On The Shoulders Of Giants

I used to believe that my biggest asset was my sanity, that is my ability to reason, my ability to apply logics to problems. I have recently started to think that sanity only takes me so far, but what could take me even further is perhaps insanity, the ability to transcend reason, to make a leap of faith, to go where the logic would not take you. Perhaps Occam’s razor need not be true in all cases. Perhaps there is more than meets the eye.

In the world of start-ups, everybody talks about exit strategies. The venture capitalists provides the seed money, the business grows, breaks even and after about six years, venture capitalists want to cash out of their investment. Usually there are two options: initial public offering (going public in the stock market) or getting acquired by a bigger company.
I was thinking about the analogy between a start-up company and a person’s life. It seemed to me that planning for one’s death is like planing for a start-up’s exit. The very relevant question here is whether we believe in life after death or not, because the answer to this question can dramatically change one’s plans for one’s death. Is it possible to have an exit strategy that is independent of the answer to this question? Is it possible to prepare oneself for one’s death such that at the moment of death - assuming that there is such a moment, as in American Beauty - one can look back at their life and say “I lived a good life and I’m ready for my death”? Is it possible to live one’s life such that one could never be caught off-guard by death? To my limited understanding, it seems like it is possible. I hope I can live my life, such that whenever death visits me and I had a moment of reflection, I could say that magic phrase.

I have already made up my mind about who I want the next Israeli prime minister to be.

It is time for another daily wrap. I woke up an hour later than I had planned. I really needed the sleep. I got ready and drove Randi’s car to my old home. I packed up some stuff and went to school. I met with Bob, the lab manager. I got the instruction material I needed. I went to a meeting with other TAs and the professor. I had a salad at UCen. I went to my discussion section. I liked my students and I engaged them in a conversation about electromagnetic waves. It seemed like they appreciated it. I went to OISS and got an OPT application form. I went to the lab and I helped the students with their experiment. I took the bus back home. I read the WSJ on my way. There was an opinion piece about Inbev’s offer to buy Budweiser and the xenophobia around it. I got home, I did the dishes and I took a shower. I was browsing the web. Heather came home with her friend Jamie and we had a good conversation. Heather and I went to the liquor store and bought what we needed. I’m hanging out at home, watching George Carlin’s videos and Heather’s cat is hanging out with me.

I know this is politics, but that’s how I want my politics:

What does not commit itself to documentation, is perhaps the thing.

Dear audience,

As with most of the things I do in my life, this blog is an experiment with the goal of learning. I would like to ask ‘the silent majority’ to speak up every now and then. If you strongly agree, you disagree, you have a particular feeling with regards to one of the posts, I ask you to leave a short comment. I think this would greatly add to my learning experiment. It may also lead to some constructive discussions.

Best regards,
Iman

My intellects proceed with diesel power.

I haven’t written a daily wrap in a while, but today just calls for one. I got up and decided to stay home today. I worked until around noon and then I got very hungry. There was no food in the house. I called and ordered Chinese food. I paid with a credit card and completely forgot to tip the deliveryman. (Note to self: Find a way of paying him.) I sat on the couch multi-tasking: watching MSNBC and muting the commercials, eating Chinese food and browsing. TV was still talking about Hillary’s RFK comment. I guess, I only need to watch TV twice a week and due to the multi-day half-life of the news, I could still figure out what they were talking about without the risk of running into redundancy. I got tired of the TV and went back to my bedroom/office and continued work. I finished reading the FastCompany’s long article about China and Africa. I like this magazine. They ask good questions. I chatted with a friend and told him that I don’t have much hope for Africa. An hour later, he told me that he didn’t get the job that he so badly wanted and needed. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to tell him. I felt bad about talking to him about Africa on this hard day. Had I known…. Continued working. Around 7, I called my friend to console him but I didn’t have anything meaningful to say. He was at Borders, pondering his next move. I wrote a class paper on Standards of Competency for patients when making treatment decisions. Randi came home. She said her lesbian friend decided at the last minute not to go to Canada to see her family, because her traditional dad is still not accepting her. I got a message on Facebook by a guy from my entrepreneurship class and he said, I added you not because of the class but because you spoke up at the Horowitz event and I applaud you for that. I thanked him and said I’d be happy to do it anytime. This was the only positive note of this dissonant day.