“The prevailing framework presumes that people have a natural right to keep the full bounty their talents and efforts command in the labor market.  Given the extent to which incomes rest on public investment financed by taxes, that presumption has never made much sense.  It’s further undercut by accumulating evidence on the profound extent to which the labor market success of even highly talented, hardworking people depends strongly on random events.  And although there may be substantial psychological utility in the common tendency to claim moral credit for one’s own success, the fact remains that even talent and the capacity for hard work are themselves heavily dependent on factors over which we have limited control.”

- Robert Frank

…

The other day I was in a store listening to a love song being played, and it occurred to me how these songs just didn’t belong to me; I can’t claim them, in the sense that, I have no face to attach to the words, no ecstatic or burning or dreamy memories evoked.  All those love songs are empty and fictional to me as of yet.  They are flat.  Not by some principle, but merely by lack of corresponding experience.  And meanwhile at least half (three quarters?) the music, literature, and movies of the whole world go on and on about this one topic.

Some people talk about finding a spouse like it’s a sequential step in life’s progression, like losing your baby teeth, or going to college.  But it’s really not.  Think about all the people you’ve run into today, this week, or even over the course of your life.  From the random people you just passed by on the street to those you know more intimately.  Each with their own strangenesses, peculiarities.  And now think of all your own strangenesses, which you know deeply.  How many of them could you imagine being your spouse?  For those strangenesses to complement each other.  It would take a miracle, for you two to happen to get to know each other, for you to like them, for them to like you back, to still like each other after the dreamy glow fades and the flaws become plain.  Maybe not for some, but for those of us who consider ourselves more strange than most, quite a miracle.  In my eyes it’s a search problem with an infinitesimal match rate.  In light of this, what a mystery that so much of the world is married!  Miracles abound when we look long enough to notice them.

Hello! Washington Square Park is beautiful these days, both during the day and during the night.  There is a lot to be thankful for, especially today.  A day of good news.

(change of topic) It reoccurred to me lately the freedom I have in my hands to shape my life’s work.  To find a topic worthy of research and work on it for years, or even a lifetime.  It’s a daunting, overwhelming freedom, when you think about how it has to be novel and meaningful and publishable and all those scary qualities that the phd job market looks for, and even stops looking like freedom after a while…  but nonetheless, technically, a big wide open freedom.  And for a while I dream like a child, about the big questions I might answer, the important puzzles I might solve.

All the while, the older I get the more quaint my dreams for life become.  All I want are a good day’s work and a good day’s rest, company, food, health, and an underlying joy (is that not so quaint after all?).  It sounds funny to say that… like I’m pretending to be one of those gentle wise old people when I’m really just a foolish young person.  But I do mostly feel that way.  As was pointed out to me on a coincidentally arranged but very encouraging meeting with what seems to me a messenger:

This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot.  [...] For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts – Ecclesiastes 5:18,20

Today was one of those days when my mind doubts and wonders, where could I be instead, what could I be doing instead, of being here, of doing this.  I travel backwards in my decision tree and imagine myself in the shoes of a me who had made different choices – what if I had majored in that, what if I had taken that job, what if I had gotten involved there? (and on a lighter note, what if I had sold that stock at its peak half a year ago, before it proceeded to plummet? )  If I wanted to, is it too late to start becoming something else?  …  I think questioning is healthy, especially questioning one’s current situation, but as far as what-ifs about the past, those just tire you down.  Not only are one’s imaginings of hypothetical universes inaccurate and skimpy in detail, but the simple fact is you walked past that decision node, and you can’t go back.  Nothing to be done about it.  My (hard to follow) advice to those who indulge in these what-ifs like me is this:  whatever branch of that tree you find yourself in now, you will be used for good in the bigger story being weaved, if you keep your mind on the bigger story.  Every branch can be used for good, every branch will be redeemed.  Though I can’t say I’m 100% sure about it, this is my consolation and great hope.

Homework (“homework” sounds so innocent and child-like, but think of something more monster like to get an idea) has kept me very busy these past few weeks and promise a few more busy weeks to come.  Tonight I put it all down (relatively) early and came home though, just to rest and have some quiet peace, and write one of these long soliloquies.

Current subway reading – The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles 1969.  It’s a strange book, but some passages I wanted to take notes on:

“The Origin of Species is a triumph of generalization, not specialization; and even if you could prove to me that the latter would have been better for Charles the ungifted scientist, I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. It is not that amateurs can afford to dabble everywhere; they ought to dabble everywhere, and damn the scientific prigs who try to shut them up in some narrow oubliette.”

“These two men’s was a world without tyranny of specialization; and I would not have you – nor would Dr. Grogan, as you will see – confuse progress with happiness.”

(As supporting evidence for the author’s claim I attest that all this amateur blog writing has indeed been good for my soul.)

“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”

Whenever I find myself bitterly envying someone else, I will make myself remember Sarah (central character in the book).  I understand her envy very much, and her questioning of the “justice of existence.” So I couldn’t blame her, but still, it struck me how ugly it was, her prideful wallowing in self-reinforced misery and defiance of everything because fate hadn’t dealt her the hand she thought she deserved, or at least deserved no less than anyone else.  I have “why” questions also, and I believe that a society should do its best to smooth out the inequalities of fate’s dealings, but when it comes to attitude, it is a far, far more beautiful life to take what you have and tend to it as best you can, than to sit in a pool of resentment.

Also, randomly, I would like to quote one more thing:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. – Ephesians 5:25-27

The part I dwelt on most: chapter 6 (The Forbidden Pool) of The Two Towers, when Frodo calls out to Smeagol (Gollum) to save him.

Ever greater heights of absurdity. So what will you do with your children? Join the madness? Let them be? Move your family to a more laid back part of the world? (Though with increasing connectivity and globalization, it’s hard to say if such corners of the world will be left) Opt out of children altogether?