It builds character

I was talking with some friends the other night about absolutely terrible experiences that were incredibly profound, but were also terribly painful to go through. I've thought about it some more, and have come up with:

The 9 life experiences I believe everyone should have*^,**

1. overcoming an addiction (and I don't mean something mamby-pamby like a mild fascination with sugar or caffeine or an "addiction to cracking knuckles"; I'm talking a serious, chemically-induced, behaviorally-modifying, possibly-health-or-even-life-threatening one you fight with for several years)
2. coming out of the closet (and this doesn't just include gender or sexual orientation (and could, perhaps, be even more) but any experience that requires you to drastically change the expectations of many–if not all–of your closest associates)
3. a ritualistic burning of the boats
4. a seriously traumatic experience
5. mental therapy and/or counseling in any of its varieties 
6. being heartbroken
7. wanting something so badly it hurts, and then realizing–all in a short period of time–that you'll never actually have it
8. being picked last in gym class
9. realizing you're so strapped for cash at the end of the month that you can either fill up your gas tank or eat dinner, but not both

* but couldn't really consider myself a decent human being if I wished them on my friends
** somewhat in order of significance

A Grief Observed

I've recently gone through one of the hardest experiences of my life.

During the month of December, I made a new friend (a girl who worked at the University) and enjoyed the brief time I was able to spend with her. The getting-to-know-you phase was cut somewhat short by the holidays (I went home for a few weeks), but we still kept in contact. On December 30th, I flew back into town to plan a New Year's Eve party, and picked her up to help buy decorations. About 5 minutes after I had picked her up, I made the turn into my apartment—the same left-handed turn I'd made hundreds of times in a year and a half of living there—and was broadsided by an oncoming car. I was knocked unconscious so there's a good chunk of my memory that's rather blurry (and I remember none of the incident or the supposed other car), but after a few CAT scans and other procedures, I was released, completely fine.

She never made it out of her coma.


The ten days between when the accident happened and when she finally passed were some of the hardest days of my life: wrestling with God, with my emotions, trying to accept what happened. And the days and weeks that have followed have not been any easier. Since that time, I've gone through a complete gamut of emotions: intense guilt followed by sweet peace; sadness and fear that things will never be the same, followed by an optimistic hope and a knowledge that they would...followed by the confused, gradual, heavy settling that she was permanently gone and I was powerless to do anything about it; concern that I had forgotten her and moved on too quickly followed by intense, violent sobbing...

I've also learned a lot about comfort in grief. I've learned that the worst (and yet most common) thing one can ask is "How are you doing?" (Are they using the phrase in its trite, meaningless greeting sense, or do they know what happened—and are they prepared for the floodgates that might be opened in response?)

But most of all, I struggle with the "What can I do for you?" question—which is traditionally followed by "No really, what can I do for you?" and almost always wrapped up with "Well remember that if you need anything, I'm just a phone call away." As if repetition and emphasis makes up for the burden they've just (knowingly or otherwise) placed on my already-weary shoulders, the burden of making them—the non-grieving, nonetheless—feel better by offering them control in a situation that for me has been spinning violently out of control for days and weeks and now months... I've since quit telling them, "Well for starters, you can never ask me that ever again," and have instead opted to just smile and thank them for their concern. Sometimes, the simple repeated song is all that humans or birds know how to sing.


In stark contrast, the most meaningful expressions since that day have been in the form of gifts. Gifts I neither asked for nor expected, but sent me to tears nonetheless—tears of appreciation and gratitude and friendship and love. One such gift was the remote to our apartment complex gate, so I could take the back entrance instead of revisiting that same left-hand turn day after day, driving over the fluorescent-green painted lines in the street that shouted to all passers-by "something terrible happened here."

