In Do Hard Things, Alex and Brett Harris tell of a young lad named David (born in 1801), who at the age of 10 began a career at sea, serving as a naval cadet on the warship Essex. At the age of 12, David was given command of a ship. In a bygone day, other lads and lasses of David’s age had highly developed skills — skills useful for running businesses, providing medical relief to the sick, or overseeing large plantations. (George Washington was appointed as the first Surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia at the age of 17.)
Today, we celebrate 12-year old Dylan Phifer, who scored 1,019,000 points in “Guitar Hero” (a video game), apparently breaking a world record. Sadly, Dylan, like so many others his age, is undoubtedly stunting his intellectual abilities and wasting his uncommon determination and ambition. The two-minute story starts after a brief ad:
HT: Kit Joos