Picking out all the stars that we like

It's been a while and I really can't say that I've been percolating and collecting interesting thoughts to share.  It's really not like that anymore.  I wished that writing for me was more of something that I could do objectively.  That I could objectively create art, create writing, create beauty without feeling so involved, so vested, without being such a big part of it, so entwined and refined into it, such that these pixels can barely be differentiated from the reality of the matter.  Such that the sounds of my life has faded away into a kind of oblivion-like space, quiet like the sea at night, birds whistling through the air, the pulsating waves its own kind of silence, its own kind of boundary, and yet, in those spaces, somehow those sounds echo through everything and you're in a kind of oblivion.

I guess that's what I'm looking for in these minutes that I am taking to type this.  I am looking to oblivate.  To wipe a clean sheet over memories, to reduce past poignancy into nothing-ness.  Why?  Because there's a beauty in not having anything, in expelling the past that enroaches on the present like a precipice casting a shadow on the city.  It can be a beautiful mountain, like a beautiful memory, but the shadow that it casts could either be constructive or destructive interference, freeing or constraining, elucidating or clouding.  And right now, all my memories, all these pieces that has made me who I am I feel is making the signals more complex, the waveforms more noisy and jagged and for once I am feeling like I can't fourier transform my way out of this one, can't find the melody precisely, like finding the harmonics on a cello and perhaps the point is this noise, perhaps, like modern compositions, the sense of discomfort is interesting and essential and valuable, perhaps it was what I was looking for here.  But today, I am tired of the noise, tired of the ceaseless nothingness that is mocked by the poignancy of my past, and today I want to retreat to Mozart by a seashore, to the howling of the winds and the water on my ankles, to the sun and skin of the matter, and I just want to spread my arms and feel, and laugh, and look at you, and smile.

"I know it's late but I can't help but think here,

That the day hasn't shown all its cards.

Now its out to the stars of the ocean

Let's not retrace our steps to the car.

Now your eyelids they faint and they shiver

Like the wings of the last birds to leave

For the south, for the heat, for no reason

I watch as they fly for sheer joy.

Picking out all the stars that we like 

Between finger and thumb

You laugh as you pass me the night

And I hold it so close to my chest

With your hands in my hands

You say this is just how we'll rest

Until the light turns to sound"

Snow Patrol, "Dark Roman Wine"

I think that there is truth to the notion that when you say something, when you put something down, it no longer is a part of you.  Suddenly it's out there, free, and rampaging.  Perhaps that is why we have to be careful of what we put out there.  In the case that we find pieces of our thoughts galloping like frazzled horses across the terrain of our reality.

What I Am Doing Here

It difficult sometimes to grab who you are with your hand, flip it into your palm and be able to rotate it in your hand.  I've realized that perhaps the reason for this is because I am transient in a big way.  Who I am is transient, and honestly I've come to realize that who I am is the combination of me with my environment.  The core self, if she does exist in my mind, doesn't exist in reality, for it is my actions, my thoughts with regard to the reality around me that actually plays in this world, that lives and breathes in this world.

So why is all this important?  I guess this first year, this year, I plan to learn.  I plan to reassess and redetermine who it is that I am through my experiences.  And also because I have an idea of who I am now; an developing idea if you will.  A start incubated by a rich last four years and two important years of intricate and brilliant people and opportunities.  I've built a self, and feel less fragile, less transient because of it, less permeable to my environment and more aware of how it acts, how it functions, the beauty and challenges within them.

So what am I doing here?  In this empty space?  I am here to work through my thoughts the way that I worked through physics problems.  It is perhaps through writing things down that I can systemically run through new thoughts - if anything it will be fun to challenge myself with theories, philosophies, and ideologies.  To have them teach me more about how I see things currently, and other ways to see things.  So here I plan to explore.  To learn rigorously.  To lead a purposeful and exploratory existence this year.  And to build a room of my own here.