The other gift that meant the world to me was a pair of pants. Someone should have told me when I got on the plane that cold December morning to put on a pair of ragged jeans and a sweatshirt I didn't care about. When they pull you from your totalled vehicle, they don't ask you nicely to lift up your arms as they gently take off your jacket. They don't even spend the time to unbutton your shirt or unzip your pants. Instead, they take scissors (or a knife or bolt cutters or a blow torch or whatever they have handy, I guess) to the lot of it, giving it back to you in a hospital carryout bag like a prize from Dave & Busters. No, they really should have told me not to wear my favorite outfit, to keep my faux leather jacket I still haven't replaced safely hung in the closet, to keep my brand new pair of Bonobos safely unpacked, and to save my favorite flannel shirt for a different chilly Texas day. So when the pants came in the mail (from one of my very best of friends who, despite her attempts at remaining anonymous, left her billing address on the packing slip), I was once again reduced to tears. But this time, they were welcome tears, appreciative tears, and--most important--tears I could experience on my own, in the comfort and privacy of my own car, and at the rate I wanted or did not want.


Maybe this is the way all grief is: the disgust with trivial "checkins," the appreciation of gifts. Or maybe I'm different. In conclusion? Save your favorite outfit for a day when you'll decidedly maintain a comfortable distance from ambulances and paramedics with blow torches. And buy a friend a pair of blue jeans.

Academic Hazing -- Part II

It's been a while since Part I happened, and I didn't publish it because I wanted to remain in good graces with my adviser. Now that it's officially over, I figured I could post Part I and finish up with Part II.

To keep the three major actors (all advisors) in this play separate, I will give them names. First, my PhD adviser I'll call M, the graduate adviser for the CS graduate program I'll call Al, and the academic adviser (she knows all things rules and regulations) I'll call G.

I got an email from G mid-August, informing me that since I hadn't given my qualifying presentation by that point, I needed to provide the graduate committee with a schedule for when I would accomplish it. I wasn't too concerned--since I had already prepared for it in Part I, I could really do it any time.

But before I could email any response, M preemptively replied to the thread (Al, G, and me) with a two-sentence response:

I am no longer supervising Nathan Clement.  I will be at the meeting.

I spoke with Al and he told me I should probably get my act together, create a plan for how I would fulfill what I previously had considered "arbitrary requirements," and try and smooth things over with M. Since these "arbitrary requirements" consisted essentially of writing a 30-page background chapter for my PhD dissertation in the next two weeks, I sent a sort of extended abstract to M as a token of my dedication. This morning I got an email that simply stated:

Your emails have caused me to revisit events and progress per your research with me.
I come to the same conclusion. I am no longer your advisor.

In talking to a fellow student in the lab, he recommended I still talk in person with M and express my willingness to "take my scholarship seriously," so I waited for him to arrive at his office.


I described the meeting to a friend via text like this:

there's not really much of a story ... I talked to him, he said no, I said "please", he said never, and then I threw his chair out his window. 

maybe the chair part was only in my mind... 

I find it interesting that less than a month ago I was considering what I'd do if "my life were completely and irreversibly turned around."

Academic Hazing - Part I

I just got a scathing email from my advisor. There's a little bit of back story, so bear with me for a minute.

About the end of April, I finished writing a paper describing my research to that point, sent it to my advisor for review, and then set it aside to do some more research.

About the middle of May, I prepared to give a presentation–somewhat equivalent to the qualification exams in most PhD programs–invited colleagues and professors, and was about to purchase fruit and drinks. The night before I was scheduled to give this presentation, my advisor suggested I wasn't ready. Suggested is a light word. He actually forbade me from giving the presentation.

About the middle of June, my dad encouraged me to submit the paper I had previously written to a conference: there was one in Australia and one in Greece. On a whim, I asked my advisor about these conferences, if he had heard of either of them, and which one he thought I should attend. His response was that I don't know enough to submit to either conference and I should instead think about combining forces with another graduate student and submitting to a conference in Colorado (who wants to go to Colorado when they can go to Australia?) I respond with a short message saying, "Thanks. I'll just submit to one of these conferences and see if I can get some feedback on my paper."

