Infinitely Minute Self-portrait in a Minute

Ineffable I thought I were until I acquired "nothing", "zip", "nihil" and the like, in every possibly interpretable and uninterpretable sense.

Beyond description was my auto-biography until I learned that in an instance of time, whether alive or not, I can be lesser than one of my facial hair follicles that I claim to own but cannot control neither in terms of location nor of orientation.

NON SVM QVALIS ERAM and it is vain to ever define one of my selves or a snapshot of my continuum.  Vainer it is when my complex compartments are functionally superior to my existence. I feel nothing more than a supplier to aimlessly functional organisms with limitations and expiration dates that I cannot even read.

In this infinitely minute self-portrait I say nothing about no one in not more than a minute.



Avec le temps tout s'en va...Leo Ferre's self-portrait does my protrait justice equally.

Black Friday

It is that time of the year when you feel obliged to buy things you do not need to impress friends you do not have from stores that do not care. How are you welcoming black Friday, America?

Tell me how ephemeral is your enjoyment of another gadget or dress when compared to that of merely eating, staying warm and going to school for some people? Or are you too self-indulged to perceive happiness?

Nonetheless, consider the story of stuff that cost so many lives and miseries whenever reproduced for consumption and consumed for reproduction. Do you really need that n^th terrabyte for $50 or m^th dress for 40 when sickened by all n-1 terrabytes and m-1 dresses and prospectively eventually you will be by those last two?

Think well before you proceed to the checkout and Happy Thanksgiving!

-gamy

My windowless room in Lisbon is irrelevant to the topic of this communication and would require a fully dedicated study of its own perhaps with a psychological analysis of previous survivors.  In fact, that could be an introduction to a series of posts about this mystical house that I have unawarely visited a month ago when my colleague inhabited it but all that I will spare for another procrastination. Instead, I will discuss a more existential situation that is induced from this very house of mainly windowless rooms and unexpected visits -- I will discuss marriage!

Last week, I find myself sharing this house with two married couples. Suddenly, my unbearable lightness of being (in a windowless room, to add insult to injury) is united and aggravated by four additional unbearable lightnesses of being, particularly in the form of unbearably being together or coexisting.

Slamming doors, screaming spouses and sobbing wives is nothing compared to the psychological feeling of guilt  induced either by being single and not sharing the agony that these couples are going through, or by being around and thinking I might be suppressing their natural instinct and behavior that could have easily gone to the extent of homicide without me.    
   
In other words, I am somehow unconsciously and involuntarily transported from agamy to bigamy and sometimes tetragamy (polygamy) skipping through monogamy, and the possible benefits of getting a passport out of all this mess, Gamoto!

El Viaje Del Elefante

I went to a FNAC bookstore in Lisbon to buy myself a book, or a train/plane companion, as I like to call it. I suddenly remembered how much I wanted to read Saramgo in his native language when I could only find him in French, a couple of weeks ago at a bookstore in Lebanon. My excitement was soon to vanish from my face and melt into a disappointment as the price tag became legible ---19 EUR? And I thought 17 USD was a ripoff for the French translation but I must have known too little about ripoff. Anyway, the book seemed pretty bulky and heavy for the amount of literature it contained, especially, when to my surprise a much lighter alternative edition of the same book came to compete for my decision making and anxiety. The alternative edition offered the same story for only 9 EUR, but in Spanish! Suddenly, I thought of how much I need to improve my Spanish dismissing the whole point of wanting to read Saramago in Poruguese. I could hardly justify my economically biased turn of events that gave Saramago -- may his soul rest in peace -- the unanticipated role of a Spanish teacher simply because learning Spanish happens to be cheaper these days or at FNAC. Or was I subconsciously thinking of reading Saramago and learning Spanish at the same time?

La Cuccagna

I have been trying to post this for a while but the catatonic stagnation I suffer from was extremely overwhelming. Perhaps the DSM conceals a syndrome synonymous to such a level of laziness describing my current mental, emotional and physical states. But alas, the effort I might need to invest in  unveiling such a terminology might be fatal, needless to mention how vain and insane can a diagnosis of this nature be.

It was never clear to me why my home sweet home was ironically sour (no pun intended) for lack of better word or judgment. I must  have at home everything I could ask for from gastronomy to astronomy. I might not even need to dream, imagine or think for all is taken care of by the loving family. It took me many meditative hours to realize how such love can paralyze a restless soul, and make any excursion from one's oasis unbearable, until depletion. I finally understand how paradoxically devouring is the land of plenty and any attempt to escape it after a certain time results in more agony ad nauseam.  Ode to Pirandello's ephemeral beauty that is beautiful as it lasts and ode to the ignorance of my innocent childhood that is now irreversible and tomorrow more so.

