I read a pretty great quote a couple of days ago from the short fiction writer Katherine Mansfield “Far better to write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.” I am guessing twitter isn’t even twaddle?

These days my writing has been pretty sporadic. This is despite the fact that I told myself (not resolved, those never happen) that I would write more frequently. There are certain periods when I feel confident and inspired and can’t wait to get everything down on paper. But more frequently, I doubt my ability to express myself, to be creative– and become very reluctant to write anything, anything at all.

I’m not a follower of the Eat, Pray, Love cult (I only read a portion of the book), however, the book’s author Elizabeth Gilbert has given a fantastic TED talk on how we can dissociate creativity from productivity, and make both possible. She discusses the origin of the word ‘genius’ which I really liked. The concept behind genius is very similar to mythology of the muses, but even more personal. According to the OED the word refers to classical Greco-Roman beliefs where genius was an individual tutelary god or spirit present in each person, providing him or her with a divine nature and governing his or her fortunes. Gilbert’s main point in the talk is that while creativity can’t be forced, when we sit down and work on a given project, sometimes a stroke of genius will flash by and since we’re already working we can take advantage of it. And even if it doesn’t come by– we’ve still accomplished something.

This semester is probably my most challenging in terms of materials and courseload, but I am also talking incredibly interesting courses. Most of my classes now are with less than thirty people, a big difference from the three-hundred and six-hundred seat classes I was taking even up to last semester (not a fan). So while I have hundreds of pages to read and write, the chance to discuss readings in seminars and work on projects gives me a lot more to talk about, to write about- and an opportunity to rid this fear of expressing myself/writing inadequately. In short, henceforth I shall twaddle while my genius will do the writing.

* Image Source – A really interesting NYT article on Randall Munroe, the genius behind xkcd.

This year, with its ups and downs, is coming to an end.

And there were some great ups. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to spend more time with my family, work an interesting job in the summer, and take some really challenging but enjoyable courses. In the spring I had a great time organizing the Montreal World Health Organization Simulation (MonWHO) as its Theme Director; and later launching the 5th volume of the McGill Science Undergraduate Research Journal as its Co-Editor-in-Chief. I read some great books this year, I believe more than all of the previous years combined thanks to… digitized books. As well, the summer festivals in the city, including Osheaga (Arcade Fire! Robyn! K’naan!), provided for great happiness for my ears. I’ve also been working on my own research project in a field I’m deeply passionate about, in Montreal which is emerging as a hub of neuroscience.

From every down I learnt a lesson. Don’t fall down on ice. It’s self-explanatory. If you do, do ask your physician how to use your crutches if you’re not sure (thanks to the kind gentleman who made me aware of the fact outside). Pride comes before the fall. So don’t be afraid to ask for help, and sometimes lean on people when you need it, there is tremendous kindness in the world. Time management is not exactly bunching things back to back, but ensuring that there is always padded time for unforseen circumstances– so you don’t end up in the back of a cab praying to every deity that you’ll make it to an important event in time.

I’d struggled for years with the fear of either being boxed into one field and missing out on a world of things to know and things to see, or being scattered all over the place without ever gaining deep insight and understanding of anything. But Life is not measured in absolutes– nor in coffee spoons. This year I learnt that we can allow many fields to inform and shape us– while we focus and prioritize what is most important to us, what we are most passionate about.

Going forward into the sixth year of this blog I’ve realized that I haven’t exactly been using this my little space on the web to its full potential. I figure this can be resolved by sharing more reflections and cute comics in the upcoming year. Or better yet– both!

Happy holidays everyone!

The following are reflections on this year’s Mini-Beatty Public Lecture “Life, the Universe and Nothing: A Cosmic Mystery Story” held by Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss held on March 1st, 2010 at McGill University.

Edwin Hubble via Vision.

Science and its academic disciplines have shaped and transformed our modern world arguably more so than any other force. Despite this, there still remains a large chasm between the public’s perception of and the reality of the scientific method and the epistemology of science. Public intellectuals such as Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman have sought to bridge this gap by using their background as scientists and ability as writers and orators. Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Lawrence Krauss, physicist, director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University and best-selling author speak about the nature of science with respect to the development of theories about the universe.

Reaching the starting place

Dr. Krauss, whose exceptionally lucid speaking and writing style places him among the great modern public intellectuals, set the tone of the lecture with a quote by the American poet Louise Bogan: “The initial mystery that attends any journey is how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?” The starting point of the universe is one of the mysteries that has perplexed scientists for years.
Continue Reading »

Pillars inside Masjid-e-Vakil constructed in 1773. Shiraz, Iran.

