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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "nansheebanshee" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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08:23 am
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The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.
My mom just sent me that a picture of me from when I was two. Was I imitating my mother holding the camera or something? You can see the clips holding the backdrop up. I'm certain my mom arranged all the clothes and colors and stuff around me. She's really artistic and excellent at planning photographs, especially when the victim is just a little kid who doesn't know any better but to put on a dumb hat when you tell it to. My mom said I started talking at 6 months old in complete sentences and could recite ancient Chinese poems to her. I don't really know how much of her accounts of my childhood I can believe, because for several weeks she successfully misled me into believing that I had a little brother who was still in China. Didn't I remember him? He had black hair, looked just like me. Here's a picture, see? (It was a picture of me when I was really little, which of course I didn't recognize.) Isn't that evil?? My mom just played a dirty trick on an 8 year old.
My mom has such touching faith in my abilities. "How could you not get an enviable summer occupation? I breast fed you." Apparently breast feeding raises IQ by like 10 points. I went to this preschool where they made you test to get in, and my mom said when she asked me I refused to tell her anything about the test. I remember the questioner was a lady and we just had a regular conversation. I wasn't trying to be secretive, Mom, there was simply nothing to tell! Hopefully inclusion of my baby picture into my proposal will result in grant $$. Nothing like cute round smallness to bring out the big bucks. I actually remember reciting Chinese poems to my mom, and thinking, "I have no idea what I'm saying." Because those words are so old and specific that few vocabularies contain them, certainly not mine. But my mom was into poetry and calligraphy, and calligraphy is like the surefire way to get a big classical vocabulary in Chinese. My Chinese vocabulary was larger at the age of 3 than it is now. Pathetic.
Moms are awesome. My mom has the sweetest evidence for my smartness. She has these drawings from when I was three, and she points out that I drew all the parts of a person. "You were way ahead of all the other kids in that school. Their drawings of people were often just round balls with protruding sticks. But you drew arms, legs, fingers. You were the only one with a real sense of anatomy, perspective, space or line." Obviously I was quite the valedictorian of that preschool class. Other kids would beg me to tutor them but I was busy honing my ability to eat watermelon rinds. According to Minsky- well enough about him, it's 4 AM. But he has some interesting theories about the evolution of kids' drawings and their developing representations of objects. They seem implausible but how would I know, I apparently skipped right over those mundane elementary stages and hopped right up into AP childhood. Communist education is messed up. Even then they were hawking us to see if we were good at math or gymnastics. (I have just discovered the ecstasy of verbifying nouns.)
I just read an article about Hacker gangs competing against each other. Hilarious! Junot's right, our culture is becoming so nerdy. Exhibit A: Every person in the universe has seen The Matrix. Exhibit B: According to Junot and Imran, teenage girls love that elf thing from Lord of the Rings. A decade ago the popularity and teen idolization of characters from science fiction and fantasy movies would've been practically impossible. Actually, was Star Wars really popular with everybody back then immediately? Nevertheless, the esteem people seem to have for nerdy things seems to be on the rise. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I guess it depends on whether or not I consider myself to be a nerd. I probably would be if I weren't so lazy. Yes! My coolness is preserved by vice. It's really late and I'm nonsensical: perfect for proposal writing! Should I try to make money or get a job in the Stata center? I was in there today and I think I want to work there. Well, if there's a project that interests me. I've had enough of jumping into things based on 1st impressions, because it's those kinds of mistakes that result in you waking up next to a transvestite. Maybe I can have two jobs... And go to neither, probably. I saw Amelia today and I forgot how much I liked her, the way you like a big puppy. Jesus, it's 4am. No one read this, or you'll get stupider.
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09:10 pm
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You mean the guy who invented non-Euclidean mathematics isn't named non-Euclid?! -Robyn
Because I understand everything better than anyone else, it is my duty to complain about and elucidate religious ideas. (People can prepare to hate me.) Religions that provide all the answers suck and no one should follow them. I think few mainstream religions fundamentally fall into this category, but many religions are often misinterpreted by these people desperate for the answers, thus giving religions everywhere a name. People easily abuse religious ideas and texts in order to artificially answer all their questions about life, death, sex, good, evil, etc, to avoid addressing issues and simply suppressing them with irrationality and assertions.
A good religion is one that provides a method of exploration and asking questions. Religion should be about provoking thought and finding out what's important to you, what you want to do with your life. Religion should not be about providing meaningless answers. I love how Islam values education and science. But often people get caught up in using the religion to avoid questions and pollute the religion's positive potential. Buddhism is all about asking questions, and you will be hard put to get the religion to give you a straight answer about anything. Christianity says you should devote your life to love. This is so open ended, it's marvelous. It's when you get caught up on whether or not the wine is in fact the blood of Jesus Christ that you get into trouble and lose sight of what's important. Certainly many people exist for whom religion would be oppressive because they have no trouble developing their own ideas about what they want and what kind of world they want to live in. A religion that doesn't suck has two benefits that can make it vital to the quality of human life. Religion can create an awesome culture and community, two things that are good and necessary. The morality that religion gives you can translate right into the values of the culture. For instance, in many Eastern countries people value community, education, that stuff, and are ridiculously hospitable. Awesome! Also, if you need religion to inspire you and give you hope, then go for it, whatever floats your boat.
In contrast, a religion that does suck can really put a damper on the party. A retarded religion that suppresses questions can create a culture of ignorance, suspicion, conformity, and fear, and we should all run away because pretty soon they're going to start burning everybody. Any religion involving aliens, mass marriage, killing people, or giving some guy your money automatically falls into this category of creepy, bad religions. People who look towards religion for answers about the origin of life, the origin of the universe, or why their mummies and daddies had to die in some terrible catastrophe are the people that everyone makes fun of. Instead of dealing with reality they seek solace in inexplicable, senseless axioms such as "Because God is testing you," "Because God hates/loves you/them," "Because God has a plan," "God is rewarding/punishing/ignoring you/them because you did something." These people are the ones who deny evolution, insist the world is like 2000 years old or some ridiculous number, that dinosaur bones are planted by the devil to trick us, and that modern medicine is evil. These people feel that science is a threat to them because they've replaced logic with their creepy religion. Now I'm going to go ahead and say what many religions have been saying for years: there are good religions and bad religions, and I've just tried to define both. Religion can be good, but it's not for everybody. In a good religion, smartass questions like "But who created God?" are irrelevant, thank goodness, because I hate that question. If a religion is good, no one cares who created God because it's irrelevant to the ideas. Who cares who came up with the idea of numbers? Clearly I'm not religious, don't know anything about religious people, and am unqualified to have written anything about any of this. Yay! There are so few things I am qualified to discuss that this kind of senseless diatribe coming from me is inevitable. Is God religious?
