It’s a miracle the Beach Boys are cool. They’re a glee club with a pitch somewhere between soprano and alto.  Not one of them is notably handsome or edgy, and in album covers they wear dorky shirts and sweaters.  Shouldn’t a band named “The Beach Boys” be tanned with sun-lightened hair? Shouldn’t they be comfortable without shirts?

But somehow they’re legends at being cool.

Twangy and electric, their tone is closer to that of an 80s pop band than to their 60s contemporaries.

As are their lyrics.

Bob Dylan’s songs – such as “Hurricane,” in which he describes the injustices done to an African American boxer – became anthems of the Civil Rights movement.  The Beatles’ music promotes peace over war[1] and open-mindedness towards drug use and other social phenomena.[2]

By contrast, in their 1963 hit “Catch a Wave,” the Beach Boys weigh in on the “is surfing just a fad?” debate, arguing that it’s not just a fad because “it’s been going on so long.”

Dylan and The Beatles look like high school dropouts, then they shock you with the poignancy of their commentary on relevant issues.  The Beach Boys look like prep school class officers and shock you by choosing inane subjects rather than projecting their intellects.

After the success of Surfin’ Safari (1962), there was still so much to say about surfing that they were compelled to follow with not only Surfin’ U.S.A (1963) but also Surf’s Up (1971).  Together, these albums have 11 songs with some form of the word “surf” in the title and more, such as “Catch a Wave,” which extol surfing.

This association with surfing is critical to the band’s coolness. As is their association with California during a period when the state was less accessible to the East Coast and still a mysterious, sun-drenched dream.

But the Beach Boys transcend because of the maturity with which they focus on the positive experiences of youth. They’re light, smooth, and digestible. A typical song of their’s lasts fewer than 3 minutes. They avoid sex, money, and politics, and nothing about them tries too hard.  Where even is Kokomo? Is it real? Do you know anyone who’s been?  All I know is that I want to go when they sing about it.

Many other bands that sing almost exclusively about being young connect to adolescents through passion but lose adults with their lyrics that lack perspective.  As a sophomore in high school, I listened Bon Jovi’s Crossroads every night before going to bed. Now, his superlatives make me cringe.  I have a soft-spot for him the same way I have one for Saved by the Bell – as entertainment I once enjoyed but with which I no longer connect.

The Beach Boys, by contrast, focus on “girls” instead of “love.” “Surfing” and “cars” instead of “life.”  Their romantic songs focus on dancing and skipping school rather than hyperbolizing sentiments. They focus on activity rather than wisdom; their songs project wanting and doing things, not knowing them. Their sophistication when conveying youth stems from the simplicity with which they evoke verbs whose actions adolescents are better than adults at performing.

As a result, even when the Beach Boys were gaining fame, their fan base comprised as many adults as adolescents.  Adults – old enough to “say good night and stay together,” and old enough to know that being married doesn’t necessarily mean being happy – reminiscing about the painful constraints of high school love while rocking out to “Wouldn’t it Be Nice.”

Between the ages of 5 and 15, my family would drive 11 hours from DC to Wild Dunes, a South Carolina beach town near Charleston, for our annual week of summer vacation.  The kids didn’t enjoy talk radio.  The adults didn’t enjoy pop music.  And the only old music all the kids liked was the Beach Boys.  So for about 150 hours of family car time, the 20 Good Vibrations album played on repeat.

More so than any other entertainment I consumed as a child, my connection to the Beach Boys has yet to fray.  I once admired them as a group of older kids who sang about things I wanted to do when I was older.  Now I see them as a quirky misfit among their contemporaries; with a unique sound, brilliant brand, contagious positive energy, and sophisticated simplicity, they veered from the formula of the times and still managed to become superstars.

I’m lucky to have built a connection when I was young with a band that both sings about youth and that I haven’t outgrown.

When I close my eyes to the Beach Boys, I retreat to the little place I know that’s like Kokomo.  I see Carolina’s beaches and swamps and the silhouettes of mosquitoes under street-lamps while I taste that fresh-grilled Atlantic shrimp.  Red after playing tennis in the afternoon heat, I press a cold can of Mellow Yellow to my cheek.  I shiver in the over-air-conditioned Piggly Wiggly as I scan the boogie boards, excited as only a child can be.

And sometimes I even go to a dance lookin’ for romance, see Barbara Ann, and think about takin’ a chance.

[1] Ex. “Revolution,” and “Give Peace a Chance”

[2] Ex. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”

At this firm, we comply with Swiss law. A bank’s mandate is to grow its clients’ wealth, not to police how this wealth is used, acquired, or taxed.