La cuccagna (cockaigne) is a mythical place where people are paid to sleep and punished for working. I recommend Luigi Tenco's only cinematic appearance in "La Cuccagna" for an intimation about my nation.

On Tourism

The ill-defined term of "tourism" has often perplexed many tourists and people living abroad. More ambiguous was the question of when a tourist stops becoming a tourist in the country he inhabits.

Etymologically, for most latin languages, a tourist is one who tours or travels around. Some dictionaries nonchalantly spice the definition with being away from home and most controversially, traveling for pleasure.

In greek, an alternative synonym to tourist (τουρίστας) is περιηγητής which means sightseer, which I find interestingly tautological when I think of a sightseer being one who sees things to be seen. Natural and historical/cultural landmarks are what we agreed upon as worth being seen. Does that make a seeker of beauty that is native to many countries less of a tourist? I wonder since I no longer seek beauty specific to landmarks unique to certain places when traveling.

In arabic سائح literally means wanderer or roamer. Doesn't that contradict the very definition of a tourist who's tour is often planned before he starts touring and guided by illustrated books and internet resources if not by tour guides? I personally prefer to vagabond when traveling, inviting adventure and surprise to my random walk. A while ago, I definitely used to plan my trips and follow the flow. Things change a lot.

In some languages, the variation of excursionist is still common. Etymologically, it derives from the latin ex cursum which means exiting the current/journey. I find this definition as the most accurate for a tourist's vocation especially one seeking a vacation to escape his daily routine. In some aspects, the current routine/journey could mean home, reinforcing the definition of tourists traveling away from home.

Surprisingly for many optimist tourists, not a single language mentions anything hedonistic in reference to touring or traveling. A significant number of these innocent touring optimists end up being robbed, ripped-off and humiliated when traveling, although you might argue that their intention was none of the above. It is not easy to generalize with masochists and masochist-ish adventurers around, but in most cases, one invests his capital on hedonistic escapades.

Cumulatively, we can agree that a tourist is one who escapes his routine to wander around sightseeing, whether he likes it or not.

From my substantially-diverse traveling experience, I have come to resolve the ambiguity between inhabiting and touring a place only after having experienced both for the same place. I have "lived" in Oeiras, Portugal three consecutive summers but I often felt like a tourist when in Lisbon regardless of my proficiency in Portuguese. I lived in a dorm by my research institute and went occasionally to Lisbon. My lifestyle converged very rapidly to a routine with the few social, food and entertainment options neighboring my dorm. Vicinity to work made it almost impossible by human nature to adopt a path besides the shortest one between home and work. I must have suffered from this laziness syndrome unconsciously.

This summer, I visited Portugal for one month with the intention of inhabiting the heart of Lisbon and so it was. It took me a couple of weeks to tour/sample most nearby and en route restaurants, coffee shops, and other services. Finally, I seemed to have found my favorite restaurants, coffee shop and meeting point thus putting an end to my tourism in Lisbon (extensively Portugal) and my excursions would necessitate my departure from Lisbon or to a certain extent, Portugal. Back when I lived in Oeiras, going to Lisbon almost always promised novelty and adventure but now only the virgin peripheral terrains of Portugal might appeal to my neofilia.

In other words, I felt like having finally lived in Portugal in contrast to visiting it, although the former required much less time than the latter. I have come to conclude that living in a place is not a function of time but rather  of options and services one has to experience and select from for his inevitable routine, especially when tailoring a certain schedule imposed by a regular job.

Another factor that disambiguates between touring and inhabiting a place is that of speaking the country's language and knowing its locals and their customs. All this helps one converge easier to a bearable routine that does not require a lot of random walk, mishaps, and learning through trial and error. For instance, I claim to have lived in Italy for less than two months in more than 15 different places, since I speak the language fluently, I "lived" there almost a decade  vicariously through friends and media, and I imagined very effortlessly a routine I could converge towards in most of the 15 places I have visited.

Trans-océanique

Crossing the ocean is suddenly not as fun as it used to be! Its mysterious nature and promise of the greener grass was what defined traveling. But alas, once the mysteries are unveiled and the neighboring grass has been harvested to a point of depletion, the best one can get from a transoceanic flight is some peace of mind for effective intro/retro/pro-spection and soul searching.

While Baudelaire and Pessoa struggle for the elsewhere, Berndard praises the intra-where:

Basically, like nine tenths of humanity, I always want to be somewhere else, in the place I have just fled from....he truth is that I am happy only when I am sitting in the car, between the place I have just left and the place I am driving to.  I am happy only when I am traveling; when I arrive, no matter where, I am suddenly the unhappiest person imaginable. 

