Chiaroscuro

I've been wrestling with God much more in my mind than in my heart for the past couple of months. While the intellectual struggles have been great, it's almost as if I've voluntarily withdrawn and decided that the heart isn't always quite worth it, as if investing in outpourings of the heart is mutually exclusive from challenging my mind to the utmost. I know that such isn't true, but I'm finding it difficult to strike the right balance in real life, given our human limitations of time, willpower, and energy. Given my confusion and internal qualms, I am all the more excited to read John Piper and colleagues' "Thinking. Loving.Doing.: A Call to Glorify God with Heart and Mind." over the next few days. I am thankful for Thanksgiving break.

Another set of tensions that has been on my mind stems from attending the Ames moot court last week:

Law: While law is supposed to render people equal, the process seems very hierarchical and full of deference. Lawyers -- or at least the law students who argued in front of Justice Sotomayor and the other two justices -- seem to have little confidence in themselves. The people who argued were also poor in answering directly the questions posed to them. Sometimes they would evade the question, making round-about arguments. Or, they would try to prove that whatever they had said before was legitimate and advanced their case -- generally not a bad thing, but in this case the tactic was inappropriate and poorly timed, because the students had been asked just to answer certain yes-or-no questions. When asked for certain information, give it. Don't beat about the bush.

Business: I've heard that businesses and corporations are often hierarchical, but increasingly I've found that one can achieve respect as long as you prove your arguments with substantial, meaningful evidence. Granted, it's not always easy to put yourself in a position where you can prove your point, but after doing so, opportunities (can) come in a much more meritocratic way...

- - -

have you ever dreamt voices?

can i bottle up your voice,
and set it within a clear glass vial
to radiate colors of crystal
while stopped with a piece of cork
sealed tight?

a deceptively cool-headed wind
whooshes
past

the crevices of your being
brood burgundy
as autumn souls
are caressed in warm argent
will you not also reach for the light?

-eHc

Golden Handcuffs

God, I don't understand. Last week, it was all fine. In fact, I was even reassured that it would be okay, and that I shouldn't have to worry so much. Seems like that's not the case -- the worrying is just delayed. It's like senior year of HS all over again, except this time I'm geographically removed and in a position to run off if I want.

逃避. to escape.

But really... I'd thought it'd be okay. That this was the end of it. That I wouldn't have to fear my irrational wonderings and mind experiments every time I walked over a bridge, or into traffic, or along the river. That there is more to life than..

I don't understand why they have so little trust in me, or in my ability and desires to navigate the system. Does it really matter to be at the "top" or to do what no one else does? Selectivity doesn't always correctly signal increase in quality... Not in the ways that matter to me, at least.

Do I fight? If so.. how?

- - -

is it naive
of us, to
to assume
that we have

why hope
why care
why dare
back to Jerusalem, I stare

-eHc

- - -

I realize that overall, I've been intentionally isolating myself a lot more this year. Not that I don't see people and interact with them still, but as a whole, I'm more apathetic about -- and unsure of my approach to -- keeping up some relationships. I think it started when ML called me to tell me about his job offer. I was glad he'd chosen to share the news with me, but I was struck with a sudden, pinching grief that pulled at my sides and yanked me into dullness.

"You can't get married in the next few years, 'cause then I can't make it to your wedding... No, really." Those were some of his words during our phone chat. We chuckled over it, because what else could you do in a moment like that? Inside, though, I really wondered... what sort of relationship can you keep up with someone who doesn't have time for you? Distance is one thing, but time is a whole other monster. As I relayed to RK -- ML, I don't want to just invite you to my wedding.. I want you to be there when I  introduce my future whoever to my friends. I want you to meet him, to get to know him, to tell me truly if you think it'll work out and if we are and will be good for each other. I want your opinion developed through time and meaningful interaction. Not just for you to show up dressed like a penguin and shower me with empty words of congratulations. That wouldn't mean much. And I don't want to settle.

Or am I expecting too much? Is it inevitable that with separation of time and distance, that relationships fade away until they turn dusty yellow with unpleasantness and awkwardness? Can they be sustained by anything other than the past and in the present, save Christ?

Rainy-day thoughts.