I don't understand why people would go to a religion looking for answers, and a part of this is because I think some of the questions people ask are irrelevant. Why do people care so much about what happens when they die? I think the only way this issue ever arises is if being alive sucks, and I don't plan to ever have that kind of experience for too long. Or if people are really self righteous and want to know that one day they're going to get rewarded for being a teacher's pet. Or if people do bad things and then want to know they can pray or light a candle or something to make up for it. Frankly, I don't really think there's a reward system. Not any that we could calculate while alive, anyway.
I realize I have for some time secretly despised my name because of how openly Asian immigrant it is. Now I have decided to embrace it as fully as possible to ensure that no remnant of self hatred exists. Thus the probably annoying renaming of links within this webpage. Certainly no one will notice except for me.
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10:03 am
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Nothin but blue skies on my mind
I can't find the picture of you making pasta for me in your pajamas wearing your stupid hat with the boat on it and your face is concentrating really seriously. You know, the picture I took when I couldn't fall asleep so I woke you up. It was the very last picture in the roll so we weren't sure whether it took or not. You said as you got out the plates, "The key to sleep is wakefulness." We ate pasta and drew pictures until the morning. As we crawled back into bed and drew the blinds to dismiss the birds who were hollering to us, you said, "The key to sleep is daylight." But when was the first time you woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me you hated me and wished I would get AIDS? I don't remember when that was. I always slept soundly when you were unhappy. Remember when we showed up at Wendy's at 3am and the guys who worked there asked if we were twins and we said yes? You asked how much I loved you and I threw my arms around you, "This much!" and kissed your face and held your hands. I think I didn't really understand the question. I guess I'm sorry about that. But hey, how about when we threw saltines at the mustache guy at the Giant Eagle and then laughed tears and suffocating stomach cramps in the cereal aisle? He didn't know what hit him!
I can't sleep and I'm tired. But I can't possibly be tired; I've been sleeping for days. Remember the brother Steve on Drew Carey who was a cross-dresser but straight? It is a complicated thing to think of what it means to be a woman aside from liking men. Because that's not true even, some women do not like men. I refuse to believe a woman is a vagina because I rarely notice mine. I was a woman long before vaginas became an issue. I think penises must be so humiliating because they can malfunction so easily. That's probably the root of men's deepest insecurities, and also why men are obsessed with them; they can go wrong at any minute. One time I remembered thinking about what it meant to be a woman was when we were learning QBASIC in 7th grade and Mike (I actually have no recollection of his name. Ask Ali, I've forgotten 80% of everyone we knew from back then.) said, "Nancy always finishes programming first." And then John (Again, this is probably not his name) said, "That's only because she types fast. She's practicing for when she'll be a secretary in my office." I can't believe we were just in 7th grade. Maybe there's no such thing as a woman without men. But what is the big deal about getting your period? It takes up 20% of my life, I don't really notice it. That's definitely not what being a woman is about either. Actually, the whole biology of womanness is hard to ignore. I don't really get PMS, but I'm at the mercy of my hormonal cycles when it comes to how I look, how much I eat, how much I want sex. Maybe all that is the secret of womanness, because it's certainly classified information.
Dreams are Freud's "road to the subconscious." The deliberative brain rests and all the other stuff comes out. What thoughts am I missing out on with this forced wakefulness? I want to sleep.
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09:45 am
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The inside joke is that it's not a joke
When he talks I stare at his fascinating mouth. It is not similar to mine. Displaying a neat liplessness, it is arid and hard with prickles around it, invisible unreachable prickles remaining from his severe daily shave. It is simply an empty hole in his face.
I want him to stop talking about standard deviation. I want to press my mouth against his and breathe so air can fill his lungs and warmth flow into his cheeks and he will come alive. His mouth will become sweet and tender and we will talk about good math, places we want to go, books we want to bring with us. But that's not what would happen. Instead he would effortlessly, carelessly suck up my whole my heart, his mouth a dry socket, an endless sink in which I will lose everything natural about me; I will be dead too.
With great confidence, his tongue leans against words. He expounds on the importance of networking, being hungry for success.
I pay close attention. This is the mouth, I think, this is the mouth of a banking recruiter.
It is a Tuesday, and it was the warmest snow I'd ever felt. It started with one snowflake, and now it is a blizzard, the ground all ice because it was so warm before. Junot gave a talk at Wellesley thanks to Rosa. On the drive back Imran and Junot talked about freaky science fiction shows. All the Wellesley girls want Junot to be their teacher but he's ours. Inspiration hits every time I see Rosa.
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01:37 pm
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Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
Knees naked and helpless in my good shorts. Shoes so new you could hear the shine. Hair pasted flat to my head with water and my mother's saliva. With my mother's shove out the door still on my back, I walk towards the house hearing her fierce command, "You do everything she says. She's the one who's finally going to teach you to read." When I ring the doorbell, my mind behind my eyes becomes empty of all thoughts. It sits and waits. I don't know how long I stand there, brain terrified. At last, the door opens and she leads me into the kitchen. "I just made those." Black raisins dot her cookies like gleaming flies. Smelling her kitchen, my mind begins to soften back into life.
Insomnia lately, inexplicably. Bags under my eyes. Damn MIT, ruining my looks. Now how am I ever going to find a rich man to marry? My mom has dated some pretty rich guys. She dated millionaires sometimes. George is not a millionaire. He is a regular guy and they are in love. Isn't that amazing? If she had always been looking for money I might've resented her for trying to find someone better than my dad, for thinking my dad was trash. But she was looking for someone right. My mom has contributed a lot to my perspective of men and relationships. For one thing, I understand that one must never settle. If a relationship is not the utter bliss you want it to be, you need to get out. Then she defines utter bliss. It isn't happiness all the time, or perfection. It isn't someone who can play tennis with you and this kind of family and good table manners. Although it could be! It's someone who cares about you and trusts you. Oh and he must treat you like a queen, te trata como una reina. She teaches me not to be afraid of anything, of going out to get what I want. And not to be afraid of being alone. A lot of people date out of loneliness, I think. You'd think that a woman in her 40s would have that kind of desperation, would be afraid of leaving the guy she's dating because what if no one else comes along? That's not my mother. She's my mother and she's not afraid of anything! When she was young they put her picture in a pamphlet on what the ideal communist chick should aspire to be like. That's the closest to model they had back in those days, a girl sporting a fashionable party uniform. Ah, the party. The term is so misleading... Or is it? Guess I have to go back to find out! Or be horrified by the fact that their idea of party is electroshock therapy torture. We Chinese are a funny bunch. A huge part of the culture is to be humble and self deprecating. My mom always said my dad had low self esteem. But on the other hand we're proud and think we're central to everything. After thousands of years, a culture has plenty of time to develop strange inconsistencies and insanities. The juxtaposition between East and West is quite interesting. Comparing the physical length of their histories on paper is already striking, and then the views on individualism vs. community, on democracy and socialism, empires. But what does it mean to be community focused instead of individual focused? Because both result in human rights violations and whatever else. In developing America it was every man for himself and the union workers were beat down. I guess it's the chance for progression. Oh, China. I must discover the country to which I will forever be associated. Because of how I look, frankly. Ugh I have a lesion for no reason I might have cancer I have to go to the doctor. It's funny; I'm a hypochondriac but also lazy so I don't go to doctors.
