Pressure, discipline, creativity

Dear readers:

I find myself at a unique point in my life. I’m overwhelmed with things I’m expected to do, and even when I throw my best effort into the fight it seems like I’ll inevitably fail at something. I feel somewhat uncertain about how things are going to go.

Can I do it? Can I find within myself the discipline I need to face the coming onslaught?

The pressure, even when I handle it gracefully and without stressing myself out, has the terrifying effect of separating me from my soul — as if in a magnetic field, experiencing strong Zeeman splitting — and if this continues for much longer I fear I’ll have lost a part of myself. On the other hand, maybe this separation process is good for me; maybe I’m becoming organized, gaining the ability to transform myself at my own will into a homework-crunching robot, thereby becoming more time-efficient and freeing up hours to devote to more introspective, exploratory things.

The fear, of course, is that once I’ve gotten used to locking myself into robot-mode I’ll be unable to snap back out of it. I value my expressive side so much that I’d give up the chance at a more productive, successful future if that was the price for retaining it — in short, I will not sell my soul to further my career. My passions run deep but they are founded firmly in my thoughts and beliefs and ideas about what it means to be human, to exist as we do in the Universe, to have such a short amount of time to experience all of life. I don’t like the idea of numbing my emotions just to make myself a better worker.

This is a naive view to hold, I realize. “Tom, think about it for a moment – if you stay the same undisciplined procrastinator you’ll never grow as a person and you won’t be able to pull yourself together confidently enough to achieve your dreams.” And I agree with this sentiment. I don’t want to stay lazy and disorganized.

But artistic vision and creativity are born from an innate frustration with status quo and a deep, personal desire to make things different. The process of disciplining oneself necessarily kills off a big part of spontaneous fidgeting that could act as creative seed for unconventional ideas. It’s somewhat ludicrous for someone like me, a student of science who’s never created art nor is on track to do so, to declare to the world: “I will never cease to be expressive!” — what could possibly be the point? If my goal was to make a big impact on the world by having the best, most original artistic vision, I’m pretty fucking far behind in that race; any art I am ever to create (in any sense: writing, music, drawing, whatever) will be invariably dwarfed by those among my peers who have actually devoted their lives to what they make or do. So — why do I persist with this seemingly futile endeavor? Why, when I’ve already established the detrimental effects this wandering exploration might have on my career, don’t I give up?

It’s because the way I see the world is fundamentally shaped by whether I make an effort to have a creative mind — to be conscious of details for their own sake and for the way they interact and make things interesting. I like this creative process. I like learning about all the different things I encounter and trying to understand how the world works, and I also like trying to recombine ideas and objects and observations in new and interesting ways. And when in life I find myself in crappy situations, it’s incredibly satisfying (if not remedial – though it’s far from a panacea) to be able to channel raw emotions into some kind of medium.

These are ideas that I never really had until this past year. I cannot really describe where the transformation came from (or whether it was in fact a transformation — maybe I’m just getting better at capturing ideas that I had held in some vague form), but I think it’s tied to all the new things I’m experiencing. Seeing more of the world, getting into new and unusual social situations, reading about new ideas, taking on different responsibilities — in more ways than one, I’m learning, and I’d like to believe that I’m expanding my mind as well. I guess I’ve picked the right time in my life to do so.

Getting back to my original question: Can I find the discipline within myself to achieve my goals? Only time will tell. But one thing has begun to interest me; perhaps in spite of my waffling, rambling thoughts on being disciplined versus creative, I’ve started to notice that simply by bringing these ideas out into the open I can clear my mind, figure out what I want to do, and then do it. I’m still not perfect, and will never be, but I’m curious to see how far this cycle will go.

Photography: I

Hello, dear readers!

My dear friend Will has loaned me a camera! He did this because I expressed an interest in taking up photography as a more serious hobby. I’ve been thinking for a while about getting a nice camera – I think that it’s pretty neat to be able to capture the, uh, beauty of the world around us and show it to other people. It’s really great that Will is letting me try this out with his camera (THANK YOU WILL!) so I can decide whether it’s worth an investment. So far: I’ve had lots of fun taking pictures and think I’d like to continue! And this summer would be a really, really good time for me to have a good camera, so I hope I can learn quick.

My favorite pictures from the past weekish I’ve uploaded to Picasa here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/t.rice90

This whole photography endeavour is kind of exciting, and I’m really new to it. Actually, I have a lot of questions about the whole thing – about what it means to be a photographer and how to improve what I’ve got so far.

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Finally free

Before I was all like

But then I was like

Games

So today I went to the Google Games, an event at the Google Cambridge office involving a bunch of geeky competitive events.