Following this lesson in business ethics, the firm’s compliance director – a chipper, lean, and maternal French Canadian woman in her mid-50s whose bouncy voice and silver bangs radiate positive energy – opens the stack of portfolios on her desk and begins presenting her daily routine.

“Here, we don’t want dirty money. So I perform background checks on prospective clients and review current clients’ sizable transactions to ensure against money laundering and other criminal activity.”

She waits for me to nod, then continues her wholesome chirp.

“Look here.  This man sold his yacht’s parking spot on the Riviera for 1.5 million Euros.”

***

The account manager beckons Come-in-come-in with his non-phone-holding arm, so I enter and slump at a seat.

“Move to England for 8-10 years, then return to Canada with your Swiss money. Claim you made that money in England.” The account manager mouths two minutes in my direction, straightens his spine, and moves a hand through is full head of silver hair.  Lean, fit, and about 5’7” or 5’8”, he’s the less energetic but far smoother version of the compliance director.

Twenty minutes later, the account manager orders wine, 30 Franc (1 Swiss Franc was about USD$1 at the time) appetizers, and 75 Franc entrees for the two of us on the sun-deck at his favorite week-day lunch spot.

After firm handshakes and broad smiles with other men in suits, the account manager’s attention shifts to me.  At a conversation lull, I ask why he advised the nervous man on the phone to move to England.

“You see, Swiss banking secrecy is on its final limb.  The American government is hounding us to become more transparent. We operate as if there are 10 years left. So legalizing the 95% of the money we manage that’s been hidden from governments – and, thus, un-taxed – is an important part of our work.”

***

“So what do you do for the firm?”

“Some very very very wealthy Arab men. They trust me. Their money follows me.”

Another week on the job, another casual 300 Franc mid-day lunch.  This time my benefactor is an impeccably dressed Pakistani. Pressed black Italian suit with thin cream pinstripes covering a starched cream-colored button-down shirt – his maroon tie and mocha shoes, which match his complexion perfectly, are the only articles of clothing that are neither black nor white. A man in his mid-70s, he’s lost most of his hair; yet, he manages to groom what’s left and polish his scalp in a tasteful manner.

Money. That’s the image this man projects. That’s what he talks about.  Those who have it are the people he admires.  He’s endearingly polite and awkward. He opens doors for others, his head-bobs and hand gestures are jerky, there’s an unnatural pause before he speaks, and he cranes his head forward with a static gaze when he listens.

This man enjoys discussing what he loves, not why.  While elegant, there’s a void where substance should be.  His style is antiquated. I’m sure he has no idea how to use a computer. While presentation may have been the name of the game 30 years ago – when he built his Arab clients’ “trust” – today’s connectivity and big data analyses expose lack of substance.

He proclaims his love for American literature and states that my grandfather was “a very very very good man.” I’m sure they barely knew each other, but embellishing positive sentiment is what people in Switzerland do. After attempts at other subjects hit premature dead ends, conversation circles back to money.

At the end of the meal, I convey a similar degree of gratitude I’d expressed to the other four co-workers who had taken me to lavish lunches. While the lunch was a treat for me, it was arguably even more of a treat for him. The ability to pay for lavish treats is why he’d made all that money in the first place.

***

Upon arriving a little before 9am, I turn on my computer, check my email, and scan espn.com, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal headlines.  Between 9:30am and 10am, I crack open my French textbook. The firm pays me 4,000 Francs/month to study French, procrastinate, and consume chocolate croissants while observing swans dance on a glassy lake upon which the sun’s reflection hurts my eyes.

I receive an email from my college roommate. He’s a counselor at a summer camp for an orphanage in Ethiopia.  He functions as underprivileged children’s exposure to Western culture.  He teaches them English and sports, and he organizes their days so that the lessons/fun mix is optimized.  And he learns from them.  He improves his ability to interact with young children, and he exchanges laughs and smiles with accepting villagers who have nothing but are happy anyway.  They teach him cultural dances and expose him to how the developing world operates.  Of particular note are Ethiopian construction sites.  In the USA, scaffolding is metal. In Ethiopia, it’s sticks glued together with gum.  His room is hot and sticky, and he sleeps on a cot.  Connecting to the Internet requires miles of driving down unpaved roads to a nearby hotspot.

