Mike and I had an incredibly fun experience on Monday, visiting Mike’s alma mater, Western Michigan University, to give a presentation to a class about entrepreneurship in the arts. The class of about 200 students were so delightful and engaged, and asked a number of really great questions…
Working through trials to find a bit of treasure
Today has been..[sigh]…a day. In the last 48 hours, the number of people who have totally flaked on scheduled interviews with me can barely be counted on one hand. They have caused me stress, wasted my time, made me miss deadlines and some actually cost me money. This happens on occasion, but rarely does it occur multiple times on the same day, much less then same project, which a couple of these instances were. Not all though. For whatever reasons, multiple sources from multiple stories for multiple publications all decided to hate me at the same time.
On a scale that includes world hunger and human rights abuses, my day hasn’t been that bad, but as I finally gave up and turned in the pieces in question, I felt the unsettled ache in my stomach of a passing nightmare. It was over, but it was still pretty bad. I might have had a little cry. I’ll probably soak in the tub in a bit, but first I had to share this little piece of wonderful that came out of the misery.
When a needed interview vanishes hours before a deadline, a writer must take to the internet to find “web content.” This is no easy task. There might be dozens of articles, blogs and websites that would prove the right point or support the narrative at hand, but the tricky thing about being a journalist is the source and quality of the content matters. The source has to be verifiable, legitimate, etc. For this piece, I was searching everywhere from business news sites to eBay, and it was on eBay – where treasures are known to be found – that I encountered back copies of GMC Truck News, a General Motors magazine that was once in print. It was written by R.A. Sumpter, also known as Robert Sumpter, also known as my grandfather.
My aunt recently gave me a copy of GMC Truck News that Grandpa had given her before he died. She wanted me to have it, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. It’s not just that I am also a writer. I also, 50 years later, write a good deal of branded content for companies, very similar to what he did for General Motors. It wasn’t something I aspired to, it was just one of those lucky things I stumbled upon. Though I can’t ask him, as he died 15 years ago, I believe he would have said the same thing.
And as it turns out, there are more volumes of his work available on eBay. I sort of want to buy them all up. I might. Whether or not I do though, it feels so wonderful to know that his work is still out there, in the same industry as mine, and that I even had an assignment that caused the paths of our work to cross. That no-good, super-annoying, tear-inducing horror of an assignment. That I am so glad I received.
Happy Sociopath Awareness Day!
Didn’t know it was sociopath awareness day? Yeah, well, I just decided that in honor of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s sentencing, today was as good a day as any to talk about sociopaths. As Jack Lessenberry pointed out yesterday, Kwame definitely falls under the description of a sociopath: he is charming, intelligent and totally incapable of empathy.
We’d like to think people capable of the level of narcissism required to bleed a deeply troubled city of an estimated $20 million just for funsies is a rarity, but sadly, it’s not. According to psychologist and author of The Sociopath Next Door Marta Stout, sociopaths make up 4 percent of the population. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems like I’ve met all of them.
Seriously though, that’s one in every 25 people who are incapable of caring about other people, and extremely capable of leaving trails of hurt and destruction behind them as they blaze through life. Many are smart enough to not break laws as they do so, so society doesn’t have the luxury of putting them in jail, like we can happily do to Kwame. Sometimes the only prey on those least likely to reveal them for who they are, like children or the poor. One of the most chilling examples of a sociopath is an incredible story CNN recently ran about a sociopath who killed a little girl as a teenager and then spent more than 50 years terrorizing nearly everyone he came into contact with. But besides the murder no one knew about, he largely avoided breaking the law, so he got away with nearly everything. It’s a long read, but super worth it.
The point is, sociopaths are everywhere. They’re controlling and manipulative, they use people and care only for themselves. They are also often charismatic, successful, socially active people whom no one suspects anything is wrong with. There are resources out there that can be helpful in identifying and dealing with them, including Stout’s book. The best advice, I think, is exactly what Lessenberry advises everyone with regard to Kwame after his prison doors shut behind him: cut off all contact, deny them any attention, and protect yourself from them at all costs.
That said, we have to watch out for each other as well. We should talk about sociopathy, how to recognize it and how to get away from it. Because we’ve all just got this one life to live, and we should spend it surrounded by the other 96 percent of humanity.
Natalie Burg 