Watching Whiplash again reminded me of the power mentors (or more correctly in this case, people who we look up to and whose opinions we cherish) can have over us, driving us to become singularly focused on achieving, thereby impressing them. The merits and demerits of the influence of Fletcher on Andrew may be open to interpretation - the methods certainly are - but the intensity with which that final scene was delivered might make up for every thing. ...
Day 3 of the Better Man in 30 days Challenge - Find a Mentor — In thinking through today’s challenge, I realised there is a shed load of historical mentors I had to acknowledge - the Artful dodger (so nicknamed by his own father no less) whose MO always seemed to be to stay just on the right side of the law at all times (he was the inspiration to go into engineering), OO, the social studies teacher who intervened when yours truly was nabbed trying to pilfer a book from the secondary school library, Dr K at the Steel plant where I interned in 2000 who sowed the seeds of an appreciation for materials in me and DEL and MMK who held my hand as I took my first shaky steps as a rust geek back between 2003 and 2008. All that is part of why mentoring and mentorship are core values I intend to hold on to dearly both as a giver and a recipient. ...