I receive second email from a different friend spending his summer building a hospital and introducing vaccines to a small village in Sierra Leone.  The deterioration of his personal hygiene is a lowlight – he sweats constantly and never showers.  The laziness of his co-workers is another lowlight – even when provided resources they refuse to build the hospital in a timely manner. But at the end of the summer, he will have contributed to healing the maladies of villagers for generations to come while having encountered the inefficiencies of the developing world.

My response to both emails evokes the glamorous land of chocolate shops, swans, Italian suits, casual 300 Franc lunches, and 1.5 million Euros parking spaces. The pristine world in which bankers work 9:30am-5:30pm and make millions.  And where scenery for sunset jogs sets fresh water streams and massive pastures beneath an Alpine horizon.  Like my impeccably dressed Pakistani co-worker, I project elegance, but there’s a void where substance should be.

This void stems from selfishness. From consuming without contributing.  A depressing day for an asset manager is when he loses $1 million for a client who has $40 million in the bank. It’s $1 million that would have languished in a vault – not built hospitals for villages in Sierra Leone or connected orphanages in East Africa to the Internet.

I try stretching capitalist theory to embellish the asset manager’s contribution.  The world needs asset managers. People need to be confident they can retain wealth once they’ve acquired it.  And getting rich is a contribution in and of itself! The wealthy spend more, and every dollar spent trickles down and multiplies throughout the economy.  Indirectly, the asset manager feeds the poor through his diligent pursuit of turning $40 million into $41 million.

Perhaps this logic is valid on a large scale.  But, on an individual level, I have trouble convincing myself that Mr. 40 Million would spend more if he became Mr. 41 Million. And even if he would, this contribution is too abstract for me – it’s not observing the hospital you helped build or listening to an eight year-old Ethiopian girl speak the English you taught her.

I work at an environmental NGO now. Everyone wishes paychecks were higher – snarky catch phrases, such as “that’s why they pay us the big bucks,” are commonplace. Budgets are tight, and pursuing grants from private donors who dedicated their careers to accumulating wealth is core to our organization’s existence. Daily conversations, however, revolve around the creation of incentives to reduce deforestation and wean the world off of coal far more often than around personal wealth.  And it’s inspiring to work alongside people who are more focused on the global influence of their work than how their work will impact bonuses.

I don’t hate finance, and I love money. It makes life cozy, and I want a lot of it.  I want to consume, and I judge people who spend at an unsustainable rate. And my Swiss co-workers from the summer of 2010 treated me with kindness.  But obsession with wealth can be costly.  It can deprive one of a sense of citizenship – how one can claim he made the world a better place, beyond tax-exempt charitable donations.  Furthermore, wealth obsession can instill a mentality that prizes elegance and prices over substance – preference for the $30 can of beans over the $25 sushi platter.

I’m unmarried with zero dependents and at least 40 years from retirement; the NGO salary is more than enough for me.  But as I get older, I foresee this state of affairs might no longer be the case. What’s frustrating is that luxury and public service, from what I’ve experienced so far in my brief career, has been either-or, not both-and. I tip my hat to those in lucrative professions who are fulfilled by their contribution to society.

In honor of all the recent snow, check out this article about permafrost, the Arctic, and some of the risks and opportunities that make this budding frontier so exciting.

http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2014/02/14/arctic-melting-a-business-opportunity-but-also-a-dangerous-climate-risk/

“You see me, my pimpin’s in 3-D. I take ya ta places you only see on TV.”

~ Ludacris, Pimpin’ All over the World

Fine French cuisine tastes just as delicious outside of France.  Van Gogh’s, Picasso’s, and Monet’s works are found in museums all across the United States, not to mention the Internet.  The same animals witnessed on an African Safari or Amazonian trek are consolidated in zoos, and the National Geographic and Discovery channels enable observing these animals in their natural habitats.

So why do people travel?  Vacation that’s a refreshing respite from daily activities does not need to include travel. Is it simply to fulfill a personal fantasy – to flaunt money while casting oneself as exotic?

“Sex – The poor man’s polo” – Clifford Odets

In Goodwill Hunting, the village sage, Sean Maguire, begins to answer this question when confronting the brilliant, impudent, and troubled protagonist, Will Hunting, about the flaws of his arrogant persona.

You’ve never been out of Boston.  If I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written.  Michelangelo, you know a lot about him – life’s work, political aspirations, him and the Pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.  You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.

