I look to the world around me for lessons on how to be a better dad and how to teach my son to be curious, creative and confident enough to do great things, even if that great thing is just to be a happy human.
One of my least favorite nuggets of fatherly advise is “the clothes makes the man.” And it’s not just because I’m most comfortable wearing Carharts and a hoodie. The saying goes back to the time of Shakespeare and beyond into antiquity. My favorite version is from Mark Twain who said:
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
To prove this is a fallacy and a trap simply consider the ubiquity of well dressed charlatans, criminals, and just plain jerks we have in the world, and the growing abundance of Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs’ who dominate tech and business while dressing like bored frat boys. We are living in a time when who you are is becoming more important than what you look like. (and yes I realize my examples here are white males…)
NASA’s Mohawk Guy
I bring this up because Bobak Ferdosi [@tweetsoutloud], the NASA Mohawk Guy, made Soapbox Science #1 science marketing hit of 2012. Bobak is a 32 year old systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was flight director for the Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity Rover‘s cruise to and landing on Mars. He doesn’t always sport a radical hair style, but does sculpt something fun to celebrate great moments in the missions he is part of at NASA.
I’ve known kids who’s goal was to make their first million dollars by the time they were 30. Or win the Super Bowl. Or be CEO of some company or other. Bobak landed a robot on Mars at 32 while sporting a red streaked mohawk.
If that can happen now, I don’t even know where to begin when telling my son what is possible in 29 and 1/2 years. But Mark Twain was right, I’d say. As long as you do exactly what Bobak does by wearing clothes of some kind and are smart, passionate and great at what you do, you should be good to go from here on out.
Landing a Robot on Mars
For more info on the Mars Curiosity Rover and the amazing accomplishments of Bobak and NASA JPL, check the link below after watching this video.
-Mike
Did you see how memey that Mohawk Guy went? He was all over Reddit, chicks there were throwing themselves at him, he became a meme, did an AMA. Big stuff. I think what really got people was that someone “normal” (as in their generation) was at NASA, doing something great. From our desk jobs and mom’s houses, we look at that sort of thing and say “wow, you can have a mohawk and work at NASA. I have hope.”
Or, maybe the internet was just being the internet. That happens too.
Yeah, I saw all that stuff. Though there is no accounting for reddit…
It’s funny how, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” has always been a popular thing to tell kids. Yet many of the things we teach ourselves about society and interacting and expectations is the opposite…
-M
I actually have an article in the works about the lies we tell kids. Don’t blow it for me, Mike 🙂
I heard him on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. He’s definitely cool!