http://farmerandfarmer.org/medicine/index.html →
democratization of the web? (via atlin)
There’s no such thing as fact anymore, only opinion. The closest thing we have to fact is “common opinion”. Everything is an opinion. The way you dress is an expression of your opinion. Your religious beliefs are your opinion. The music you turn up loud is your opinion. For most people it’s easier to just agree. For me the hardest thing is to ‘just’ agree and that is what sparks creativity, the feeling that something can be better, the feeling that something’s missing. The feeling that something’s needed.
— yeezy
(Source: putthison.com)
man on wire
Have you ever witnessed a tightrope walker? It’s a magical sight: hovering in thin air, thousands of feet above ground, a slender step from death – a high wire artist moves liberally and gracefully from one end to the other.
***
He’s fucking pissed. Shit. He’s rushing to get out of his car, and he’s fucking pissed.
I expect him to start screaming profanities and pull a handgun on us. But as fast as his (already beat-to-hell) car has just slammed into ours, he takes off running. Down the side street lined with accumulations of crumbling, decrepit wood planks masquerading as houses, he takes off running.
I don’t care why he’s running – whether the car was stolen, whether there was crack in the trunk, or whether he just didn’t have insurance, I don’t care. He probably needs to run more than I need to chase him. A few moments after his frantic departure, another man appears, jumps in the driver’s seat, and speeds away in the same car that has just devastated ours.
Fuck it. I just want to go home. Things like this don’t happen at home.
It’s only been ten days, yet my heart aches for her warmth. Upon our eventual reunion, (m)any words aren’t needed. Our eyes lock with passionate respect, silently reaching a mutual agreement – it’s been ten days too long.
***
Some mornings, I go to Detroit. I pull myself out of bed, collect the team in my truck, and trek forty-seven miles to a foreign land.
Detroit is a city known more for its ruins, not its opportunities. I can’t recall a single trip that didn’t provide some reminder of the city’s sundry struggles. From the many homeless persons probing for change, to the hit and run accident that left us in a daze, Detroit seldom fails to meet its reputation.
But, despite the (let’s just call them) complications, the chance to create a work of art – a business that celebrates the vivacious ideas, creativity, and community percolating through the cracks of Detroit – has me coming back for more.
***
Some mornings, I stay at home. I pull her towards me, collect the mess of her hair in my hands, and trek a short distance from one pillow to the next.
My relationship with her is a surprising one. I’m an Asian American from a (technically speaking) village in Michigan. She’s an Orthodox Jew from Boston, Massachusetts. It’s funny – if I want to see her on a Friday night, I’ll have to go searching for her because she won’t use her phone (or any electricity, for that matter). She won’t eat most of the food I cook (I’m a great chef, mind you). More notably, she could never bring me home to her parents.
But, despite the (let’s just call them) complications, the chance to create a work of art – a relationship that celebrates the passion, vulnerability, and reckless love that’s alive in every movement – has me coming back for more.
At least for now.
***
When I consider the realities surrounding my own life, the image of a man on wire comes to mind. It’s the idealized image of how I’ve chosen to live: anxiously performing some sort of precarious wire act, suspending between two realities, and being lifted by the tension – the tension that’s resulted from my home and my future pulling decisively in two directions.
There’s no question that my life at home and my life in Detroit beckon with equal plea, and some days one seems to pull more urgently than the other. Experiencing the discomfort of this tension, I find myself asking: These two forces can’t exist together, can they?
One is comforting. The other is uncertain.
One is tangible. The other is elusive.
One is today. The other is tomorrow.
But the reality is that, in a few short weeks, I’ll be forced to let go of home. It’s a home that I’ve grown to know and love profoundly over the past four years. And, each time I step in the car to Detroit, I’m reminded of that reality: friends will depart; she will move on; Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan will become just another star on my map.
Trying to come face to face with the facts hasn’t been the easiest of things to do. And I swear I’ve been here before.
Four years ago, my arrival at the University was the most demanding transition I’ve ever had to contend with. During my first months in Ann Arbor, I latched onto people I had known from high school; I drove back on the weekends to see my girlfriend; I spent hours on the phone, lamenting to friends about how awful and plastic the people at Michigan seemed. In short, I made every attempt I could to hold onto my world at home.
