relationships and taking on other people's personalities

What is the nature of empathy? How do we relate to other people?
In listening to these tapes (maybe I will tell the story of these tapes some time) I think about relationships. One of the dichotomies set up is between brief connections between people and longer relationships that grow and build. One woman in the group gave the figure of 6 years. This is how long she says it takes her to really feel like she knows where someone is coming from. This elicited anger from a man in the group- he had recently met some woman and had been really enjoying spending time with her. "Our relationship is meaningful NOW", he insisted. So maybe there is some difference between these two people, different styles, and they are also looking for different things. Different kind of meaning?

A different woman relates a story of how she is friends with a guy who is studying biochemistry and he is extremely excited about it. She doesn't understand biochemistry and he knows she doesn't, but he still loves talking to her about it because she can feel his excitement. Here is empathy to some extent. The two of them take on similar feelings. Someone else in the group responds by saying that if she understood biochemistry, it would be a deeper level of communication, a deeper connection. Not everyone is so sure of this, or thinks its particularly important.

I was going to say that this got me thinking about the question of how we can take on qualities of other people. But I'm no longer sure of the connection between these two lines of thought. I guess I see empathy and mutual understanding as the healthy good aspect to relationships, whereas the taking of someone else's personality without giving of your own is unhealthy, bad. But maybe this is just how we learn. This is how we grow up. We have weaknesses, and fill them up with other people's approaches. We can see it in a positive way. I'm reminded of the videogame Megaman. You run around destroying the different enemies and after killing them, you get their power- maybe you can now lift and hurl boulders, or throw lightning bolts or cast fireballs. In the real world, we don't need to destroy someone to use their abilities. But until we work that ability into our self, there is something questionable about it. I guess its the detachability. If our personality contains detachable elements then how can someone trust us? How can you build something if the ground is always shifting out from under you?

So, yes, there are worries. But I like having Megaman's abilities. How else am I going to defeat Dr. Wily?

quality of arrogance

Here's a line from some tapes I've been listening to that are recordings of a "personal encounter group" from 1961:

"The one positive thing about you is how concerned you are with the quality of arrogance you have towards people."

In context, its not quite as harsh as this.

wandering

I went up to the Legion of Honor Sunday to finally see what this museum had to offer.
Unfortunately it was closed. So instead, I listened to some guitar music which was entertaining the guests for a Jewish wedding taking place in front of the museum. I looked briefly at the holocaust memorial and then headed off to the golf course and onto the paths through the Juniper trees that led to the trails on the cliffs.
I'm always annoyed by "trail closed" signs. I don't like the idea that one can open and close a trail like one can a convenience store or museum. The one I saw was particularly intriguing: "Trail closed- Warning, People have fallen to their death". So of course I had to go check it out. There were plenty of footprints, so clearly I wasn't the only one who didn't think much of disobeying these signs. I climbed up a small trail on a hill and saw the Golden Gate Bridge, and there was another sign at the cliff edge naming the area Dead Man's Cliff or something like that, again warning that people had fallen to their death.
All in all, its satisfying to find myself amongst these signs. Not that I actually come that close to the edge of the cliffs, but its like finding a mystery. I saw a crumpled bicycle several hundred feet down probably that someone had pushed over the edge.

Why do I wander? (And I do it a lot.) While driving down 280 today, I was looking longingly into the distant hills. What do I think I'll find there? I pictured myself more concretely walking or sitting in the dirt amongst the bushes and realized that the mystery probably wouldn't be there. Like the pot of gold at the base of the rainbow.
My dad once said about me that I like being lost. Its true, but mainly just means dissatisfaction- in getting lost is the possibility of finding something better.

Driving home after my somewhat satisfying wanderings, I stopped by a European grocery store and bought some candies and bread. I accidentally left the bread behind and was almost going to drive home without it, feeling tired and ready to stop walking and driving. Then I thought of the cashier (maybe the owner, was she German, Russian- I can't remember) and how hot and fresh the bread was and that they probably take pride in their bread. I didn't want to be a wasteful American, so I went back. And I was right- I was thanked very warmly for coming back for the bread.