To Sean, traveling is about expansion of personal tastes and perspectives resulting from the integration of sensory details – beyond what’s controlled by the eyes and ears – to how one perceives a place.   It’s about walking with a map in one hand and a camera in the other through Parisian streets and experiencing cigarette-smoking, espresso sipping fashionistas peer at you, judgingly, through tinted shades.  It’s about dribbling a soccer ball, shirtless, down sun-drenched Ipanema beach, drinking out of a coconut while watching freakishly athletic Brazilians play soccer volleyball as women in string bikinis pass you on either side with an ocean dotted with surfers in the background.  It’s about sweating on a mountain bike in Alberta, and breathing in air that’s as fresh as the view is pristine.  And it’s about learning your 67 year-old mom still has the guts to hike up a 2.5-mile canyon trail lined with precipices. Or that your bilingual roommate is liquid smooth with the Spanish ladies in Miami.  It’s about a place, and how you make that place your own.

The travel experiences above are easy to romanticize.  Both in the moment and when reflecting, the wholesome beauty is relentless.  I’d argue, however, that experiencing the fruits of the developed western world yields diminishing marginal returns regarding expansion of perspectives; after a certain point, going from one nice place to another expands one’s tastes, alone. One’s knowledge of fine wines.

***

“Type 2 fun“: An activity that is only fun after you have stopped doing it

The most immersed I’ve ever been in a non-Western culture came this past summer in Japan. Few people spoke English, and almost as few were literate with Latin numerals.  Getting from point A to point B was a pain – I was white, deaf, dumb, illiterate, alone, and, thus, easy to take advantage of.  Descending Mt. Fuji, I couldn’t understand any signs and hiked 6 kilometers in the wrong direction. The only reason I didn’t catch hypothermia that night was because my charades were good enough to convince a drug store clerk to call a cab driver who ended up driving in $90 dollars worth of circles before “remembering” where the train station was. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, I’d booked a bed in a $10/night downtown capsule hotel. Sound-proof walls for my 6 x 4 x 3 laundry machine of a capsule would have been nice, and not just to buffer snores – the hotel was located in the heart of the red light district, so many of my neighbors were shacked up with prostitutes all night.  Many of the most memorable parts of that trip were not fun.  But the opportunity to not have fun was fulfilling.

And I realize that there are many places far more different from the USA than Japan. Places where childhood education entails learning how to heard cattle to an oasis or train birds to kill foxes, not memorizing multiplication tables.  Jurisdictions where democracy is a foreign concept; where brainwashed residents believe their tyrant rulers are deities. To optimize travel’s value on a personal level – to expand perspective, not simply taste, as much as possible – experiencing these less comfortable destinations is imperative.  

So in the spirit of Chris Jeon, the UCLA math major (picture above) who traveled to Libya towards the end of his 2011 summer vacation because he “thought it would be cool to join the rebels,” – and named in honor of Joseph Conrad’s novel about a harrowing boat trip down the Congo River – I present the pinnacle of a counter-culture vacation: The Heart of Darkness Tour.

During this three-stop journey, activities beyond eating and sleeping in hotels with armed guards are limited.  The goals would be three-fold:

(1) Interview locals about first-hand accounts of depravity;

(2) Experience a breed of fear that’s foreign to anyone who’s never been deployed for war; and

(3) Witness as much of the chaos as possible without getting raped and/or murdered.

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary

Destination 1: Country – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); City – Kindu (or anywhere else in eastern DRC)

Summary: Kindu is a jungle town located in east-central Congo on the Congo River, where more rape and murder has occurred over the past two decades than anywhere else on the planet.

Logistics: October 5, 2014: Flight from Dulles (IAD) to Kinshasa (FIH), with a stop through Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) – 21 hours and USD$1,000.  With the assistance of a travel agent, book a roundtrip flight from Kinshasa to Kindu.

Heart of Darkness (HoD) Resume:

“I couldn’t have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary

(1) DRC was recently home to the The Second Congo War (1998-2003), often referred to as the “African World War”, in which 5.4 million people died, making it the deadliest war since World War II.  According to 2009 estimates, 45,000 people per month may still be dying in Congo, and 76% of people have been affected by conflicts.

(2) DRC ranks 154^th out of 177 on Transparency International’s corruption index.

(3) The prevalence of rape and sexual violence in eastern Congo is considered the world’s worst. During the war, an estimated 200,000 women were raped; and, even since the war, large parts of society deem violence and sexual enslavement of women and children as normal.

Destination 2: Country – Somalia; City – Mogadishu

Summary: Children are forced to torture and execute their parents here. Picture a slow and painful apocalypse. Mogadishu is the closest thing to hell on earth.

Logistics: Fly from Kinshasa (FIH) to Mogadishu (MGQ) on October 12th 2014 with layovers in Ethiopia and Djibouti – 19 hours and USD$1,500.