Taking two B-school professor-taught classes on innovation (one class on innovation and entrepreneurship in general, and the other on innovation as a mechanism for solving intractable problems in South Asia) has been highly knowledge-enriching and worldview-broadening so far.  I've learned a lot about many different factors that go into being forward-thinking in business, and have developed a greater sense of various complex socioeconomic fabric and political situations that exist throughout South Asia. Despite the classes' highlighting innovation, though, all that this teaching has done for me is make me really appreciate -- for the first time since I declared my concentration, actually -- that I study government: institutions, political structures, policy development, and more. When it comes to provision of basic public goods, I think that even if innovative solutions are able to prove themselves and get off fast and running on the ground, eventually, governments have to step in and play a significant cooperative role in scaling and transplanting those solutions to their populace. Without governmental cooperation, it's hard to solve large-scale social problems, no matter how well-resourced or well-intentioned you might be.

Another thought that's been on my mind, "Fiat voluntas tua." Let Your will be done, God. I admit that I rebel from time to time in both my actions and my thoughts, and try to take things into my own hands. Far too often, I've been putting my hopes in concrete things of this world, even as I've sought to rationalize to myself that my intention was to use them as a means of effecting the next world. I say I seek Your will, God, but do I really seek "Your will"? Arguably not, God, arguably not. I may start off well-intentioned, but on my own, I am so easily drawn away from what is of utmost importance, to things glittery and attractive, that I end up veering off-path and driving myself into ditches.

Lord, I give you my dreams. I ask that You re-calibrate my heart and align it with Yours.

white grapes

senior year: shameless, spontaneous, full of delight. to know, to love, to always rejoice.

whenever i tell people that my word for senior year is "shameless," i get more than a few raised eyebrows and guffaws. =p lol. i see the word "shameless" as applicable to many facets of life, though, not just ones that involve indecency. perhaps "shameless" best describes my feeling liberated, as a senior. the idea of urgency, of having only one more year left, compels me all the more to do things i value b/c if i don't do them now, the chance'll not come in the future. and it's freeing, knowing that i have such great opportunities this last year to do these things. it's kinda like the concept of grace. being liberated in Christ so that one may aim to sin no more in the rest of life one has on earth.

senior year has also been a time of coming to terms with oneself that idealized notions of intellectual activity may not always manifest themselves as wonderfully in real life... that theses are not always the culmination of years of frenzied but immensely enjoyable intellectual struggles as i thought they were, that there will be options in the future to leave my mark on the world in writing, that a dearth of active, intense desire to produce such a long piece probably means that i shouldn't write one. mm.. yeah. ideally i'd be a renaissance person living in the 17th or 18th century, rockin' out to Bach and Vitali, poring over the works of Locke, and dreamin' to the beat of da Vinci, but.. gotta find someway else to create/draw out value in this modern world.

on an altogether unrelated note, JN says, "the heart is willing, but the mind is not." somethin' like that. true.. i'll acknowledge it, too. :p

sometimes i think that i'm so busy that i don't have time for many things i want to do. other times i think, what am i so busy with that i can't cut out 2 hrs of my time each week for [insert worthy/rewarding cause]? and when i venture out onto that path, i wonder, but which worthy/rewarding cause should i devote myself to? there are so many out there! ah.. too much thinking --> dead ends/paralysis. Nike's right: Just Do It. and if it turns out not to be a good decision, TK's probably right -- Holy Spirit'll come and re-route things for the better.

PaPa's in SG now! a deliberately-conferred name of affection, but anyhow.. thankful for two situations: 1) that he's back in the area, and 2) that Mums is speaking more realistically of going home in December. it's been quite a while, in the physical sense, and in the emotional sense, i don't know if she ever really left.

the sound of camaraderie

I was caught off guard yesterday for what greeted me as I entered Quincy House to meet up with 2012 for dinner. As I pushed open the glass door, my ears were filled with a most pleasant sound -- that of camaraderie. Ah.. camaraderie is a warm yellow, somewhere between banana yellow and marigold, almost like that of incandescent light bulbs lit up while corralled by milky white enclosures. I think it's the newest addition to my collection of favorite sounds. I hadn't expected people at school to be unfriendly towards each other, but the conversation floating through the air was so warm amongst the myriad students, and evidently so, that I was glad to be back. Seeing 2012 again was good. It's infrequent that many of us are able to congregate, and as JY said, we *are* a family, even if we don't see each other all that often.