We were once sleepwalkers, wandering through days entangled with memories of the past and visions of the future, in a hazy delirium of what was and what might be, unconscious of what is.

Tonight we say goodbye to 2009 and the decade that it brings to an end. I was glued to the television ten years ago with sheer excitement as the millennial celebrations unfolded throughout the world. It had been just a week after my birthday, and I felt incredibly lucky to have been born at a time when I could witness the turning of the millennium… the 1500s are so passé. I started this decade in elementary school and ended it in university. It has been a decade filled with ups and downs. Personal failures and successes. Global failures and successes. It has been filled with hope and disappointment… and hope again.

I was raised in the decade when towers fell, when tyrants fell, when millions of innocents fell. I was raised in a decade of fewer wars than before, but even lesser peace. Axis of evil became the emblem, and we became familiar with allies, enemies, sanctions, and moral crusades. Us and them. Them and Us. Religions. Cultures. Languages. The Clash of Civilizations self-prophesized. Plain talking, simple talking. Dude, where are my WMDs? Reality is TV and we’re all stars. Vote each other off islands, houses, and the stage. But Keep watching. With SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, our lungs never caught a break. Mad Cow, West Nile, and Anthrax just in case you weren’t scared.

Earthquakes wiped out ancient mud cities, tsunamis wiped out modern steel cities, and hurricanes came and went from Y2K to 2012. Broken ice-sheets, broken promises, broken levees. Green bags, green protests, green earth. Poisoned rivers feed largest dam, and black gold feeds humanity as starvation abounds. It was a decade of threats and terror. Sixty years since the bomb, look north of the 38th parallel. Planes, subways, only bikes are safe now. And no carbon footprint.

But we connected. We forged friendships on walls, carved our aspirations on the screen. Mundane life or the greatest tweet ever. Status update: Will you accept my friend’s request please? The Roman forums became the digital platforms for dialogue between civilizations. Cell phone cameras became the eyes of the world jury, and our redemption. The world is watching your every move. Seriously? Seriously.

We changed our perspectives. We saw more than ever. The world at our fingertips, Gorillas in our Midst, planets in worlds far off, and the hobbits in humankind’s family tree. Stem cells created parts of us. Millionaires traversed space, and shuttles disintegrated while one lone mathematician solved the Poincaré Conjecture. When I was your age, Pluto was a planet… and the Hadron Collider investigated the essence of the universe. Before it had a Wardrobe Malfunction. Wiki stored our collective knowledge. The threads of our existence were unraveled and their codes became just one click away. Data, data, data. I’ve been Swallowed in the Sea, will you Lift me up? Ice from Mars for the iGeneration. Order from your nearest online retailer. Man from monkey? The debate rages on a hundred and fifty years later.

Millions voted in world’s biggest democracy. With solidarity, with courage, millions turned out against wars, for civil rights, in white, orange, green and all the colors of a rainbow. Funny men on TV made us think. Elections were won and lost, or in dispute, or recalled. Candidates assassinated. Men became presidents. Proud Cowboys and Humble Street Sweepers. They wore their faith on their sleeves. Epic Fail– You Betcha that’s What She Said. Recessions didn’t recede, but swept the globe. Watch the numbers fall, fall, fall. Dollars, schemes, prisons, and bail-outs.

We LOLed at cats, and shed tears when massacres took lives. Batons, Kalashnikovs, mines and bombs. White phosophorous gave a light blue shade to the heavens above, and tear gas burnt. We clash, we collide, and sometimes we headbutt. Run fast. You are Bolt. Keep running when they make you fall. You are gold. Black man became most powerful person in the world, and gave us all a change and a glimpse of hope, however transient.

I grew in the 2000s, and it was worthwhile. Google it.

What do you remember?

I’ve found it quite hard to write for the past little while. Normally I find that when I don’t write for a couple of days, I get bent out of shape and it becomes harder to do so. But this has been rather a surprising development because I wrote regularly during the summer in Iran. Since returning, however, I feel uninspired despite being overwhelmed perhaps with thoughts and ideas. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that for whatever reason I am suffering from a bad case of writer’s block. After reading on the subject, I’ve decided to not force it though. It seems that, herbal remedies and all, the only reasonable antidote to this malaise is to let words and ideas find their way back into the mind naturally. While conducting my little investigation I found this interesting letter by Fyodor Dosteovsky to his brother Mikhail, discussing Dosteovsky’s experiences and toils writing. I figure if the gods themselves struggled, then there is hope for the rest of us yet.