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12:55 pm
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Sunday, March 6, 2005 2:04 PM
I'm finding my proposal difficult to write so I'm thinking of submitting a different one instead.
Why I suck: The culture of Laziness at MIT.
Proposed by Nancy Hua, Class of 2007, 18C major
Abstract:
The society of lazy people at MIT is difficult to define due to the fragmentation within the subculture. It is a curious phenomenon because during the MIT admission process their lazy background had somehow escaped notice. In some cases, the laziness develops well before arrival at MIT, whereas in others it is a response to the pressurized environment. Some members of the cult seek recovery but find it impossible to escape the grasp of the community into which they have slipped, whereas others embrace laziness as a god, proud of their lifestyle. To fully understand laziness at MIT, I plan to immerse myself into its culture for 3 months during the summer, during which I will keep a detailed log of my findings. Possible extensions of this project include: finding a laziness serum and selling it to the military as a method of bio-terrorism, finding statistical correlations between certain activities and laziness to aid in lazy people identification despite their cleverly concealing resumes, beginning a laziness anonymous support group.
Budget:
Summer housing: $1000
Ipod: $300
Laziness and the impact of this project: Priceless
Other Living Expenses: $4000
I just realized the kid we had so admired from Sergio's story who had no fear of ice skating was Issao! So I knew of him way before this but had never made a connection. Man, it always amazes me out when peripheral people come to life; it's like they step out of a painting. Shen is visiting and screwing up everyone's life. He made Ali dress up like a girl and I had to give them dresses. They even asked for shoes; can you imagine? Actually I'm very happy Shen is here. He is a good friend and a good dresser. In fact he dresses better than any of my friends. How refreshing.
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12:49 pm
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Friday, March 4, 2005 4:32 PM
When I said I was the best whistler in the world, he showed me how to whistle and hum at the same time. He was the first guy I met at MIT who liked to read books. An idealist- I think in a way all musicians are. I liked the way he smelled, like wood chips or a warm swampy animal. I kept his smell in my private list of things that belonged to me; I knew that smell, and that made him mine. But I didn't understand how to deal with his insecurity and shame, and when one day we were walking miserably, nothing to say to each other, the cold coming up through the sleeves of my coat, I saw that the parts I'd loved about him were gone. There were only holes left; he was riddled with holes like Swiss cheese. We hated each other then, and it was hard to say why.
Envision an alternate artificial reality that is My Reality, and in this place there are these Agent Smiths of Love that take control of people's bodies. When I want to love someone, I send one of these Agent Smiths who sucks himself into a target, animating him so that I believe whatever I want about him; he seems just perfect. But inevitably the Agent swoops out again, and then there is a stranger remaining. The love is gone and neither of us know anything about what to do.
I think I'm too hasty and impulsive. I think I will let boys take their own goddamn time so that the truth about people gets a chance to come out. I'm not in a rush so I don't know why I'm rushing.
(Picture I don't really know how/want to put the effort into finding out how to, put into LJ)
That is where I could have been this summer. O well. I want go to Israel and China. Maybe Switzerland. It's tiring convincing everyone to give you money but it'll be so sweet if I get any. I'm a bit sick of interviewing. I freaking woke up at 9am and dressed up so I could meet with this dude from JPL because I maybe want to work for NASA and Caltech at some point, and JPL is both (how exciting!), and we talk about AI for a whole hour before he tells me that he's just doing the HR part, he's going to forward my resume and the interview information to Other People who'll then see if they're interested and then contact me for a phone interview in a few weeks! Weeks?? What the hell? By then I'll have to have committed to some other place. I'll be old and grey. And Lisa needs braces. These places should have more consideration for the fact that I'm living a life. Oh man, the Lehman brothers people are so not my style... They dress too well and are really serious all the time. Seriousness means money but it also means discomfort and phoniness for the rest of your life. They're definitely not hiring me; he asked me the difference between a &p and a *p in C++ and I had no recollection. He asked, "How do you decide what classes you take? They're so spread out... Do you just pick randomly and hope it'll someday add up to a major?" Stupidly, I was surprised by how focused they were on careers, by how much they expected me to be choosing classes tailored to the jobs they would want to hire me for. I realized the fact that I don't choose classes that relate to industry show that I'm not interested in the work done at Microsoft or Lehman brothers. I've thought about the work they would be asking me to do and realized I don't care about it, but I still want some of these jobs. The JPL one would be nice. Microsoft would be so sweet. Some of it is interesting, but it's not important or satisfying. They wanted me to be taking statistical analysis of operating systems or some nonsense instead of theoretical math classes. But who cares if Real Analysis isn't good for anything, except maybe something like later learning Complex Analysis? Somewhere there is a place that appreciates my interest in more than one thing, and also forgives me for not caring about serious computer things. Ugh the more I think about it, the easier the Microsoft interview was. Too bad it was my first; next time I'll be better prepared. But recently I took a better liking to my Netcracker job; the people there are so nice, cute. My supervisor Dmitry reminds me of Vladan a little. O sweet Vladan, how I miss you. Nothing like first love.
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10:57 pm
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Tuesday, March 1, 2005 10:33 PM
When she opens her mouth, her laughter turns into white smoke in the cold air. She says, "That girl is so fat and flabby. Look at her boobs, they're so weird and shapeless. She's like a big fat octopus!" An octopus! We laugh, and the world is silent and jealous. She is evil, and I love her. We are walking down the stairs to the subway and we wait, grinning, foxy, we wait just outside the turnstiles until the train comes blowing in. We are motionless for a few more seconds. I rub my lips together to test the silkiness of my new lip gloss. A moment of standing without looking, and then I run. Run, jump over the turnstile, the walls of the subway station scream past, the man inside the booth gives a shout! Then we're inside the train. The doors close and all that other noise is gone. There's only our private laughter again, as everyone sits around us, making their bored, nervous sounds, so public and absurd.
