Both bitter and serene

'The next day I woke up with the feeling that I was myself at last. A great calm, at the same time both bitter and serene, spread through me. I no longer had to struggle between my Russian and my French identities. I accepted myself.' 

(Andrei Makine trans. Geoffrey Strachan, Dreams of My Russian Summers, 183)

You're missing the point.

Yes, it hurts to care. But that doesn't mean you should just not. And it certainly does not mean that you should systematically construct a worldview that will justify why you should not. 

To discover

 ... to push a little farther back the foamy line of language, to make it encroach upon that sandy region that is still open to the clarity of perception but is already no longer so to everyday speech---to introduce language into that penumbra where the gaze is bereft of words. An arduous, delicate work; a work that reveals, as Laennec revealed distinctly, outside the confused mass of scirrhi, the first cirrhotic liver in the history of medical perception.

(Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith, 169)

Where do you live now?

Singapore. Do you want a street address? Yes I do happen to be studying here now, and for that purpose I'm staying at this other address about an hour from here. How long will I be here? Five years (four and a half more, I guess.) What are my plans after graduation? I intend to find a job in my home country. Which is? See above. I know that's not entirely true and you probably have an inkling that that's not entirely true, and I know that you know and you probably know that I know and here I think the chain of mutual knowledge might break down. But we will mention none of this. Because you're only a CBP officer, and that's as far as you need to know, and the subtleties of what a home country is and what it means to inhabit a place are entirely irrelevant to the purely bureaucratic concern of border control, and there are twenty people behind me in the line waiting to clear the border so why don't we end this conversation right here and let's all go back to our merry business. Next!

To fight aloud is very brave, / But gallanter, I know,

Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe. 

Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love. 

We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.

(Emily Dickinson, Poems, Series 1, XVI)

In before the tsunami

Home is where the heart is. It's the people, the things, the places you care about---all of them, not just any one of them. (Clearly these aspects can be independent of one another, but oftentimes it makes little sense to think about them in isolation.)
So don't be so worried about not having a roof over your head here where you think home is. As long as you continue to engage with the place in a meaningful way, as long as you continue to care, these will be mere logistical details. They matter, but they can be overcome.
And, now, welcome to Michigan. Tuesday morning will be a fun time.

54 hours later, some thanks are due

To Singapore Airlines for upgrading me to a flat bed across the Pacific, and to a truly awesome friend for offering a couch to crash on for a night at extremely short notice. 

Abstract Nonsense

I woke up this morning feeling distinctly unmoored. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep, but for a fleeting but distinct moment, nothing and no-one seemed to matter at all. And then I fell asleep again.
Maybe the relentless drive towards fundamental, pure nihilism has just about bottomed out, and now you can actually build something meaningful. 

I don't know, the Chinese come pretty close

Culinarily, they are among the most homesick people I have ever met.

---ici 

What is loyalty, anyway

Where does it stop? What if you grow apart? What if time has changed you so much you are no longer recognizable to each other?
It shouldn't matter, says one answer. Loyalty should never stop. And I think there's a grain of truth in that.
But then, if you say it never stops: at what point does it become blind and meaningless?
It doesn't, would be the only logically consistent answer. But that cannot be all there is to it. That would be far too simple.
If someone has changed beyond all recognition, thoughts, beliefs, values, habits, and all, is s/he really still the same person? To insist that s/he is---should that be seen as a necessary kindness rendered to him/her, or a grave disservice, or perhaps an unnecessary and silly mistake?
And, in particular (a bit of a leap, but I started out pondering these questions and somehow got to those other questions above), how hard should we hold on to those who are about to leave? Yes, they were very kind to us. Yes, we owe a great debt of gratitude to them. Yes, we would all be happier if they weren't leaving. But we are all mortal, after all. And at the end of the long, long day, when it almost seems like they have decided it's time to leave, how hard should we fight that judgement that they make?
Maybe there just are no universal answers. We can only give the benefit of the doubt, and navigate each individual conundrum as (or hopefully before) it comes into sharp, uncomfortable focus.