Along these lines, one can argue that Schopenhauer and co. are in favor of the nowhere. This is how in our human nature we tend to relate to places, and what are friends and lovers but places we visit or inhabit... I believe that at some point in a man's life, his well-being becomes independent of his geographic location and vice versa. Nonetheless,  man shall never stop blaming it on his location, hoping that the elsewhere that he is ignorant of will unravel joy, perhaps eternally. That is the very bliss defining ignorance that we tend to loose as we grow older or abuse with alcohol and drugs. The modern man will eventually resort to these mind altering means and more severe and irreversible ones when he is finally convinced of "the unimportance of his location" which can translate to "the vanity of his existence" with a less materialistic tone. 

Bon Voyage!

Take it easy يا عزيزي

Just before imploding with lament and lack of self-fulfillment, before being consumed by another reflection about my actual mere existence, I flashed back into my blissful and irresponsible childhood that I faintly remember and wished I could stay there forever...

I was reminded by a conversation I have repetitively had with friends. It was usually a follow-up to my laments and a compliment to my talents. According to my peer, I seemed to be doing very well. I refuse however, to let this observation indulge me.

Tomorrow, I will cross the Atlantic for a rendez-vous with Lisboa. Muitas saudades! More poetically, vou-me embora pra Pasárgada.  I will be there with a fresh mind and an open heart with my primary focus on research and my dissertation, oxalá.

Chronic Heartbreak Syndrome

CAVEAT: not for the fainthearted!

Ever since my heart was shattered due to amorous mis-encounters, my meaning of life nullified for failing to prove or disprove anything meaningful and my career incorrigibly confused consequentially, I have been feeling a mild yet endless heartbreak, as if the burning wounds from the past heartbreak have not fully healed. It is very similar to dysthymia, a chronic mild depression syndrome, that I unsurprisingly also suffer from. The suffering is however lamentably bearable enough for me to live with. Otherwise, I would have rebelled and lived differently. But very lazily I seem to vegetate towards the lowest forms of energy. Analogously, a frog accidentally jumping in a pot of boiling water might survive thanks to its fast reflex unlike another frog unawarely heated in a pot of water.  This is what I call decadence. Decadence as I am.  I am not playing the victim, obviously since I am the only reader of my blog and I seldom unveil my desolation in public. I hide it effectively with intensive sarcasm and black humor. I am a seeker of truth and I know that things are best studied when diseased or perturbed. But when will I be done studying my very miserable self? When will I give in to a mundane 8-5 job or a simple wife or a big family? When will I surrender to time? Will time tell? Only when I surrender, time will tell!

Deadlines

I almost wrote this in Italian -- let's see how long I car resist in this blog monolingually. Yesterday, everybody was in a rush, packing, moving out, graduating while I was strolling down Kirkwood Avenue in the early postmeridian, and for the first time I felt I was dead. The death feeling was so intense and realistic that I anticipated waking up from an eerie dream in that same room I have inhabited the last semester. But I did not wake up and little did I care! I wondered whether by not fearing death one is more alive or vice versa. Is it possible that everybody is distracted from life by these deadlines or is it these very deadlines that make life what it is. Death is the last deadline. I questioned my passions, goals and even raison d'etre, one more time, but little did I conclude or care to know.  I hate to prematurely jump to the conclusion that when one is fearless of death  he has already passed all deadlines and is ready for the last one.

4D

On a rainy laundry day, Abbot and Burger opened my eyes to a 4th dimension like never before. I admit that Flatland was nothing new but Sphereland was food for thought. The visits of the sphere and supersphere to the lower dimensions were very inspirational. I immediately imagined my superself visiting myself from a higher dimension and telling me about my nethers. I am not sure how he would be projected into 3 dimensions (perhaps as a 3D Julia fractal) but I would love to witness something as trippy.

I was thinking all night about a way to see 4 dimensions. If we project a 4D object twice into two 3D adjacent objects with the one to the left slightly rotated on the 4th axis, we can cross our eyes and see all 4D. More impractically, we can have two extra eyes above our two eyes and cross-eye twice (horizontally and vertically) to have 4 images rotated on two axes render an object in 4D.
 

Greenness

I like to think of myself as an aesthete who is equally interested in the function of things, especially that explaining their beauty. Perhaps a restless reflective aesthete seems to empathize with my kind. I am greatly puzzled and often tormented by what my heart desires and this inexorable passion has lead me to unimaginable places. I wish not to deprive my future from the unexpected, nonetheless, an intimation about my following passions and consequential vicissitudes could bring comfort to my restless soul and mind.  Blaise said: "Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point" but how much of his life did he dedicate to love or reason and what made him jump to this conclusion? Sour grapes?