February is an amazing month. I was sick the whole time. February is pretty good I think. I've never had a boy for Valentine's day. You'd think that's when I'd want one most, but I guess something about the cold weather makes me want them the hell away instead of closer. Maybe it's because during IAP and after the New Years I want to get my shit together, which often involves kicking some guy out the door. I used to write "I work alone" on all my psets but then I realized I could do less work if I didn't write that anymore, but then I learned less. I'm so lazy! Ugh. I often say that. When am I going to change that? I have to write this proposal but I don't know what to propose. I think that's called depression. To all appearances, Ali is still depressed. Zack said he didn't like February, I think. I'm really dying for lack of a summer job. I keep thinking about those kids Ali and I saw in the White Mountains who hiked up and down all day. I want to go live with them, but I have bad knees. I can go up but not down. Someone can carry me down. We could trade off, I'd carry them up. I don't think there is any person that I can successfully lift. Actually that's not true, people don't weigh much. I'm really happy. I realized if someone gave me a billion dollars to do whatever I wanted, I'd stay right here at MIT and keep being a student. I love being a student and I love it here. I'd give it to my parents I guess, and then to poor people. And to the rain forest, because someone's got to fight for the trees.
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10:31 am
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Sunday, February 27, 2005 10:19 AM
Paulo explained there was a move in rock climbing called a dino. He described clinging to a smooth rock with only 2 small crevices for his fingers and then an invisible barely there crevice for his foot that is not really there but you just have to close your eyes and imagine it, and then you have to jump over the rock to land on top of it. But you're holding onto the rock and it's slanting over you so how do you jump onto it? Well then you do the dino, which is, as I understand it, jumping out and back while swinging your arms over the rock to grab right onto this other little crack that's on top of the rock. If you hit the crack on the wrong side then your fingers will just slide down its awful smoothness and you'll fall, so you have to be precise and hit it just right. As I imagined this move it was completely amazing because what if I had to execute it? I'd be terrified of jumping. Because you want to be close to the rock, the thing you are embracing, your obstacle and your goal, a romance you're trying to win over, and yet to move on you have to fling yourself away from it, out into the opposing vastness of the air, and somehow you have to try to land on the rock again. But if you do it wrong the air will take you, you'll fall. But what choice do you have? You couldn't just cling to the rock forever. You'd get hungry, tired, let go eventually because your fingers will crumble, even the rock will crumble. There is no safety in not taking risks.
I recently became interested in dinosaurs, whereas when I was a little kid I wasn't. Chinese people thought the bones belonged to dragons. Maybe all the dinosaurs died because they wouldn't take any risks. Or maybe they did and this is what happened. Or maybe a meteor came and killed them so sometimes it doesn't matter what you do. One thing about evolution is it's not afraid to take risks. But it doesn't have any goals either. I don't know what I think of dinosaurs. They're pretty cool. I wonder what they would think of the anthropic principle.
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10:31 am
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Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:20 AM
Tonight I had dinner with David's visiting family and noticed that his little brother Johnny had one of those Lue Gerig's disease bracelets and I expressed my desire to have one because everyone had one and I at least want the option of wearing one. David's dad said immediately, "He'll give it to you! Johnny, give it to Nancy." So Johnny took the bracelet from his wrist and sullenly put it on the table before him. "He doesn't really want to give it to me. Johnny, you can keep it." David's dad said, "He does! He wants to. Johnny, give it to Nancy." "He can keep it," I said, and in a twinkling Johnny thrust his hand through the bracelet as his father sighed in exasperation. The family is so good. They promised to mail me one!
There are stages of parent/child relationships. When a child is very young their parents are their friends. They love their parents and everyone plays together; they're buddies. Then the child begins to have contempt for the parents, who are so very old and stupid and don't understand anything. For some people this stage may last the rest of their lives, it's like a form of autism. Hopefully eventually the child enters another stage in which they begin to have compassion for their parents and understand them as human beings, allowing them to have human concerns rather than just parenting concerns, and gives them credit for things that they have done, realizing that being a parent was difficult and that they were not always parents. At some point, maybe, I haven't witnessed this but I can imagine it, the roles reverse and the child becomes the parent, the parent becomes the child. How sad. Then at last the child appreciates how parenting sucks but you have to do it anyway but no one appreciates you, except the human species appreciates you for perpetuating it, but a species isn't a thing that says anything or sends a thank you note. A species just is, and a parent just is, at least that's the way it should be.
It's impossible to not be indoctrinated into the whole Society of Mind business. The more you think about it, the more potential the structure seems to promise, and Marvin Minsky's simple way of talking is just so compelling, especially when it lasts for 2 whole hours. He said, "Minds are just what brains do," and in this line simplified and trivialized the whole "What is Mind" thing that 24.00 kept raging about. When I heard the questions they were asking in that class, like "If you copied your mind into 2 other brains which of them is still actually you?" I felt contempt for the question but found it difficult to express why it was so foolish. However, some questions of philosophy really interest me and ride my imagination, and still others confuse me. I don't think I really understand the logic behind the anthropic principle because it seems like you could use it to justify anything and it seems like a cheating answer that doesn't actually explain anything, but I should think about it more because some really smart people seem to like it a lot. I don't buy it. But maybe it's not supposed to answer any questions. But then what is it for? To talk about the nature of questions? Bah. And what's up with those Bayesian dudes?
Ugh, I definitely suck because I'm terrified of interviewing. I turned down the IBM interview for that Extreme Blue stuff even though David kept saying it's the coolest internship ever. It's because I don't think I could ever get that job, which is true and I don't know how they selected me for an interview at all, and also I would only be interviewing for the privilege of more tests and interviews, torturing myself in hopes of greater tortures, and let's not even mention the final agony of actually getting the job.
This kind of self selecting is funny and has to be taken into consideration when evaluating the meaning behind any statement. For instance, if a girl says, "I have always succeeded in getting a guy that I wanted," her statement could mean that 1) she's irresistible to men, or, more interestingly, 2) she doesn't "want" guys that might turn her down. Desire selection seems to be a powerfully subtle force because it underlies our desires and is aware of our own abilities, limitations, fears, and thoughts, while in contrast we are often not aware of its force at all. You can't want what you want, but perhaps your desire selection entity can. So my entity convinced myself that I don't want the job with IBM, when actually I would be thrilled to get that job. Am I sabotaging myself or protecting myself? It seems that weighing risks and potential gains is done on every level of the mind, and if this selection entity exists, it would exist on a level above our conscious minds, because our conscious minds is where our pre-selected desires come into fruition. The selection entity has its higher level of desires in which it chooses between potentially drastically lowering/ increasing self esteem, or certainly causing no change in self esteem. It is this higher level of goals that controls my ability to want to try to get some job. But is this selection entity really "higher level," suggesting that it knows everything about the lower levels and understands my limitations better than my deliberative (conscious) mind does? What if it's mistaken, and I'm actually smarter than it thinks, and if I accepted the interview I'd get it? Why would it be mistaken? Maybe there's another entity that controls the selection entity... I feel all these speculations are a little worthless because, and this is a problem that I fundamentally have with psychology, I don't see any way to test or refute these theories, and thus the whole exercise overall is comparable to lowering myself into a cave of basilisks without any plan or method for getting out.
