Sunday, October 25, 2009

Destiny on the table

My friend's son turned one today. There was a big party. After the cakes were cut and served to the guests, a few objects were placed on a low coffee table: a pen, symbolizing scholarship; a drumstick, foretelling the life of a musician; two crayons, pointing to artistic creativity; a pink plastic ribbon, embodying longevity; a $20 bill, foreshadowing a career in finance; and a calculator, auguring a career in science and engineering. The one-year old was going to pick one of these objects on his own, which would reveal his future.

The son's name is Haydn, and my friend named his dog Mozart, so there was a clear expectation from the parents. Lo and behold, Haydn, donning traditional Korean costumes, reached for the drumstick. But then something funny happened. He stopped 3 inches short, hand suspended in mid air. He was thinking, and he started inspecting other objects. Then he noticed the pen - a Mont Blanc, and without further hesitation he grasped it. Scholar he would be! Everyone in the room broke into applause. Then Haydn also took the crayons. A scholar with artistic creativity, it could not have been better.

With an analytical turn of mind, I could not help thinking about the one-year-old's choice. First, he went for the drumstick; but instead, he chose the pen and the crayons. All these objects are long cylinders, with the Mont Blanc pen being the most well-crafted (and also by far the most expensive). Perhaps all toddlers have a innate affinity for cylindrincally shaped objects, but prefer the ones that they can easily hold in their tiny hands.

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