HoD Resume:

“But his soul was mad.  Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary

(1) Tied with Afghanistan and North Korea for dead last, out of 177 countries, on Transparency International’s corruption index.

(2) In the words of Conciliation Resources (2010), Somalia’s 2 decades-long conflict “has mutated from a civil war in the 1980s, through state collapse, clan factionalism and warlordism in the 1990s, to a globalised ideological conflict in the first decade of the new millennium.”

(3) In the words of Wikitravel: “Mogadishu still remains very dangerous due to high petty and violent crime rates… The city also remains in great danger of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks carried out by extremists who manage to get past the security checkpoints around the city.  Walking the streets of Mogadishu remains very dangerous, even with armed guards.  Tourists are emphatically discouraged from visiting Mogadishu.”

Destination 3: Country – Yemen; City – Sana’a

Summary: Yemen is a poor, dusty, desert country where terrorism and Islamic extremism reign supreme and 85% of the population is addicted to qat, a narcotic stimulant.  Water scarcity and civil unrest are serious issues.

Logistics: On October 20th, 2014, fly from Mogadishu (MGQ) to Aden (ADE) with a layover in Istanbul – 18 hours, USD$1,000. On October 21st, 2014, fly from Aden to Sana’a for USD$100.  On October 26th, 2014, return to Dulles from Sana’a – USD$900, 24 hours.

HoD Resume:

“It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary

(1) Yemen ranks 163^rd of 177 on Transparency International’s corruption index.

(2) In the words of Wikitravel: “Travel to Yemen is strongly discouraged due to a state of severe political crisis, as well as a very high threat of terrorist attacks, abductions, tribal violence, and general lawlessness.  Terrorist groups actively target tourist groups, with targeted suicide bombings and armed ambushes occurring yearly since 2007.”

(3) A desert country with naturally scarce fresh water resources, the nation’s addiction to qat, a water-intensive narcotic, stresses water resources even further and makes decision-makers even less rational.

***

In conclusion, the Heart of Darkness Tour might not be fun in the moment, but it is certain to expand the surviving traveler’s global perspective.  Far more so than determining whether your favorite part of France is the fine Parisian dining, skiing in the Alps, or sunbathing along the Riviera. But don’t worry.  The Heart of Darkness Tour is still expensive, so people can still hate you for it. Even if they’re not jealous.

Understanding the case for Anna over Summer requires comparing the two young ladies outside of Seth Cohen’s orbit.

The OC’s production creates a framing bias – viewers see the two young women on Summer’s home turf and through Seth’s eyes.  Furthermore, both Summer and Anna are at their worst when they’re competing for Seth – when they’re vulnerable and lack confidence. The audience, however, has the privilege of witnessing Summer regain her swag, but not Anna.

Seth’s Perspective

As an 11^th grader, Seth remembered Summer’s 3^rd grade sympathy for hungry squirrels and could recite Summer’s 6^th grade poem entitled “I Wish I was a Mermaid” on command.  Despite my best efforts, I cannot not like her. This double-negative was spoken in the days when Seth’s relationship with Summer solely entailed receiving verbal abuse. So you really like Summer? Seth’s response: Since I was 10.

Anna edited a literary magazine, shared Seth’s interest in comic books, challenged Seth’s witty banter with her own, and had the morals, intellectual curiosity, and confidence to corner Caleb Nichol in his own house about the ethics of destroying local wetlands for real estate development.  Anna and Seth were a fit.  Anna and Seth were logic.

But love isn’t always about logic.  For seven formational years, Seth would picture Summer’s face every time he heard a love song, read a story with a moving romance, or fantasized about his own romances.  Summer was cooler than Seth. And more attractive.  And unattainable for so long.

Seth was right to choose Summer. He was right to eschew logic.  Because Summer drove him crazy like Anna never could. To Seth, Summer was about guile, pride, drama, and glamour – a mix that, while not ideal for stability, leads to magical moments. And who cares about stability in high school?  In Anna, Seth would have locked down an amazing girlfriend.  In Summer, Seth achieved a dream.

Beyond Seth’s Orbit

Seth was always going to choose Summer. But, in an alternate universe where Seth had never had a crush on either young lady prior to his seventeenth birthday – a world in which Summer’s status as Seth’s boyhood crush did not grant her first mover advantage – Anna would be the consensus choice.