As a photographer, I experience a constant urge of self-improvement and readiness for "the" perfect shot! That shot is most often ephemeral and requires high skills, expensive equipment and immediate action.  Paradoxically, I am unsatisfied by attributing a lot of my self-fulfillment to a shot that is heavily based on chance. On the other hand, it must be utterly frustrating to have the perfect shot but lack skill or equipment. So is life, opportunities come and go but importuned are the inapt!

Spring has spring and Bloomington has bloomed! I had an epiphany inspired by spring's ethereal greenness. A week ago, I identified with my naked eye at least three shades of green in most plants and trees around campus. Lighter shades of green colored the peripheral newly sprung leaves while the center was dominated by a darker shade of green, regardless of the light. In photography, a similar ethereal effect is created by a technique known as high dynamic range (HDR) often used to add depth and embellish photography. Upon such an observation, I can only conclude to myself that nature feigns this and similar surreal visual effects to the eyes of the aesthete, commiserating our constant lament and endless search for beauty.

On friendship and kinship

If the envading markets of iPhone, Blackberry and iPad have not consumed you already, prepare yourself for the release of a new consumer, the social phone, Kin . If you are thinking, WOW, I must get one, then you are being consumed as we speak, first your time and eventually your money. Once you own a kin, you will feel obligated it to use it for the amount of money spent (arguably wasted). The new microsoft "social" product runs the slogan: "Are we really friends with our 'friends'?". Obviously not! Because we are so sucked into these virtual social networks that reduce our human emotions and interaction to bits and bytes, pokes and the likes... How would you like to remotely create virtual children through future gadgets and conclude your life with a GAME OVER? I say it's already GAME OVER whether you kow it or not!

Would you like to have a life?
[1] Yes (Free of charge)
[2] No (Cost of new gadget, the amount worth living)

Enter amount : $ _

To work or not to work, what is the question?

Out of all working definitions of "work", the following is my favorite: To work is to exert oneself by doing mental or physical effort for a purpose or out of necessity.

Never in my whole life did I apply for a job or experience the anxiety of job hunting, except vicariously. Alma mater has nourished me and sheltered me my whole life. However, time has come for huge decisions dictated by self-fulfilling purposefulness and stable economic necessity.

Reasons behind my quasi-eternal PhD phase can be attributed to my fear of pointless graduation and post-graduation, that will expose me to a whole new plethora of job opportunities, impartially related to my PhD investment.

From an economically driven perspective, the following chart illustrates the average salaries (USD) for job positions that appeal to my interest or qualifications. 

Average Salary of Jobs with Titles Matching Your Search

In USD		25k 50k 75k
associate/full professor	$69,000
researcher	$62,000
freelance photographer	$40,000
novelist	$48,000
freelance artist	$46,000
postdoc	$41,000
assistant professor	$49,000
adjunct professor	$49,000
translator	$50,000

Of course, the academic track following PhD usually debuts with a post-doc (~$40,000/year) and then trifurcates (splits) into three tracks: Adjunct, Researcher and Tenure. Adjunct or visiting professors are more easily hired on a short term contract. Researchers are dedicated to full-time research while professors, very competitively, climb up the tenure ladder, at best tri-annually, from assistant professor (~$50,000/year) to associate professor (~$60,000/year) to full professor (~$80,000/year).

NB. The minimum wage in the US is $13,920 for full-time employers under a $7.25/hr. Dishwashing salaries start at $8/hr.

I decided to look at job postings for the selection of jobs that I would be interested in pursuing or find myself qualified for.

While freelancers are commitment-free gypsies, flexible to accommodate almost any creative activity, they are not offered social benefits. I still ask myself, how can I ever self-sustain myself when I despise prolonged sustainability? The paradox of commitment to indifference holds no answers for my future so far.

I will end this with some work related quotes (in French):

"Travailler dur n'a jamais tue personne, mais pourquoi prendre le risque?" (Edgar Bergen)
"Le travail est pour moi la chose la plus sacrée !!...... c'est pour ca que j'y touche pas !!!"
"La liberté commence dés qu'on a deux chefs."
"L'homme n'est pas fait pour travailler, la preuve c'est que cela le fatigue" (Voltaire)
"Le travail est l'opium du peuple et je ne veux pas mourir drogué" (Boris Vian)
"Le 1er mai, c'est la Fête du Travail. Mais pourquoi a-t-on congé alors ce jour-la ?" (Proverbe communiste)
"Si tu as envie de travailler, assieds-toi et attends que ca passe" (Proverbe Corse)

Finally, man can shit decently

On April 2nd, 2010, toilet paper was depleted in our apartment thus limiting my excretory trips to foreign public services, since I could hardly imagine the terrible consequences otherwise. Today, I bought a 4 pack of toilet paper giving the excretory opening at the end of my alimentary canal more freedom to deuce unconditionally. Finally, man can crap decently.

