Hypotyposis on a Good Day

In the shower this morning, I was thinking about how difficult it is to plan, let alone work, for the long-term. It helps profoundly to have children in mind, children we love and for whom we fiercely desire a wonderful future. I was specifically thinking about how life will be like for my nephew when he has reached 41 years old, my own age. Since he is currently 5 years old, I’m imagining his life in the year 2044. Thirty-six years in the future may seem remote – I myself will be 77 years old, if God willing, I live that long. But it’s not hard to imagine my nephew in his prime, living in a world that I hope will be many times more grand and promising as the world is today. That optimistic scenario depends on the work we do today, and tomorrow, and a year from now, and 10 years from now to meet the big challenges facing us today today – that of climate change, the collapsing economy, and the need to transform our global society into a sustainable enterprise.

Of course, the future isn’t just about what life will be like for my nephew — but it sure makes a difference for me to have individual children in mind.

I’ve not thought seriously about physics since I finished my Ph.D. in biophysics in 1997. But now I think often about how to get back into studying physics. Not the physics of graduate school requirements, but the physics of everyday life. Doesn’t it make sense to get students to tie their learning to what they encounter in their own worlds? Of course, the world is much bigger than what’s in our faces and immediately under our feet. But it’s in the way buildings stand, water freezes and boils, and how insects fly that are the hints to the deepest stuff we know. Like Lex Luthor quipped: “Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.”

To find out whether there’s been much work put into designing curriculum based on everyday life, I will look at references such as:

• How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life: Louis A. Bloomfield: Books
• the chapter “Popular culture and critical pedagogy: Everyday life as a basis for curriculum knowledge” in Critical Pedagogy, the State, and and Cultural Struggle

I find Christmas Day to be an appropriate time to reflect on life.  In between the various feasts of a meal, I relish the food-induced slowdown that brings quiet to a house.  A chilly but sunny day helps with inducing this altered state of consciousness:  awareness, stillness, and repose.  I know such a moment does not last very long.  It’s not that I don’t have a choice either about when to slow down.   Savor it while it lasts, I say.

This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It) - New York Times:

By contrast, so-called generative adults — those who score highly on tests measuring civic-mindedness, and who are likely to be energetic and involved — tend to see many of the events in their life in the reverse order, as linked by themes of redemption [emphasis mine]. They flunked sixth grade but met a wonderful counselor and made honor roll in seventh. They were laid low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful new partner. Often, too, they say they felt singled out from very early in life — protected, even as others nearby suffered.

The work redemption caught my eye since it very much fits with the way I have seen my own past.

I’m feeling very satisfied with the way the “Mixing and Remixing Information” (Spring 2007 edition!) ended yesterday with the Class Open House. My students did great, as they handled with poise the many questions of the interested crowds! Thanks to the members of the ISchool and campus community at large for coming to the Open House. Thanks especially to Laura for making signs for the students, arranging the food, and encouraging my students!

Now on to a deep focus on the book….

I used to think that articles such as If I Had My Life To Live Over by Erma Bombeck are really corny — and maybe Bombeck’s piece still is — but I derived substantial solace from reading her piece last week when feeling overwhelmed by the grind of the daily stresses brought on writing a book on a tight deadline.

Two weeks ago yesterday, I turned the big 4-O. I look back on my
thirties as a decade that vastly improved on my twenties, which weren’t
too bad. I optimistically look at my forties as a time for profound
growth and change and undoubtedly, deep challenge.

Gore Vidal wrote in tribute of the recently deceased Barbara Epstein (The New York Review of Books: Barbara Epstein (1928-2006)):

Ultimately, in fact, she could accept almost
anything in the way of a point of view if she was convinced that it was
expressed in good faith: needless to say, she had a difficult time
dealing with the baroque lies of the neocons which have made mephitic
the swamps of bookchat.

I had to look up the word “mephitic,” which was Dictionary.com/Word of the Day on June 23, 2001 in dictionary.com. One definition is “offensive to the smell; as, mephitic odors.”

Last Sunday, while listening to the sermon at church, I tried to remember Maxwell’s equations.
Years have passed since I last thought at any great depth about
electromagnetism while I was pursuing my Ph.D. in biophysics. Now I can
barely remember them. There’s no going back, really. Not that want to
go back to a career in the sciences. But I do wish to know more about
the latest in my erstwhile field. I do flip through Scientific American, Nature, Science, and Physics Today but only sporadically and with little forethought.

There have been many things on my mind lately, and I’ve not had the
discipline in place to make them flow together coherently. The
“bookmarks” I have saved on my del.icio.us account
gives some indication of what I’ve been pondering, but by no means, a
complete picture. One thing is for sure: all this distraction has
pushed my blogging to the side. Today, I will get back on my blogging
podiums to write about both the personal side and the work side of what
I’ve been up to.

On the personal side:

As I jumped in wondering what I should actually write about, I felt
instantly pulled in too many directions. Fortunately, I was reminded of
the central lessons of the last weeks: that I should start in a place
of great stillness, which also happens to be a place of great depth. As
I hold myself still, I am able to accept that I am a little human being
living in a world with outsized needs, including my own. I remember the
pledge I had made to pray for Darfur, and I pause to do so. We put up a
display to raise awareness about Darfur at First Pres Berkeley and will host a postcard writing event for A Million Voices for Darfur
in early April. I am relieved that spring break is coming up, primarily
because it gives my students and me some breathing room for the course.

The absence of activity on my electronic presences belies the churn of
words on my computer. Having just read about super-prolific Stephen
Downe’s recently announced hiatus from blogging
to take time to stop and reflect made me wonder whether I’m going in
the wrong direction by trying to get back into blogging.

The situations are certainly not parallel. First, I’ve never been the
regular and prolific blogger that Stephen was. I have had lots of time
to reflect, though I can stand for more in this time of change,
challenge, and opportunity. Most importantly, I believe that regular
weblogging would be an excellent discipline for me since it would force
me to work in smaller chunks, to begin and to complete manageable
pieces of work on a regular basis. Without forcing myself to write
coherent sentences and paragraphs, I will generate monstrous lists of
suggestive phrases. Writers understand the seductiveness of such lists,
which seem to contain more content than they actually do.

On the work side:

There is a huge amount of change afoot in my workplace and in my own
professional career. Although it would be inappropriate for me to write
about some of these matters, I can certainly write openly about my
personal vision for information technology at UC Berkeley and beyond.
This is an opportune moment to rethink every aspect of my professional
work as I look at the field at large and the challenges, opportunities,
and risks before me specifically. The product of my (over?) cogitation
has been long EccoPro
outlines with phrases such as remix, interoperability,
gather/create/share, grids, bibliographic metadata, knowledge
repository, seamlessness. My job now is to write these outlines in
little essays that make sense to others. time to step back to ponder
what we do to best serve the academic and research needs of the campus.