So I was happy about some of the things I'd found. Part of the wandering lifestyle means being in the desert at times, being stuck in far off places, being uncomfortable, being lonely.
I'd like to say that its all worth it, but I think its better not to glamorize one's defects. You use them and live with them and make the most of them and maybe they can offer something to someone else, but one shouldn't forget how personal and specific to you they are.

opening night

Line from "Opening Night" by Cassavettes:

If I had known what a boring man you were when I married you, I wouldn't have gone through all those emotional crises.

taking advantage of Sheehan?

Along the lines I was talking about in my last post, I came across
this
article, which has the quote

She [Sheehan] has made it OK to have these conversations, as they're now about her," Tuman said. "She's given people a way to talk about the war again."

Old friends

Went to Santa Cruz to John's party tonight. I went with two other friends and I didn't know if they'd have a good time.
Ping pong and karaoke. They did have a somewhat good time I think. It was a little weird, mixing these different groups together. But actually over time it becomes less weird. One makes new friends and eventually you have the history of old friends. But still, finding out what everyone's up to- James, always with a crude joke, showed his 3-D ultrasound of his future baby proclaiming "there it is" when its penis was in sight, hearing that Natalie is giving dog massages in Montana, Ruthie back in town, Peter in Thailand, his mom Eloise leaving the country for the second time ever, nervously, being escorted by Linnaea. John heading off to Las Vegas to pharmacy school, Zach starting school in Irvine- I missed playing ping pong with him. Linnaea's description of Joe's new girlfriend. Taj is reportedly smitten with his new baby.
Playing ping pong, listening to 80's music. (I sang "Guantanamera" to karaoke) It feels so good to be recognized and to have history with people. I feel invincible and wonder where that ease is in the rest of my life. Why all this separation and compartmentalization? This is always the feeling I have when I visit Santa Cruz friends. Here is a place where I feel fully present, my social brain is fully turned on. Its always therapeutic. The afterglow lasts a few days- a template for wholeness. But it goes away as I slip back into research mode and accept the smaller, more carefully measured, crafted life that accompanies work.
Linnaea introduced me to her friend as a "One man think tank". It was flattering, but its a difficult self image to live with.
Too bad Peter wasn't around, I guess he'll be back in a few months. And the other John wasn't there. I'll have to visit him soon and go out on the reservoir. Wonder how Josh is doing in Davis. I should visit Joe when I go to Chicago.

Yes, all these people. Each one makes me feel alive. The mutual excitement of watching others go through their lives and just feel so good to know each other.

Saraband

This was a worthy succesor to Bergman's original "Scenes from a Marriage". It is intense and slow at the same time.
I could identify with Marriane's position. She inserts herself into this complex situation through her relationship with Johan. She listens to everyone, absorbing their concerns and sometimes their hatred. This role of the listener seems neutral, but it is also ambiguous because one then has a lot of information which can put one in a powerful position.

I watched the movie in a theater with three other people- a mother and daughter and a guy about my age with long blondish brown hair who left and came back to his seat about 4 times before the movie started. He sat about 8 rows in front of the mother and daughter and apologised in case he was blocking their view- "You're tall, but not that tall," the mother said and they all laughed. They were talking to each other, but then were self conscious and promised that they wouldn't be so loud during the movie. I said not to worry about it. None of us did say anything during the movie- except the daughter let out a gasp of "ooh, gross!" at the scene where the father and daughter give each other a brief tongue kiss.

I ate a hot dog and watermelon sour patch kids before the movie, since I hadn't had dinner that night.

Ararat

I just watched the movie Ararat.
Its a series of stories of people with the history of the Armenian genocide at the center. The movie is about the creation of a film about the genocide. This has certainly been done before- a film about a film. But it does seem appropriate in this case, because the issue of how to deal with the history is central. And one of the ways to deal with history is through art. So film and painting are both central to the film.