Speaking of which,

did you know that Daoism is a religion of the Han people of China that practiced eating excrements, sacrilegiously?

did you know that there is a shit fetish; I dare you to google it. Warning: not for the faint hearted.

An arguably optimistic citation from latin reads: "semper in excretum sum sed alta variat" and translates to "always in the shit, but the depth varies".

Synonyms and related words:
BM, crap, defecation, discharge, dung, excrement, excretion, fecal matter, feces, feculence, flux, go to the bathroom, manure, number two, shit, stool, waste, buffalo chips, bugger, ca-ca, coprolite, coprolith, cow chips, cow flops, cow pats, creep, cur, defecation, dingleberry, droppings,  feces, feculence, guano, manure, movement, night soil, sewage, sewerage, shit, stool, turd

How many words are synonymous to book? Which is more useful? One can argue that the term book is not offensively useful in a savage world described by Hobbes' Leviathan.

Joke: The blond, for lack of enemies, immediately stops eating his shit sandwich all disgusted upon encountering a strand of hair therein.


Do you ever feel like your head is going to blow up, while taking a crap, but just before this happens a glorious assistance from the bottom releases the pressure and during this fraction of a second you experience the most amazing frisson (tingly sensation)? I tend to cite freudian thanathos (death wish) when it comes to defecation mainly due to the fact that one is suffering and willingly loosing it in a couple of senses. I find it entertaining to question when does the apple you eat stop becoming an apple and start becoming you. Similarly, one can wonder when does his excrement cessate from being him to form an independent identity on its own or thanks to the excreter in charge. You might have heard of the nutrition book, "you are what you eat" but have you come across "you are what you shit"?

Apologies to my readers who were shocked by this post; it was meant to break the formal tone of the blog and spice it with some humor.

On Materialism

I come from a financially fairly relaxed family to struggle my way financially towards a fairly relaxed family.

I think of myself as highly creative yet I can hardly imagine materialism as anything other than a masquerade with consumerism being a superstore of masks priced according to how impressive these masks are. Events and occasions are simply places were people like ourselves meet. Many of these people are new to these places and sometimes to the other people sharing the space.  Strangers are examples of people we do not know. Classmates, colleagues, roomates, partners, family and friends example people that we know but only to a certain extent that varies with places and other people sharing them.

In general, people are much more familiar with the superstore mask than with each other. In unfamiliar places or with others barely recognizable by names or faces to have them as friends on facebook or myspace, people are compelled to purchase the best possibly affordable mask and not one that is adequately representable. That is mainly because most people are more ignorant about the others (also with respect to spaces) than they are aware of and confident in themselves.

What most people do not realize is that by putting on an a disguising mask (neither pun nor redundancy intended) around these unfamiliar spaces and people, they are missing the whole point of spaces and meeting and knowing people.  They are better off staying in spaces they are most familiar (home) with people they are most acquainted with (family). Otherwise, they are fooling other people by misrepresentation and themselves by erroneous feedback from others contaminated by their misrepresentation. Hence, one can conclude that interaction and communication are unreliable when either of the people involved are misrepresented.

We are often tempted to wear these heavily impressive masks decorated with precious stones and colors, unaware of others' greed and envy. We give our best shot for the first impression, and let the fooled desire us for what we are not, and fool us in return. We think we have conquered, in a game we call the chase, while we are being conquered by self-deception and vanity. Yes, vanity is what I define as the money and effort spent on a fake mask in vain to impress friends we do not have. We feed off vanity and feed it to others in a world of others we (think we) know enough to interact with, but not enough to (dare to) know better. We are ready to steal or even kill to push "affordability" to "feasibility", reducing "morality" to a reminiscence of a term we once feared in the past. What has become of us but monsters fighting for the most deceptively impressive mask that only feeds our vanity making us more monstrous ad infinitum.

My fellow sufferers, I comiserate with you when turned down by your (prospective) soulmate. I condole you when death takes your lovers and I hear you when heart broken by your (future) wife/husband and mother/father of your children. It is tempting to think that your mask was not good enough but what do we know? It is easy to judge and blame it on others but how so if we barely know ourselves?

Know thyselves, before knowing others. Wear no mask and fear no other. Eventually, you will end up going to unimaginable places with natural and earnest people like yourself, there for the same reason. Interact sincerely! A new world with no lies will unfold many truths about yourself and others. You will loose interest in all material world and materialists which will be around but can be avoided (or helped out in hopeful cases).  It might be hard to follow this path in places corrupt with brain- and identity-washing brand names, deceptive commercials, and societal fads, trends and craze, but it is never impossible.

