That was then. This is now. Now there is no problem finding a pumpkin; they come in all shapes and sizes. And Halloween is now celebrated here. And that makes the New Yorker in Oslo very happy. I have blinking skulls hanging in my kitchen window, and am crossing my fingers that we get some trick or treaters. While I know some Norwegians are not exactly thrilled with another 'American' cultural invasion, the majority of them seem to enjoy it, and if they have kids, they are busy shuttling them here and there to attend this or that party. Not so different than American parents. Me, I'm just a big kid when it comes to this kind of thing--I don't think I'll ever change. In that way, I'm like my mother. She looked forward to seeing the kids in their costumes every year, and to doling out candy to the trick or treaters. There's something about the holiday that is sufficiently pagan for me--despite the commercial aspects of it. I simply cannot get it out of my blood. So bring on the vampires, zombies, ghosts and witches! I'm looking forward to seeing them.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Before and after pumpkin shots--Halloween in Oslo
That was then. This is now. Now there is no problem finding a pumpkin; they come in all shapes and sizes. And Halloween is now celebrated here. And that makes the New Yorker in Oslo very happy. I have blinking skulls hanging in my kitchen window, and am crossing my fingers that we get some trick or treaters. While I know some Norwegians are not exactly thrilled with another 'American' cultural invasion, the majority of them seem to enjoy it, and if they have kids, they are busy shuttling them here and there to attend this or that party. Not so different than American parents. Me, I'm just a big kid when it comes to this kind of thing--I don't think I'll ever change. In that way, I'm like my mother. She looked forward to seeing the kids in their costumes every year, and to doling out candy to the trick or treaters. There's something about the holiday that is sufficiently pagan for me--despite the commercial aspects of it. I simply cannot get it out of my blood. So bring on the vampires, zombies, ghosts and witches! I'm looking forward to seeing them.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
On Twitter: from Zombie Pandemics to the Northern Lights
I continue to do part-time consultant work for the university science library and enjoy it. It's pretty cool to get paid for a job that is actually a lot of fun--maintaining and updating their Facebook and Twitter pages and helping to promote their events (lectures and conferences). It's also pretty amazing what's out there on Twitter. Twitter is a world of its own, and very unlike Facebook, because if you want to keep a professional profile, you can. So I also have a personal Twitter profile now, but have decided to use it to promote scientific and health issues of interest to me. So besides updates from research journals, popular science journals and the like, I also follow the New York Times and a host of different health and charity organizations. And of course it's very interesting the type of people who end up following you, based on your word usage. Your Twitter comments are actually like 'tag bites'. I recently promoted an event for the library that will take place in mid-November--'Pimp your research'--a lecture by the world-renowned bee researcher Gro Amdam, followed by a discussion about how to and whether to make your research sexier. Wouldn't you know it, but the next day, I had three new women following me on Twitter, all of whom were working in the porn industry. It's easy to block these types of people, but it amuses me that your word usage has such an immediate effect. We are being profiled all the time as long as we're online and actively using internet, and anyone who believes otherwise, just doesn't get it or doesn't want to.
This week I have so far stumbled upon two interesting links on Twitter that I want to share with you. The first one is from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia--the city now known for The Walking Dead. The CDC has now published an interesting pamphlet in comic strip form just in time for Halloween, entitled "Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic". It's actually quite a clever way of educating people on how to prepare for any type of disaster. You can check it out here: http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/documents/11_225700_A_Zombie_Final.pdf
The other interesting link had to do with the beautiful displays of the Northern Lights in the USA on Monday; folks in the Midwest and even in the Deep South were treated to spectacular light shows courtesy of Mother Nature. The point is that this type of happening is rare, and was due to an intense geomagnetic storm. National Geographic has made available some gorgeous shots of these Northern Lights, and you can see them here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/pictures/111025-northern-lights-aurora-borealis-united-states-south/?source=link_tw20111025news-aurora#/northern-lights-aurora-borealis-reach-south-united-states-michigan-trees_42517_600x450.jpg All in all, pretty amazing, and I sure wish I had been there to see them!
Information at our fingertips, all the time if we want it. What a brave new world we live in, and it's mostly within the past ten years that the information highway has grown by leaps and bounds. I remember when I was preparing two lectures in connection with my doctoral defense in 1999; I had to physically walk into the medical library with a list of the articles I needed to be printed out, and the librarians found them for me, or requested them from other libraries, and then printed them out and mailed them to me. In some cases, this could take days or even a week if the journals were not on hand. Nowadays, I can find the articles myself online, print them out at work or at home, and if our library doesn't subscribe to the journal, I can order a copy through the library online and they will fax it to me within a day of my order. Overall, if I need fifty articles, I can find at least ninety-five percent of them myself without help. That's progress. The libraries have adapted to the changes, and now that I do consulting work for a university library, I see just how far they've come. They haven't stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the world around them; they are information providers for the digital age, and if you haven't stuck your head inside a library for a while, I suggest you take a trip to one and check out the changes for yourself. The books are still there, but so are PCs, Macs, iPads, Kindles, digital projectors, SmartBoards and more computers, all ready for use, all offering instant connection to the information highway, which, if used ethically and wisely, is a real time-saver and an endless source of knowledge, even knowledge you didn't set out to find originally.
This week I have so far stumbled upon two interesting links on Twitter that I want to share with you. The first one is from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia--the city now known for The Walking Dead. The CDC has now published an interesting pamphlet in comic strip form just in time for Halloween, entitled "Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic". It's actually quite a clever way of educating people on how to prepare for any type of disaster. You can check it out here: http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/documents/11_225700_A_Zombie_Final.pdf
The other interesting link had to do with the beautiful displays of the Northern Lights in the USA on Monday; folks in the Midwest and even in the Deep South were treated to spectacular light shows courtesy of Mother Nature. The point is that this type of happening is rare, and was due to an intense geomagnetic storm. National Geographic has made available some gorgeous shots of these Northern Lights, and you can see them here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/pictures/111025-northern-lights-aurora-borealis-united-states-south/?source=link_tw20111025news-aurora#/northern-lights-aurora-borealis-reach-south-united-states-michigan-trees_42517_600x450.jpg All in all, pretty amazing, and I sure wish I had been there to see them!