Theories that you can't prove to be wrong are worthless, and yet they seem to be the foundation for much of psychology and religion. I don't think psychology and religion are worthless. In fact, the other day I was very moved and wanted to convert to Islam. Well, that's more of a reflection of my love of books than anything. Religion has its theories and bases those theories on Faith, sometimes on visions and stuff, but fundamentally faith. Psychology bases its theories on dreams and other nonsense. Kidding, psychology does its experiments. But these things are all so hard to think about; I feel as though we don't even have the language structure to form sophisticated thoughts on psychology. Minsky provides some of that structure and I'm very grateful. I think it's easy to underestimate the power of language in thinking because it's hard to think about our thoughts and their origin, kind of like the halting problem of the brain, because once we start to think about the foundation of thoughts the thoughts change and blahblah. Anyway Orwell's got the right idea. Now I appreciate vocabulary a lot more.
But when I think of desire selection entities again, I can think of their existence as a justification for affirmative action. Well, kind of a different way of talking about it, and self esteem. The desire selection entities, if they existed, would have to have some method of evaluating the whole self, and would thus base the desires that they desire on that self image. Basically, your desires would be based on what you think you are, which is in turn self referentially based on your desires. Because when people ask me, "But who are you, really, deep down?" I think about the things I want, so in a way we define ourselves based on our desires. You are what you want. But you want what you are. In any case, all this viciousness can be sparked by some random initial conditions like in chaos theory, because we see how it's telescoping and just takes off building on itself uncontrollably. So if a black child is born into a community in which all his neighbors are janitors, and the only doctors are white people, and he associates himself with that poor, black community, then he (the desire selection entity part of him) doesn't allow himself to want to do well in school because he thinks he is not a person who does well in school, so he does poorly in school, becoming a person who does poorly in school. Even when his deliberative mind thinks, "I wish I did better," he doesn't fully develop that desire because the desire selection inhibits it. Similarly, I am able to say, "I wish I had the IBM job," and yet I am unable to go through with the interview. Well all this is grossly oversimplified and also gives off an attitude of lack of free will, but oh well. The point is that perhaps affirmative action offers a way to break that kind of negative feedback. Even if it doesn't overcome the ingrained feeling this child has of "I'm inferior to others" and instead encourages that feeling by offering the discouragement of "I only got here because of affirmative action and I'm still inferior to others," it at least hopes to begin to build a community so that other people don't initialize with poor self esteem in the future.
With all this talk of initial conditions, the self can be redefined by "I yam what I yam and what the world has made me," because what the world makes you is what you think you are which is what you want which is what you are which is what you make the world. I love Billy Budd.
Oh! Last night I met this kid from Brazil named Paulo and I recognized him from last year when Mat Lue was trying to open this can of something, I think it was tuna, and he was stabbing at it with a knife and just as I was saying, "Be careful" he stabbed himself in the wrist! There was blood squirting and really it was amazing afterwards to see how far his blood had flown through the air, man he must have a strong heart, and he was hiding it from me and wouldn't let me see because I was screaming and terrifically worried. So I ran and was looking for help and I saw this really tall kid and said, "My friend's bleeding to death!" The kid was Paulo but I didn't find that out until more than a year later. Odds are that Mat was opening the can to make me something to eat. Gio used to call me and Tongyan Yogi and Booboo because we always came by for food. Only I remain. Mat was fine; 'twas just a flesh wound. Sometimes I'm pretty scared of knives. It's sad to see people who are unhappy at MIT because for me it is such a good place and I don't know how to help them. Ali is one of those people. It doesn't seem fair; he's one of the people that makes me happiest but he's one of the unhappiest people I know and I can't help him. Maybe I'm leeching all his powers! Shit, Updike is so good. I was once depressed for a long time but my experience does not help me help others. It's hard to understand it.
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10:30 am
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Thursday, February 24, 2005 11:23 PM
What are those white bugs at the window
flapping against the glass out of the sea of night?
It's snowing!
Minsky has these ideas about levels of the brain. There's the gut feeling level, instincts acquired over millions of years of evolution, hard wired into our DNA. Higher up, there's learned reactions, and this level can look at the instinctive level and say, "No, in this case it's alright not to be afraid of the bear because it's a toy and toys don't hurt you," or "Right now you don't have to be afraid of the dark because you're in your room and your parents are right down the hall." Above that there's the deliberative level of thinking, which I guess is just the thoughts we think normally, consciously, all the time, like "I have to go to this class and then afterwards do this homework and this is how you integrate 1/lgn/n." Above that, there's reflective thinking, when you think, "How did I solve that problem last time? Why am I feeling so lazy? How do I motivate myself? What do I want?" The problem solving techniques present in reflective thinking could be done so automatically that you're not aware of them. The reflective level looks down on the deliberative and the learned and the instinctive levels and knows what each of them are doing, but the gut feeling level has no idea what any of its higher up authorities are thinking. I suppose we would naturally place the subconscious as the highest level, because it appears to understand everything going on at the levels below, everything that happens in our lives, and all our deepest desires that our everyday, deliberative minds are not yet aware of. So in thinking about our own subconscious, self awareness is difficult because the subconscious seems beyond the scope of our everyday logic. And what are dreams, can dreams be when we are thinking directly with our subconscious at last? Or are they a way of garbage collecting in the brain, or emptying the buffer. What about when people analyze themselves and finally appear to understand their subconscious desires? I remember that episode of Frasier where he keeps having these homosexual dreams and he tries to figure it out, saying that when he finally does, the subconscious will be satisfied and he won't be bothered by the dreams anymore. If that's true, then I guess when the subconscious succeeds in communicating one of its higher level goals to a lower level, it forgets about it and lets the lower level deal with it. So after years of psychoanalysis, when you finally realize the reason you are a kleptomaniac is because you're in love with your mother, the kleptomania will be appeased? I'm not very aware of my subconscious, as predicted by Minsky, but I began keeping a journal of my dreams, or trying to. I haven't slept well recently because I am ill.
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10:29 am
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:13 PM
I have not yet begun to study! It begins again. Studying is terrible. I wish they would always just give us surprise exams.