Parents lavishly pampering their kids with all goods they can afford should think of how hard it will be for their kids to grow into affording these goods independently some day and how harshly life will contrast against their will. Grown up victims of such indulgences should practice resistance and learn to appreciate everything by earning it in real-world-like scenarios. Nouveau-riches should practice patience and modesty or give their money away if they cannot otherwise.

The next time you consider buying a new car because your older one doesn't look as good or a new phone because your friends have newer phones, ask yourself, why on earth should you listen to someone who would judge you by your car or phone? How could such a person be your friend? Thinking that you are doing it for yourself and not for your friends is a self-deception unless the upgrade is very necessary. Even if you were capable of affording the fastest car and slickest phone, you should avoid being judged by mere appearance and invest your money elsewhere (education, traveling, helping others...). That way, you can learn about your virtues and vices through others' sincere feedback and improve yourself to eventually find the right friends and Mr./Mrs. right that match your qualities. Material comes and goes while your only onle life is going...

"Do what you want and say what you feel because those that mind, don't matter and those that matter, don't mind!" -- Dr. Seuss

Inspirational Message to the World

Have you ever considered, out of all odds, your chances of existing?

Biologically speaking, your chance of "being" is much less than one in a million. Roughly, 20 million sperms are ejaculated such that only one sperm, you a priori, unconsciously, would fertilize an egg and grow into your current being with whatever genetic code that victorious sperm has to unfold unto and into you.
Of course, that is assuming that your parents and their parents, etc, already existed. Otherwise, each generation would multiply the previous generations with the father's sperm fertilization chances 1/20 million, with the joint probability of the father having met the mother, 1/6 billion x 1/6 billion, which roughly amounts to 1/10^16 less per generation -- i.e 0.00000000000000001 less per generation.

Your existential probability will approach zero at an astounding rate that you won't even make it back to your first ancestor. Your existence after a few generations is less probable than your winning the lottery and being struck by a lightening on the same day assuming that you were alive that day. What does that zero probability mean? Do you really exist? Are you miraculously here or just an outcome of a random generation? Is that just your perspective or that of the other 6 billions -- or more. The answer might be as epistemistic as zeno's paradox.
Nonetheless, 9 months before you were given birth, "you", however unconsciously, were the fastest and strongest amongst millions of competitors in the toughest of endeavors. Even more retrospectively, "you" (a priori a priori) were a sparkle in your father's eyes, with the potential of manifesting into your current self, if not a genetic mutant of you. Your current existence is not to be taken for granted, neither it should be a sufficient reminder of a lifetime victory. Do not compare your self to others for there will always be better and worse and what are the others other than equally probable beings. You could be thinking about how lucky (or unlucky) you are to be here but you should be thinking about your about how meaningful life is and you MUST cherish every moment of it with all you have and all you can give. "One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching".
If that is not convincing enough, the following testimonies and speeches MUST make the difference:

Randy Pauch's "Last Lecture" summarizing his life after it was claimed by cancer. Al Pacino's "Inspirational Speech" to the football team he coached. Rocky Balboa's inspirational speech to his son. The exceptional counter-intuitive inspirational report from SSCBS. Roberto Benigni's inspirational guidelines to poetry, if not his movie "life is beautiful". Paul's and Susan's motivational and goosebump-jerking clips. Max Ehrmann's elucidating poem. Baz Luhrman's sunscreen advice. Antonello Venditti's song. And finally Badgett's positive testimony.

"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy of being SalvadorDalí – and I ask myself in rapture, What wonderful things is this Salvador Dali going to accomplish today" -- Salvador Dali

Life Lessons: Depth vs Breadth

One of the most fundamental and decision-dependent questions of my life has been based on whether to master one thing (depth) or to explore many things (breadth) in the only one life I believe to have. In other words, which is a life least wasted? One of a specialist or that of a generalist.

Recent studies have shown that K12 students are more efficient when focusing on fewer materials [news article]. However, my quest extends to more complex real-life decision making based on the depth-vs-breadth dilemma (e.g. settling in one country vs nomads or a citizens of the world, monogamy vs polygamy, having few good friends vs many acquaintances, many degrees vs a PhD...)