Information at our fingertips, all the time if we want it. What a brave new world we live in, and it's mostly within the past ten years that the information highway has grown by leaps and bounds. I remember when I was preparing two lectures in connection with my doctoral defense in 1999; I had to physically walk into the medical library with a list of the articles I needed to be printed out, and the librarians found them for me, or requested them from other libraries, and then printed them out and mailed them to me. In some cases, this could take days or even a week if the journals were not on hand. Nowadays, I can find the articles myself online, print them out at work or at home, and if our library doesn't subscribe to the journal, I can order a copy through the library online and they will fax it to me within a day of my order. Overall, if I need fifty articles, I can find at least ninety-five percent of them myself without help. That's progress. The libraries have adapted to the changes, and now that I do consulting work for a university library, I see just how far they've come. They haven't stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the world around them; they are information providers for the digital age, and if you haven't stuck your head inside a library for a while, I suggest you take a trip to one and check out the changes for yourself. The books are still there, but so are PCs, Macs, iPads, Kindles, digital projectors, SmartBoards and more computers, all ready for use, all offering instant connection to the information highway, which, if used ethically and wisely, is a real time-saver and an endless source of knowledge, even knowledge you didn't set out to find originally.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Westchester River Walk
When I was
in New York this past August, I spent a hot and muggy Sunday afternoon with
Jean wandering around the Lyndhurst estate, something we hadn’t done in years;
we were the only ones there and had the place to ourselves. As we walked down
the hill in the back of the huge main house toward the Hudson River and walked
along the path on the way to what used to be the caretaker’s old house, we
discovered a path along the river that we followed for a while. It wound its
way along the river, to the south toward Irvington and to the north toward
Tarrytown. I’ve written about this walking and biking path, called the River
Walk, briefly in another post, but just thought I’d include more information
about it in this post. You can get an idea of how long the River Walk is when
you look at this map: http://planning.westchestergov.com/images/stories/RiverWalk/riverwalkmap11x17.pdf
And for
more information on how it came to be and when it will be completely finished,
you can go to the following link: http://planning.westchestergov.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1187&Itemid=2128
I am so
looking forward to biking the entire distance of the River Walk on a future
trip to New York. Jean and I have briefly discussed it and agreed that it would
be fun to take a picnic lunch with us and just be able to stop along the river
when we wanted to. It’s funny, but perhaps not so odd, that now that I live
outside of the USA, that I am learning more about both my country and New York
where I grew up for each year that passes. Just as many things have changed in
Norwegian society during the past twenty years, the same is also true of New
York and Westchester County. I need only think of the subway system in
Manhattan; how clean and spruced-up it is now compared to when I was a graduate
student at New York University thirty years ago. I’m glad to see that things
change for the better; the same is true for Times Square in Manhattan. I enjoy
being a tourist in the state of my birth and look forward to more explorative
trips in the years to come.
Friday, October 21, 2011
School days and a lifetime of learning
The autumn
season is always a nice reminder of my school and college years. I can honestly
say that I looked forward to going back to school each year, even though I
always enjoyed having the summers off. Autumn is the start of a new school season,
with all the hype, expectations and focus that a new start entails. That
feeling of starting a new school year has never left me, even though I am far
removed from my school days; I always have a bit of it when I go back to work
after a long summer vacation. But now that I do consulting work for the
university, I feel that sense of ‘new school year’ excitement when I walk past groups
of students gathered nervously together on campus—that sense of anticipation about
new courses, new books, new teachers, new social experiences, and a lot of
studying. I’m glad I’m finished with all that, but it’s interesting to be back
on campus as an adult doing an adult job. I enjoy seeing the students and
remembering back to my own college days at Fordham University. Those years were
something special, and I knew that already at college age. I knew that such an
opportunity to be able to focus and to study uninterruptedly for four years
would never come again. And it’s true, it never did. But those four years were
a wonderful immersion in biology, literature, Spanish, organic chemistry and
history, on a lovely campus in the middle of the Bronx.
I went to
work full-time right after college, halfway through my master’s degree in cell
biology that I ended up finishing at night. I was offered the chance to do a
PhD by professor Loren Day, my biophysicist boss at my first job, but I turned
down the offer so that I could work for some years while I figured out in what field
I wanted to do doctoral work. I knew it would not be biophysics (my first
working lab experience—isolating and purifying bacteriophage DNA in order to
study its helical structure). Although the technology we used at that time was
fascinating, I was more fascinated by the use of computers in the lab—the early
computers that let us feed DNA sequences into crude programs in order to get
back protein sequences, for example. The computers that were programmed to tell
us “Cool your jets, I’m adding up the sites” while we waited for the output.
They were being funny with us, of course programmed to be so by the offbeat
programmers who had offbeat senses of humor. I became friends with Roy, our
resident computer programmer, who showed me how computer circuit boards were designed,
and who was patient enough to explain the chemistry involved in their
manufacture. He taught me the rudiments of the programming language UNIX, and
got me interested in the first small personal computers. My interest in
computers led to my taking a course in FORTRAN and in machine language at New
York University, courses that I have never regretted taking. I hit the wall countless
times, but I managed to pass both courses and I learned some really cool things
in the process, like how to move 0’s and 1’s around in the data and address registers
that make up the CPU. This binary language is the language needed to talk to
the guts of the computer; the executable programs that are written in higher
level languages like FORTRAN in the early days and in C++ nowadays are
translated to executable machine (binary) code by a compiler and linker. So I waded
carefully into the programming waters, but I was not clever enough to continue
in this field even though it interested me tremendously. I don’t regret this
decision, because biology was and still is the field of study that interests me
the most, with literature a close second. The exposure to computers and to
complex instrumentation in my first job laid the groundwork for my next job,
which was to be the daily leader of a flow cytometry core facility at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center. Laser flow cytometers/sorters were used to analyze different
cellular parameters and to physically sort different cell types from each
other; most of them were coupled to computers that were programmed to run these
instruments and to perform the complex analyses involved. When I look back to
that time, the 1980s, I remember it as a phenomenal time in terms of learning.