Maybe this should be my new answer

That is the beauty of it. There is no why

Philippe Petit 

Means, not ends

"Achievement" is the "diabolical" element in human life; and the symbol of our vulgarization of human life is our near exclusive concern with achievement ... Whereas the only human value lies in the adventure and the excitement of discovery.

--Michael Oakeshott

To your lasting credit

The two things I still remember (and will probably remember for a long time) from our valedictorian's speech are "they're chasing us out!" and "tsk, instrumentalist thinking." 

The heart asks pleasure first,

And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering; 

And then, to go to sleep;
And then if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

(Emily Dickinson, Poems, Series 1, IX) 

A Castle So High

I accepted the offer. And I made myself a promise. I'd build a castle of words so high on the banks of the Detroit River that they couldn't help but see it from Times Square.

Detroit: An American Autopsy, 20

Day 23: Burası Mountain View değildir

It would be interesting to see an anthropologist or a sociologist describe Silicon Valley. It seems so much like an extended, expanded college campus, or the bits of campus inhabited and animated by the COS community, anyway, except on steroids.

Day 21: ... to shining sea

"Stanford zengin bir okuldur. Stanford'a gitsin."

Day 20: Believe

Apparently, Nevada isn't all desert, although its towns do seem to be all (well, most visibly) casino.

Day 19: All over Idaho

Not quite the craters of the moon, but still quite other-worldly.

Day 18: Wow

 Time to break out the superlatives, I think they're actually justified here.

Day 17: The World's Biggest Collection of Geysers

Now that I think about it---Geneva's Jet d'Eau resembles exactly a geyser. As usual, Nature got there first.

Day 16: Fairy-tales on the prairie

This is the historic town of Deadwood, South Dakota. It sprung up in the late 19th century when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, miners flooded in from the East, from Europe, even from China (there was a Chinatown here---a Chinatown in the middle of the northern prairie!) and hustlers of all kinds flooded in after the miners, and quickly became the regional hub of the Black Hills. Today the miners are gone, and the hustlers have turned their attention to tourists. The saloons and speakeasies are still there, and Main Street is lined with casinos. Not so inappropriate for a former gold-mining town, really.

This is the Devil's Tower (or, in [some of] the native languages of the area, Bear Lodge.) It was created when seven sisters being pursued by bears jumped unto a low rock, and one of them prayed to the rock to help them escape. The rock started to rise; the bears clawed at it even as it continued to go higher and higher, until the sisters were pushed into the sky and became the Pleiades.
Fantastic stories both, if you ask me.

Day 15: Drugstores and Bison

 "The whole middle of the country is a mystery to me. I had forgotten that South Dakota existed until you mentioned it."

Day 14: Welcome to the West

 "To me (mentally), the Dakotas are about as remote as Tibet ... "

Day 13: Last city before California

And they're Twin Cities too!

One of them is even built around a waterfall (Minneapolis apparently sprung up around a bunch of flour mills which used the St Anthony Falls as a power source.)

Spending more time in the Twin Cities made me a little sad (again) that I chose not to make this my new home. But oh well, such is life ... 

Day 12: Mooooo

"In and of itself, Milwaukee is fairly boring ... it's having history that matters."

Day 11: Repeat, further up Lake Michigan

"It's so big you can't even see the other side!"

Ambivalent

is an imperfect word that doesn't describe how it's possible to have a variety of stances toward things ... a coarse simplification of the complex feelings toward others that toss and turn inside people, toward their native country, toward all that is.

Day 10: Visit friends, not monuments

Though somehow the only photos I have from that day are of the Bean.

At least now (after three visits, a course in radical political thought, and seeing Fallingwater) I think I understand the piece of art that is Cloud Gate better.

Day 9

The Sun is still there, but his alleged Brother with his palatial raised residence and glory and splendor and vast urban center are long gone ...

Also, somewhere else that could have been your new home, except you chose otherwise. Ah, well then.

Day 8

Wouldn't it be nice?

Also the wonderful things that can be done with a simple, unadorned catenary are really quite amazing.