The bounce to her step, her reactionary facial expressions and head bobs, and the eye contact she makes when she smiles wide underscore Anna’s contagious positive energy. And through her multifaceted style, this energy bubbles to the surface.  She sports a hip haircut, coordinates her outfits, and accessorizes phenomenally. In school she preps out.  Out of school she rocks tees.  And her cocktail gowns are classy with character.

She’s unashamed about flossing at school in the middle of the day and proud to share study habits, recall knowledge about bacteria, and use the word “anathema” in casual conversation.  Outside of intellectual settings, she’s quick enough to keep up with both Seth’s sarcasm…

Seth (on Thanksgiving): “Marshmallows and cornflakes, suddenly I’m not so happy to be eating.”

Anna: “Well, then all you’ll be eating are your words.”

… and Summer’s condescending insults.

Seth (in Biology class): “Anna just sailed to Tajiti!”

Summer (to Seth and Anna): “Sailing is, like, soooo not the fastest way to get anywhere… I mean, if you had flown you woulda gotten there a lot sooner.”

Anna: “You should be on the Debate Team.”

But what’s more impressive than how she responds is how she creates.  When she kisses Seth for the first time at the school carnival, it’s a calculated surprise that shocks everyone (in a good way), Seth more than anyone.  When Seth leaves her alone in his room at Thanksgiving, she carpes the diem by playing jenga with Captain Oats (Seth’s toy horse).

Anchoring and directing Anna’s energy is her innate sense of right and wrong.  She’s not obsessed with being cool and dresses to package herself as attractive and artistic, not to look hot in a slutty way.  She’s humble, good natured, and grounded in reality.

Even though I prefer Anna, I grant that Seth’s decision was difficult. I like Summer. Her transparency is charming.  There is something about her judgmental humor…

Summer (to Marisa): “What the hell is Seth Cohen doing with Tinker Bell? She’s from Pittsburgh! That’s, like, the 909 of the East!”

…and her obliviousness to foot-in-her-mouth moments that makes a man want to harness her passion – interpret those ‘rage blackouts’…

Seth (in Mexico before they were dating): “Admit it, Summer. Our chemistry is undeniable.”

Summer: “You know what else is undeniable? The pain this fork is gonna cause when I jam it into your eye!”

… as a quirky byproduct of an enchanting young lady brimming with excitement.  She’s both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious – at Casino Night, because she’s superstitious, she forces Seth to blow on her dice all night and calls him “Rabbit Foot” because she neither knows nor cares about his real name.

But, unless you’re Seth Cohen, I see only two logical reasons a man might choose Summer over Anna:

1.)  The man finds Summer far more physically attractive.

2.)  The man is drawn to the fact that Summer needs him more than Anna does.

The show does not frame Seth’s decision as physically driven, and both ladies are extremely attractive, so reason (1) should not carry too much weight for the general public.  But reason (2) is more substantive.  A lot of men might admire a young lady as confident and put together as Anna, but might not see her as a compatible partner.  Many men value the give as well as the take requisite for most healthy relationships; and, the barrier to enhancing Summer’s life is far lower than the one to improving Anna’s.  While Summer is a bully on the surface, she’s a receptive audience.  She listens to what Anna has to say about flossing and bacteria, and she expresses gratitude after Anna teaches her acronyms for biology class.

While the two caveats above might steer some towards Summer, Anna is the superior choice for the majority of men. Summer simply requires too much patience.  Anna sailed to Tajiti, but sleeping on a couch is beneath Summer.  Summer storms away when she’s losing an argument.  She lies about being a virgin to her best friend, Marisa, and she dresses cookie-cutter hot – either expensive or slutty. As a seventeen year-old, she networks at cocktail parties, cornering the rich older men to pretend she’s interested in their jobs while making sure her low-cut top is well displayed.

Summer is the prom princess, whereas Anna is the young woman former classmates see at the 5^th reunion and wonder how she flew under the radar in high school. Anna’s the diamond in the rough that shines far brighter than the manufactured plastic beads jumping out at you from store windows – but obtaining that diamond requires (a) finding and (b) knowing what a diamond looks like outside of a jewelry store.

Imagine a valedictorian puts up the most intimidating numbers in his school’s history.  He takes the hardest classes his school offers – math, sciences, humanities, everything – and he finishes with a 97/100 composite average.  The second best composite average ever was a 93/100 by someone 20 years ago in a time when grades were inflated more than today. But in the rising junior class, two classes below that of Mr. 97, three absolute studs, boasting 95/100, 92/100, and 90/100 averages, compete with each other.  None of their trophy chests are as cluttered as Mr. 97’s because only one of the three can ever win awards.  In addition, because classes are graded on a curve and these three compete with each other, they are at a significant disadvantage in regards to inching up their cumulative averages.  Most notably, Mr. 95 and Mr. 97 have taken ten courses with one another – Mr. 95 annihilated Mr. 97 in every math class they took together, and they tied in all the non-math classes.  Is Mr. 97 still the smartest student in the history of the school? Does having the most complete resume make him the most legit?