The use of flow cytometry in biological and cancer research was just taking
off, and it was fun to be a part of it, attending courses in Boston (sponsored
by Ortho Diagnostic Systems) to learn how to run these complicated instruments,
as well as a course in Los Alamos, New Mexico at the government lab there to learn
how high-speed flow sorters were being used to sort chromosomes and to make
chromosome libraries, among other important things. We learned how to do some
pretty novel stuff at that course, and got a chance to see a lot of New Mexico
in the process. I joined the Society for Analytical Cytology (SAC) that later became
the International Society for Analytical Cytometry (ISAC); I have attended countless
conferences in different countries since 1985, but the conference that stands
out is the one at Cambridge University in England in August 1987. It was here that I met Trond, the Norwegian man who became my husband. It was also my
first trip to Europe alone; my lodging was a student dormitory room not far
from the building where the conference was held. All conference attendees lived
in this way for the week we were there. I loved the feeling of living in the
dorm; it was a monastic room, simple, small, with very little furniture save
the bed and a desk. But it gave me a real feeling of what it must have been
like to study at Cambridge, and the city itself was attractive with its many
bookstores and music stores. All I know is that one day I hope to really study
there—to take a literature course of some sort during the summer months. It’s
on my bucket list.
Maybe it’s
not so strange that I ended up in academia. I don’t teach, even though I have
achieved the level of professor competence. I prefer to mentor students on a one-to-one
basis or in small groups, and I still like being in the lab from time to time.
I don’t like bureaucracy, power politics, or the ‘publish or perish’ mentality
of academia. What I do like is the ability and privilege that we have to
immerse ourselves in lifelong learning if we want to, and I try to take
advantage of this as much as possible. Because life is short, but also because
society is changing at a rapid rate, and has changed immensely within the last
thirty years. Being able to keep up with the rapid change is important, and the
only way we can do that is to remain open to learning for the rest of our lives.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
In the spirit of Halloween
During the weekend I happened to be up late and decided to see what was on television. I stumbled across the new horror series that has been racking up rave reviews in the USA—The Walking Dead. The first season is being shown late at night here in Norway on the cable station Fox Crime; I understand that six episodes comprise the first season, and that the second season premiered in the USA last night. I have only managed to see two episodes of the first season so far, but what I’ve seen is fairly convincing. This is a cut above your average horror series. The zombies are very realistic and the entire show has such a realistic feel to it that you could almost imagine such a thing happening—a virus wiping out huge segments of the population and then the dead coming back to life as flesh-eating zombies. The episode I watched last night was the final one of the first season—when the CDC in Atlanta self-destructs after the generators lose power due to lack of fuel, taking the one scientist who decides to stay and end his life there with it. But before it is destroyed, this scientist shows the group of survivors who travel together the 3-D brain scans of his wife before she died of the virus, and how the virus spread through her brain, killing her. It was interesting to see the ‘live’ brain scans—the neural circuits in the brain flashing and then the virus spreading through the brain, causing the circuits to stop firing. Then, after some hours, some light started to glow in his dead wife’s brain stem, but nowhere else in the brain, allowing her to rise again as a zombie, at which point he shot her through the brain. I have to ask myself—why at my age do I still enjoy being scared by this type of show? Why do I still watch this type of horror? I find myself being scared in the same way as I was when I was a teenager. I know none of it is real, that it probably could never happen quite in this way, although an apocalypse of some sort could of course occur. That was more than realistically portrayed in Corman McCarthy’s book The Road, which I found to be quite a harrowing read. For that reason, I did not watch the film based on the book and which starred Viggo Mortensen, mostly because it all seemed so hopeless and dark beyond words. Perhaps the difference between it and The Walking Dead is that there seems to be some hope in the latter, if only in that the survivors can in fact take out the zombies, who are slow-moving and easy to kill. But they are ugly and scary-looking and the show is definitely not for children or the faint-hearted. I found myself thinking of I Am Legend with Will Smith and The Omega Man with Charlton Heston as well, also films where viruses led to scenarios quite similar to those in The Walking Dead—survivors battling virus-infected monsters and vampires respectively. Both of these films are based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, which is excellent.
Zombie and vampire movies continue to fascinate us, as is evidenced by how well most of them do at the box office. They scare us—and we seem to like being scared. Monsters scare us, the monsters of our childhood, the ones hiding in the closet or under the bed. The dark scares us, and it seems to be an instinctive response—we cannot see in the dark and that by itself leads to fear, because we are vulnerable in the dark. I remember that feeling as a child. What lies behind the door? What is in the closet? What is under my bed if I look down or if my foot sticks out from under the covers? What will get me if I am not protected? What if I look out the window and a monster stares back at me from the darkness? That is why the scenes of the monsters overrunning New York City in I Am Legend were terrifying. They were strong, vicious predators and nothing seemed to stop them. They hid indoors by day and came out at night. Imagine a society where that was the case—howling screeching monsters running amok in the night. 28 Days Later was another such film that created the same feelings; especially the one scene in the tunnel where the car with uninfected survivors won’t start and you can hear the infected mob bearing down upon them. Will they escape, and what happens if they don’t? We know the answer but we watch anyway to make sure they get away. Because some of them have to escape the horrible fate that awaits them—some of them have to live. We have to know that it is possible to survive, otherwise what is the point of watching?
