I forgot who I am

I forgot who I am. Over and over for the past couple of years. I have become better at it. It has done me good. It has shown me many places and faces that mirrored my purest essence and echoed tunes of my yearnings. Suddenly aware of my attachement, I sold my bag of emotions to the first buyer at a vanity store. Henceforth, my only worry shall be waking up again!

Untitled for the same reason you were born

Dive into a plethora of philosophies, then bathe with poetry under this music-lit playlist shall you ever make it back from the profound bottomless mysteries of our universe.

untitled for the same reason you were born from alahay on 8tracks Radio.

Love letters to Anhedonia

Dear Anhedonia,

Please understand that my desire for our relationship to end in this last letter I write you is not dictated by my own passion that you have slowly and coldly sucked into what defines you and your friends of the DSM jargon. You have inspired in me a sense of satire that has eventually ridiculed my own thoughts to embrace ones of nihilism paired with a desperate search for the impossible.

Not that this really matters, but I have never betrayed you with your cousin, Dysthymia. You both come from a wealthy Greek family but I have no interest in your Greek names nor in your submissive games.

Forgive me if my admiration for the dead languages ever gave you the impression that our affair was one to outlast me for your own sake of shining amongst my family and friends.

Good bye,
Al  

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!

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.