How Time Flies...

So, a couple weeks ago my nephew turned one year old. I intended to write a post acknowledging this at the time but honestly was just not feeling much like blogging in general and certainly not up to addressing such a momentous occasion. I saw him via Skype, but it is difficult to fully appreciate the amount of change he has gone through in the brief time he has been on this earth. Sooner than I realize, he will be wandering about on his own two feet, speaking in coherent sentences, deciding what he likes and dislikes, and generally on his way to becoming the fully grown person he will be someday. My wish for him is that the sense of awe, wonder and curiosity we all experience so freely when we are young will never actually fade. Too often as adults we frame the world around us in the context of our preconceptions as opposed to letting our observations frame our conceptions. It is difficult to be such a fleeting presence in his life at this point, though hopefully I will get to spend more time with him later when I at least live on the same continent. Anyway, he seemed to have a great day full of cake, presents and play, and even though I doubt he will remember this one, I wish I could have been there.

This is the winter of my discontent...

So, this winter clearly will never end. I honestly have a hard time believing the sun will ever again provide enough warmth to remove the deep chill instilled within me over the past 5 months. Each day the temperatures refuse to climb and the cold rain continues to fall. My skin longs for the warmth of direct sunlight and to shed the weight of winter layers. Each day I think perhaps Spring has finally arrived, I step outside to feel the chill in the air and watch the sky cloud over. As the flowers have started to bloom, I know in my mind my belief that Spring and Summer will never arrive cannot be true, but my heart tells me there is no hope to ever feel truly warm again. Honestly, I do not know how societies in these high latitudes have survived such a relentless force for so long each year over the course of generations and millenia.

The Economic Crisis

So, my favorite economic new source, the NPR Planet Money podcast has been interviewing many experts and laypersons looking for a consensus on where the blame falls for this global economic quagmire in which we find ourselves. Though I certainly understand the real meaning of these segments, namely analyzing the public responses which will dictate public policy and seeking out the root causes of our financial woes so that we might not make the same mistakes again ... at least not for a while. Since they like to strip things down and simplify them, I can see how the segment has taken on the theme of being a blame game. However, I do wonder if this is the most productive outlets for either our despair or our curiosity. See, I recognize that the fault lies within the lack of regulation in Washington, the irresponsibility and short-sightedness of bankers, and in general a lack of realistic expectations and spending habits that spread from government policies to corporations and banks to each individual. But the word blame itself is such a pejorative and suggests that we can find one perpetrator. It suggests that the solution is simpler than I know it to be and suggests the responsibility be pushed off of ourselves and onto those we elected or those banks we were happy to cheer when we saw our retirement accounts each year.

In particular, I avoided trying to get a loan at one point I knew would be a dangerous investment if ever the market turned, thought we were seeing unsustainable growth in the cost of housing and basic transportation, but I never looked deeper into what that meant for finance. Our schools continue to decrease the expectations they have for their graduates while the financial institutions controlling their wealth and well-being use more and more complicated mathematical models and global markets require more mathematical literacy. Still, though I believed such things were a problem, I did not raise my voice or a finger to do something about it, raise awareness, have my questions heard or even understand how deeply our economic growth had come to rely on the housing market alone.

In general, we were all complicit in this culture of greed, which is why we are all suffering the consequences of the fact that much of the wealth accumulated over the past two decades has been relatively artificial. As a result, our own citizens plus the emerging markets and global financial structures our economy supports will suffer for years until we start investing in education, technology and sustainable growth industries that leaves behind a legacy of more than a balance sheet. Finance is an essential part of the global economy and should continue to be so, but in a way that produces genuine growth and develops new jobs and infrastructure that can be used to generate the jobs, materials and technologies of the future.