Halloween is soon upon us. Each year the USA (and now many European countries ironically enough) celebrates this strange holiday—a combination of pagan and Christian influences. Halloween is not originally an American holiday. The idea of Halloween with masks and costumes is in fact quite ancient, originating with the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer (information culled from different websites). The Celts (who were spread out over much of Western Europe) believed that demons and ghosts of the dead returned to earth during harvest time (before the winter months) due to the fact that the gates between life and death were more ‘open’ at this time of year. These other-world visitors were dangerous because they could cause trouble with the harvest and food stores for the winter months, so it was necessary to appease them. The Celts thus wore costumes and masks during Samhain to ward off demons and ghosts, sacrificed animals and burned crops to their gods in bonfires built by their priests (the Druids) who could control the supernatural energy present at this time of year. We thus have Halloween in our blood, so to speak. Despite the Christian influences that eventually overtook Halloween, the original pagan celebration is a part of our heritage. The fear of the supernatural world, of demons, ghosts, vampires and monsters, is as old as time. Fire could protect, darkness was danger. We would prefer not to be visited by ghosts and demons; we would do what we could to prevent that. In our ‘civilized’ age, we don’t believe that ghosts, demons, vampires and monsters walk the earth, but the superstitious part of us is tenacious and not easy to get rid of no matter how ‘civilized’ we are. Perhaps that is one explanation for our fascination with the darkness, with the unknown, with monsters. As much as we like to pretend that we don’t get scared, the reality is something else again.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunrise, sunset and oh, the moon too
All in one day---today's sunrise, sunset and a moonlit night. The sunrises and sunsets recently have been gorgeous--such vivid colors. I've got to work on getting better night shots; this was the only moon picture I managed to get that was sort of decent. But I'm working on it. I'm loving my camera--a Canon EOS 500D. But I'm still using my Fuji FinePix at times--got some nice photos with that camera too. I wish I could say that I understood everything there was to understand about digital cameras these days, but I don't. I usually just point and shoot in auto mode. But eventually I'll get around to a deeper immersion into the world of digital photography, maybe even take a course or two. Right now, I'm just having fun.
Sunrise |
Sunrise a little later |
Still sunrise |
Moving towards sunset |
Moving towards sunset |
The sunset reflected in the windows of this apartment building makes it look like it's on fire from inside. |
What a sky! |
Thursday, October 13, 2011
American science and the future of cancer research
Harold
Varmus, the current director of the National Cancer Institute in the USA, held a talk
yesterday at a conference on life sciences for health and innovation at
Rikshospitalet in Oslo. He won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for the discovery of the
‘cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes’ together with J. Michael Bishop. The
title of his talk was ‘Why medical research matters’, and he did a pretty good
job of presenting all the arguments for why medical research does in fact
matter. But his talk was mostly about the glorious success that American
science has enjoyed since WWII, and how the country—both the government and the
American people—were in complete agreement about the importance of science to
the future of American society. And what a glorious history the USA has had
when it comes to science during the past seventy years. It was not difficult
following the war to convince the American people of the importance of having a
strong scientific base and community. Being able to defend the USA was an
important motive for driving scientific endeavors, as Varmus pointed out. For
example, the space program was implemented in order to be able to compete with
the Soviets in space. It is safe to say that emphasis on defense in terms of
technology and weapons was sufficient to push many scientific endeavors forward
during the period from 1950-1980. But what Varmus also emphasized was the sheer
amount of scientific discoveries during the past seventy years, an astounding
number—that have led us to the point where we are today. He was also keen to
point out that science is important for its own sake—that curiosity about,
interest in, and the pursuit of basic research are valuable things in and of
themselves. Basic research should not be discouraged according to Varmus. We
cannot just emphasize innovation and translational research at the expense of
basic research. He pointed out that many basic research discoveries were not
translated into anything of practical use for perhaps decades after their
discovery. Despite this fact, Varmus argued that this was the way science should
proceed—that an emphasis on innovation should not necessarily be the major
focus moving forward. And I agree. I don’t know to what extent the research
climate has changed in America during the past ten years. What I know is that
it has changed dramatically in Norway during the same period. There are
advantages and disadvantages as with all changes. I’ve written about both in
previous posts. I am not opposed to change. But it is clear that innovations
and patents are being emphasized to a large degree to the detriment of free
independent basic research. We should not be skimping on basic research in the
rush to commercialize scientific findings.
I was heartened by Varmus’ positive
presentation of American science, especially since I started out as a scientist
in this type of research atmosphere during the 1980s and can attest to its
veracity. I have often talked about working in dynamic research environments (Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and UCSF) when I worked in the USA. They were
dynamic—they were inspiring, encouraging, educational—for all sorts of reasons,
but mostly because the men and women who led the research groups were dynamic individuals
who loved science. They lived for science—it was not a part of their lives, it
was their lives. You can argue the wisdom of this type of lifestyle as much as
you want for my sake. I know all the arguments against it—that it cuts into
family life, that there is no time for social events, and so on. But these
people socialized with other scientists and their families. They talked a lot
about science and new ideas and approaches with their families. Their wives and
husbands and children were an integral part of their scientific lives. And
being around these types of scientists was a positive experience. It’s sad to
hear about and to witness the economic hard times that the USA is currently
experiencing; Varmus also meant that the American people have become much more
negative and conservative when it comes to wanting to fund science. That’s sad
to hear. It’s hard to say if the USA will recover, and even if it does,
difficult to say whether the excellence that has defined most of the research
will continue. If science does not have the backing of the American people, it
will not get the funding it needs to continue, because the politicians that
will be voted in will support the views of their constituents. Has America
peaked in terms of its scientific prowess? Is it now time for the USA to hand over
the relay for other countries to carry? I hope not.
