The Arithmetic of Life and Death (2 page)

Although an accident in the beginning,
The Arithmetic of Life and Death
ultimately evolved into a book that explains what to do in modern times. With the gracious assistance of the Sharpes and the DeNialls, those fictitious but prominent families from the Northwest, it also explains why, in everyday arithmetic.

S
ince some six billion people now occupy planet Earth, one could conclude that human life is as common as dirt in Denmark. There is, however, some evidence to the contrary. Gwendolyn Sharpe, anthropology student, and daughter of a prominent Northwestern personality, is a good example.

Like every human being, Gwendolyn is a construction of forty-six chromosomes. Twenty-three came from her mother, Cecilia, and the other twenty-three came from her estranged father. Each of her parents had forty-six chromosomes from which to choose, nicely organized in twenty-three pairs. Through the miracle of natural selection, either one of each chromosome pair from each of her parents could have been chosen for production. The resulting
twenty-three chromosomes from each parent were then paired to make Gwendolyn’s forty-six.

The odds that Gwen would get the exact twenty-three chromosomes that she received from her mother were one-half times one-half times one-half times one-half, a total of twenty-three times, or .5 to the twenty-third power. That means that the probability that Cecilia would give Gwendolyn the twenty-three chromosomes she got was about one in ten million (10,000,000), which was less likely than winning the state lottery (about one in seven million in Washington, although the odds are longer in some states).

The odds that Gwen would get the twenty-three chromosomes she got from her father were also about one in ten million. So, the probability that Gwendolyn would be Gwendolyn was about one in 100 trillion (one in 100,000,000,000,000). On any given day, a win in the Washington state lottery would be around fourteen million times more likely than a Gwendolyn Sharpe.

But that assumes the existence, union, and productive sex lives of Gwen’s mother and father. Gwendolyn’s parents met at a small Pacific Northwest university with a student population of 1,000 men and 1,000 women. Like so many young women back then, Gwen’s mother hoped to meet and marry the man of her dreams before leaving college with a degree in accounting. Like so many young men back then, Gwendolyn’s father planned to practice a few of the more physical rituals of marriage throughout the six years it would take him to obtain an undergraduate degree in political science. Correctly assuming, however, that Gwendolyn’s mother would inevitably prevail, the maximum probability of the productive union of her parents was a one-in-a-thousand long shot, which lengthened the
odds of Gwendolyn’s existence to about one in 100 quadrillion (1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000).

However, the odds of Gwendolyn’s mother’s being her mother were at least one in 100 quadrillion, too. The probability that her father would be her father was the same. So the odds of Gwendolyn’s being Gwendolyn were closer to one in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. But that figure excludes consideration that either parent might have been infertile, that either might have been killed before conception, or that they might have divorced before the moment of magic that produced Gwendolyn or any of her brothers. Nor has there been any inclusion of the extreme unlikelihood of the existence of Cecilia’s parents, who were from Yakima and Chewelah, or her husband’s parents, or their parents, or their parents, ad infinitum.

Netting all of this down to scientific terms, the odds that Gwendolyn would be Gwendolyn were less than one in a jillion gazillion. The same is true for each of us. Against such long odds, every life is a miracle of immeasurable proportion, courtesy of nature. Thus, the existence of so many billions of people is not evidence of the commonness of life but a testament to the infinite scale of nature’s benevolence.

Acceptance of such an improbable gift is not without obligation. An annual donation to the National Wildlife Fund is sweet, but the gift of life requires payment in kind. In order to fairly compensate nature for her generosity, each of us must help others to enjoy the gift, we must never harm or take the gift from another, and we must each live our own life to its fullest extent, despite the inevitable bumps in the road.

A
t one time or another, most American children are told that they can be anything they want to be. The message is an American tradition; the traditional messengers are good-hearted parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. What they mean is that the United States is a land of great opportunity, which is true. But young children, who have yet to compare American economic, social, racial, and religious obstacles to those that exist in other nations, don’t always get the intended message. Instead, what the children may actually hear is that they really can be anything they want to be—which is not true and never has been.

Gwendolyn Sharpe, a very fit twenty-year-old at five foot two and 105 pounds, is never going to play defensive end for the Green Bay Packers. She’s too small. Even though he loves to race, Billy Ray DeNiall, who at age sixteen is already
six foot three and 190 pounds, is never going to ride a Triple Crown winner. He’s too big. Although he loves airplanes, Joe Bob DeNiall, who is Reginald’s older son, never had a chance to be a Naval fighter ace. He is color-blind and has 20/400 vision.