Now substitute Roger Federer for Mr. 97, Rafael Nadal for Mr. 95, Novak Djokovic for Mr. 92, and Andy Murray for Mr. 90.

In sports, “greatness” and Greatest of All Time (GOAT) are impossible to define.  There is no regression or index that could possibly spit out one’s ‘greatness ranking’ because people would constantly bicker over what variables to include (championships, best seasons, consistency, individual success, team success, etc.) and how they’re weighted.

Given the above, you’d need an extremely strange index to rank Blaine Gabbert ahead of Peyton Manning. Or Andy Roddick ahead of Roger Federer.  Or anyone to ever pick up a hockey stick over Wayne Gretzky. Even without the benefits of math determining margin calls, ‘objectively better’ can exist when one’s prowess compared to his counterpart(s) is so lopsided that it transcends subjectivity.  For the GOAT, these ‘counterparts’ encompass everyone who has ever walked the earth.

The achievements below make Roger Federer, or Mr. 97, the man with undeniably the most complete trophy case in the history of tennis:

1.)  With 17 grand slam titles to his name, he has won over 20% more than Pete Sampras (14 titles), the previous holder of tennis’ most coveted record. He has won all four majors, and, for three of the four, he shares the record for most wins – Wimbledon (7), US Open (5), and Australian Open (4).  In addition, at 24, he has the highest number of grand slam finals appearances.

2.)  He holds the record for consecutive grand slam finals (10), semifinals (23), and quarterfinals (36).

3.)  He has been ranked number 1 for 302 weeks, more than anyone else ever.[1]

If it were not for one scarlet head-to-head, Federer’s GOAT status would be objective.  Federer and his rival, Rafael Nadal, have played 32 matches, and Nadal has won 22.  How can you be the objective GOAT when you’ve lost twice as many matches as you’ve won against your strongest contemporary? Federer fans concede that Nadal’s prowess on clay is unparalleled. Nadal is 13-2 against Federer on clay, and 9-8 against Federer on other surfaces. But here lies the problem: Clay counts!!!  Moreover, in non-French Open grand slam matches, Nadal edges Federer 3-2, and their overall grand slam record is 8-2 in Nadal’s favor. Even during 2004-2007, the pinnacle of Federer’s dominance, he was 6-8 versus Nadal. Federer fans fear Nadal on the other side of the net because Nadal has owned Federer!

From this blemish stems questions disastrous to Federer’s GOAT status. Federer won his first 12 grand slams before Nadal turned 22 years-old – before Nadal was a multi-surface threat.  Prior to Nadal, Federer had no worthy adversary.  Does this fact underscore Federer’s greatness by showing he was responsible for raising the level of the game’s elite by an unparalleled margin?  Or does it mean he was the king of men’s tennis’ Dark Ages?  Without Federer as a target, could Nadal have reached Federer’s level?  Would Nadal have dominated 2003-2007 as decisively as Federer if he were in his prime and Andy Roddick, Marat Safin, and Lleyton Hewitt were his most formidable competition? After turning 21 years-old, Nadal was 6-2 against Roddick, 2-0 against Safin, and 5-0 against Hewitt.  How much has luck contributed to the extent of Federer’s accolades – is his crowded trophy case more a product of his prowess or the timing of his birth?  If Nadal’s and Federer’s birthdays were flipped, could Federer, in his more formative years, have developed an answer to Nadal’s cross-court topspin forehand?  At the height of Federer’s powers, was his level of play higher than the level of the game’s current elite?

To every one of the questions above, the answer is subjective.  What is not subjective is that prior to Nadal’s rise, Federer was the most distant number 1 in the history of the game.  For 2003-2007, fans watched the later rounds in grand slams to marvel at Federer.  For 2008-2013, fans have watched these same rounds with hopes of witnessing an epic match between two great players. In all, the grand slam and Olympic semifinals or finals during 2008-2013 staged 23 matches[2] that are a tennis fan’s dream.  To me, the moment that best encapsulates this time period’s great matches is the 2012 Australian Open’s trophy ceremony; neither Nadal nor Djokovic could stand up, forcing tournament organizers to fetch them chairs.  These men have punished balls; painting lines with all the power they could muster.  Losers have cried during trophy presentations.  Winners have climbed into the stands to give sweaty hugs and kisses to supporters in their boxes.  Competitors waged war until they ran out of bullets and explosives, and then they threw rocks instead of running away.  Great players forced the caliber of elite play upwards, and when one player inched ahead of the pack the others would will themselves to that new level.

