The Faith in One Spot

So many people all over the world. So few in Gainesville. Somewhere...a violin stirs a sad melody for me.

No, no...I'm really not sad. I probably would be if it weren't for my job, though. The feeling of endless possibilities has never been more tangible for me. The opportunity for growth, the ability to explode into something so much bigger seems just around the corner. And with everyday, especially this week, that feeling grows more intense.

Equally intense is my desire for travel. To Europe. To China. To Japan. Even to Philly. Okay, really just to Europe, Rome in particular, but Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, Dublin, and Ischia wouldn't be too shabby either. My italian hasn't faded in recent weeks, despite being out of school, thanks to the awesome musical stylings of the Modena City Ramblers.

I still think about teaching and research. My last task at work, to write a wikipedia entry, was of course way more fun for me than most people, proving that I still have a research streak somewhere inside of me. Though, I would quickly admit that it wasn't anywhere near as fun as working with my band of interns or building fantasy offices in my head with Erica and Bec. (A slide? Perhaps. A trampoline? Definitely.)

So, I still have this feeling of a pact with time. I'm not sure I believe in it quite as strongly as I used to. I mean, when the earth is exploding and people are dying and everything seems to be collapsing quicker than expected, I'm all about the "do the best you can, but do it quickly" mindset. I don't want to wait to long before I'm back at the hotel Arenula or the Pantheon or San Ignazio or La Galleria Borghese...it's all just one earthquake, one cosmic sneeze, away from oblivion. And I want to enjoy before the universe catches the cold that does away with it all.

So, it's a weird, determined optimism I've got now. I still have faith in just staying put for now, like I've always had. Only now I'm not 16. Now I'm 22. And I'm trying not to speed things up.

Travels in the unknown forests

Being on this crazy journey, this pathless path of which I've spoken so often, has jarred me in funny ways. For so long did I imagine what I looked like I would be, when I grew up--a detached physicist, whiling away my time at chalkboards with obscure equations and a dusty jacket. Or perhaps a ponderous philosopher/historian, pacing in front of a class of students at some private liberal arts college, expounding my ideas about civilization and the currents of history. I'm sure there were a dozen other profiles of my future all laid out in my head, just waiting for me to fulfill.

What is so odd, now, is that I've shifted my perspective, not from imagining what I would look like doing something, but focusing on what I actually am good at. The shift didn't truly hit me, until I realized what I am now: a sales manager at an intrepid start-up company, strategizing and bantering with my determined crew of interns, brainstorming and learning from experienced, insightful businesspeople.

It was never what I imagined, and because I hadn't visualized the whole scene from the outside, seeing myself on Bec's video camera a few days ago as "the face of Perth Leadership's intern program" was subtly unsettling. Who was I? When did I take on this role? How did I get here?

So often we are told that people who cannot see the forest through the trees don't have the big picture. And I totally agree. Yet, I think I had the opposite problem. I was imagining the forest I thought I wanted to be in, ignoring the path and surrounding environments. And I became disillusioned as I realized that the path through the "professorial" forest was not at all apealling to me. I started to force myself to look at my own traits, to understand which trees I'd like being around and which forest path would be natural for me to walk. And now here I am, in a completely different forest, but in the same college town. And truly loving what I'm doing.

As it turns out, getting yourself lost in unknown forests can instill a pretty deep sense of direction.

And Dawkins said: "Non fiat sententiam."

I heard Richard Dawkins say something most interesting on the radio the other day. He said that the universe does not owe us meaning, that humans often believe things because they'd be "nice." He called this a weakness in the human psyche (referring to many people's belief in a higher power or universal purpose because "they couldn't bear to live in a world without it"). Although I thought his arguments against God were spot-on and extremely insightful, I have to disagree with his assessment of this perceived "weakness."

I think that, many times, when people believe things because it would make them happier, it's often resulted in humans vastly exceding their previous bounds. Sure there have been negative consequences due to the fuzzy nature of humanity's hope-reality divide. Yet, I would postulate that our slight tendancy for being optimistically deluded has helped our species not see just how lost, how fragile, how slight, and how ultimately random our existence is. It's helped us believe in our own ability to change and thrive, even when we should've known how bad the odds were. And I think it will help us in the present and future when we have to believe in our own survival despite the limited carrying capacity and eventual collapse of our current ecosystem.

I think humanity's evolution of some rose-colored glasses was a veritable competitive edge. Wouldn't a creature who often irrationally believes in itself, in its own abilities and fortunes beat out a similarly matched, but more rationally-brained creature? But, in good human fashion, that's something I'd like to believe.

I could've swore that there was a way

The Path is not at all a path. I knew that was an inaccurate way of looking at it from the beginning.

What is a path?

A worn way through a surrounding wilderness. A passive guide used to get from one place to another. A constructed route which might take some effort to follow, but certainly none to see.

That's exactly what a path is.

