648A — Where does it say you gotta live and die here?
this post was written on Friday, May 15th, 2020. i'm not sure if it's actually that well-written, but it has thoughts i want to share, so here goes
Today was a pretty good day.
I got up this morning and attended the 21W thesis presentations, which was quite an excellent use of two hours of my time, as I got to hear people read from their theses, mostly fiction, one a poetry collection. Everything I heard was pretty good, and the advisors were remarkably supportive, which really makes me look forwards to working with them in the future. I also think that, although there's a lot of distance between my writing and how well-planned-out it is with theirs, I am fairly confident that with sufficient time, effort, and classes, I can eventually make it to that level of writing. Maybe that's Dunning-Kruger effect—in fact, I suspect that it is likely Dunning-Kruger effect, given that I have scarcely finished a single creative writing project since junior fall—but I suppose that we'll find out soon enough. I also found that hearing the first-person narratives read out loud really distracted me at the beginning, which was a really strange feeling—is it too personal? Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. I ought to write more fiction—after all, I am a creative writing major.
My task for essentially the rest of the day was to finish Educated, which drew me in more and more with time as a piece of writing, as I tried to find out how the story might end. The thesis presentations ended around 10, and excluding small breaks for lunch and whatnot, I essentially read until around 5 PM, when I finally finished it. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. In fact, I feel like over the past few books I've read, my empathy has been globally low, and I've been reading just for the sake of it. I've written about feeling like I no longer know how to take care of people, how to say the right thing, and this seems connected. I am desperately projecting onto others, onto other situations, but I'm not really sure what about my internal state has changed to necessitate that.
I've talked to one of my friends about this. He's argued that like relearning how to be empathetic in the future should be easier. That this is transient, and that I'll never forget empathy; that it is a skill just like riding a bike. The part of me that fundamentally wants to believe that I am and will always be a good person wants to buy this argument, and to some extent he's right. I also, feel, however, that empathy is a habit. A freshman fall me who had kept their copy of the Nicomachean Ethics with them would probably fall back to the thoughts of "virtue is a habit." That I am losing the habit of being empathetic, that I am slowly just becoming a worse person again. That I legitimately just can't find the way for my soul to connect with other human beings even if I cognitively want to, and if over time this holds up I'll slowly forget the value of empathy as well. I'll be some caricatured, naïve early high school me again, never matured, never figured things out. I feel like I've been losing this ability since November, at least, and I've never picked it back up.
What does this have to do with Educated? I finished the book, but I felt like I ultimately couldn't get it. I started with some skepticism about childhood memories and moved to genuinely caring about the outcomes for the characters, but didn't—maybe couldn't—form a serious connection with the narrator. I understood it at a 30000 feet level. I highlighted statements that had made me laugh or reminded me of something about my situation. "My situation." I project my life onto everything around to, from teaching someone "how to take the T" to thoughts about "how a person ought to weigh their special obligations to kin"; the impostor syndrome, the coming from a different background from everyone else. I never share the exact feelings.
As I write this I think I'm starting to consider that what has changed is not how much I connect with it, but how bad I feel about not being able to connect to it. I used to say a lot that "obviously I don't get everything that you're going through, but I'm here for you and I want to help talk you through this" or something in that vein. Now, I just feel strange writing that. "I don't get everything that you're going through." Maybe I feel worse about it than I used to. Or maybe I just don't feel anything as strongly anymore. Gah.
I watched the live MIT 2.00B (Toy Product Design) Presentations after finishing Educated, which was perfectly timed. The Course 2's [mechanical engineers] are all so creative, and they also filmed some of the most creative videos I've seen in a while too, which was exceptionally cool. I also had a lot of friends in 2.00B, so getting to see what they've been working on was also really nice, although the best was still the one I'd gotten to see last Friday at the baseball fields. After two hours of these presentations, it was dinner time, and after dinner I just sort of chatted with a friend of mine for about an hour. There's nothing making me go to bed early today, but at the moment I just sort of want to, since I'm certainly not going to make progress on anything else.
Tomorrow, information theory and physics, most likely. I'm probably also going to start another blog project in regards to the end of the semester, so perhaps that will also come out soon. Grades have been trickling in, and so far I've passed 45 units (i.e. 15 credits, or 3.75 classes) worth of classes. Just two 24 units left to go—18.100B, which I suspect will take some time to grade the final assignment, and CC.802, which I still need to take the final in. Should be a good time.
