Life's Rules through a Big Blue Guy

Cross-posted on my tumblr, but I felt like also posting it here.

I came to a strange realization this week while talking to a friend of mine going through a difficult time in life, and they consistently blaming themselves for the problems that they faced. I felt like that was too hard of a conclusion.

I thought back to the movie Aladdin, and remembered the three limitations that Genie placed on his ability to grant wishes:

1. Can’t wish for more wishes
2. Can’t make anyone fall in love.
3. Can’t bring anyone back from the dead.

I looked at these statements and extrapolated their meaning into a more metaphorical context. It’s a bit simplistic, I know, but the fact that these subtle understandings have been present in my life since I was a 2 year old in the 1990s still blew my mind:

1. In our lives we have limited resources, the most notable of which is time. We have to make decisions on how we spend our lives, and where we use the time that we have left. Are we going to be workaholics or lazy bums? Or somewhere in between? Are we going to have a career where we’re constantly looking forward to the weekend or where everyday is an unforeseen adventure? One way of living isn’t intrinsically better than the other, and we naturally look for balances in these things. There are pros and cons to every decision we make in our lives, but we can’t always have the best of both (or more) worlds. We have to make the best of what we’ve got.

2. We can’t really change the way other people feel about much anything; the way they feel about us, the way they feel about politics or religion. The most that we can do is be polite in an interview, not be assholes to our friends, rationalize and explain the issues that our important to us in a way that other people can relate to. A single memory lapse in picking up dry cleaning for a significant other isn’t the factor that makes them fall out of love with you. To an extent, I don’t really believe that we can control our thoughts and emotions; we can only control our actions corresponding to them. I have trouble sleeping at night because I think of death and eternity, always. There’s not a lot I can do to “force” myself to think of bunnies and rainbows instead, just like there’s not a lot you can do to “force” yourself to love another person if you really don’t feel it anymore.

3. This one is really direct and a little cliche, I feel, but I suppose we can expect this from a children’s movie. We can’t change the past. We can’t change the things we’ve said or done and we can’t bring back people who have left from our lives. The only thing we can do is take lessons we’ve learned from mistakes and use them in our future. Whether we plan for it or otherwise.
Sometimes I wish that my younger self had made these realizations sooner.

Materialism and Maturity

I am under the impression that most of my peers have transcended beyond considering the value of their material possessions in and of themselves very high, if at all elevated. I realize that it's one of those processes of becoming an adult; that the concept of "mine" is quite cumbersome and even on some level naively barbaric. I throw entitlement in general into the same category, but on a different plane, because while it's downright ignorant to feel entitled to replicable objects like televisions or mp3 players (or even physical money, more on this later), it's not so immature to feel entitled to a constitutional right or consciousness or health, because these things are not as easily replaced in the event of their loss or theft.

The other day I had a conversation with Colin about the material possessions that are most important to me, and in this order, they're probably:

1. My Computer
2. My Phone
3. My Car
4. My class notes
5. My textbooks for the current semester
6. My glasses (can't do much without them)
7. My wardrobe

I realized that it isn't so much the objects themselves that mattered to me, but rather, the functions that they served to me that are important.

My computer, while being a collection of metals and semiconductors and magnetic disks and electric circuits that has high monetary value, is also a means through which I communicate, work, and learn. Using my computer is a critical aspect of my education and of my job. And (along with my phone) it's a means through which I communicate to friends, coworkers, peers, as well as stay informed about the world around me. While the data I have on my computer is valuable to me and would be detrimental to me if it fell in the wrong hands, it is not a great concern to me because

• my computer's home folder is encrypted and is completely inaccessible  without my master password, and I can remotely wipe my phone from any computer with a web browser
• most of my valuable emails and all of my contacts are all stored in online servers with Gmail and MobileMe, and my most important documents (school, work) are all backed up 3 times over (Dropbox, MobileMe, and on my physical external backup disk). 
• my music collection is backed up on my physical external disk

I don't have to use this particular computer to continue living my life, my MacBook Pro is merely a conduit through which I access and use this data, and my phone is merely a conduit through which I access my peers and family, and the internet.

My car is merely a means for me to get from place to another, to get to the grocery store and back, and to help me move my stuff when I travel. It's a means for me to pick my little brother up from school if I have to, or pick up a stranded friend. If I were to get my car stolen or if it were to crash, insurance would probably cover a good portion of the replacement cost, and as long as I had my own life and health I could live on without it for a while. It is a task for which most automobiles are suited, and mine isn't particularly special. My newly acquired bike could help me get around in the meantime.

That being said, the aforementioned possessions are not entirely easy to replace for me even if I could continue without them (but the point is that they are replaceable), so I take great care to maintain my car and computer and my phone, not abusing them. That's why they're at the top of my list.

The loss of my class notes and textbooks would be detrimental to my semester and my education, which is one of the things I value the most that isn't a material possession of mine. However, I have digital copies of most of my books and I've been scanning most of my notes, which are digitally backed up online and elsewhere. However, looking at it in a conduit perspective, my notes are merely a means through which I attain that education.