The Path that I'm on, though, is not at all a path because there is no worn way in this wilderness, the guide is not passive, the guide is my own sense of judgement, the route is not constructed but hidden within the gray folds of my brain, and The Path takes great effort to see.

I'm not really into it yet, though. I am merely on the outskirts. Looking back, I see the old way. The old way back is almost a joke now. How I ever imagined myself on it, I will never know.

But so how do I operate then? What am I doing on a daily basis? I am looking at everything very carefully, more carefully than I ever looked at anything as a physics student. I am seeing a lot of things pre-judgement...well, a lot more than I ever used to. I've broke down a lot of my own self-imposed judgements about the world and my place in it.

When you have to make the road you have to make the road you're on, while you're traveling it, you get slowed down. You don't leave as quick from the town you're in, you can get so much momentum that you don't appreciate the scenery. It's a good slowness for now.

Some things, back and back they come. I'm so far from where I was, and yet here I am, back there again. When x=Me, then Change=meaning. Path=null set of meaning. Path=No real change. Change does not happen on a path.

What's kind of tricky now is being able to recognize where there is an old path, and I know when I have been fooled into considering a reversal. Like when I find myself looking up graduate school for classics or something like that. I mean, that could be The Path, but if it was then I think I would know it by now. I have gotten better at reading it, I think. But we'll see.

Right now, I have some "plans." Here's how it all stands now:

1) PLI: The beloved start-up, which I fell in with and quickly found myself attached to. So much potential, quite a bit of risk. Small beginnings, hopefully grand ends. The uncertainty crackles with "pathlessness." Quite obviously I'm drawn.

2)L'academia dei grandi cuori: Un grupo delle scuole a Phoenix, AZ che non potrei idearle piu meglio per se. Il loro programma di studi e basato nella scuola di filosofia, pensiero, bellezza, e in somma La Grande Qualita: Un'educazione classica, con Il Latine, La storia medioevale, La storia antica, ma anche La fisica, Il chimico, Il Calculo, etc. Una mescela bellisima.

3)Some form of education piu alta, I suppose.

I'm aware what disadvantages come with being off the old way. I see when my friends succeed down planned roads, when they make big moves, and celebrate their hard work. But even I am surprised when I don't envy them at all. I'm genuinely happy. I'm glad they could make it work, because there was not a chance nell'inferno that I could.

The Magician's Prayer

The spirituality of my youth haunts me sometimes.

That’s a bit overdone, yes. I remember the cantor’s voice in my old temple singing of faith and god, of rejoicing and of community. I felt connected to something back then. I would sing out with Dan and Brian, with all of my Hebrew school chums. We would sing because we were taught to and we had a great deal of camaraderie. Watching the rain hit the glass windows at the front of the temple during some Friday night services, I remember feeling even more protected from the outside…not just from watery forces of nature, but from some emptiness that I knew existed, but was repelled from that room during services.

The room wasn’t particularly special— many classes and events were held there, and it was usually just a big echoing cavern. It was at certain times, when the Rabbi and the Cantor would cast a shield over us, and bind the congregation in song and prayer for an hour or so. A community was created in that short time, through simple ancient words, pleasant tunes, and basic moral messages. I hated going to it, I loved being there, and I regretted my initial resistance afterward.

I have felt twinges of this community at Hillel, but it is not the same—well, maybe it is, but I am not. Something has changed, and the magic is harder to grasp. It feels less like people creating a new community as it does people sharing a nostalgic echo of an old one. And maybe I’m part of that. It could be that knowledge killed my spiritual community. Perhaps I’ve rejected, debated, questioned, and mangled my religion past a rescue point, and have killed with mental manhandling. Or maybe it waits for me somewhere else. Just recently, I felt a bit of it going back home for Passover.

It is similar to the death of magic. The knowing of a magic trick, as I learned when I was ten, destroys the magic for you. But then, I used to think with excitement, you can do it! Then you have the power to make others see the magic! So in fifth grade, when Josh, Matt, and I put on an elaborate magic show for the 3rd and 4th graders at Timber Trace elementary school, we knew all the secrets, the “sleights of hand,” the deception involved…but we gave an illusion to others. An odd relationship, which certainly does not hold up under conservation constraints: you start out with no magic—just gimmicks and distractions—produce something mysterious to others, creating a sensation of wonder that is practically universal to all who see it… all except for you, who actually created it! It is truly something from nothing.

So does one have to disassemble God and destroy all of the magic experienced in his presence during youth to be his practitioner, to spread that same sensation? I wonder. Maybe that is what makes God so holy…perhaps the true magic is that, if it is done right, both sides—the teacher and the student—will feel the same sense of mystery and reverence.

Sort of like a Theorem on the Wonder of God: And all who encounter god in either youth or old age, in either naivety or scepticism, on either the pulpit or in the congregation, shall find Him with wonder and curiosity, shall have no way to understand Him, and shall come back to Him without reason or explanation. And, for the matter, maybe the best magicians can still believe in the very magic they know is an illusion.