The nature of being complicit to government policies against your better judgment because you are not directly involved in their implementation and are seeing some benefit is particularly interesting to me given where I am living right now. It seems clear that even the people my age are very aware of the fact that their not so distant relatives were complicit in some way with the consequences of National Socialism and the crimes of their government during that era. There seems to be an unspoken sadness in this realization, but also a knowledge that they themselves would never allow such a thing to take place again without a fight. So, rather than asking how much their grandparents or families are to blame for those crimes, they accept that mistakes were made with dire consequences, swallow their pride and try to move forward with a peaceful, progressive society with the goal of avoiding at all costs the arrogance and mistakes of their ancestors. The past is always acknowledged, the universal blame accepted, but the future has become the focus. It is always important to remember the past, but if you dwell on it, you can stop moving forward.

Hellfire and Brimstone

Last night I was given a ticket to an orchestral performance at the largest Protestant church in Bonn. Mostly in Europe people tend to visit the grand, ornate, elaborately crafted Catholic cathedrals, but the Kreuzkirche was far more familiar to me given the churches in my youth. Though it was certainly less ostentatious, the building was still designed in the style of many churches in this region. The ceiling was high and domed, providing a large, open space. It is clear the architects knew how to evoke the lofty and rapturous feelings of worship. Plus, since music can be a powerful tool in that endeavor, it helps that such designs also tend to have great acoustics.

The downside of this is that from my limited experiences all German churches are just incredibly drafty during the winter. Though I was surrounded by people plus wearing a sweater and a scarf, I had to put my winter coat back on after the first piece and still felt near hypothermia by the end of the performance. I suppose that is the key to the title of the post, because I figured though the design of the church felt familiar, most of those in my youth had hellfire, brimstone and central heat. From what I know about the Protestant message in Germany, they are less likely to warm you up by getting you riled up from the pulpit, and since it is disrespectful to wear a winter hat, I just wonder how you stay warm during winter services. I imagine the design makes the relatively cool summer services quite a relief during a hot day, but man, it was cold.

Despite my near metabolic shutdown, the concert itself featured an Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss, a Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and a Symphony by Arnold Mendelssohn, who actually was the music director at the Kreuzkirche for about 3 years. The performances were good and the music rather moving.

The Arnold Mendelssohn piece moved between light, happy melodies on the strings and horns and dark, deep percussive moments. I wish my German had improved more than it has, because then perhaps I could read the program in more detail to know the true story behind the piece. However, I could only imagine it referred to love somehow. Love for anything or anyone tends to take such turns.

Sadly, I must confess despite the beauty of Strauss' Oboe piece, somehow I still imagine a duck whenever I hear an oboe solo due to some Peter and the Wolf programming as a child. Moving past that though, I did gain a new respect for the mournful, sombre timbre the oboe is capable of generating. It seemed to be a piece about loss, or at least that is how I took it.

Though the violin concerto was impressively technical and the soloist was certainly good, the instrument did not blow me away like other violin performances have unfortunately. The violin always astounds me because when played by a virtuoso, it can take on several harmonious voices at once. So, though I did enjoy the lively piece, I suppose I expected more from his violin, but that says more about my expectations than his abilities really.

My Nerd Credentials

So, tonight I completed one of the requirements I had promised to fulfill when I was accepted with qualifications into Nerd Society by watching the movie Labyrinth. First of all, let me just say it was awesome and I wish terribly that I had seen it as a kid. Jennifer Connelly would have totally been my nerd crush in middle school.

There were several nerd requirements I had to fulfill after I had applied for admission, such as reading the Lord of the Rings (check), learning to play chess (poorly ... but check) and other nerd-worthy games (Settlers of Catan record ... undefeated at 1-0 :) ), solving the Rubik's Cube (check), going through a classic rock phase (Led Zeppelin mostly), etc. Many of my peers seemed to be light years beyond me in their nerd experiences from childhood.

I think the real issue is that I was not born into nerd kind. In other words, I am a bit of a Muggle-born nerd if you will, or a Mudblood if you are discriminatory. In fact, though my father is an engineer, he seems to have been reasonably popular and athletic as a young man. My mother in particular seems to always make new friends easily. My Papa even played football for his admittedly small high school in Southeastern Oklahoma.

