Wordle is sweet

This web-app is sick.

"you're living the dream baby"

I think I've managed to somehow meet all the best people on campus...

gChat from this evening:

Hans: be thankful for the things you've been given, the friends you've been surrounded by, the opportunities you've had, the memories you've made, and be hopeful for the future that awaits you

it's really all you could ever want

you're living the dream baby

me: I think you've just managed to sum up everything I'm feeling in one gchat message.

Hans: ha, I'll take that as a compliment

Fire Talk 2.0 - What Motivates Me

University of Michigan Dance Marathon (UMDM) ended at around 4pm on a Sunday. The experience of it all and one particular conversation with someone--I'll spare her name here since I haven't asked her permission to mention it--about "[not] completely drinking the kool-aid about anything" inspired me to draft this...proclamation of sorts...immediately after the event. It's something I've been mulling over for the past year and this is the second version of my "fire talk".

It is a succinct version of what motivates me. Of course, being a dutiful husband, father and community member (if I'm so fortunate) supersedes this to some degree. My original copy went through the washing machine (I think, hopefully I'll find it), which I'm really upset about. It is recreated for safe-keeping here.

My cousin Nakul is someone I think about almost daily. A few weeks before I started the 9th grade, he was bit by a mosquito carrying Dengue Fever. He suffered tremendously (it is said that his body crackled like fire and he whimpered for an apple near the end) before he died. Years later, I realized his death had monumental impact on my life. I do not bring him up as an example for public-health advocacy. Rather, his case is something I bring up because it is an example of institutional failure.

Institutions and organizations play an immense role in determining our lives. They can allow for the beauty in our lives to flourish or they can make the world grim. They can destroy our moral fiber and make us less than human. Virtuous things, I think, are what makes life beautiful and worth living. Virtue and life must not be destroyed, they must be enabled and protected.

There are too many things in the world that negatively affect our lives that we cannot control. However, we can control, develop and transform institutions and organizations--so we must. Enabling and protecting life and virtue from the institutions and organizations that mangle them is one of my supremest and sincerest convictions*. Enabling and protecting life and virtue from the institutions and organizations that mangle them is what fires me up.

Addendum* - Public organizations, namely the US Government, are the class of organizations that I think are most influential, potent and dangerous. Consequently, transforming public organizations into protectors and enablers of life and virtue is my ultimate passion and commitment.

In support of politics...it can be done

I had an interesting conversation, as I often do with the friends I was with, about politics. The question was prompted by discussion about student-group politics at the University of Michigan. The opinion of my other two conversation partners was that politics is a not so great thing (their opinions were stronger, but I'll just leave it at that).

I disagree, I think politics can be done well and I would embrace politics, if a political actor adhered to the following three rules. Since I've never been able to really isolate my feelings on this issue, I wanted to scribe them right away, so I wouldn't forget. Even though, I SHOULD be writing my thesis, haha.

The Three Rules that political actors should follow:

1) The ethics clause
Figure out what is right and what is wrong. Spend most of your time doing this, not campaigning. Obviously, on some issues it's really hard to figure out what is right and what is wrong. Unfortunately for politicians, they cannot hide behind this because they have to vote on whether they agree or disagree. Use the people around you: constituents, staff members, the party, whatever and use your own values. Do the best you can, don't fake it. We know. Then proceed to rule number 2.

2) The no-bullshit clause
Articulate your viewpoint to your constituents, honestly. You must do this, and not just give a bullshit reason about actions or a vote. It is your responsibility to communicate and if you make an action then you must be honest about it. There is NO way around this rule. People need this information to evaluate you as a representative. If you don't do this, you are cheating your constituients.

3)The vulnerability clause
You must be willing to lose--elections, support, etc. This, I think is the most fundamental of the three rules, if a politician is not willing to lose, they will be incapable of implementing rules number 1 and 2. This is because they will be too focused on figuring out the difference between a winning move and a losing move rather than right and wrong just as they will focus on telling people what they want to hear instead of telling the truth.

If all politicians followed these rules, I think people would be a lot less skeptical of them.