Four years later, I’m faced with a similar set of circumstances – my home and my future speaking resiliently to the same desire: to create a work of art. So every morning, I’m faced with stepping out onto the wire.
Almost forty years ago, a true high wire artist, Philippe Petit, stepped off the South Tower of the former World Trade Center onto a steel cable not thicker than the diameter of a quarter. He made eight crossings between the two towers, floating a quarter-mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan. The police authorities were quickly notified. In attempting to take Petit into custody, one officer said this of his experience:
“Upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh, and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire. And when he got to the building, we asked him to get off the high wire, but, instead, he turned around and ran back out into the middle! He was bouncing up and down! His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again. Unbelievable, really… Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.”
In that beautiful performance, the magic came not as Philippe stood safely on either end but as he danced on the wire.
When I picture Philippe’s fateful dance and let my imagination run wild, I can’t help but wonder: what will become of my high wire act? Will the tension slip away? Will I free fall to oblivion? Or will I remain paralyzed on one end of the wire?
***
Much as I could never hold on to the things that reminded me of my high school life, I’ll never be able to put “home” in my pocket and take it with me wherever I go. And despite my fear of losing touch with the things I call home, part of me is dying to believe that life isn’t lived standing safely on one end of the wire.
Beauty emerges when the high wire artist moves across the cable with elegance – freed by the tension resulting from two realities anchored firmly on each end. Reminded of the chance to create a true work of art, I can and must expect this of myself:
Become the high wire artist.
Trust in the tension.
Dance upon it.
Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind… life would have seemed to me empty.
— Einstein
vampire squid loses a tentacle →
In my English class last week, we workshopped a paper whose topic detailed the inner struggle of a senior undergrad, choosing between medical school and working for Goldman Sachs. Our professor (respectful and encouraging of all humans’ desire to “scratch their itch”) has made it his personal project to help this particular troubled soul reconsider his decision to defer Michigan Med and head to work for none other than the infamous Vampire Squid (Goldman Sachs).
It’s interesting to note the position my peers — we’re all still rather naive and idealistic, even those in pursuit of careers that promise boatloads of money — on the verge of the beginning of their careers. Twenty years from now, many of them will be calling the shots and shaping the culture of these banks. Twenty years from now, I wonder if the story surrounding these institutions will have changed. From the sounds of this former Goldman exec’s parting words, there might be little to hope for.
sundays
me: “I hope that when I get older, Sundays would more relieving than anything.”
a beautiful girl: “When you can exhale nice and deep, roll around in covers reading old books that you read when you were younger, and newspapers, and tea. Sipping. Maybe even stay there all day. Until the sipping becomes wine and books become films and there will be a beautiful woman enjoying it all with you. If you want that, of course.
Because love, warm heartedness, and inner comfort are what I find holy for a holy day.”
information revolution?
the simple reality that we have access to all the information in the world doesn’t change:
1. our ability to process it
2. our interest in it
3. our imagination to think of what to do with it
People already using Siri to find innovative solutions to everyday problems.
“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”
thank you, steve.
“The Interview was all but complete when I met Jobs at a celebrity-filled birthday party for a youngster in New York City. As the evening progressed, I wandered around to discover that Jobs had gone off with the nine-year-old birthday boy to give him the gift he’d brought from California: a Macintosh computer. As I watched, he showed the boy how to sketch with the machine’s graphics program. Two other party guests wandered into the room and looked over Jobs’s shoulder. ‘Hmmm,’ said the first, Andy Warhol. ‘What is this? Look at this, Keith. This is incredible!’ The second guest, Keith Haring, the graffiti artist whose work now commands huge prices, went over. Warhol and Haring asked to take a turn at the Mac, and as I walked away, Warhol had just sat down to manipulate the mouse. ‘My God!’ he was saying, ‘I drew a circle!’ “
But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: ‘Older people sit down and ask, “What is it?” but the boy asks, “What can I do with it?”‘
