Beyond Good and Evil

Dear blog,

This is not about updates. This is about emotional hippy dippy. Some folks have related concern.

There are some things in my worldview that need to be considered before one may understand how my emotional hippy dippy works with regards to cancer. I present a quote from a film, My Dinner with André:

WALLY: Yeah, but I mean, I would never give up my electric blanket, André. I mean, because New York is cold in the winter, I mean, our apartment is cold. It's a difficult environment! I mean, our lives are tough enough as it is, I'm not looking for ways to get rid of the few things that provide relief and comfort, I mean, on the contrary! I'm looking for more comfort, because the world is very abrasive, I mean, I'm trying to protect myself, because really there are these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

End quote. I recommend reading the entire transcript or watching the film for those who are not familiar. Here is another quote:

And the ocean itself turns out to be one enormous engine of decay. Seawater corrodes vessels with amazing speed-rusts them, exfoliates paint, strips varnish, dulls shine, coats ships' hulls with barnacles and kelp and a vague and ubiquitous nautical snot that seems like death incarnate.

End quote. That was from David Foster Wallace, the essay which title I used for the previous post. The astute reader may note a theme through the two quotes. This theme runs through my view of the world and how I deal with it.

The world is a cruel, cold, 'abrasive' 'engine of decay' if you will. This is the functional aspect of the world, anyway. You all should know that the world is also a glorious morass of hilarity and gorgeous landscape; taradiddles and forays and adventure; love &c. But that's not a functional view. Functionally, the world, with no particular consistent speed, annihilates absolutely everything. Set something down and sooner or later it will be gone. Animals will have sapped all of the nutrients, plants will have upended it with their roots and cracked it into many parts and solar radiation will chip at its chemical bonds until rain and wind and meteors ultimately render it to cosmic dust.

The world is also in no shape or form fair. I have had some great luck in my life. For instance, I was not born into an impoverished and disease ridden town with a life expectancy in the twenties. I was not consumed by fevers or pirates as a youth. Other such things all included. I have also been ejected from a program as a result of politics. I have been poorly advised before I knew to question the advice of advisers. I have been lied to to prevent me from getting jobs. I have had my car acquire more repair costs than its value at my poorest time at only 100k miles.

How did I deal with these things? The same way that one must, in my view, deal with the perpetual death machine that is the universe. By moving, thoughtfully, rapidly, and without rest. When an army is outmatched, its only option is to move, at all times, thoughtfully, rapidly. It must outmaneuver and be absolutely relentless to have even the barest chance. When I was ejected for unfair reasons without recourse, on a Friday, by Monday I was 100 miles away, signing up for a temporary position and contacting people for a room to rent in that area. It was the closest work, the most guaranteed work. I thought about it and I hustled on what I determined to be an effective plan. If I had waited a week to get my bearings, I would have missed that opportunity.

Cancer is just one of life's neatest tricks for me. It may be on a greater scale than ice followed by snow that is nigh impossible to chip from a walk, but it's the same style. The carelessness of the universe at the inconvenience of the human, best fought by well reasoned and relentless attack. It is this same mentality, I wish to add, which is very necessary to get by in a graduate program. Even with passion, if there is no ability to work without rest for hours, days, weeks, months, years, then failure is guaranteed.

This year I have studied. I have expanded and condensed. I derived, integrated, extrapolated and inferred. I supposed and concluded. I contradicted and implied, computed, researched and proved. I revised and edited and inquired. I reviewed, memorized, copied and regurgitated. I can prove the statement of any theorem in An Introduction to Analysis by Kirkwood. I can use a strange intuition to tackle any exercise in Algebra by Gallien. I can search JSTOR for an Arhangelskii essay which hints at the answer to a topology problem, just to know what I'm trying to prove. I have spent 60 hours on a single problem. I never solved it. Life isn't fair.

For three years previous to graduate school I lost >100 pounds. I ran, walked, biked, swam, lifted, stretched, calisthenicized, yogaed, climbed, clamboured, pilatesed, fought and wrangled, all the time for years to accomplish the goal. I have been fighting the natural tendency towards decay for a while now and I'm damn good at it. So if I don't seem too put out about the cancer thing, that's why.

Wanna wrestle? We can wrestle.
Ian Hogan.