So today I am reading about the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric and the assumption under which it operates that the universe looks the same everywhere, in all directions (isotropic).  But what is interesting is that this is hugely untrue on small scales.

And I am also working on hydrating a polymer and understanding what ratio of cationic polymer and anionic surfactant will lead to a more ordered structure.

One last thing for this year: I will be honest and straight forward about what I am learning (it's important to be honest with yourself about how much you know).

I can make you happy, make your dreams come true.

Hmm..wrote this a while back in the summer, perhaps it's time to actually publish it.

Listening to an Adele song.  It's funny, I'm here surrounded by data, by tasks, by lists and lists, and all I want to do is sit in the sun and read.  I used to read a ridiculous amount, checking books out in the morning in middle school, reading through all of my classes.  I always had a book under the desk when slides went up or when the in class problem was finished.  Then I would pick out another one, the decision was always easy, and I was always at home there in the library, in this world of other worlds, I was home.

I learned so much from these characters, these people made of words and sentences, of punctuation marks and chapter breaks.  My morality comes from these characters, those wonderfully flawed characters that I sat and spoke with, that followed me for weeks afterwards, those who with their individual smiles would tell me stories when classes were dull.  They made me feel so much, and I fell in love with different characters, I stumbled over different stories, beautiful scenes, and I started to see life through different lenses, constantly, inexplicably falling through words, through worlds.

Now I just read poetry, and I think in poetry and I write in poetry because prose just all of a sudden seems too elaborate.  Sentence structure seems so unwieldy, just another impediment to what the author is trying so hard to say.  But then I read the first line of a book, the first paragraph of a story, and I can't imagine this book in a poem.  And I think about the details, about the lines flowing across a page, about these characters whose faces emerge and you can't help but to say hello, how are you?  A sincere hello on your part, a sincere reply on theirs and you're away.  

The reason that I bring this up now is because I think I'm missing something.  Just a little part of myself, just a little part of something.  And maybe this missing feeling is like the curiosity that has followed me through all these years.  Just another trademark that I'm going to bear, but one that's going to help drive me, help moderate me, bridge gaps to new places, to new experiences.  I've gained so much in this race against time; I've learned discipline in spades, learned a lot of heat and mass and thermodynamics.  I've learned about basic physics and how cells work, how cancer cells work, and I love all that I know, and have done, and learned and I wouldn't trade it for more days in the sun.  But I do at times still want those days in the sun.  I still want to get to know those characters, to have them be a part of me.  I want to see the world a little differently, to exchange my focused lenses for someone else's.  The difficult part is that we lose time when we lose focus.  I lose time when I'm looking at the world through the lens of someone who sees things differently, who cares about things in different extents.  I've never been good about staying detached to these characters, but then again, perhaps these last few years have taught me, have given me the discipline to stay detached.  

To tell you the truth, I don't know if I want that feeling of moderation.  But like birthmarks and trademarks, the imperceptible ones that we can't see, they're still there.  Scars or trophies, reminders of the experiences we've been through, the lessons won, the lessons that we need to hold onto. 

Finding Pascal (Hello There!)

So I used to write a lot once.  All of my thoughts, spurting endlessly, ceaselessly onto a page.  I articulated my fears, my irrationality, I tried to deduce logic, flood it with optimism and somehow come out of all these words with something.  A thought perhaps, a logic even better; very rarely was it precise or in engineering terms, "a well defined problem with all necessary assumptions given to you."

So here I am, finding Pascal, put it, I am looking for that which "knows logic which logic knows not of."  Basically this is just a convoluted way of saying that I am going to try to write down my thoughts.

But a few basic things:
1) No promises that I am going to post frequently.
2) I still feel quite odd writing open-endly into an abyss where anyone or no one may be reading this.
3) It's pouring outside, but I really want to go for a run.
4) I reserve the right to be obsequious and random.
5) I'm learning GRE words so I feel that the word choices are going to be ridiculous in this blog.
6) I'm happy that you're here reading this!

Hurray.  Ok, time for some real food.