Anjani made me this awesome CD Nothing Better
Me:
Please I just need some help here
tell me how to make it good
and let's make it good I swear
just please come back to bed dear
don't we look so good together...
but tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better
than making you my bride and slowly growing old together
Physics:
I feel I must interject here
I've made some charts and graphs
to help you remember
You didn't care until the hour before the exam
I gave you my best moments but you ignored me
don't feed me lies about some idealistic future
Me:
I've made mistakes
but tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better
than making you my bride and slowly growing old together
Physics:
you've got a lure I can't deny
but you've had your chance
so say goodbye
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10:24 am
[Link] | China is a fairy tale planted in my brain to explain away the years I actually spent abducted by aliens. Or maybe I was an assassin controlled and brainwashed by the government. Or maybe I only exist inside someone else's dream; I'm someone's Winnie the Pooh, and China is what they put in my mind to explain away the times when Christopher Robin didn't want to play with me. Any of those things, anything but the idea that I am actually Chinese, that I was once in China and the grubbiness on my tennis shoes was the same grubbiness that was underneath the Chinese peasant woman's fingernails, the Chinese woman that was me a hundred years ago. Because I don't think I could've ever been a Chinese princess or concubine or anything. No, I was a peasant woman with her long, dirty hair all coiled up business-like and plain under her ugly hat and the little goat she petted in the morning was the dinner she cooked in the evening. My mother could've been a princess, but not me. But I don't think I would've made a good peasant either; I can't even get up in the morning without playing my game with the alarm clock, what a fucking tease, and that sweet torture with the snooze button. There is barely anything Chinese left in me; when you look at the evidence it is more logical to say those memories are fake than to try to sift through me for what could possibly be Chinese, looking for a needle in the hay. It's so hard to look at baby Nancy anyway; my memories of her mind are me looking into this inexplicable craziness. Marvin Minsky would say her thoughts are written in Fortran but my thoughts are in Lisp, that every time there is a jump in maturation the new mind can barely compile the language of the previous mind. All of China is a foreign language. Even though I am an immigrant, my citizenship is as helpless as that of the people known as white trash. I gave up my birthright without a second thought, like Esau gave up his for a bowl of soup. I say that I speak Chinese, but I can't understand the song lyrics that Andy listens to, or what they're saying in those Jet Li movies. China is my mother's loud voice, my father's crumpled face, and since when was his back stooped like that? It's where my brother disappears to every once in a while, but it's easier to believe that he actually goes into a witness protection program to hide from the mob. China isn't real to me, you see. It doesn't exist in my world; when I'm not looking it disappears.
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08:42 pm
[Link] | It's ironic that in my math homework I think, "I wish I could just make this shit up," whereas in my fiction class I think, "Shit, I have to make up the whole thing?" In my fiction class I wish I could write about real life because it's so hard to think of what's going to happen next.
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05:54 pm
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Nancy Entry
As I collapsed into bed dizzy and gagging on my poor lungs' attempts to breathe, my only hope was that when I awakened I would not only feel wonderful but I would have also gained amazing spidey powers. That has not happened. I can't go to ice skating tonight because I'm dying. On the other hand I am newly appreciating the goodness of soup. My eyes hurt when they rove around so I try to keep them pointing straight ahead but it's hard to do. There's a soiree at ZBT tonight and I'm sad thinking about it. It is not bodily sickness that keeps me from going there... I had to give a lecture in math today even though I'm a dead woman walking but it went alright. I made a new friend in 6046 that I'd previously met at the 6270 showdown and he introduced me to his brother and then later they revealed they were twins! They were also roommates and wearing the same clothes. But I really still have trouble believing it. I must be dense about twin essence. I think it'd be cool to make a movie about them for that campusmoviefest thing. Must think on this as I heal.
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10:54 pm
[Link] |
Story, story?
The Strange Case of the Thousand Dreams
I'm allergic to everything. Hair, food, air, you name it—Here he wipes at his nose with two white fingers— My big brother would give me dandelions and bunny rabbits and get a kick out of my sneezing fits. He’d bring a friend over and say, “Watch,” as he held a kitten to my face. Depending on my response he would yell something like, “Monsoon sneeze!” or “Pig face sneeze!” He had names for the different kinds, see. I barely left my room until I turned 17. Girls? Girls were out of the question. Their shampoos, lotions, soaps were lethal. Just looking at a girl was enough to make my throat close up.
To go out I had to cover all my skin, put on goggles, gloves, a gas mask. It's almost impossible to breathe through gas masks, and no one can understand what you're saying. I was so clearly a freak people would turn in the street to look at me. I walked with my eyes straight ahead not looking at anyone, at a frenzied pace, scared to death, as though lions were chasing me and if I looked back they'd pounce and gobble me up immediately.
I took a few college courses by correspondence and have had virtually no human contact other than my family. We lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and we made our money flying planes. Right next to our house we had a big field where we landed them. My whole family flew planes. Hell, it’s practically how we got to the supermarket. We got jobs to fly around with a banner attached that said something like “Shop at Spencer’s.” We did skywriting too, stuff like, “Marry me Meg.” Anything, my dad could do it, and sometimes the rest of us would help out.
I moved to this place about a year ago. I hadn’t spoken to my family since before the move. Hopefully they’ll assume I died just as nature had intended—he laughs, half coughs— I’m a cheater, you know; my existence relies on modern technology, none of which is present here, this sweetly isolated location. It’s possible the same day I was born in Bucks County and instantly ushered into a plastic box, tubes all over, it’s possible that that same day a baby was born right here, wrapped in a scratchy blanket to which it was allergic, put in a dusty crib, and eventually it died, while I survived to come here. Who’s the lucky one?—he takes a sip from a teacup, looks at me sharply, eyes wet and pink like raw salmon—
Doctor, of course we understand each other in terms of privacy? Of course, you are a professional, the very best. Forgive my question. As I was saying, a year ago I met someone. Isn’t it funny? You go through life passing people every day, waiting behind them in lines, handing them money. And nothing happens, and nothing happens, but then suddenly one person steps out of the background foliage and right onto center stage. Your life, universe, the whole paradigm shifts.
I was living in New York, working from home as a textbook editor. The main hazards of the job were apathy and paper cuts. I’d inherited the apartment from my grandmother and was glad to get the hell away from Bucks County. New York City, man, there’s so many things to hate about that place. Everyone jostling, their jutting elbows knocking at you, the black water in the gutters, but the amazing thing is that no one gives a shit enough to take a second look at anybody, not even me. So for once I was the one who got to look at other people and see how messed up they are.
So I’m in New York and I see a girl. Every few steps she’d stop, look around, glance into a shop window, look around, and then walk a few steps more. I don’t know why, but I followed her, completely spontaneous. She just looked fascinating, different, in alligator cowboy boots and a big furry coat. Twelve blocks I followed her, crossing the streets, looking into stores, until she suddenly ducked into a doorway. An instant later, her hand reached out of the shadows and beckoned.
I was obliterated, didn’t know what it meant. Could she mean me? What should I do, run away, ignore her, what? But then she leaned out of the doorway and looked right at me. Lifting her eyebrows, she waved me towards her.
I was a fucking zombie, man. I went over to her walking like I’d stepped out of “Night of the Living Dead.”
She pulled me into the doorway and whispered, “Did you see where he went?”
I couldn’t move.
“Shit! We lost him. Come on.” She flew into the street and got into a taxi. “Get in!” I got in. “He was a sneaky one. I can’t believe even with two of us we lost him. I guess we should just go on with the exchange as planned. You take the files for now. Oh, and here’s the phone I’ll use to contact you.” She thrust a cell phone at me and a stack of papers. The papers looked like lists and lists of names, but I didn’t get a good look because she started taking off her clothes right in the cab.