I wasn't sure what to make of the character of Rafi's step-sister. I think that the role she played was part of one of the themes of questioning what someone's death means to you. And when we try to come to grips with such a large number of deaths, we also need to address this question.

The film is complex and seems to work at a number of levels. When I see a complex movie, or read a complex story, I try to figure out if the complexity is useful and required. Some issues just can't be gotten at without the weaving together of many pieces- a sort of pointing in the direction of a truth, or image. But complexity seems to be praised for its own sake- a work without complexity can be deemed unimportant. So we have to watch out for complexity for its own sake. For the most part, it seemed to me that the complexity of Ararat was warranted. But I also admit that maybe its not as complex as I think. I tend to have trouble absorbing lots of different pieces, and so I view something as complex that others may find more simple. This reminds me of my insisting on the complexity of my own family situation, where others wondered what the big deal was. (Sorry, this is getting more personal now, but if I'm going to talk about my response to the film- how else to do it?)
And of course (to those who know me) there is another personal element in this response- my step-mother is Armenian- her parents were survivors of the genocide.

The film within the film focuses on the character of the painter Arshile Gorky. I don't know much about him. Maybe I'll learn more. In the film he is placed in the city of Van, where the Armenians mounted one of the few defenses against the Turks.

I'll leave it there for now... a few skeletal comments. Its not my job to write a book on this, but I was happy to have this story out there. Images from movies can stick with you. Especially when accompanied by emotional music. How does that process work? Something to think about. The filming of conversation is also interesting. The framing and timing give an interpretation what each expression means. I know there is still ambiguity, but there is also often implied meaning. Sometimes it is surprising to see ones intuitive understanding of what a facial expression means, given an explict framing that implies a more direct and articulated understanding by someone else.

accelerator physics blog

I started reading a few "physics blogs" recently. The problem is that the entertaining ones that also include discussions of culture and philosophy of physics that I've found seem to be oriented around (pro or con) string theory. For example, see here , and here (and references therein...) I guess there are some other particle and accelerator physics blogs, such as those at quantum diaries . But I haven't found many of these that really discuss the state of the field in the same way that the first two I linked to do. The idea of the quantum diaries blogs seems to be to convince people that physicists are a varied and interesting group of people with lives outside their work.
Here's another newly started group blog with string and particle physicists that looks like it could be promising.

I guess I should keep looking. But I'd like to find condensed matter theorists who are using quantum field theory, atomic physicists testing the limits of our understandings of quantum mechanics interpretations, and (!) accelerator physicists discussing the process of model building and what (if anything) fundamental is the distinction between physics and engineering. I suppose this latter blogger could be me.
What attracts me to the field is that it seems to be a fresh place where one can be a mathematical physicist. We had a recent reorganization at SLAC and one of the group leaders described his work as involving exploring new regimes and sometimes finding new physics there. This was met by the comment, "Now by new physics, you don't mean things like supersymmetry- we're still talking Maxwell's equations, right?" and this was responded to by another group leader saying, "No, its new physics in the sense that plasma physics is physics." So it seems that one has to fight for the right to call what one does physics. But I do find that the tool chest one uses is common across many different fields of physics, and maybe this gives a clue to what we mean by physics.

I'll admit that part of this is frustration at not being in the "in-crowd". Not being a part of the next cool thing is hard partly just case there aren't many people doing it and so there's less excitement in the air. Well, hopefully I can make it in this field and be in a position to talk to others who have ideas about this field. I have wanted to be a mathematical physicist for a long time and I still basically feel like this is a good field to do it in. But there does seem to be less room and respect for this role given in this field than in other areas of physics. Maybe accelerator/beam physicists themselves have this ambiguity themselves about the role they are playing. The tension is this: from an outside perspective, the purpose of "accelerator physics" is to build accelerators. These accelerators are useful for smashing together particles at high energies and so testing this realm of the universe, where it is thought that the real interesting stuff is happening. But it turns out that to even get these particles in orbits such that one can do these experiments, one has to do a fair amount of math and have detailed understanding of dynamics and be a good model builder so that the important effects are focused on and the not so important ones don't confuse the situation. This situation gives rise to interesting mathematical questions that use the same tools as arise in other areas of physics. This aspect is required but not really appreciated.