About the beginning of July (now), he sends this "scathing rebuke." Apparently, my work to this point has been unsatisfactory, it is clear that I don't know what I'm talking about, my response to his email was "very discouraging," and if I didn't fulfill a set of arbitrary requirements, he was going to metaphorically and physically kick me out of his lab.

As I sat there seething, trying to think of some sort of witty, biting email to put him in his place, I imagined how the "perfect scenario" would play out:

I would write a scathing rebuke to him (my graduate advisor was already CC'd–let that continue), and he would become incensed. The graduate advisor would schedule a meeting in an attempt to mediate between the two of us, but tempers would be high. My advisor would make his first (weak) arguments that consist mostly of things clearly made up on the spot. I would politely wait, a wry smile on my face, then patiently ask, "Are you finished?" when he stopped talking.

And then my turn would come: "Oh. So you say I've not done my part? Well, what part have you done? How do you know I haven't attained the level of scholarship you desire? You haven't even read my work! You won't be able to give me even one detail from my paper that would prove you looked at anything past the abstract–because you didn't! If anyone is to blame here, it's you."

And then I would give him the kicker. I would issue the penultimate threat. I would put him so far into his place, he would have no response but to...

And then I realized. There was no possible way for my "perfect scenario" to end in my favor. At the end, I would tell him he was lousy and should jump off a cliff. He'd tell me I was lousy and didn't belong in his lab. I'd tell him he wasn't kicking me out of his lab cause I'd already left. And then my so-called perfect scenario would be turned completely on its head. Sure, I might have been able to get a couple biting jabs at him, let the graduate advisor know a few things he surely already knows. But I'd be no better off than I would be in any other scenario.


And then I was reminded of my fast-growing comparison between receiving a PhD and getting admitted to an elite club. I've always known it was an elite club, that you had to complete a set of somewhat-arbitrary requirements before you met some completely-arbitrary standard. And I knew that, once you were "in the club," you could get the secret handshake and sit at the secret table and talk with all the super-important people just because you had those special three letters attached to your name.

But until this point, I had never thought there was hazing. Every semester, the school sends out reminders that "individuals or organizations engaging in hazing could be subject to fines and charged with a criminal offense." Causing physical harm to someone else just so they can enter your club is strictly prohibited. But the mental and emotional hazing is part of the game. My last advisor required me to spend a summer unpaid, working on a dead-end project, and didn't approve when I wasn't in the lab every day. Why? Hazing. If you want to join the club, there has to be some sort of (usually unreasonable) mental/emotional/physical harm. And then once you do join the club, you get to inflict the pain on others.


Or perhaps I really do need to better my scholarship and just take it silently.

On advocating the devil

My friend recently wrote a blog post condemning The Devil's Advocate.  It hit a particularly sensitive nerve as I have been censured several times (including by the author of the post) for "wrongly" taking this position.  My comment on her blog was getting fairly lengthy, so I decided to post it here.

---

As an advocate of the devil myself, I am going to respectfully disagree with you, and propose two reasons for such advocations that go beyond those expressed in your post.  Each of these reasons suppose that, instead of being limited in his understanding, the devil's advocate actually possesses greater insight into the situation.


First, one might play the devil's advocate for pure sport.  Let me ask you when the last time was you successfully "convinced" someone of an alternative position.  It's going to be rare--not only because convincing someone is a difficult task, but because typical "discussions" lack a definitive "right" or "wrong," being instead guided by opinion (which can be neither right nor wrong).  In this scenario, the devil's advocate is perfectly aware of the futility of change, so he shifts the parameters to create something accomplishable.  As a sporting event, the game can be likened to a digging expedition:  how deep are this individual's convictions? are they rooted in something substantial?  do they understand that many of their so-called "scientifically-based and entirely-reasonable" conclusions have neither a foundation in science nor logical basis?  One might think changing the rules to a sporting even is unfair, but on the other hand (as a wise man once said), the purpose of a true scholar is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted.