Some say that the whole point is winning the game, because things don't get done without playing the game. I disagree, people want honest leaders who do what is right. If you follow these rules, you will be elected time and time again...truth wins over falsity. If you follow these rules and you do lose, it just means you're not the right person for the job at that place and time.

Any politicians out there, feel free to contact me if you would like further explanation, haha.

Befriending Strangers - Why do we inflict hurt?

I had a few bad experiences with strangers in the past 36 hours. Once trying to get a table at the bar, once at the hockey game, once walking back from the hockey game. For a moment, I started to lose faith in strangers. To say that is a big deal. Most people in this world are strangers to us.

I wonder, what dictates the way people conduct themselves to those they have little obligations to--people like strangers. What makes people act rudely, harmfully or childishly towards people they have no shared experiences with? Conversely, why do people act as such towards people they DO have shared experiences with? It seems silly. If you DON'T know they, why be a jerk? If you do you know them why be a jerk to jeopardize the relationship? Perhaps a reason to be a jerk is retribution to the way someone has treated you in the past? But if that's the case, that still doesn't explain why to be ill towards somebody else in the first place.

Briefly, there are times when I lose faith in strangers...which is to say losing faith in humanity collectively, I guess. But then, someone will be laughing. Or, a baby walks down the street, toddling along with his parents. There are times when the human spirit triumphs and goodwill towards humanity and the earth triumph over greed. Beauty happens. And then, I remember my faith again.

A thought, only quickly.

We must never err in our commitment to doing what is right. If we do, we will fail. It is a certainty. Even further, we must be feverish in our persistence to the path towards truth. I am willing to gamble everything valuable and invaluable that what is true is that which is right.

The difficulty is that we must be tenaciously persistent in advancing what is right, while also being absolutely certain that what we advance is right. Failing to do so is the kindling which causes irreconcilable conflict and destruction. It is what burns. So, to commit to doing what is right is accepting that we agree to do what is nearly impossible.

Nearly impossible.

Why do we distrust government?

I have been reminded that I Haven't followed through to much on blogging, and I think it's time to get started again.

Why do we distrust government?
Though, before beginning on this line of reasoning, I'd like to elaborate on government. What is it and what isn't it, (in ways relevant of whether or not we should trust government)?

What isn't government?
Government is certainly not a physical entity. It has physical manifestations like money, buildings or documents, but in itself is not something physical as is a tree, a mobile phone or a book. Also, government is not the laws that are represented in the United States Code, Constitution or Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Rather, those laws are government's footsteps in the snow, the echoes of government, the reflections of government. But, laws are not government.

Also, government is not simply an idea. It has moved beyond conception, it is in existence. Plainly, government exists...I won't spend time fleshing the obvious. But, since it does exist, what is it?

What is government? <--Google defines government
Obviously, what government IS must lie within the set of things that government COULD be. Most accounts that I can come across, on the "define:government" Google command and anecdotally, seem to shake government out to one of two things: an organization or a system. So, lets entertain the idea that government is either an organization or a system.

The way I think of a system is that it's static. In the words of my friend Ashwin, you can "turn the crank" on a system. A system has inputs and outputs. A system is a method, it has more to do with process and flow of operations. A system is used by people, but its definitive quality is orchestration not the orchestrators. A system is kind of like a computer program, whether a really cool, uplifting game or a virus.

The way I think of an organization is that it's defined by its smaller components. An organization is a more active entity. It has an element of dynamism...as in, it's a changing growing entity whether it has the effect of a cancer or a church.

To summarize, government is either a system or an organization. And, that classification has nothing to do whether we view government as a "good" or "bad" thing. But, a more interesting question is crucial to answer before moving forward. Is government more like a system or more like an organization.

This question is much like trying to distinguish something like Tropicana Orange Juice from Minute Maid Orange Juice. I'll advance that government is more like an organization. Why? Because the system doesn't use people, but people create and use systems, I hope. The defining feature of government, as we know it, are people; leaders, employees, volunteers included. Government is changing, at present, to better equip itself. Government has a collective intelligence and skill-set.