A common Federer defense is to dismiss Nadal as “kryptonite”, an analogy that is a trite oversimplification and disrespectful to Nadal.  Below is an email exchange I had with a Federer fan on this topic:

Federer fan: Nadal is Federer’s kryptonite.  Every superhero has a weakness.  In Federer’s case, it is Nadal’s topspin forehand.  The fact that Federer has a kryptonite just proves he’s a human, not a robot.  To use a basketball analogy, the Pistons were Michael Jordan’s kryptonite until the 1991 NBA season.  Since he experienced his kryptonite at the start of his career, he got past it and became the greatest basketball player of his era.  Federer didn’t have this opportunity because he is older than Nadal.  But you can’t blame him for that.

Me: The “kryptonite” comparison minimizes Nadal. Kryptonite is a stone known only for hindering Superman.  Nadal does much more than just beat Federer.  A valid case for Nadal as GOAT does exist, and it goes something like this:

He has a winning record against his three biggest rivals – as well as against every current top-30 player and every major player of his generation – during the highest quality era men’s tennis has ever seen. In addition to Nadal’s 22-10 advantage in his head-to-head with Federer, he’s 22-17 vs. Djokovic and 13-5 vs. Murray, while Federer is a hardly dominant 16-15 vs. Djokovic and a losing 9-11 vs. Murray. So which player has the most consistent A-game?  Federer’s GOAT claim is based on his remarkable records.  And there is no disputing that they’re remarkable.  But worthy competition didn’t exist during the lion’s share of the period he was building his records.  Don’t you think Lebron would have 10 titles by now if he were playing in the NCAA, or in China? Quite simply, better statistics are easier to achieve when competition is weaker.

Obviously durability plays quite a bit into grand slam total, and I think it’s fair to hold his relatively fragile body against Nadal.  However, before Sampras broke his career grand slam record, Roy Emerson was not considered the GOAT. Even Sampras wasn’t a slam dunk for GOAT when he owned the career grand slam record.  Say Nadal wins 3 more majors – a very realistic assumption considering he’s only 27 years-old.  Then he’d have 16 grand slams, an Olympic gold medal, and an even more lopsided head-to-head against Federer.  At that point, it’s beyond number-counting, the same way Borg vs. Emerson is beyond number-counting.

Lastly, if you lined up their careers perfectly, who’s to say Federer would have learned Nadal’s game? Sure, Nadal’s style might be particularly well formed to beat Federer, but I think Federer had plenty of time to figure out Nadal. You gotta believe Federer spent every day during ’06-’10 trying to figure out how to beat Nadal. 

I know my argument for Nadal is subjective because the numbers favor Federer.  But in other sports with an objective GOAT, not even a subjective case can be made for anyone else. In hockey, for example, the invincibility of Gretzky’s Oilers during The Great One’s prime in conjunction with his untouchable individual records make him the most decorated valedictorian in NHL history. In addition, Gretzky was peerless for his 10+-year prime, and his status as smartest kid in the class (SKIS) was never in doubt.  By contrast, in basketball, the Jordan vs. Russell debate is subjective.  Russell won almost twice as many titles and individual accolades that compete with anybody’s – he is basketball’s most decorated valedictorian ever. But a contemporary of Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, boasted more impressive stats and, thus, can make a strong case for SKIS honors during Russell’s era. During Jordan’s prime, his status as SKIS was never in doubt.

The Federer/Nadal case is extremely rare in sports.  Usually the hairiness in the GOAT debate comes when comparing non-contemporaries, such as Russell and Jordan. But here, the generation’s two greatest players have played each other 32 times, and the one who’s widely considered the GOAT has won fewer than one-third of the confrontations.  Is the rest of Federer’s resume strong enough to ignore that extremely inconvenient statistic?  That’s the question, and the answer leaves plenty of room for subjectivity and debating weights of variables on the maddeningly imprecise Greatness Index.

I am convinced, though, that this subjectivity would not exist if the Federer/Nadal head-to-head weren’t so lopsided. What argument could anyone make against Federer if this record were flipped? If Nadal didn’t own Federer, Federer would be considered the tennis equivalent of Wayne Gretzky.  Instead, he’s tennis’ Bill Russell.