Highlights:

• There was a music-identification round (part of a larger trivia round), during which they rickrolled us and played awesome music like the Firefly theme, Korobeiniki, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar, and Dragostea Din Tei. Unfortunately, I was unable to correctly name Korobeiniki, as I have long held the misconception that it is called Kalinka. (I’ve been disabused of the notion before, but still couldn’t remember the right name.)
• There was a puzzle round; I spent the last half hour or so working through about 70 cases of one puzzle, looking for the one that satisfied certain conditions. At the one-minute-remaining mark, I had three cases left. I managed to eliminate one more of them, and then sent in the other two as answers, feeling sure that I had missed the answer. Instead, one of them was correct! I was both happy and sad.
• I was really excited to play Wii Sports Resort (there were supposed to be rounds in rowing, basketball, skydiving, and swordplay), and I was the only one on the team who’d played before, so we kind of figured I’d do them all. Then they said each person should only do one event, so we decided to be good competitors (they almost definitely wouldn’t've noticed had I done them all), and two other people did the first two events (I wanted to do swordplay). Then time ran short and the last two rounds were canceled. I was and remain severely disappointed.
• We were the highest-ranking Harvard team (the first five spots went to MIT). Success!
• Foosball. Playing with new people was fun. There was a left-handed table there (you shoot left instead of right); interesting, but it was also a really bad table.

Sorry guys

We’re all dropping out so we can tour the country and smoke lots of marijuana. It’s been real.

Conflicted

A few quick updates: All of us have been extremely busy over the past month, and this cut into our free/sleeping/blogging time.  Also, Duncan and I stopped recording our sleep times for various reasons, so no complete dataset will be posted at the end of the semester (I know, disappointing, right?).

In the spirit of Tom’s introspective posts, this one is a little more serious than the fun bullshit that I usually write about.

At the beginning of the semester, my roommates and I made a resolution to work out at least once a week.  Quincy basement has a gym, so we really didn’t have an excuse not to go.  I’ve always loved weightlifting; there’s something special about the state of pleasure you get after working your body to exhaustion.  I also savor the soreness that follows for a few days after a good workout (I’m probably a bit masochistic).  Maybe it’s just the change of chemical balances in the brain, but my outlook on life is always better after weightlifting.  I feel optimistic.

On a Sunday night a few weeks ago, I experienced a rare feeling of satisfaction with my life.  I had spent the entire morning and afternoon learning.  I wasn’t simply studying like I sometimes do by flipping through the pages just enough to complete an assignment; I was actually trying to engage myself with the  acquisition of new knowledge.  I do not attempt the latter nearly as often as I should.  After a productive day of absorbing new ideas, my roommates and I went to the gym.  As I was walking back to my room afterwards, I discovered what makes me feel content: progress and improvement of myself, both physically and mentally.

You’re probably wondering what that horrendously broad description means.  Doesn’t everyone feel good after they get better at things?  Well, yes, but not exactly in the same way.  I am more focused on the process of improvement than on the end results.  For me, an ideal life might be one where I could pursue an intellectual activity as a career, such as playing chess professionally, and also have time for sports as a serious hobby (or combine the two for chess boxing).

I wouldn’t have to be the best at anything; I would be happy as long as I could constantly strive to improve my abilities and achieve the maximum amount that my potential allows.  Of course, this particular lifestyle is off-limits to me, but my general point is that I like the idea of making myself better at a skill that I enjoy.  I don’t think I would mind going to college for a little while longer if it meant I could learn more things and also make myself more physically fit.  I find it so strange that I only have two more years of structured classes left.

I’ve been wondering how to reconcile the differences between my ideal life and the potential paths that I will take in the future.  If I enjoy making myself smarter and stronger, then why not just become a professor who lifts weights?  Alas, academia is definitely not the right choice for me.  I’m not going to lie; my materialism alters my career incentives.  I want to be wealthy, but not excessively.  I want to live in a big house and drive a nice car.  I want to be worry-free when it comes to expenses.  I want to be able to take a break and travel the world at any time.   I want to be my own boss and not report to a superior from 9 to 5.  I want the freedom that is associated with being out of the rat race.  None of these are guaranteed if I choose a finance job, but the probability of achieving them is much lower if I choose an career in academia over one in finance.

If I desire both money and knowledge, how do I balance the two?

My hope is that a career in finance will open enough doors for me that I can eventually leave it to pursue a more satisfying goal, e.g. starting my own company.  A friend of mine once joked, “you know it’s bad when you’re already planning an exit strategy.”

He’s probably right, but I hope it’ll be worth it.

Note: I added the chess boxing video because I was afraid of people being turned away by too much text.