Varmus also
talked about cancer research and how the NCI has taken the initiative to start
a new project called Provocative Questions. This list of 24 questions resulted
from discussions at workshops for scientists at the NCI, where the scientists who
got together discussed and debated the current state of affairs for
cancer-related issues—e.g. drug resistance, metastasis—and came up with some
new questions and approaches for doing cancer research in the years to come (http://provocativequestions.nci.nih.gov/rfa).
Some of the questions that have made the list of Provocative Questions are: How does
obesity contribute to cancer risk? What environmental factors change the risk
of various cancers when people move from one geographic region to another? Are
there ways to objectively ascertain exposure to cancer risk using modern
measurement technologies? Why don't
more people alter behaviors known to increase the risk of cancers? How do changes in
RNA processing contribute to tumor development? Why are some disseminated
cancers cured by chemotherapy alone? Given the appearance of resistance in
response to cell killing therapies, can we extend survival by using approaches
that keep tumors static? These are all good questions, and hopefully the scientists of the future
will be interested in studying them. I hope that the quality of American
science continues to be high, but I know that it won’t remain that way without
a concerted effort and focus on the part of politicians and the public alike.
The public has got to believe, has got to be convinced, that science pays off.
And not necessarily commercially, but from the standpoint of helping cure different
diseases down the road, and in aiding in the development of new technologies. The
only way to ensure this is to communicate
the importance of science whenever one gets the opportunity to do so, using all
media available, e.g. social media like blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The world
has changed, science and the way science is done and communicated has changed—perhaps
we are ushering in a new era for science—a ‘brave new world’--we are part of the change. It is happening
around us, and perhaps we will not recognize what was when the changes are
complete. It is exhilarating to think about being part of the change. I thought
about that today on my way to hear yet another lecture by another Nobel Prize
winner—Ivar Giæver. I thought—there are so many opportunities for younger
people now to get introduced to science and research. They are so lucky
compared to when we started out. Now they have computers, internet, social
media, apps of all kinds, virtual learning, interactive learning and so on. There
is a plethora of courses, conferences, lectures, idea festivals, all designed
with young people—students--in mind. But these are not enough. Students have to
experience the exhilaration of working for a dynamic scientific leader who does
basic research and who is a visionary--not a bureaucrat or a technocrat. That’s
what matters for the future, that’s what will hook students and keep them interested in
doing basic research.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
An October sunrise in Oslo
I followed the sunrise this morning for some minutes. Some beautiful sunrises these days--lots of red and gold colors. I've also gotten some good shots of the moon; to the left of the moon I have been able to see what looks like a bright twinkling star. That's how clear and crisp the air is over the city--clear enough to see the stars. But this is not a star, it's a planet, and according to the astronomy websites I've checked, it's Jupiter. So that's pretty cool. I don't have a telephoto lens yet for my camera, otherwise I'd try to take a picture of it. The last time we saw a planet shining so clearly in the sky was back in 2003 in early August--and that was Mars at that time.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Biking, Bicycle Sundays and the Bikecentennial
We are
experiencing an early autumn in Oslo this year, not that I am complaining,
because the sun is shining more than it did the entire summer. So for some few
hours a day, in the early afternoon, there is actually some sunshine and
warmth. Today was a perfect day for a bicycle ride up along the Akerselva river, which
is something I have done quite often in recent years. Biking up along the river
from the beginning to the end (Oslo fjord to Maridalen reservoir) is a total
distance of about five miles, so it’s not a long river. My trip today was about
six miles round trip (from Ila to Kjelsås and back); for the most part fairly
hilly on the way up, but an easy and enjoyable return downhill for those (like
me) who end up being a bit tired afterwards.
I have
biked all my life, it seems. There is something about getting on a bike that
spells freedom for me. I learned like most other children to ride a two-wheeler
when I was around eight years old, and after that I was sold. I can remember
biking around Tarrytown as a teenager, exploring back streets, the Sleepy
Hollow cemetery, Philipse Manor and Sleepy Hollow Manor, and maybe once or
twice I got as far as Rockwood State Park, slightly north of Tarrytown on route
9. I didn’t go much further north than that. Sometimes I had my friends with
me, but most of the time I was alone. When Westchester county officials decided
in 1975 or 1976 to close off the Bronx River Parkway to cars on Sundays during
the summer and early fall, I was thrilled. Bicycle
Sundays still exist as I discovered when I googled them (http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/2674). The course ran from the
Westchester County Center in White Plains south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, which
was a round-trip of about 13 miles. I would first bike from Tarrytown to White
Plains and then bike the entire round-trip course, together with a lot of other
bike enthusiasts. There was no question of biking fast—you were limited by how
fast the others biked. But sometimes I could break away from the pack. My brother
joined me on some Sundays and that was always nice. He became quite a good
biker and went on to participate in triathlons in his early twenties. In early
1976, the year of the bicentennial of the USA, I and my friend Loraine from
college decided to try and join one of the cross-country trips that was offered
by BikeCentennial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial), now called TransAmerica Bicycle
Trail (http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm). She left it up to me to do the
planning. I do remember getting the brochure/maps in the mail and poring over
them, trying to decide what route would be best for us, and settling on a
week-long trip through Virginia; I don’t remember the exact route, but the
present routes are probably the original routes. We both bought fairly expensive
bikes for that time, in April 1976, in order to be able to train for this trip.