Still, as a kid somehow I found myself alone reading bird watching and star gazing books while sitting in my treehouse I had named "Nova Labs." My clothes never matched except for when I was extremely young and refused to wear anything but the color red. Even now I am wearing a t-shirt with a cardigan, khakis and tennis shoes. In elementary school, I remember reading pretty much every Beverly Cleary and joke book I could find. Once I brought Handel's Messiah to my 4th grade class as my favorite Christmas song. Needless to say we did not get very far into it before my class revolted. I always loved science, knew an endless supply of pointless trivia and managed to injure myself in almost every sporting endeavor I have ever pursued. At 14, upon being able to finally leave my street on a beat up tenspeed, I rode all over my small town often talking or singing to myself. Now, for a small town in Northern Oklahoma, a dude traveling on a bike might be rare but not unheard of, whereas a dude going all over town engaging himself in conversation was probably noticed. Finally, in high school I found others like me and began to understand what I was. In college, I was free to explore Nerd-dom in anyway I saw fit. I did yoga three times a week with my OU hat on backwards the whole time, experimented with various forms of facial hair, took drum lessons, participated in student government, read British literature and played so much minesweeper I had to delete it from my computer.

In the end, especially after being accepted to graduate school in math, it was really no question I would be admitted in the nerd ranks, but the nerd authorities thought my prerequisites looked weak. Sadly, this is kind of the story of my life. However, in the end I have found the resolve to overcome my lack of a proper preparation, usually by doing twice as much work as those around me to catch up. Hopefully at some point on something in my life, I will actually do so.

The End of the Rainbow

So, even though I know many more devout observers of St. Patrick's Day than myself, I did somewhat miss the festivity of this pseudo-holiday. Perhaps it is that I am part Irish, but I do believe there is something in the hope of a pinch from a bonny lass, the promise of a couple beers and beer related songs with friends, and generally a smile on everyone's face. I know you sticklers out there will tell me bonny lass is a Scottish phrase, but it is the best I can do. After all, any foreign accent I try to emulate winds up deteriorating into a poor excuse for an abrupt Scot. Anyway, I hope you all had a pleasant evening and if anything used the day as an excuse to end your evening with an exquisite, frothy beverage of the highest quality from somewhere near the Emerald Isle. My personal favorite is Belhaven, though again I recognize this is Scottish. Man, I am really quite a traitor to my heritage.

Statistical Physics

So, a long time ago in college a friend and I devised what we felt was an ingenious sociological theory based around the concept of entropy. Basically, we saw those around us constantly making choices to increase the amount of chaos and disorder in their lives. Eventually, I attempted to generalize this theory into my theory of convenience, which is also based around standard physical theory. Namely, that in the absence of external forces a system will naturally collapse to the state requiring the least amount of energy. In the end, order and harmony require more energy than the alternative.

Life really can be quite well described in terms of basic physical laws. Tonight in particular I am thinking about the conservation of momentum and energy. Over the last two weeks, I had my routine of working, reading and writing completely disrupted. Clearly at minimum there has been a major slowdown in my blog post output. I poured energy into different channels and now find myself struggling to even get started back along the path to productivity. It is somewhat difficult as many things at work are now in the hands of my collaborators, which is both a good time to rest and a good time to get some other things done if I can find the energy. However, different projects require different ways of thinking, different sources, different solutions, so even moving from project to project can feel like there is definitely a transition in the momentum of your thinking. Sadly, by changing directions it means inevitably there will be an instant where your mind is not moving at all. I particularly hate these empty sad moments where I feel I have lost the thing that most defines me, my wits. Slowly but surely however I am now regaining strength, clearing my head and building up energy.

This happens to me with walking as well. Sometimes if I am feeling particularly tired and worn down, I feel like I will never be able to make it to where I need to go. If I take a couple days off and finally rest my legs, when it comes time to go to work on Monday morning even though I have done the walk hundreds of times, the distance feels insurmountable. The first step is the hardest, but after that I find the load on my legs and back becomes lighter, my mind clears and before I know it, I am well on my way.