As she took off each article, she just threw it out the window. She put on big sunglasses, black stockings, and a little red dress. I have to tell you, Doctor, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in real life, and she’d give the ones in the magazines a run for their money too.
The cabbie never even glanced back at us the whole time. He drove us to an isolated area far outside the city. It was all dead, flat land except for a spooky warehouse building, where she led me. Inside, I couldn’t see a thing. At this point I was convinced I was about to die at any moment. I tried to speak. “Uh—”
Her phone rang. “Hello? Yes, I’m with him now. We lost him. No, no, we’re so close!” She hung up. “Shit! They sent back the pilot. They want us to abort the mission.”
In the wet gloominess of the warehouse, I could make out a huge, hulking shape covered in brown canvas. A monster? UFO? It was a plane. At once, recognizing it snapped me back into a safer, less hysterical world. A plane, thank God.
I said, “I can fly it.” There was silence, and then she said, “Let’s go.” That’s how it all began.
Our first run was the same as the rest. She’d give me a sheet with coordinates and instructions, and I took us there. The plane was in perfect condition, although very dirty. It was always filled with fuel, and the destinations had convenient landing areas. Upon landing, she would run out with an unmarked duffle bag, often wearing a sexy outfit, sometimes wearing hiking boots and loose black clothes, and execute the transaction. When she came back the bag would be heavy with money. Nothing to it. Sometimes she gave me some of the money. We’d fly back to the warehouse, where different cabs took us to our different homes.
Then life would be a little normal for a while, maybe a few weeks, before she’d call me again. But it never was normal after I met her. Everything was thrilling. Even my job editing textbooks was exciting, because it was my cover. My secret life, my real life, was with her. My real life was the times she sat with me in the noisy quiet of the plane. And maybe one day she would tell me everything about herself, and instead of going wherever, we’d fly to paradise.
Sometimes I’d have dinner with the family and my mother would remark, “You’re cheery these days. Anything new?” My brother would sneer, “Maybe he finally stopped sneezing long enough to finish jerking off.” I’d sit quietly, serene, allowing myself a private smile.
On the eighth trip, everything started as planned. We arrived at the drop off location without incident, and she stepped out into a wide field of grass surrounded by heavy, black woods. I waited in the plane.
Then after only a few minutes I saw her coming. She was running, the bag in her hands. She was screaming. “Go!” Her voice was raw and breaking. Nothing even remotely bad had ever happened before this, and now I couldn’t stop shaking. I started the plane and she was running towards me.
There were shots. She heaved the bag into the plane and tried to pull herself in, but didn’t make it. She screamed, “Wait.”
But I didn’t. I took off. And that’s the last I ever saw of her. I didn’t even look back. Even after an hour in the air I still felt like they were chasing me. Later, after I’d put the plane back and was wandering around New York scared to death, I remembered the bag. I went back and got it. What could I do?
I took the money and left. I never knew her name—he wipes at his mouth, clears his throat—
My adoration of her is surpassed only by my terror of her powers. She’s capable of anything, Doctor. She—he picks at the buttons on his sleeve—I have dreams—He crosses and uncrosses his legs, touches his face—
Well, Doctor, I often dream about the kiss. It happened maybe our third run. I think the circumstances surrounding a first kiss can be a metaphor for the entire relationship. Weird, isn’t it, that the strange, singular events punctuating our lives, the times when we gag up all our weirdness, can be representative of the whole damn shebang.
Anyway, it was just before one of the drops. She said, “I feel like I might get trouble on this run. It’s just a feeling.” Then without even asking she took off my mask and lifted my goggles.
And there she was. Very soft and her hot breathing into my mouth. The sweetest kiss, the taste of every food I am forbidden to eat. It was all less than 10 seconds, Doctor. I got hives everywhere, all around my mouth, inside my throat. I couldn’t eat or drink for 2 days. Maybe it was her lipstick, who knows. Anyway, she had no trouble that trip, and we just went home.
But in the dream, Doctor, we’re on the plane, and we kiss. The kiss is so real every time, I can feel everything. Then she jumps, leaps right out of the plane. I ask, “Why are you jumping? You’ll die.”
She says, “I won’t. I’m still inside the plane. You’re the one who jumped.” And then I realize I’m falling, and the ground is coming closer and closer. I see a man lying on the ground right below me. He looks right into my eyes, and his face is horrible. Twisted and growling, and I’m so afraid, like how an animal is afraid. I’m terrified. I’m falling closer and closer to him, and he stares at me, opens his mouth, and screams. I scream too, because I realize there isn’t anyone on the ground, it’s a pool of water reflecting up, and the man is me.
But Doctor, that’s one of the good dreams. There are some when I’m sure I’ve died. When I wake up I lie still for hours, not understanding that I’m alive. I’m afraid to sleep; I get at most 3 hours a night. If I sleep, I dream. If I dream, I die…
But, Doctor, what is reality? There is my reality, there’s yours, a million realities. You and me, sitting here right now, this is all just a dream a thousand dreams deep. She’s coming to kill me, and I will never wake up.
I look at the shit I write in this log and I have to laugh like hell. I really want to delete the past entries but I keep them around because of the principle of the thing. You can't escape your past self. And being ashamed of yourself is the worst thing in the world because it makes you insecure and then you'll never be happy. I'll probably want to delete this entry soon too. As people, we're changing all the time and this is such a good song "I think it's kind of funny, I think it's kind of sad, the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."
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07:08 pm
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I got nothing to put for a subject...
Yay! I've so totally been going to class and I even did some homework. I haven't gotten any textbooks yet. I think I don't have to buy them cuz the library has them and I have enough anal friends that surely bought books I can borrow. Last semester was awesome and book free. A thought that can perhaps be formalized using graph theory or some nonsense: for every 30 people you only need 1 who is really anal and always carries a screwdriver, iodine, a bicycle pump, et cetera because the odds of needing any of those things is very low and at most 1 person out of 30 would be expected to need those kinds of things at once. Of course I just guessed the number 30. Textbooks fall into that category of Things Normal People Borrow But Don't Possess as well. Sometimes people randomly capitalize things, like the author of "The Te of Piglet." Damn Germans. Junot just assigned a story with constraints that are all already present in that allergy story I started. What're the odds. I guess now I have to actually finish it. I'm a loser: I wanted to learn Python because it's such a cool name, and I hate Java because coffee hates me.