Unfortunately, by the time we registered for it, it was booked solid and we missed
out on that opportunity. Many of the other trips were not on the East coast and
we were limited in what we could choose, since the Virginia trip was the one
trip that fit our time schedule; we had the month of August free and after that
we had to return to college. So we didn’t manage the Bikecentennial trip, but I
at least kept on biking and am still doing so today. I still flirt with the
notion of attempting another such trip—shorter distance and shorter time, in
the USA or in Norway. But it has not come to pass and I must admit that I have
not actively sought it out. After I left college and moved to the Bronx, my biking
days became more limited because I did not feel comfortable biking in the
Bronx. When I later moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s, I bought a new bike
at the urging of my brother who by that time was a triathlon biker. My new bike
was a racing bike; to go with my new bike, I needed biking shoes (that attached
to the pedals) and biking gear. Biking in America at that time was really taking
off (this was around 1986-87), thanks to Greg LeMond and his 1986 win in the
Tour de France. Bikers needed trendy gear. However, I never really felt
comfortable with any of it, and I hated that my shoes were attached to the
pedals when I biked. It felt claustrophobic. So if I biked, it was in the old
way, comfortable shoes—unattached to the pedals, regular pants, no helmet—as non-aerodynamic
as possible. I have relented somewhat over the years—I own bicycle pants with
padding that reminds me of a big diaper, and a seat cover with padding, and bicycle gloves to grip the
handlebars better. But this is about comfort and nothing else—if seats were
comfortable like in the old days I wouldn’t have bought a seat cover or bicycle
pants. I also own a helmet that I never use; I don’t like the feeling of having
it on my head and it seems to interfere with my hearing—too much swooshing in
my ears. I’ve fallen off a bike twice in my life; the first time as a child and
a passenger on my friend’s bike--I smashed my front tooth, and the second time as
an adult—I ended up with skinned knees that were painful and took weeks to heal.
But small injuries have never deterred me. After I moved to Norway in 1989, I didn’t
bike regularly for a number of years, I’m not even sure why, not until I bought
a bike again in 1997 and used it to bike to and from work. But after I injured
my back in 2001, I didn’t get on a bike again until 2009. I was afraid of injuring
my back and for some reason I associated biking with back problems. This fear
turned out to be unfounded. So now I am biking again, not as much as I’d like,
but much more often than I thought I’d manage.
Although I enjoy
walking and hiking in the forests and our occasional trips to the mountains, I think
I enjoy biking best. It is something I can always do, anywhere. I prefer it to
jogging, which I find somewhat monotonous, although I do jog at times. I have
biked to work on occasion; that is real training, again mostly uphill all the
way. Suffice it to say that my energy level is not at its peak in the morning,
so I do struggle a bit. I am an early afternoon biker from the standpoint of
being able to tackle all of the physical challenges involved. I think what I have
always liked about biking is the freedom, the fact that you get to different
places faster than you would if you walked, and that you are outdoors in
nature. The latter is most important to me these days. I cannot wait to get
outdoors now—to breathe fresh air, to be out in the sunshine, to be a part of
the nature around me. In such respect, I don’t really miss my health club
training; although I am still a member, I am rarely there, because it means
going indoors and stepping onto machines—treadmills, cross-country machines—that
take me nowhere. The only way I survive the boredom of training is to have my
iPod with me. That saves me. I train indoors during the winter—I don’t enjoy
biking in the ice and snow, although I have one friend who does and she says it’s
fine as long as you have the right tires. Perhaps I will get to that point one
of these days, if only to find my way outdoors again during the long winters.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
What Steve Jobs said
As most of you probably have heard already, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer. I have read some of the obituaries already, so I won't repeat any of what is already written about him. Suffice it to say that not only was he a brilliant innovator, he also had a lot of wise and inspirational things to say about life and working and doing what you love here in this short life on earth. I am posting some of his wise words here in honor of his life and many achievements. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.
Perspective on life,
on following your heart and on doing what you love
·
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living
someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the
results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions
drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.
·
We don’t get a chance to do that many things,
and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life.
·
Life is brief, and then you die, you know?
·
And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives.
So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.
·
Almost everything–all external expectations, all
pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the
face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are
going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have
something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your
heart.
On being different
and standing apart from the crowd
·
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the
rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see
things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree
with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore
them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while
some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are
crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
·
Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?
·
I want to put a ding in the universe.
On wealth
·
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t
matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…
that’s what matters to me.
·
I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and
over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it
wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.
On working, management,
quality, excellence and innovation
·
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t
used to an environment where excellence is expected.
·
My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to
make them better.
·
Design is not just what it looks like and feels
like. Design is how it works.
·
A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and
maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief
was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would
continue to open their wallets.
·
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a
follower.
·
Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the
needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in
the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person?
What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you
here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the
meta-data.
·
We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com
bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our
way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d
taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place –
the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.
·
I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if Jobs got
run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it
wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to
make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I
try to do.
·
So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my
job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people
talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group
of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it
quietly, and, you know – just explore things.
·
People think focus means saying yes to the thing
you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no
to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.
·
I think the key thing is that we’re not all
terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these
things.
·
I’m convinced that about half of what separates
the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
·
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes.
It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet
Last night my husband
and I went to see the modern dance production of Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet. It was in fact the
fourth performance of this modern dance piece; it premiered in Oslo during the
last week of September. The story of Woyzeck, written originally as a play by
Georg Büchner, has also been adapted as an opera and as a number of different films,
but this was one of the few times it has been presented as a dance piece. It
was created by the German choreographer Christian Spuck to music by Martin
Donner, Philip Glass, Gyorgy Kurtag, and Alfred Schnittke. As fate would have
it, Inger-Margrethe Lunde, the theater critic for Aftenposten (the Norwegian
newspaper), did not like it. In fact, she strongly disliked it, going so far as
to call it ‘bullshit’. I am attaching the link to her review (in Norwegian—it can
be translated using Google Translate but you have to tolerate some weird
translations here and there): http://oslopuls.aftenposten.no/kunst_scene/article605271.ece. She headlined
her review with the words “Embarrassing and disappointing”, followed by “Bullshit,
I think, despite the frantic, endless standing ovation”. And the review gets
worse from there, ending with the same-- “Bullshit, I think”…… I cannot
remember ever reading a review of any production, dance or otherwise, quite
like hers. When I read her review, I thought, yikes, just our luck; we have
season tickets to the ballet, and Woyzeck was the first dance of the season for
our subscription. I have to say I was dreading it, because there is nothing
worse than sitting for two hours watching something that is boring. That has
happened on occasion—that I have been bored by an opera, but I do manage to
differentiate between my subjective feelings and my objective appraisal of the
actual performance—were the singers good, were the sets attractive, and so on.