My wardrobe is simply a means to keep myself warm and not naked, and to look professional in the workplace and in interviews. While the monetary worth of my wardrobe is probably significant, for the most part, clothes are clothes. It doesn't make me a better or more admirable person that my jacket or coat is from a particular store. The cotton that a shirt is made out of doesn't clothe me any less when I buy it on sale than when I pay full price. While my particular wardrobe is probably irreplaceable, the function that it serves can be fulfilled by any wardrobe. It doesn't matter where I bought my wallet or my shoes, it just matters that it can hold my money and that my shoes keep my feet from getting frostbite. I don't subscribe to fashion magazines for a reason, these things are irrelevant; I don't need a bunch of other people (who benefit from me buying clothes) telling me how I should dress.

I could continue with any number of material possessions I have (I try not to own useless things), but my point is that these objects are worthless to me irrespective of their function. While I've taken time out of my day for this tirade against materialism, I must acknowledge that as an engineer, I'm biased to value the functions of material possessions over other properties. Aesthetic considerations are for the most part, inconsequential to me.

"Like I say, money has no value, it's just how you spend it." 

—Jason Compson IV, The Sound and the Fury

It just seems to me that bragging or discussing these other properties ('well I have this kind of car', 'look at this brand of jacket that I just got', 'your brand is inferior to my brand because of xyz irrelevant properties') is just a stuck-up egotistical outlet that reeks of a 7-year old yelling 'hey, look at me, I'm important because of what I have, not because of what I can do'. It disgusts me. It's a shallow misconception that should be remedied in kids as soon as possible.

Spring Success 2011 revs up into gear

While my updates have been rather sporadic for the most part, a lot has happened since December. Most notably, I've been working for the Combustion Lab here at school. For about a week straight I worked with Colin until later hours, and didn't get home sometimes until 2 or 3 am. That being said, it was quite fulfilling. I really like working in that lab, I like building some of the apparatuses that we use in our experiments. We made significant progress while simultaneously experiencing numerous setbacks. I even made progress on a project that was started after I joined the group, involving a chemiluminescence detector, taking photographs and plotting real life plots and graphs. This work will be presented in a poster in March, along with a paper with the other stuff worked on over the break, and my name will be included in the authorship. I never expected that this could happen so fast or so quickly, but I'm very grateful to Colin and the group for giving me these opportunities.

Right now I'm looking pretty closely at UC Berkeley and Stanford for graduate school (still looking for others). Berkeley because I like the programs they have in Fluid Mechanics and Combustion research, with a lot of tools at my disposal. I'm interested in Stanford because of their Center for Turbulence research, since turbulence is one of the things that I've come to be fascinated with over the last year. We'll see how these prospects go. I want to take a trip during spring break to visit Berkeley (while simultaneously traveling with friends), so I hope that comes to fruition. MIT is another option, but from what I've heard, I may not really like it there very well. However, rather then dismiss the option outright, I'm going to talk to some recruiters this spring who are supposedly visiting campus and gather my own conclusions from there.

I'm excited that I'm laying down these foundations for my future career, and that I really have the potential to go places.

One of the classes that I'm enrolled in this semester is a cross-listed graduate course that a few undergraduates are eligible to take. While I'm excited about the class, it also concerns me because I know that the pressure's on to perform well in a small class as an undergraduate student. Hell, I spent the better part of the last few hours writing a MATLAB function to help me solve one of my homework problems, not because the problem asked me to, but because it would make the problem a lot easier.

Fall Fail 2010 draws to a close

Well, I'm more than halfway done with my Bachelor's of science now. Somehow I managed to pull a 3.81 this semester even though I hated my life. This semester I took Heat Transfer (my favorite class) with its corresponding lab, Mechatronics (my least favorite class) with its corresponding lab, Engineering Communication (A Speech/Writing class) with Luke, and Engineering Finance with my friend Matt.

It was a terrible semester for a lot of reasons, some of which I've already explained. But I'm glad that things are sort of looking up now. My job at the Combustion Lab is going really well even though I technically haven't accomplished anything just yet. The grad student that I work with is hilarious, in a really good way. I hope this will be a good couple of years. We're running some experiments with jet fuel this week, hopefully it will go as planned.

I enjoyed working on my communication project with Luke this semester. I learned a lot and I've become really self conscious about where I throw my trash. Did you know that producing a recycled aluminum can takes only 10% of the energy of producing an aluminum can from its mineral ore? Or that the density of aluminum in some landfills is greater than it is in natural deposits in nature? I'm going to do what I can to encourage people to be more green about their waste, even if they're not exactly green about their energy. There's only so much energy out there to be had. I'm reminded of the short science fiction story, "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. It's a good one and it's available online, luckily, otherwise I wouldn't have read it.

For now, I'm going to enjoy working by myself for a while in Austin over winter break. I don't know what else to say about it. And, I'll actually get to spend New Year's in San Antonio this year, so maybe I'll get to hang out with my friends for once this time.

Difficulties

Anything worth having isn't easy to get.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Just need to get to the end of this week

Anxiety attacks; not fun

I wish I knew the future

My summer schedule

Wake up early
Go to work
Fight traffic
Workworkwork
Go home/run errands
Fight traffic
Get home hours later, too tired to do anything
Veg for a couple of hours
Contemplate the fact that most of your friends are out of town
Go to bed before midnight
sleepsleepsleep

Repeat as necessary for the cash monies.