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07:07 pm
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Oops, missing updates
Well I got to pack up my lunch pail and go for my first day on the job tomorrow. Hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go. With the addition of me, I bet this company goes under within a few months. I should call up their competitors and ask them to pay me a salary as well. I realized whenever I think about the dude who cut off his own arm I picture Tony. Although mitri would definitely be capable of it too. In fact mitri would cut off his own head. I like getting lost, especially while on a date when you don't know if the guy is going to pull over into a dark alley and kill you at any moment. Actually that possibility had never occurred to me until this moment and now I'm freaked out. Way to go, brain. Beans and I used to watch Pinky and the Brain every day after school for like 2 hours or something ridiculous. Man, the time lost forever to television. It was unclear which of us was Pinky and which of us was Brain. I think at times we were both Pinky. Yeah. Most of the time.
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08:07 am
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Another update!
"I'm allergic to everything," he began, and hugged himself tighter in his coat. "Hair, food, air, you name it. My brother would torment me with gifts of dandelions and bunny rabbits. I barely left my room until the age of 17. Girls? Girls were out of the question. Their shampoos made me sneeze like mad. Just looking at a girl was enough to make my throat close up. To leave my room I had to cover up all of my skin, put on goggles, gloves, a gas mask. It's almost impossible to breathe through gas masks, and no one can understand what you're saying. I was so clearly a freak people would turn in the street to look at me. I walked with my eyes straight ahead not looking at anyone, at a frenzied pace, scared to death, as though lions were chasing me and if I looked back they'd pounce and gobble me up immediately. I took a few college courses by correspondence and have had virtually no human contact other than my family until a year ago. A little after that time I moved from my parents' house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to this place. I didn't tell anyone where I was going and have not spoken to my family since. I like the isolation here. I'm aware of the many rumors about me circulating throughout the village, that I'm a vampire, or some other kind of devil, or on the run from the law. These rumors are very close to the truth." Now he paused to take a sip from a teacup, and then looked at me sharply. His eyes were wet and pink. "Doctor, of course we understand each other in terms of patient privacy? Of course. You are a professional. As I was saying, a year ago I met a curious set of people..."
To be continued?? Today I registered for classes but there's still a bunch I want to take! Haha I'll be saying something very different in a few weeks I'm sure. Everything's so fun; I'm stoked. There's so many different kinds of math out there. Man... when will I find the time/brains to learn? My advisor was very kind to me; I hope he doesn't remember that I'm the chick he wouldn't allow register for his class because, "If you really were serious about linear algebra you would've attended lecture." As if. But I swear to attend everything this semester.
Borges tells this great story, faultily and crudely recalled here: Traveler dude went into a kingdom and met the king, who boasted, "I have a labyrinth so crazy and swirly no one can find the center." And the king forced the traveler to enter the labyrinth, that he might cower in the shadow of the king's powers and glory. In the darkness of the maze, the traveler wandered for days. He prayed to God for aid and finally found the center of the maze and was freed. He returned to his home and gathered up the strong armies from his land and brought them back to the kingdom, where they plundered and ransacked everything, and kidnapped the king. The traveler took the king back to his land and rode with him out into the desert, where he left him, saying, "This is my kingdom, and we also have a maze. There are no walls, nor bolts, nor trap doors. There is just the open air, the sand, the sun, and the glory of God, and you shall never escape." This story is so cute and it's one of those things I think of often, just like that guy who cut off his own arm. I think of that dude every day and the more I think about him the more I love and admire him and shudder to be thinking about him. Shit, his own arm! I better go do my homework.
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06:56 pm
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Nancy Talk
I don't know anyone who has found faith in God but I know plenty of people who have lost it. Myself included, I guess. I think that's sad. Atheists and religious people alike can be so self righteous, missing the point. I don't think faith has to be about blindness, although sometimes it is, and I don't think atheism has to be about moral depravity or hopelessness or arrogance, or blindness to anything other than science, although I think sometimes it is. I don't think people can say much about what God wants, because how are we supposed to understand God or anything about it? I don't think anyone can say much about science denying the existence of a God, because we don't know everything about science either. And what God is is unclear to me. Sounds like I'm some form of agnostic, although I never liked to think of myself that way because I'm arrogant and feel like in contrast to knowing nothing, I know everything. I hate objectivists. Existentialism's good stuff. I hate objectivists so much, I'd like to apply all elements of the classes of dead baby and lawyer jokes to them. I think a funny term is "invited to leave." I invite objectivists to leave the universe. I don't really hate objectivists.
Today I learned something! Awe some paw some. I'm drawn to philosophy but also disgusted, and in some ways it seems intellectually retarded because speculation can be so tiresome. I heard the reason the Institute of Advanced Studies only takes theoretical people is because theorists don't require complex lab facilities. All mathematicians need is a pencil, paper, and a wastebasket. Then the joke is that philosophers don't even need the wastebasket. Because philosophy can be so impossible, I sometimes feel like it's mindless and useless. Earlier this month, however, I attended a talk on some quantum computing nonsense I didn't understand in which the speaker said something like, "I started with a weird philosophical question and then came up with all these mathematical and practical ramifications." And then I felt much better about everything. It means philosophy is not so useless and the properties of existence are not so random, that experiments reveal something fundamental about reality, something philosophy also explores. So today I was reading philosophy and got along to Zeno and holy crap! Through his motion paradoxes you can see everything about all this relativity and quantum business, suggesting these theories are necessary logically, which impresses me and just makes me very happy with the world and how it's all put together so nicely. Philosophy and science are flattered, I'm sure. To illustrate the relationship between Zeno and modern physics, one of his paradoxes is the Arrow, saying that if time can be decomposed into discrete instances, and at every instant nothing is moving, then nothing can ever be moving. So Zeno's intuition tells him that in any instant there is nothing to distinguish a moving arrow from a still arrow, and this creates the paradox. The resolution lies in relativity, which tells us there Is an instantaneous difference between moving and nonmoving objects. The "moving" object exists in a different frame from the "nonmoving" one and if you are in one frame and looking at the other, it looks different to you, and you look different to it. His paradox stating you can never reach your destination because you will always have to travel half the difference ad infinitum still confuses me, but it suggests to me something about the discreteness of atoms, and also I think his point is very subtle and profound. Well of course I think that; I'm still confused. Because I remember Dr. Rudich saying the sum of an infinite series is discrete, and yeah that's cool, but I don't see how that resolves the paradox because there's still no point in time when the traveler actually reaches the destination, when he takes the last step, because there is no last step; the series is infinite. Unless quanta exist, I guess. Possum.
Job interview on Friday. I was like 2 hours late. I definitely suck and do not deserve happiness. When I was learning Spanish in high school I remember planning to always address people in the formal "Usted" form so that I could avoid the informal "tu" form completely and learn one less conjugation. I'm so lazy. But these days I've been trying to practice my Spanish with my more tolerant friends and it encourages me. I want to go to some place where they speak Spanish or Chinese this summer. Yeah I've got to start taking everything more seriously. School starts tomorrow! I just sneezed twice. Why do people sneeze when they're sick? It feels so good. I sleep unwisely. Cereal is excellent.
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