I am not opposed to someone writing a negative review, but hers could have been
more professionally-done. In any case, as luck would have it, we ended up not
sharing Lunde’s opinion of Woyzeck. And in fact I have to wonder if we actually
saw the same dance piece. I cannot understand what it was she did not like, and
have to conclude that it was the theme of the story (the humiliation and
cruelty that one man is subjected to that results in a tragic outcome) that
bothered her. That I can understand—that it would have bothered her. But not that it would lead to her disliking the entire
production or calling it bullshit. Because it wasn’t. I was actually quite
moved by this dance production, especially by one of the final scenes where the
low-ranking soldier Woyzeck dances with his girlfriend Marie who has been
unfaithful to him; the dancer who played Woyzeck last night, Kaloyan Boyadjiev,
was wonderfully expressive with his body and his arms, and really made you feel
his humiliation, his pain and his desperation. His murder of Marie is the
culmination of a long series of humiliations that he has been forced to endure
because of his poverty; he is often humiliated by the army for which he does
odd jobs and by the scientists who poke and probe him as part of the experiment
that he is a part of. He endures all of these humiliations in order to earn
some money, and when he comes home in the evening to Marie and their son, he is
free and you see that in the way they dance with each other. They actually know
some happiness and they seem to be in love. So that makes it all the more
tragic and poignant at the end when he realizes he has lost her, lost the only
thing that means anything to him.
Apart from what Lunde
explained about the story of Woyzeck in her review (and I forgot the plot by
the time we went to see it), I really did not know the story in detail nor what
we were about to see when we walked into the theater. It was the same for my
husband. During the dance, I had so many thoughts and feelings about what was
transpiring on stage. Franz Kafka came to mind (as it did for my husband as
well), as well as the brilliant English series, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan (where the prisoner, a former spy,
was just a number, surrounded by a nameless bureaucratic system of jailers all
trying to probe him for information). The feeling of systematic cruelty, of a
total lack of empathy, pervaded the piece. I found myself thinking about
totalitarianism and communism and the loss of personal dignity and identity. So
if a dance piece can make me feel all those things, as well as move me because
of its poignancy, then for me it was something of value that I was privileged
to experience. It is impossible to defend the man Woyzeck because he murdered
Marie, but it is completely possible to understand what drove him to do that. I
felt sorry for him in spite of his tragic choice. That is a testament to the
quality of the dancing and the quality of the production. I’m proud to say that
I disagree completely with Inger-Margrethe Lunde, and I truly hope, as my
husband also commented, that her review did not discourage people from going to
see the production. My guess is that it did, unfortunately. So perhaps she should
take heed for the future and remember that the dancers have worked hard,
likewise the choreographer. She should separate her personal feelings from an
objective appraisal of the production. There do exist objective criteria for the evaluation of cultural events and creations. Perhaps she had a bad day going into the
theater—car broke down, problems at work, or other irritations. Let’s hope she
manages to write a better review next time.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A short October update
It’s
shaping up to be a busy week, in fact, probably a busy month as well, with all
of the different work projects I’ve taken on. In addition I’ve decided to write
a novel, and am contemplating joining the project that WordPress is sponsoring
during the month of November, called National
Novel Writing Month. This is a project that entails working toward completing a
50,000-word novel by November 30th, which means writing 1667 words per day. Who knows,
maybe I will manage to do it. And then again, maybe not. One thing is for sure.
I know what I want to write about and that goes a long way toward getting me
started. I’ve been tossing ideas around for the past few years, but there hasn’t
been much that has held my focus as long as this idea has done. I’m not going
to talk about the idea; I will rather say that it will fall into the
sci-fi/horror genre. I’ve started researching it and I’ll keep you posted on my
progression (or lack thereof).
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Cartoon time
I have been
meaning to write a short post about one of my favorite American animation
series—’Courage, the Cowardly Dog’, a brilliant effort by John R. Dilworth and
team, which originally ran on Cartoon Network from November 1999 until November
2002 (four seasons), with a total of 52 episodes produced. At present, it is
running on Cartoon Network here in Oslo each night at around 8:15 pm and again shortly
after midnight (on weeknights). I’ve seen most of the episodes, some of them
several times, especially my favorites. I really cannot find enough
superlatives to describe the show. I love everything about it—from the clever
storylines, excellent animation, attention to detail, interesting backgrounds
and overall creepiness at times. It is not really suitable for small children,
since it is a fairly graphic horror cartoon of sorts, although there are a few
sweet episodes as well. The star of the show, the pink dog Courage, must deal
with all sorts of challenges in the form of freaky people, were-moles, dragons,
murderous vegetables, mysterious CIA types, evil snowmen, evil magicians—the
list goes on and on. He overcomes his initial fear and cowardice and protects
his family—Muriel and Eustace Bagge—from all of the monsters and assorted creatures
who want to do them harm. They all live out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas in
a farmhouse. Eustace, a cranky old man, is supposed to be a farmer, but nothing
grows for him and the land around the house is pretty barren. Muriel, a
housewife, is his direct opposite, a cheerful, helpful, sprightly older woman.
Eustace is greedy and always looking to make a quick buck; Muriel keeps him in
line and is definitely Courage’s supporter and protector. Courage loves Muriel,
not Eustace. Whenever she gets into trouble, he loses his cool completely and
freaks out, but he always comes around to ‘I’ll save you, Muriel’. And then he
goes about the business of saving her. I’m including a list of some of my
favorite episodes here.
