  I've loosely had a few weeks of doing the Five-Two, but in truth I'm still on the sidelines.  I don't guess the point is being easy.  Whether we suffer now, by fasting, or later, in other ways, seems to be the choice.

And this is where we get to a final big idea about fasting.  In addition to the benefits of lower IGF1, and the reduced risk of aging-related illnesses, in addition to the benefits of losing weight and feeling good (when you're not fasting), there's something else.  According to Dr Mark Mattson from the National Institute on Aging, fasting appears to lower one's likelihood of contracting Alzheimer's and dementia.  According to the BBC programme, "Sporadic bouts of hunger actually triggers new neurons to grow.  It seems that fasting exercises your gray matter in ways that exercise strengthens your muscles."

So fasting is really, really good for you.  

In my original Fitness blogs two years ago, I proposed skipping lunch every day, as mankind has done for most of our history.  As I write this, I've skipped about 70% of my lunches for the last couple of years.  I've still got the 32-inch waist, and I'm still feeling fit and healthy.  The question is, does being hungry for an hour or two each day qualify as fasting... does this count?  I don't know, but I thought I'd mention it here as I know a few people who read this blog are doing two meals a day, and it seems there's a decent chance it's making us healthier, too.

The tomorrow of education.

This month, we hired a couple of Assistant Producers in our NY studio.   Both interviewed well, with fairly impressive degrees, so we were pleased to offer them contracts.   After less than two weeks, we had to fire both of them due to jaw-droppingly unprofessional behaviour: one decided that 'work' was a philosophically subjective term that he could, and should, define himself; the other decided she was a creative expert at 22 years old, and proceeded to inform us of how we need to run the company.  This is, supposedly, during a recession.

In a separate observation, I recently read that over the last 30 years, the cost of a college degree in America has risen by over 500% compared to inflation.  The average college education in America will cost $80,000 over four years, but frankly, that's including a lot of colleges where the degree is as valuable as used toilet paper.  For any decent college, you're looking at $40k a year, once you factor in room and board, etc.  Great Britain is heading the same the way.  And unlike primary and secondary school fees, there are very few degrees that will actually benefit a student financially.

It's an old observation, but universities don't produce great workers.  Personally, I'm a college dropout, get to run a pretty decent little business, and I don't see how my two and a half years at a pretty decent university helped me any more than a 3-month spring break would've done.  Obviously, there are plenty of great workers with degrees, but I think they would have been great workers without the degree.  College seems to blunt work ethic, instead of sharpening it.  Unless you're going to be a surgeon or a lawyer (which of course requires 4 more years of education, so potentially $400,000 in various expenses), I don't see the value.

I'm so skeptical about college I've told my children that when they turn eighteen they'll have a choice.  They can get a job (I still don't know why my generation was discouraged from this).  They can start a business (with me as the seed investor).  Or, they can go to college... provided they have a real passion for their intended major, get straight A's, and can make a business case for it, too - I certainly won't be funding any 'English Literature' or 'Media Studies' degrees.

That might seem draconian, but I'm not the only one that sees the need for change. There is a revolution taking place in education, with the emphasis on providing more for less.  Technology could change education the way it's changed so many other things in our lives.

I've recently watched several clips which suggest the tomorrow of education could, and should, be very different from today.  This little blog is meant to introduce those clips.

The first is about the Khan Academy, and if you have a child who is between 8 and 18, and if you aren't using the Khan Academy website to help them with their homework, you need to watch this clip immediately. 

The second is about Coursera, which is providing online courses from the world's best professors at universities like Stanford, Princeton,  Duke, UC Berkeley, and others... for free!!!  These aren't just videos of college courses, you take tests and, in some cases, get college credit for them, too.  Watch this clip and it explains everything.  "And then like, yo dude, if you wanna hang in class this fall, I'm taking this class at Duke University!" 

Finally, there is this story about the entrepreneur who is paying promising young people a $100,000 salary NOT to finish their degree, and to come work for him instead.  Unfortunately, you need to be in the states or have an ISP blocker to watch the video, but the article is pretty good, too.