If this does turn out to be true, perhaps there’s one prayer I should say every day: Blessed art thou, Lord our God, king of the universe, who commanded us to see you even when we were blind, who commanded us to hear you when we were deaf, and commanded to know you even when we reasoned you out of existence.

Blue Collar Scholar

I've been meeting quite mysteriously with several professors lately. Not mysteriously as in like, at maskerade parties, discussing things with them in an alternate persona while fox trotting. Mysteriously, as in going to them during office hours and making scheduled appointments without really knowing why.


Why? What could they tell me? "It's okay"?" You'll make it"? "Just go for it. Be a professor"? Was this what I was looking for? Someone to give me a more serious garantee for my time investment? I don't know...

But, some of them do say that. Others say other things. But why? What could they possibly say that I haven't heard before?


Well, Dr. Johnson, for one, said a few things that were quite different and honest. He talked about how being a professor isn't something you do with a job in mind. It's something that you work towards because you love the research and time spent studying, in addition (and in some ways subjugated) to teaching. He said that, during his graduate school, he had to reduce his time spent studying to 80 hours a week. Reduce!

Johnson's point was well taken: Being a scholar is a huge commitment, an enormous amount of work, and not something enjoyably erudite. It's dirty 9am-5pm translation business. Working to become a professor is roll-up-your-sleeves, blue collar book work.

Dr. Watt, whose opinion usually fares on the "You can do it if you believe you can!" side of the argument, also made a pointed comment. She said that everybody can have a job, and most people do. You don't become an academian to have a job. You can do that by going into law or advertising or banking. You go into academics to learn and discover and struggle with esoteric topics. The job is means to an end (furthering your research through a funded institution), not the end, and you must go into a PhD or even Masters program knowing that if all you come out with is the degree and no job, you will still be satisfied that you did it.

So, what of it? I don't really know. In some ways, these conversations reinforced my already decisive stance that I cannot undertake the voyage of humanities/classics grad school right now--not when my passion for research and devotion to intellectual studies is not rock-solid. I am not sold on Socrates or attached to Achilles just yet. I could still be a wine merchant. (E&J Gallo sales jobs are looking oddly promising and I have a potentially helpful connection.) And honestly, what could be a more classically-inspired career than being a wine merchant?

Seriously though, before I determine what or if I want to devote a lifetime to intellectual studies, I need to have my own odysseys, first. Wine merchant or corporate businessman, history teacher in Sicilia or New Zealand sheep herder...the thought of settling on one thing right now feels extremely wrong for me. And that's one thing that I know for certain.

Saint Fransisco of the Nature Preserve

San Felasco State Park is pretty awesome. After going on a hike last Sunday with my bio teacher and a few other students, I realized that going out into a forest in the morning is a very fulfilling thing. Not that I didn't know it, but...I guess just hadn't remembered.


Not too many animals on such a chilly day, but a lot of ground and a lot of green.


There was only five of us: four students and my teacher- and it was really a perfect number. Our teacher, with little fauna to point out, aside from giant banana spiders and the occassional bird, spoke to us about the different kinds of plant habitats that are extant in Northern Florida. It was interesting to look at the forest and understand that the trees that existed here, the shrubs, the entire ecosystem was not random or haphazard, but was uniquely tailored to the local environment (although, I now somewhat embarassingly admit that I don't remember many of the exact species or conditions Dr. Hapeman spoke of. I'm sure that a concrete knowledge of nature is only acquired through hearing those sorts of things over and over again...)


The whole excursion, in some odd way that only I might parallel, reminded me of going through museums in Italy with Dr. Westin, my art history teacher. In both museums and in nature, it is possible to walk around and look right at something--a painting or a tree--and miss so much information encoded in it.


For example, knowing a painting is from the late fifteenth century Florence and not mid-sixteenth century Venice can convey quite a lot about the context of the work. Likewise, to understand why there are decidiuous trees in Florida as was as coniferous can help better recognize the type of biome we live in.


It is this sort of "knowledge makes things richer" approach that I think has all but evaporated from the school system's methodology. Not necessarily from the school system, because, obviously, I'm a product of that system and I've apparently gotten the message. However, the current methodology certainly doesn't encourage students to connect learning with an enhanced view of our world. Right now, even in IB, it was often "Here is this fact--know it." Now, IB did have a lot of moments which related history, language, and literature to each other and to their greater place in the world. Yet, to convey a message so it's carried out of the classroom into the world with the student...that's a whole other monumental step.

Anyhow, as for San Felasco, I would definitely like to go back soon, perhaps when more fauna appear in the Floridian flora. Also, Dr. Hapeman seems to have a growing fan club of students who want to accompany him on various trips to Florida state parks, and I think I'd like to keep tagging along. Knowing more about the environment, how things have evolved and formed together, makes the outdoors seem even more beautiful and important to preserve.

I sometimes see myself in a role to express that importance to those who are too far from state parks to see it for themselves, perhaps those in the government and in private business. But that's whole other story.