The Last of
the Starmakers
The Magic
Tree of Nowhere
Food of the
Dragon
Dome of
Doom
The Snowman
Cometh
Snowman’s Revenge
The Sandman
Sleeps
The Night
of the Weremoles and Mother’s Day
The Quilt
Club
A Beaver’s
Tale
Friday, September 30, 2011
Some wise words about good intentions
I looked up
these quotes about good intentions today because today was one of those days
when I realized that having the best of intentions in certain situations is no
guarantee of a happy outcome. I realized that no matter how good one's motives
and intentions might be, they can be misconstrued by others who have their own
personal agendas and vulnerabilities. Good communication is the way to deal
with such misunderstandings, but it is so difficult to achieve that sometimes.
It is sorely dependent upon both parties meeting each other at the negotiating
table as peers, and that does not often occur. Sometimes the offended party
would rather judge, lecture, and otherwise dominate the situation in order to
make the other party feel small. And it works--the purported offender does feel
small. But feeling small is not an
apology or an admission of wrongdoing. It is merely one way of dealing with judgmental controlling people and letting
them have their say before one offers up a reply. The problem is that the reply
can often lead to more problems, because by pointing out that one's intentions
were good, one is defending oneself and the act of defending oneself for some
people is a big no-no, because if you do that, you are guilty as charged. And I
don't agree with this. I think that people who always give in or act like
doormats, no matter the criticism, are the ones who are guilty. If you are
innocent, you will try to defend yourself against an attack on your motives or
character. I have experienced this at times in my workplace, and it is not easy
to wage a counterattack. But it is necessary for your identity and self-value.
And if you are wrong and know it, then an apology is in order. But if you are
not wrong, then it’s just foolish to play the part of the offender. You hand
over more power to the offended person, who may enjoy the power game that has
ensued. In any case, I am not interested in the power or the game. I’m
simply interested in the truth, in the reality of each situation that arises.
·
It
is not good enough for things to be planned - they still have to be done; for
the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.”
Walt Kelly
·
Let
your intentions be good - embodied in good thoughts, cheerful words, and
unselfish deeds - and the world will be to you a bright and happy place in which
to work and play and serve.
Grenville Kleiser
·
Before
the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his
intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
Mohandas Gandhi
·
Plans
are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Peter Drucker
·
I
don't know anyone in the public eye who has not made a mistake and said
something in a manner that does not truly reflect their intentions.
Jim Jeffords
·
Hell
isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes,
and furnished too.
Aldous Huxley
·
The
road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
·
The
evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions
may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
Albert Camus
·
Our
intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the
action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for
sin comes out of a wrong intention.
E. Stanley Jones
·
A
gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
Oscar Wilde
·
I
may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I
intended to be.
Douglas Adams
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Until you value yourself
Until you
value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will
not do anything with it. (M. Scott Peck)
I posted some little pearls of wisdom
from the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck recently, but it is this particular quote
that has stayed with me since then, so I know that it struck a chord in me. I
have been preoccupied with this very thing since I started my blog in May of
2010—the idea that my time is valuable, that it is worth something and that it
is important to use it well. Some of you may be thinking that this sounds
strange. Didn’t I value myself and my time before then? The answer is yes, I
did, but I often lived in an unaware state, perhaps thinking that I had all the
time in the world to do this or that, to change my life, to pursue this or that
hobby, or to get involved in this or that cause. But now I know better. Life is
short. And my saying this is not about my being unduly or morbidly focused on
mortality and a certain end, although that would be a good enough reason in and
of itself to get up and get moving on the things I want to do and accomplish
before I leave this life. It’s about being focused on living, on being a part of life, in all ways possible. It’s
about living now and giving and getting as much out of life as is humanly
possible. It’s about getting up off the couch and not watching too much TV or
sitting in front of the computer for too long, it’s about not buying into
everything that is written in the newspapers or in magazines, it’s about
thinking for yourself and valuing your own ideas and creativity. It’s about not
letting work take over your life to the exclusion of your family or your
creativity. It’s not necessarily about parachute jumping or extreme sports
(unless you really want to do that!—I don’t). But I do want to step up to my
own plate—be present in my own life, be aware of the opportunities and freedoms
that have been given to me. Because they are not few, I have realized that. We
are given so many opportunities each day to be present to ourselves and to others.
The question is whether we stay aware during our daily lives, or if we just end
up doing things by rote, living according to worn-out routines, and not doing
anything about it. There is comfort in old routines, that must be said, and I am
not for discarding all of them just for the sake of doing so. But it’s
important to figure out when to let go of things that don’t work for us anymore
or when to let go of certain people who drag us down because they don’t want
you to rise because it means that they might have to. And by letting go I mean,
putting things and people in their rightful places and rising above their petty
concerns, envy and negativity, not necessarily pushing them out of our lives
completely. And that takes a change of mindset. It may not mean quitting your
demoralizing job if you cannot for economic reasons, but it may mean separating
yourself mentally from that job and rising above it in order to survive
mentally and emotionally. It may mean a radical change in how you look at that
job. It may mean a radical change in how you look at the people in your life as
well. There are always some few people who are naysayers no matter what you do
and say; instead of letting them get the better of you, just let go of their words. Don’t give their words any power
over you. It is amazing how easily that can happen, almost as though there is a
little person who lives inside each of us just waiting to be fed the negative
words. We suck up the validation of ourselves as ‘not good enough’; we suck up
the negativity and feel as though we deserve it--deserve the derision, negative
comments, hostility, aggression or envy. We think that if we rise, it has to be
at the cost of the happiness of others. It’s not true. This is negativity at
work—this is what happens when we do not value ourselves. Because if we do not
value ourselves and if we let the negativity in ourselves and from others win
over us, we will not think about our time as something to be valued, and we will
remain passive observers in our own lives because it will be easier not to rock
our own boats or the boats of others.
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