School is a bizarre time.. as senior year starts up, and thoughts of the future peek in through various doorways, I am beginning to understand how it is that my friends who were seniors before were so busy.

Earlier this afternoon, while we were sitting in the BLP program, another student asked one of the presenters how research in academia differed from research in consulting. The presenter responded that he'd switched from doing research in academia to pursuing consulting because he appreciated the more immediate, tangible difference he was able to make in the latter field. That made me wonder, why are so many people into the idea of making a difference? Making a difference indicates that we matter, hence, in asking such questions, are we simply consumed with self? Why does it matter to matter?

Rephrased and more drawn out -- why do we want so much to matter? .. in what ways do we want to matter? to whom do we want to matter? and.. how do we matter? Are these good and for what we should seek? Can we ever be ultimately satisfied?

seeking what? or whom?

cravings that curl up fetus-like and arch backwards.. such are the cravings that I've had recently. at the moment they're for inconsequential things like dim sum, rice noodles, and pretty lace, as well as larger-ticket items like the satiation of head knowledge, a fluency in several foreign languages, and a thirst for perhaps God.

this was from late July, the 28th or so, but:

of mahogany spheres on navy-blue nights

carved
inserted
(im)pressed
embedded

a piece of parchment in a walnut shell

-eHc

it's kinda rough, and might be incomplete. i'll see if i come back to it.

Learning in life and work

Ahh.. haven't posted in a while. Not very good with this whole keep-people-updated-on-life-events sort of writing, but will try for a bit...

I'm currently at work, where apparently I have access to blogger/Youtube/Facebook, but not the Clinton Foundation. Whaaaat.. makes no sense, Infy. Anyhow, a few things I've learned/reaffirmed recently about the way I interact with ideas/people in life...

1) I work well when I've room for creativity within a rough framework... I don't need/like too much structure, as I prefer having room to wiggle and explore new ideas. Even with taking such a stop-and-smell-the-flowers-when-they-look-interesting sort of path, though, I do need to be productive to feel good about myself... productive in the sense of churning out compelling/useful/interesting/innovative ideas and compilations of such. I thrive on ideas with solid theoretical frameworks and the realistic prospects of implementing them.

2) I need practice in logically structuring my non-essay thoughts. Reason #1: Sometimes I find really interesting ideas, but I can't expect others to jump on them without giving them more to feed on. Reason #2: I just need to practice arranging my thoughts and presenting them to people. It would make things clearer for myself, as well.

3) I've been thoroughly impressed in recent travels/hanging out with non-Harvard people... I've been impressed by their multi-cultural backgrounds and wide variety of amazing and rigorous experiences, and delighted at their accompanying friendliness. I'd caught hints of it here and there for a while, both in person and virtually, but it wasn't until I sunk into a conversation with AD about social impact and past experiences a couple of weekends ago that I realized how awesome a group of people we had in the program... and it didn't take long, no, not at all. 'twas a good chat we had, and it may have actually been the first time I've met someone who thrives and bases his existence on social impact as much as I do mine... I was amazed and pleasantly surprised by that (even if that frame of mind and heart isn't exactly a good thing, but more on that another time).

Admittedly, the B'lore crowd is more "American" in attitude/communication style, and that's probably why I felt more comfortable with them/enjoyed myself more. Still, our group reminded me of CTY, and the talk I had with AD reminded me of how I loved coming to Ec 1389 the first half of the past semester, when Prof. Chandra would lead us into discussion and just let the class take off. The HKS/HMS/other grad students would just raise up their hands and shoot, "Last summer, when I was in Rwanda... when I was doing field work in China last winter... when I was working on a case study in rural India..." It was so wonderfully global, and even if one experience or even a few did not substantiate all of my classmates' points, I appreciated the fact that each speaker had at least seen something of what they were talking about, and wasn't just shooting off theory neither tested nor practiced.

Anyhow, this conversation made me resolve to take advantage of all that Harvard and non-Harvard has to offer, in my last year of school upcoming, to not restrict myself to simply Harvard happenings. I've lived in the Harvard bubble for long enough, and it's time to start transitioning out/stepping out a bit while I can. Glad I'm living with Niha next year.. I think that will remind me to keep an open mind towards cool activities occurring at other institutions. Yup. =)