I am trying to get back to that point in all other walks of life as well. All I need is that first step, that small push to shift my momentum. Once you have that, it actually takes a great deal of energy to stop.

This Way For The Gas

Tonight I finished the book, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Thadeus Borowski. Borowski was a young Polish writer and scholar, imprisoned by the Nazis for attending underground university courses in Warsaw and held in Auschwitz throughout the war. In 1951, not long after being freed from Auschwitz, making it through the US controlled relocation camps and finally making it back home to reunite with his wife, he committed suicide.

It so happened that Borowski arrived just a few weeks after the camp had stopped sending "Aryans" to the gas chamber and hence was spared to a fate as a laborer in the camp. Though he was eventually allowed to receive packages of food from home, he still lived in a miserable state, surrounded by death, pushed to the limits of his strength, starving, and forced to sit idly by while inconceivable cruelties and sufferings occurred around him.

The beauty of these stories really comes in the way they portray the victims more so than in the way they portray the perpetrators. When I think of concentration camps, I like to think of there being a dignity in the survivors. I want to believe they maintained their humanity and lived heroically because of that. Meanwhile, I demonize the SS guards and gas chamber attendants. Of course, these men and women were forced into their plight and should not be held accountable, but the truth is that there is no such thing as dignity and humanity in such atrocious conditions, merely survival. Survival can entail a number of undignified and inhumane acts towards your fellow man, towards old friends, even family members.

The way in which Borowski captures the numbness, the mundane feeling of watching and even guiding several thousand people to a quick but painful death is truly disturbing. Though you want someone to intervene, it seems to make sense that largely people care more about the food, treasure or articles of clothing they can collect from those who will be dead in minutes. In truth, how the Holocaust even happened, the very idea of hating groups of people so much plus finding several thousand people to share in that hatred and act so cruelly just boggles my mind. I truly cannot conceive of perpetrating such atrocities. However, Borowski puts you in that camp and introduces you to the atrocities committed in simply surviving such a force. This, rather disturbingly, I could understand. In the end, I could not say whether it was more dignified to walk directly into the gas chamber to your death or to survive at the cost of your conceptions of humanity, society and decency. Honestly, I am not sure Borowski could answer this question either.

The line that I found most disturbing was spoken when referring to his lost friends with whom he used to debate politics and literature. He says, "And today I shall still challenge their acceptance of the infectious idea of the all-powerful, aggressive state, their awe for the evil whose only defect is that it is not our own." Borowski's friends seemed convinced that had they been in power and been able to persecute those who would persecute them, perhaps that would not be evil. Through his experiences Borowski knew evil infects both those who commit the acts and those against whom the acts are committed. This book will occupy my mind for some time as I try to figure out how or why such things occur, while recognizing such acts are still occurring today all over the world on scales both large and small. What can one do to protect that seemingly very fragile idea of humanity, both for those who would steal the notion from someone and those who have had the idea stolen from them?

Our Modern Political History.

Last night I rented both Milk and W. on iTunes. Now, as expected, Milk was really an amazing film and W. did underwhelm in many regards. However, they both focused on an America I like to kid myself does not exist. A country whose government spends so much time and energy on war and bigotry in the name of our values, we have come to simply be accustomed to such things.

Whereas I want to believe most citizens would say they honestly believe in providing human rights to everyone and hope for peace, can this be true if we live in a country where they regularly legislate hatred and march to war with the willing complicity of the majority? What if we spent the same time and energy providing access to information and education? Would our citizens allow their values to be distorted by their leaders if they were trained in critical thinking and knew how to recognize a reasoned argument?

Instead, we live in a country where evidence is rejected and ignored if it challenges something we are told to believe. Rather than seeking multiple sources of information, gathering as many facts as possible, making a reasoned decision and possibly adjusting your beliefs, we are actually taught standing firm and willingly remaining ignorant is somehow more noble. It was quite appauling to learn that one of the strongest supporters of both promoting discrimmination against homosexuals, as well as actively pursuing them being banned from public service in education or government was originally from Oklahoma. It made me sad my home state could produce someone with such backwards ideas, who would not look at the data, assess the situation and allow the possibility that something different is not necessarily a threat to their way of life, faith or family.