As a PhD candidate in informatics (bio-inspired computing), a humanist, an artist, a self-proclaimed citizen of the world and hyperpoliglot, I try to address this question from different perspectives:

In science and academia, Peter Fisk's inspirational [sciencemag article] could not have been any more succinct or elucidating. However, if I were forced to reduce it to a quote it would read as:

"The common joke/cliché about the Ph.D. education is that, as your education progresses, you learn more and more about less and less until (when you graduate with your Ph.D.) you know everything about nothing. This joke often elicits knowing chuckles from Ph.D. scientists--but it should elicit disquiet. Being the best in the world holds little meaning if it is with respect to an infinitesimal niche that only you inhabit. Not only is it a puny accomplishment, but it also comes at the expense of all the larger (and more important) problems you could have devoted yourself to."

In proverbs, you have probably heard people saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" [origin and translations] or less probably "an inch wide and a mile deep", a slogan used to critique US math education. While the first is in favor of the specialist, the english idiom: "Don't put your eggs in one basket" sides with generalists often praised as renaissance men, polymaths and polyhistors.

In literature, Alain de Botton says "On ne tombe amoureux que lorsqu'on a mesuré la profondeur des eaux dans lesquelles on va plonger" (eng. "We cannot fall in love until we have measured the depth of the water in which we dived"). Thomas Moore's [The devil among the Scholars], however, takes different sides:

"Instead of studying tomes scholastic,Ecclesiastic, or monastic,Off I fly, careering farIn chase of Pollys, prettier farThan any of their namesakes are,--The Polymaths and Polyhistors,Polyglots and all their sisters."

Paolo Coelho said something along these lines: "we spend the second half of our lives regretting decisions we made in the first half" -- I find it elucidating.

In statistics, you might want to ask yourself the following question: "When is it appropriate to stop exploring (breadth) and start establishing and investing (depth) in the so-far best explored?". I have come across a similar stopping problem known as the sultan's dowry problem. The game is to find the sultan a wife to buy and the sultan can only decide on the spot to kill the woman or stop at some point and marry and merry her. When would it be wisest for him to stop? This problem, aka the classical secretary problem, has been solved with an optimal solution tending to 1/e ~ 0.37. In other words, if the sultan has 100 dowries, he's best at stopping and marrying the 37th. If we were to generalize the sultan's commitment to a depth-oriented endeavor about life, then we can assume that at the 37% of our "healthy" and conscious life, we should stop exploring (breadth) and decide on few commitments (depth) such as a job, marriage...etc. You might want to settle down at 30 if you think you'll make it to be 80. Carpe diem people, living each day as if it were their last, might think it is too late to ever commit. Ultimately, it is only with many assumptions that a man can guesstimate his lifespan.

In geometry, if we were to represent an individual as an object in a 3D space and assume that his knowledge is characterized by the object's volume (V), then his performance or fitness can be characterized by the object's surface area (SA). For the sake of this problem, let's assume that the volume is more or less the same amongst individuals and that opportunities are objects floating around in the aforementioned 3D space that should be captured. Given a fixed V, each individual is expected to approach the "depth vs breadth" paradigm by shaping his object in such a way that it is capable of reaching as many opportunities floating around in space. Initially, a sphere would have the least SA for a fixed V. The question is: "What 3D shape would you choose to be given a fixed volume?". If you aimed to maximize the SA tending to become a plane then you might be spreading yourself too thin and expect to be ripped apart by opportunities, even possibly unawarely, depending on your thinness. If you chose to be a rod or a thin cylinder, you might suffer from identity crisis while endlessly rotated by momentous colliding opportunities. If you aimed for something with less of a SA -- more stable like a cone -- then you might be naive to some of the opportunities. Finally, if you have chosen to remain a sphere with a solid id identified in your center of mass, then you are missing on most opportunities, even those aimed towards you that you may bounce off your surface if off-center. Personally, I prefer to be a well grounded sphere with many spikes. However, practice keeps elongating my spikes inexorably. By practice I mean, passionate expeditions and innocent curiosities and by inexorably I mean, beyond the point of creating vanity gaps and identity crises (no pun but pluralis maiestatis intended)

In physics, the law of the vital few (pareto principle or 80-20 law) is used to describe how in most natural systems, roughly 80% of events come from 20% of causes. A common example is that of 80% of lands being owned by 20% of the people. Another one is that of 20% of people having 80% of income. One can then assume that it would be natural to have 80% of one's resources (e.g. time, money) inspired and occupied by 20% of the possible venues (e.g. degrees, jobs) . I am not sure the natural solution is as well optimal. Another perspective comes from assuming that you are a ball in a 3D mountainous surface in search for the deepest hole to go in. You do not want to flow in the first deep hole (local minima) but make sure it is the deepest. Going uphill could help you detect and skip through local minimas that otherwise can claime the rest of your life. Many analogies can be drawn from the laws of thermodynamics.