My second reason is closely linked to the first:  the proposition that all positions are insubstantially-founded.  As a good friend once quoted,

"All articulated positions emerge from social process, and even the attempt to elaborate foundations must ultimately beg the question of how its elaborations are to be warranted. This scarcely suggests that we should abandon the positions we occupy. Rather, it is to become aware that we live within traditions that may or may not be adequate to the contingencies of today. Reflection, curiosity, and doubt must all be encouraged." – Kenneth Gergen

The devil's advocate, then, has a greater understanding of this claim.  As he pushes the limits of his own understanding, he is able to identify the areas of his arguments constructed by social processes that might not be globally accepted and/or understood.  He also knows that in agreeing with the current social norms or trends (ie, going along with the conversation without exploring the alternatives), he is preventing himself of empathizing with others.  Frequently, the devil's advocate will propose the following thought-question:  "Assume there exists a logical, well-founded, unbiased individual with an opinion opposite to my own.  How is it possible for them to arrive at their current position?"  The opponent of the devil's advocate will rarely be able to admit—and even less frequently answer—these questions.


So, to my blog-writing friend, I am going to have to respectfully disagree.  On the off-chance you don't accept my respectful disagreement, I'm going to have to disrespectfully disagree.  And, if you continue to pursue the subject even further, I am going to vehemently disagree and suggest that, perhaps, you should participate in a simpler sport or entertain less empathetic conversations.

On poetry and shoes

"It's too bad you don't have bigger feet."

I sent that message to a friend the other day. I don't think he understood what I meant, and I didn't offer any further explanation. We just left it at that. I've thought about it quite a bit since then, and I've realized I was pretty spot-on.


When aimed at a fat kid, jokes and insults are entirely uncalled for. Parents scold their children for verbalizing what they themselves keep tucked silently in the not-so-hidden recesses of their minds. After all, it's not the kid's fault they're a little overweight, right? Perhaps they haven't been taught to exercise, or perhaps their parents don't provide for them correctly. Or perhaps they're just "growing into themselves."


But when you've got big feet, it's open season.


You quickly learn that is is acceptable, almost even expected, for individuals both young and old, both those in your immediate family and those you've never met, to laugh at the obvious.

"How's the water skiing going? Barefoot, right?"
"I'll bet you love snow-shoeing – you don't even need the shoes!"
"How many gallons of milk can you fit in these boats?"


When I was 16, I bought my first size 16 shoes. I went from a 13 to a 16 in one glorious day – my feet had never felt better. But while I have what some might call a "firm understanding" (I'm a poet and didn't know it, but my feet show it:  they're Longfellows), the size of my feet and the stuff by which they are shod have seen no end of ridicule. But do you know what makes it even more interesting? Someone asked me recently what I'm most self-conscious about. My honest response was my feet. It's been that way for a while, probably since I was 16. So why is it that even as a grown adult, it's inappropriate to remark on a guy's weight or skin tone (as pale as it might be), and a cardinal sin to even suggest "weight" in any of its forms in the presence of a woman, but nobody thinks twice when it comes to feet? Even today, I can count on my two hands the number of days it's been since someone has commented on their disproportionality.


And yet, I've learned a lot from all these "well-meaning" offenders. Because various aspects of my uncontrollable physique (let's not even get started on height) have been the butt of many a joke, my skin is a little tougher. I learned long ago that someone telling me, "Hey are you sick? You actually combed your hair today," might not be a senseless act of ridicule. I learned to laugh when someone tries to walk around with their shoes entirely inside my own, and even help them out when they wanted the "perfect item for a clown costume."  I learned there are things beyond your control that others find humorous – perhaps because it helps them find a common ground, or perhaps because, in their mind, it's just not that big of a deal.


But that's what happens when you've got big feet.


So, to all my easily-offended friends, I only lament: "Would that you also had big feet!!"