The way we managed Iraq was due to a similar reasoning. It relies on the flawed assumption and that everyone wants and should want the same way of life. Rather than learning about the region, assessing the risks, knowing the culture and figuring out how to successfully rebuild the country, we just assumed that freedom and democracy would somehow make everything work. We worry greatly about Islamic extremists in this country, while somehow rejecting the idea that extremism in any form can be dangerous. Meanwhile, nationalist and religious extremists take stances in our country we could find equally reprehensible. Let us not forget that Christianity itself brought about the Dark Ages and the Crusades, not to mention many and varied lesser acts of ignorance, hypocrisy and bloodshed even today.

There is such a thing as cultural evolution, with which in our country we should be rather familiar. Ideas, freedoms and equal rights do not come immediately from an open society, but rather manifest themselves slowly as those brave dissenters convince their families, friends, neighbors and co-workers that something is unjust. Part of this journey comes from separating out pieces of religious texts that encourage bigotry as things written by fallible men centuries in the past, who were unaware of any real notion of equality as we know it today. However, as people consider the ideas and people around them, they can realize something they had been taught to believe may be flawed and slowly change their minds. That is real progress. We see people accept the messages of peace, love and generosity in religion, while rejecting those of ignorance, hate and revenge. The Christianity most of us like to think about only teaches humility, generosity, kindness and simplicity. To be honest, our prosperity makes that a luxury, which through economic advancement and opening a dialogue, I do believe we could help other faiths to do the same on a large scale. However, all those messages of hate and ignorance are still there, and strict interpretations of religious texts will always hinder progress societally, scientifically, philosophically and personally.

This country has seen unbelievable progress because our founders despite being largely racist, sexist, pompous, old white men believed in allowing, even encouraging, open dissent. They realized that sometimes society and government will have it wrong, and the people need to be able to say so, even if it starts with only a few willing to speak loudly enough to be heard.

Fare thee well old friend.

This week I lost my only companion on this journey through Europe alone ... my umbrella. Knowing that Bonn was a bit of a wet, cold city during much of the year, on my third day here I went to a store and bought a sturdy, finely crafted wooden umbrella with a black canvas cover and dark green trim. It was a comfort during my first few weeks here and accompanied me, occasionally to great ridicule, everywhere I went. At times, it even came in handy for the purpose it had been designed, but mostly it was just always pleasant to hear the reassuring click of the umbrella tip moving in stride with my steps. I felt it suited me well and certainly provided some needed support as a walking stick. As my walks grew longer it occasionally provided a distraction by trying to time my step and stride such that the end would land exactly in the middle of the many cobblestones and concrete slabs lining the streets here. Eventually, it will be replaced but it will always be remembered.

It is done.

So, my workshop is over. It was nice to see my colleagues, learn about new results, collaborate and socialize. However, it was also tiring I must say. We had a cancellation, so I wound up having to prepare and give a talk. Anyway, I will be looking forward to some rest and getting back to work next week.

Chronic Dissatisfaction

So, the sun is out today and the temperatures are just slightly below cool but right above cold. In other words, it is a rather nice day outside. Rather than causing the elation I felt a day like this would bring, it is having the reverse effect. Today is a day I would like to share, so experiencing it alone is rather disappointing. At some point I assume the jolt in Vitamin D will kick in, causing my brain to finally release all kinds of wonderful chemicals that will serve to alter my mood for the better. However, right now the brightness of the day is being overshadowed by the darkness of my disposition.

Of course, even if someone were here to share this day with me, having not traveled with me on the journey there would still be a disconnect between us. I suppose that is the difficulty of a solitary endeavor. In the end, people can see only how far you have come, not the path you took to get there. And at least for me, the path usually turns out to be more meaningful than the destination.