So maybe I won't have to give my kids that choice.  Maybe they'll be able to get a job or start up a company, and take online courses at night which allows them to get a degree from Princeton in their spare time.  That way when they tell someone how to run a company when they're 22, they'll be doing so with a bit of experience!

The Trek Begins. Well... the preparation for The Trek Begins.

During the summer of 2014, my son Ben and I are going to spend a month riding the Great Divide bicycle trail (scroll down if you go to the link).  It is 2700 miles of off-road bicycling which runs from Canada to Mexico along the Continental Divide in America.  It is called this because, in theory, every drop of rain that falls to the east of the Divide ends up in the Atlantic Ocean, and every drop which falls to its west is destined for the Pacific.  Ben and I won't have time to ride the whole thing; during our month we hope to ride through most of Montana and Wyoming.  It's an extension of my 'Ideas on Parenting' blogs that I haven't finished writing, but the gist is: 

• For thousands of years, children were deemed to be adults at about the age of 13 by both biology and society; for some odd reason, in the last 100 years we've decided they're not adults until they're 18 or 21.  So we treat teenagers like children, and then we wonder why they act so immaturely.  So the plan is to...
• First, foster an immense challenge for my children at the age of thirteen.  
• They select the challenge; the challenge must be their decision.  (I've been speaking to Ben about this since he was seven.  With his permission, I created a list of 8 potential challenges, all of which were worthy candidates, and he chose the Great Divide from that list).
• Provide a problem-solving, positive environment for them to learn how to overcome the challenge.  Help them, guide them and encourage them, but don't do it for them.
• Overcome the challenge.
• Treat them like the adult they've become once they've completed the challenge.  
• Hope and pray the plan doesn't backfire, and all the other parents laugh at me for trusting my teenager.

I'll get round to writing the full blog about the ideas above relatively soon, but Ben's 13th summer is in two years' time, and he's chosen the Great Divide trail.  So this month we've started doing our research for the adventure.  

The research is proving really cool, so I thought I'd blog some of the details.  The first is about the Great Divide Race which travels the route.  These guys are crazy, they do the entire route in record pace and are just nuts.  Although Ben and I will be taking it MUCH easier than these guys, there is a film about the race, and just to get us excited, it's cool watching the trailer.  Yes, I've downloaded the film, and will be watching it with Ben soon enough.

If you've just watched the trailer, surely you're thinking, "Really, Rick?  Are you really going to do that to your one and only son... Really?"  Well, the other cool thing I learned today was about the support network in place for long-distance cycling in America.  There are a couple of amazing websites, Adventure Cycling and America ByCycle, devoted to this sort of thing.  It seems there's an entire sub-culture of people doing crazy things like riding bicycles for weeks on end.  So much so, they've made a film about the maps we'll be using, and whilst I didn't think a 9 minute film about maps could be worth watching or sharing, I can now report these sound like the best maps of all time.

So watch this space.  More to follow in the months ahead.  

Something light...

Idea.  My kind of parenting - it combines clever parenting with a sense of humor, and subtly instills some important values, too.
Every year a friend of mine, Rhonda Salerno, sends her kids a letter, with a little prank / tease inside it,  during summer camp. Something which helps ensure they'll be EXTRA grateful when they get home.  Check out this year's letter.

Dear Mia,

I hope you are having so much fan at camp hanging out with all your old friends, and meeting new ones too!  It is quite boring here at home since it's just the three of us.

When you get home it will be time for school shopping - can you believe it?? I know you are excited to catch up with your friends!

I'm so happy to report nobody has died since you've been at camp - pets or people; that's a first, right?

BUT, Koby and Roscoe somehow got into the medicine cabinet.  Who knew dogs could crawl on each other's shoulders and open cabinets?  Roscoe must have learned that at dog training!  They got into those chocolate-covered laxatives and they must have tasted really good because they ate the entire box.  I'm sorry to say that when the diarrhoea hit them, they were in your room... I've never seen so much poop in all my life!  We're going to let it dry for a week, hoping it will be easier to clean up.  Maybe we'll get it clean by the time you come home on Saturday, but I'm sure the smell will last forever.   Sorry.

ANYWAY, have a great time at camp - we miss you very much!!!!

Love, 

Mom.

Priceless.