One thing is a pity: he (Pissemsky) writes too fast. He writes much too fast, and much too much. A man should have more ambition, more respect for his talent and his craft, and more love for art. When one’s young, ideas come crowding incredibly into one’s head; but one should not capture each and all of them as it flies, and rush to give it forth. One should rather await the synthesis, and think more; wait till the many single details which make up an idea have gathered them-selves into a nucleus, into a large, imposing picture; then, and not till then, should one write them down. The colossal figures, created by the colossal writers, have often grown out of long, stubborn labour…

But I have vowed to myself that, however hard it may go with me, I’ll pull myself together, and in no circumstances will I work to order. Work done to order would oppress and blight me. I want each of my efforts to be incontrovertibly good. Just look at Pushkin and Gogol. Both wrote very little, yet both have deserved national memorials. Gogol now gets a thousand roubles a printed page, while Pushkin had, as you know well, as much as a ducat a line of verse. Both — but particularly Gogol — bought their fame at. the price of years of dire poverty…
Continue Reading »

With the hustle and bustle of classes well underway, it’s become hard to find the time (and energy) to breath, let alone sit down and write something without highlighters in the other hand.

I returned from Iran almost a month and a half ago, after spending two months in the country. Of that time I spent about a month in Tehran; and in the rest I traveled southward and eastward from the capital towards Shiraz and Mashhad. Before, during and after my trip I was asked over and over, why now?… why after all this time?… and I didn’t have a good answer for it. I still don’t. But while there is some debate to be had about fate, there was a wheel was set in motion months before the events in Iran that led me to return to the country after all these years.

I went to Iran, and I came back and the only thing I could write was: “Back from Iran. I witnessed devastating courage and found a part of myself, I witnessed ancient beauty and and left a part of myself behind.” and no more. But today there are still so many images drifting in my mind, desperately seeking to be pinned down, written about, made sense of. Thousands of pictures, thousands of journal entries, thousands of news stories later… I am wondering, what do I tell?

Do I tell you about the changes in country I left ten years ago, or do I tell you I about the changes I witnessed while I was there? Do I talk about the antiquity that permeated every alley, or the immense highways the bridged the edges of the metropolis Tehran? Should I speak of my pilgrimages to the silent mausoleums of dead poets, or of my excursions to the loud streets of chanting heroes? What do I say about incongruities, about contradictions? How do I sum up faithless believers? How do I put beauty and ugliness in a sentence?

While in Tehran, I visited an exhibition in the Sa’adabad Palace Museum complex which showcased the travels of Issa and Abdullah Omidvar. The brothers, whose last name incidentally means “hopeful”, were two Iranian explorers who starting in 1954 traveled all over the globe for more than 7 years on motorcycle. When I was leaving Montréal I wrote that I wanted… hoped to see with eyes unclouded. What I saw was this motto of the hopefuls:

A realization
The path idly abandoned
led home, after all.

*Photograph source (©zeligueWB)

Can you tell I’m studying for a bio exam?

Threads of existence
The tapestry of being
Perchance created.

*Photograph source (©Subwaycups)

I found this music video by Sarah McLachlan through Media that Matters Film Festival several months ago and since then I haven’t been able to help but admire how well it is executed. To an extent, pictures and words of the suffering in the world have made me somewhat desensitized to that particular thing. But this is an exception, someone actually DID something… every time I view it I am moved by its empowering, uplifting message and cannot help but feel– simply inspired!

“The song is about trying not to feel paralyzed when we see all that is wrong with the world, and remembering that even the smallest gesture can make a difference — corny but true. I wanted a video that wasn’t about me and wasn’t preachy, but one that would help shine a light on the tragedy and turmoil in the world and also show the beauty and strength of the human spirit. Sophie and everyone else who touched this video worked tirelessly and for free to make it happen. This was a labor of love for all the right reasons and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
-Sarah McLachlan

Sometimes others’ plight, others’ worlds, seem so distant from our own. We become so wrapped in our cocoons that we lose perspective of where we stand in the world, we lose touch of reality, we exaggerate– the bumps in our path transform into mountains, our pain transforms into unbearable suffering. I have always been afraid of that– afraid of forgetting the things that matter the most, afraid of falling into the lines of the consumer culture.

The world is on fire, literally, and if you are reading this, like me, you are probably part of a fortunate minority, and elite who growing up has escaped the wrath of poverty, hunger, persecution, war, addiction, droughts, homelessness, helplessness among the entire body of humanity. There is an ever-growing gap among us and we, this fortunate elite, are not in this position because of our great merits. But rather, in an interconnected world, the quality of life and wealth that we enjoy as a society is built on the life and suffering of other human beings. We take, we take… and we give back so little. If you and I can’t help anybody else, if you and I do not each take a share and repay the debt that we owe to the world, to our fellow human beings and our planet, who do we expect will do it for us before our choices come back to haunt us?