In economics, cost benefit analysis might hint at a decent decision. If you were 28-ish with an MS in Computer Science and about to graduate with a PhD in a year. The cost is 1 concentrated year giving up all the hobbies and many other expertise that contribute to your lost identity. The benefit is increasing your salary from $50k/y (programmer) to $70k/y (professor) on average in Bloomington, and decreasing the work time from 8h/d to 4h/d. However, in this one year, you could risk loosing your charisma and other say 2 expertise, each worth $40/year. In other words, would you rather be open for three $40k/y jobs (breadth) or one $80/year (depth), of course with much more effort in the next year and half the effort afterwards? I guess it depends on one's persistence and self-discipline.

In philosophy, the dichotomy of yin-yang might be the closest to that of "breadth depth". The two opposing forces of ying yang are believed to be independent yet give rise to each other. Similarly, with enough breadth one is compelled to go deep and vice versa, with enough depth one might need to back up broadly. For instance, the boredom of being in one state (e.g. country, in a relationship...) could be an incentive for one to visit other states (e.g. traveling, dating...). On the other hand, restlessness could be the opposing incentive for one to settle down in one state. Old Portuguese mariners used to say: "Navigar e' preciso, viver nao e' preciso" and still via Fernando Pessoa say: "a minha patria e' onde nao estou". Charles Baudelaire rephrased: "Je suis toujours bien la ou je ne suis pas". You might have heard the saying "the grass is greener on the other side" or "l'erba del vicino e' sempre piu' verde". It is not surprising that the two opposing terms "cosmopolitan" and "nomad" mean the same from the subject's perspective and especially regarding his identity in question. Adam Smith's wealth of nations states:

"the greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour."

Adam Smith is clearly in favor of depth from an individual's perspective and of breadth from a community's perspective for the maximum benefit of the community. It is not easy to argue that the community's benefit will pour back into that of the individual.

In biology, Darwinian evolution claims survival for the fittest when it fails to clearly describe human fitness. When breadth is essential for basic survival, depth seems to be rudimentary for secondary enhancements to the quality of survival -- this has been evidently the case since Plato's Republic, to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations . A fisherman might live off fish if he can trade, a trader might make a good living if well connected to the market, the market exists only with enough merchants and clients and so on and so forth. A changing environment is in favor of Jack of all trades. When life gives you only lemon you might want to consider lemonade in spite of your PhD title, unless you want to starve to death. "Dio da pane a chi non ha denti" translates to "God gives bread to the toothless", but that might be just because one is too naive to consider other talents or opportunities. Life's resources are not limited to eating but also procreation. A study has shown that males of polygamous species are rewarded with generous insemination only if they are fit to fight any other male. This fitness however, requires larger bodies and horns thus requiring more food and offering higher chances of visibility to the predators. On a smaller time scale, ironically, males often risk their lives (visibly and audibly) to predators from other species when trying to sexually impress females, proving their fitness and health. The trade off is another paradoxical example of depth vs breadth.

In psychology, our daily decisions are based on an evaluation of advantages and disadvantages but in the longer run it is reined by economy and our morals, if any at all. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is portrayed by a pyramid of human needs with the most basic in the bottom (e.g. physiological and safety needs). At the top of the pyramid is the self-actualization need, which needs a deeper human contribution (e.g. creativity, problem solving). A scientist might find a couple of journal publications satisfactory but more so a more influential book. Another scientist might find more fulfillment in achieving a sports medal or a selling one of his paintings. Fulfillment and success are not easy to define in an equation or measure with units. When "breadth" can be seen as a self-handicapping behavior in psychology, generalists have a leadership role to fill in sociology.

In history, polymaths were the most influential, greatly thanks to the cumulative effort and contribution of focused experts. In other words, the polymaths are An extensive

[list] of the history's greatest polymaths might give you an intimation on my assertion. In the end, it is up to you to contribute behind the scenes (depth) or on stage (breadth).

None of the perspectives above offers a clear solution to the "depth vs breadth" paradigm. It is an arms race between breadth and depth, the mile wide and the inch deep, jack of all trades and master of none, the generalist and the specialist.... Personally, every fulfillment in any direction leaves me with more hope for self-fulfillment and paradoxically, at the same time, with more gaps to reach self-fulfillment. It might be my false evaluation of human abilities that made me invest at the first place with seeds of false hope and treacherous expectation... Time will tell!
I wrote this post as a test in which I can assess my writing skills and adjust my expectations for a more rewarding self-fulfillment.

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How vain it is to write and more so not to write. So, I write about vain and I wonder since everything I do is in vain, what would the opposite of vain be? Suddenly, the answer hits me. Vain is the opposite of vain, and the desperate hope of escaping it is, alas, vain.