Day 7: There are Ducks in the House

Not quite Venice, but still a very nice canal that Indianapolis has.

Good enough for this duck and her ducklings, anyway.

Day 6

Overheard at A2SF: "If you want to give your parents a heart attack, you tell them that you're quitting your day job after eight years to become a full-time musician ... If you want them to have a triple bypass, you tell them that your wife is also quitting her day job, to become a full-time writer."

In other news, President Obama waz here (maybe that's part of the reason for the long lunch line.)

Day -7.5: On the Most Solemn Occasion of Commencement

"Seriously?"

Day 5: Welcome to your new home

Whee ...

Day 4

 "This is a nice place. We plan to be here for the rest of our lives."

The caged bird sings / with a fearful trill

of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

Day 3: Well then

That's probably not true. A lot was happening in Pittsburgh in 1897.

Pittsburgh wasn't quite New York or Chicago, but it was still quite the city. It felt a lot like any of the cities around the Allegheny, but scaled up. And it still had a lot going for it, in terms of infrastructure and activity and goings-on and all, despite all that talk of decline. Guess that's all relative, really: the place has been declining, but from a high.

Day 2

Fallingwater blends beautifully---and, really I do mean beautifully---into its surroundings. But it seems to me a triumph of human design and engineering just as much as it is a statement about living in harmony with nature.

Also, meow purrr nyan. 

Day 1: From sea...

Day 0

Oh, Philly. Every time I visit you become a little more endearing, warts and all.

Day -1

Four years of quarterly visits make me a honorary New Yorker, right?

Day -2

My parents actually liked the area around Central Park enough to consider (in the loose sense of that verb) living in New York. Hm.

Day -7

May there be many more good dinners in the days to come.

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts. 

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace. 

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. 

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Biggest non-story of the year

“I’ve seen the accumulation of powers that Orwell could not have imagined, and not only that, but, in the hands of a relatively small number of people, this stunning capacity to track you,” he said.

And yet nobody even seems to notice anymore. Bah humbug. 

WOOHOOOOOOO

More inchoate thoughts

Some days I wake up with a fire burning inside ... that usually dissipates by the time I finish brushing my teeth. Oh well. Pity, some of that fire might actually motivate me to do something useful in life.
I'm going to write down some of the thoughts that stick for those 15-to-30 minute intervals, and maybe that part of me that mediates the daily hustle and lets it take over before breakfast is over will pick up on some of them and decide to do things with / about them.
It bothers me that the society we live in (broadly speaking) is so unfair. Maybe it's just the way the world is. But I don't believe it's the way the world must be.
There is not enough empathy in this world. There should be more. I should do something about it.
Elon Musk is doing awesome stuff. There're all these shops shuffling digits around in some form or another, and then there's Tesla and SpaceX. I should get on his level.
I should make it a life-goal to learn (and retain!) as many languages as possible.
Maybe you are more than your work. Maybe you can still be the change you want to see even if you don't choose to become a social activist or political organiser. 

Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,

ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,

ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,

ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.

-- Hippocrates

Disinvigorate

Just a unnecessarily convoluted way of saying "weaken", or different and a useful addition to the English language? Discuss.

Blei describes his profession

"There are many names for it ... this one [data mining] is bad. This one [statistics] sends people running, this one [data science] is good for finding a job, and this one [machine learning] people who've watched The Matrix are into."

You are what you are

You'll go where you go and carry your long and fragmented history with you wherever you go. And you will learn to be at peace with that and draw strength from it and see it as a source of support, not a weakness to be overcome. Others have done it. You have done it. You might change a little in the process, but why are you so afraid of that? Let those changes happen. You'll be fine.

Meh

I feel like the ground has been pulled out from underneath my feet all over again. It really, really sucks.
But I guess this was bound to happen at some point, since you don't fundamentally agree on where home is. You can't have everything you want all the time, and whatever they propose to do is perfectly within their rights. They have already done a lot for you. Time to stop depending on them and face up to reality. 