Today was a pretty good day.
I got up this morning and attended the 21W thesis presentations, which was quite an excellent use of two hours of my time, as I got to hear people read from their theses, mostly fiction, one a poetry collection. Everything I heard was pretty good, and the advisors were remarkably supportive, which really makes me look forwards to working with them in the future. I also think that, although there's a lot of distance between my writing and how well-planned-out it is with theirs, I am fairly confident that with sufficient time, effort, and classes, I can eventually make it to that level of writing. Maybe that's Dunning-Kruger effect—in fact, I suspect that it is likely Dunning-Kruger effect, given that I have scarcely finished a single creative writing project since junior fall—but I suppose that we'll find out soon enough. I also found that hearing the first-person narratives read out loud really distracted me at the beginning, which was a really strange feeling—is it too personal? Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. I ought to write more fiction—after all, I am a creative writing major.
My task for essentially the rest of the day was to finish Educated, which drew me in more and more with time as a piece of writing, as I tried to find out how the story might end. The thesis presentations ended around 10, and excluding small breaks for lunch and whatnot, I essentially read until around 5 PM, when I finally finished it. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. In fact, I feel like over the past few books I've read, my empathy has been globally low, and I've been reading just for the sake of it. I've written about feeling like I no longer know how to take care of people, how to say the right thing, and this seems connected. I am desperately projecting onto others, onto other situations, but I'm not really sure what about my internal state has changed to necessitate that.
I've talked to one of my friends about this. He's argued that like relearning how to be empathetic in the future should be easier. That this is transient, and that I'll never forget empathy; that it is a skill just like riding a bike. The part of me that fundamentally wants to believe that I am and will always be a good person wants to buy this argument, and to some extent he's right. I also, feel, however, that empathy is a habit. A freshman fall me who had kept their copy of the Nicomachean Ethics with them would probably fall back to the thoughts of "virtue is a habit." That I am losing the habit of being empathetic, that I am slowly just becoming a worse person again. That I legitimately just can't find the way for my soul to connect with other human beings even if I cognitively want to, and if over time this holds up I'll slowly forget the value of empathy as well. I'll be some caricatured, naïve early high school me again, never matured, never figured things out. I feel like I've been losing this ability since November, at least, and I've never picked it back up.
What does this have to do with Educated? I finished the book, but I felt like I ultimately couldn't get it. I started with some skepticism about childhood memories and moved to genuinely caring about the outcomes for the characters, but didn't—maybe couldn't—form a serious connection with the narrator. I understood it at a 30000 feet level. I highlighted statements that had made me laugh or reminded me of something about my situation. "My situation." I project my life onto everything around to, from teaching someone "how to take the T" to thoughts about "how a person ought to weigh their special obligations to kin"; the impostor syndrome, the coming from a different background from everyone else. I never share the exact feelings.
As I write this I think I'm starting to consider that what has changed is not how much I connect with it, but how bad I feel about not being able to connect to it. I used to say a lot that "obviously I don't get everything that you're going through, but I'm here for you and I want to help talk you through this" or something in that vein. Now, I just feel strange writing that. "I don't get everything that you're going through." Maybe I feel worse about it than I used to. Or maybe I just don't feel anything as strongly anymore. Gah.
I watched the live MIT 2.00B (Toy Product Design) Presentations after finishing Educated, which was perfectly timed. The Course 2's [mechanical engineers] are all so creative, and they also filmed some of the most creative videos I've seen in a while too, which was exceptionally cool. I also had a lot of friends in 2.00B, so getting to see what they've been working on was also really nice, although the best was still the one I'd gotten to see last Friday at the baseball fields. After two hours of these presentations, it was dinner time, and after dinner I just sort of chatted with a friend of mine for about an hour. There's nothing making me go to bed early today, but at the moment I just sort of want to, since I'm certainly not going to make progress on anything else.
Tomorrow, information theory and physics, most likely. I'm probably also going to start another blog project in regards to the end of the semester, so perhaps that will also come out soon. Grades have been trickling in, and so far I've passed 45 units (i.e. 15 credits, or 3.75 classes) worth of classes. Just two 24 units left to go—18.100B, which I suspect will take some time to grade the final assignment, and CC.802, which I still need to take the final in. Should be a good time.
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