Clearly, there are physical criteria for many professions. No one is born with a physique that can meet them all. In fact, the physical requirements for occupations such as defensive end and prima ballerina are mutually exclusive.

There’s also a scarcity problem. Many thousands of Americans, if not millions, may have aspired to the presidency of the United States. But in the 210 or so years that the office has existed, there have been only forty-one of them. As enticing as it may seem nowadays, the solution is not to shorten the term of the presidency to one day (even though such a change would have allowed some 76,000 more Americans to live the dream).

The scarcity problem exists, to a somewhat lesser extent, for all of the highest-paying and most exciting jobs such as congressman, Fortune 500 CEO, and major league baseball player. On any given day, there are around 435 of them, 500 of them, and 750 of them, respectively, a total of 1,685 as of the 1999 baseball season. But there were also around 139,000,000 million Americans in the workforce in 1999, which is more than 82,000 times 1,685.

This means that everyone cannot be anything they want to be. There isn’t room. If there were, we would be a nation of politicians, presidents, and pitchers, and nobody would be doing any real work.

Since all of the best jobs are scarce, they are also competitive. This is where the land of opportunity comes into play. In the United States, almost anyone, providing he or
she meets any pertinent physical criteria, can compete. But the scarcer the job, the tougher the competition.

Joe Bob DeNiall, for instance, may have poor eyesight, but he envisions himself as the CEO of a major U.S. company by the time he is forty years old, which will be in the year 2020. Since there are about 2,500 American companies with more than 5,000 employees today; assuming only 2 percent annual growth, there ought to be as many as 3,900 by 2020.

However, according to the Census Bureau, there will also be some 322 million Americans in the year 2020. If 51.3 percent of them are employed (as there were in 1998), then there will be more than 165 million workers in theoretical competition with Joe Bob. Even if only half of them will have had enough experience to be selected for a CEO slot, that would still appear to leave Joe Bob’s odds of success at about one in 21,000 or so (82.5 million 3,900), which seems like a bit of a long shot, even for a congressman’s son.

Joe Bob knows, however, that many of today’s CEOs have master’s degrees in business or a related area. So Joe Bob plans to get an M.B.A. from a top-notch business school by the year 2005. If he does well, he is also certain that he can get a good job with a large company that favors advanced education. If his new company grows to 20,000 employees by the year 2020, then it might appear that Joe Bob’s chances of becoming CEO by then would be right around 1 in 20,000.

In itself, that doesn’t appear to be much of an improvement over 1 in 21,000. But Joe Bob knows that only about 7 percent of Americans get any sort of advanced degree and that only about 20 percent of those are degrees in business.
Even if Joe Bob’s company employs twice that many, Joe Bob’s chances should improve to around 1 in 560 (20,000 × .07 × .20 × 2).

After that, Joe Bob will just have to outperform the remaining competition. It will help—a lot—if he has a talent for the job.

At some point in their youth, the most successful people choose a career that fits one or more of their talents. This means that they avoid those professions where their ability to compete may be hampered. Stevie Wonder, a genius musician and songwriter, would have been less successful as an art critic. And it is unlikely that Alan Greenspan, economist extraordinaire, advisor to presidents, and the head of the Federal Reserve, would have had similar success high kicking with the Rockettes.

But effort is even more important. American history is full of examples of extraordinary people who overcame handicaps with persistence. George Patton, a West Point graduate and one of the greatest field generals in American military history, had a serious learning disability. Muggsy Bogues, at five feet, three inches tall, became a starting guard among giants in the National Basketball Association. And Stephen Hawking has overcome the debilitation of Lou Gehrig’s disease to become the world’s leading astrophysicist.

If Joe Bob is a talented manager, and especially if he works hard at it, he may succeed in becoming a major company CEO. Approximately 3,900 talented and hardworking individuals will be just that in the year 2020. But even if Joe Bob fails, he may still have a successful career. If his future employer has 20,000 employees, then at least 50 of them are likely to be executives one or two levels below the CEO, including COOs, CFOs, CIOs, subsidiary and division
presidents, general managers, executive vice presidents, senior vice presidents, and even everyday, garden-variety vice presidents.