Thesis deadline minus 16 hours

"At some point in the next 16 hours I'll write my results chapter ... meaning I'll run my code, generate my results, and write about them."

Well, godspeed.

Lulz

All these e-mails---it feels like a denial-of-service attack against my brain.

Micah M. White 

Death has become him

Fun fact of the day: De'Ath is an actual surname.

Foundationlessness

Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même

(L'archéologie du savoir, Michel Foucault) 

This is not new

Not at all. At least you deal with it a little better now, I do think.

But the advice you gave yourself then holds every bit as true. And maybe I should add: be nimble. Learn to embrace your lightness. To count your blessings and treasure them, but also to let go. Because you will probably have to do a lot of that in the years to come ...

Protip #1566

While it is probably true that you should stop over-analysing the living daylight out of all your thoughts and impulses, those instincts in moderation also serve you pretty well in general. You should listen to them and stop freaking out.

Protip #5772

When in excessive doubt, you're probably just being a coward.

Meh

You aren't just free to dispose of your time as you want to.
Well, at the moment, I am. Maybe I won't be in the future. But that's simply not true now. Yes to some extent I'm being "childish" and "irresponsible". But really more than anything I'm hearing this. Have you never heard of the concept of a graduation trip? Jeez.
There is so little structure!
Yes, and I'm comfortable with that. You should be too. At the end of the day I have anchor points, and that's all that's needed.
You're wasting your time.
The time is mine to waste. Don't you worry about it. (Also I do actually plan to do stuff in between. I just haven't told you about it yet ... I guess I should.)
I guess at the end of the day it boils down to this: my life is not yours to direct. Don't try. I don't know how sharply I'll react if you push. 

Things I Realized Today

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a privately-held company. So is Koch Industries. So are many firearms manufacturers. Any number of the interesting firms lobbying Congress are privately-held and so don't (aren't oblige to) disclose very much information about themselves. At which point the study of money politics goes back squarely into the shadows of murk, estimation and guesswork. Or maybe there's a way to scrape all that information off the massive hairball of information that is the Internet. That would be one hell of a scrape though.

Yet Another Sign of Creeping Senioritis

Echo Chamber

Not in the sense of killing out competing views, but certainly in the sense of being potentially somewhat enclosed and amplifying anything that might come up into huge, unhealthy feedback loops. Probably something Not Terribly Good that you should try to change.  

Cryptic Reminder of the Day

The operative question at the moment is, how?

Beware.

Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about---and pays off on---what you can do with what you know (and it doesn't care how you learned it.) And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills---leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

Paz, esperanza y alegria

Absolutely the same thing as peace, hope, and joy. Except not. Except yes. Except not. Except ...

The Merry Month of February

For the next two weeks you will not worry about the future. The future will be a distant mirage and you will engage fully with the present, front and center. Until such time as good news comes crashing to shore and makes the mirage real again. Or, if not, till March arrives. 

Almost two years now but no less true

When more and more people around you start learning your language---just out of interest, or because they feel "they'll need it" in the future---; when whole provinces of neighboring countries start making it compulsory in schools ... you know something is afoot.
About time, you could almost hear so many say.
But even as we bask in the newly-(re?)found glow of attention, we should take care not to become arrogant and short-sighted once again. We should be careful not to repeat the mistakes of times past, and shrink back into a conceited cocoon. 

The Manchineel tree

Sounds like something in the Hunger Games arena.

 ... if you stay under its foliage while it's raining, the water will cause instant blistering wherever it touches you. ... You can't burn the Manchineel's wood because the smoke will cause temporary and even permanent blindness ... Ingestion [of the fruit] may produce severe gastroenteritis with bleeding, shock, bacterial superinfection, and the potential for airway compromise due to edema.

时势造英雄

Aitzaz Hasan is a brave man. I have nothing but respect for him.
More than once I've wished I could be like him ... but then I'm ashamed I could make such a perverse wish. For it would imply putting everyone else around in grave danger, and creating much disruption and grief ...

Probably the best riposte to L'Académie française

'English may be a shifty whore, but she's our shifty whore.' 

--Kory Stamper