Hmm. Now I'm losing my train of thought and getting depressed about this. I'll have to give this another shot another time.

I guess I'm interested in how physics connects to other subjects. But it is hard to be seriously interested in this and not be suspected of being a second rate physicist (by myself as well). (although perhaps I am! - or maybe just a lazy one...) I've recently been reading "How the Laws of Physics Lie" by Nancy Cartwright. This book feels like its a step in the right direction. I guess what I like is that there is real physics in the book. It gets at some of the most cherished beliefs of real physicists. It doesn't just say: "physicists are arrogant bastards for thinking that nothing else besides physics is interesting- look *this* is interesting, and hey, **this** is also really interesting. What it does is says: "this is what physicists believe, and hey, its interesting, and it has a lot going for it, but hey, it might actually be wrong, here, here, and here." Cartwright's writing injects some healthy doubt into the field, so that in the end, one may feel that the original ideas were still right, but they are less sure they can defend them. And this is probably the more common sense that other disciplines find themselves in.
More on her arguments another time...

Ordinary People

I've been reading "Take It Personally" by Anita Roddick, which my friend N loaned to me. Its a book about being an activist and countering various modern global economic trends. On page 13, she writes
---
If civilization is going to survive, business and policy-makers must move on, to find within themselves more developed emotions than fear or greed. I believe we can only do that by letting ordinary people take more responsibility for running the world, and that means opening up these powerful and unbending institutuions to a whiff of democracy.
---
This phrase "ordinary people" caught my attention because I had read it somewhere else recently and had been thinking about it. There's something I don't like about the phrase. Partly I think its not precise enough, and partly I think it buys into the value system that one is supposedly criticising. Who might such "ordinary people" be? I don't think that she would want to imply that the world should be led by people who are either uninterested in politics or unskilled in communicating with others and creating consensus and other such important leadership skills. To say that more "ordinary people" should be in charge is to suggest that those who already are in charge are extraordinary. People with a lot of money and/or political power are extraordinary, but often mainly by virtue of that power, and ordinary in many other ways.
The first page of the book says that
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Proceeds from this book are going towards supporting visionaries, grassroots groups, and non-governmental organizations who are debunking the myths created by the World Trade Organization.
---
I would say that these people and groups are not "ordinary", but as she suggests, should be supported and celebrated.

Storage devices

Moving. What can I say?
Lots of junk. Realizing that keeping too many things is the same as having an unfinished research project. These things are part of building a life, and sometimes you just don't have the time to go through them and decide where they should fit. So you don't want to throw them away. They are raw material. Once you have a vision, you can use that vision to apply criteria for what to keep and what not to.
What about hard drives? With technology I tend to go back and forth between wanting power and customizability and wanting ease of use. The goal is to combine these, but some oscillation is usually required before settling down. I think I start this oscillation process off in too many areas without finishing them. Maybe its been a smart long term approach, but it sure has sucked as a short term approach. Anyway, I moved from Linux to Mac and now that I'm moving I have to decide what to do with my other (Linux) computer. Well, I managed to find the stuff on it that I want to keep and thanks to a piece of paper I didn't throw away, was even able to burn some cd's with that data on it. So I transfered that over to my mac and now I think I can start to figure out how to sell, give, throw away the other computer.
One nice piece to the puzzle was finding a place called "green citizen" near Fry's which will take monitors and tv's and other stuff for a small price, but does the right thing with them, recycling metals and working with manufacturerers. So I'm happy to know they exist. One small piece of learning how to be a constructive part of a sustainable lifestyle.
As for the rest of the moving process? I continue to treat it like my research project... one foot in front of the other.