I think in the past government was more like a system...used by a select few to govern. Now, citizens can be active participants in governing. Now, government has adaptive problems instead of allocation problems. So, I think there could have been a metamorphosis of government, completed or ongoing, from being a system to being an organization. I'm sure this continues to be an openly disputed assertion--lots of people view government as a system, no doubt. Government seems like it's abstract and a self-driven entity sometimes, but I think it's still more like an organization because pockets of government have reinvented themselves. And, I strongly believe that the work that is done in government is not akin to turning a crank. The process by which government makes decisions, whether legislative or executive, are debated and collaborative. So, if outputs of government have some resemblance to inputs, government is more like an organization because the inputs are dynamic.

[Perhaps this distinction is also where dispute about the value/trust of government is rooted, more explanation to come].

If government is an organization, and an organization comprise of people at that, who are the people that comprise government?

Of course, there are the usual suspects: elites, the staff of elites, civil employees and to some the military or interest groups, perhaps. But, I'd like to draw a strong connection (or at least suggest that it's possible, or that it might be prudent to do so) between government as an organization and one other category..."the public". Not as a constituency of government, but as a component of government.

Why people are part of government or are benefited by acting in a way that warrants such classification
There are a few direct links to people being a part of government, that is to say a part of the governing process. Of course, indirectly, people are part of the other governing categories (elites, civil employees, etc.). Yes, the President of the United States and/or Senators and/or mayors are, in fact, human. But, there are more direct links that people are part of the governing process. Take the example of ballot initiatives, people (in aggregate) can make direct changes to our governing systems. Large ones, like Prop 2 in Michigan which radically changed affirmative-action programs in Michigan. Also, people are government in the sense that their pressure causes political elites to act in a certain way. So, in this way people participate in government. But, we know this already.

More influentially, I think, people enforce government. People are the ones who call the police, who bring suit in the courts or make claims of their representatives or fellow citizens. People buy-in to government...it's not like we constantly have farmers rebellions in the United States. In other words, people enforce (or reinforce?) government because they use systems of government as means to some end in everyday life. Without these actions, a civil government (as opposed to an authoritarian, militaristic government) would not exist. There simply would not be a government if the governed did not consent, participate or enforce and inform the principles of their government.

Government should be this way because it leads to stability. When people govern, it conforms to the features of the people governing, roughly. So, as long as governing populace doesn't change radically, government stays stable and consistent. Which is a good thing, especially if government dramatically affects day to day life, because government acts as such...just try getting through an hour of waking life without interacting with some area of government.

This method of popular government is also useful because it allows for signaling. Members of the governing populace have mechanisms for alerting the ultimate decision makers--in this case political elites--to their needs/wants. These opinions are aggregated and government is so ordered. This is efficient. This method of signaling leverages the wisdom of crowds, but also incorporates the stupidity of groupthink.

Overall, there are a few direct and/or indirect links that allow for government to be done via a coalition of elites and the governing populace. Also, there are advantages for this method. It provides for stability--via the actions of government crudely conforming to the aggregate needs of the people--and efficient signaling, by which the action of government can be aggregately informed.

Notice however, the way that the governing populace governs is through "course corrections" and not original creation. In other words, the governing populace takes the actions/ideas of elites and accepts or rejects those actions. If they reject the actions of elites, then they choose whether or not to intervene. Then, the intervention is accepted or denied by the governing populace at large. This amounts to a course correction model of participation. The people do not view themselves, on balance, as the creators or even the mentors of government but only the defense of last resort.

Advancing the discussion, why do we distrust government?
So, now that the underlying theory has be laid out, crudely, lets move on a more interesting discussion...why we might distrust government.

I think the conflict of distrust comes for a misalignment of expectations. We expect government to have the impact, reach and conduct of an organization but treat it and/or participate in it as a system. Of course, I'll give due diligence and explain further.

Take the regulation of financial markets, provision of healthcare, defense from terrorism (domestic or otherwise) or numerous other examples. These are the tasks we expect government to take, of course some libertarians would refut this point but the fact of the matter is government continues to take most if not all of these issues, head on. These are issues that require an organization to address because they require constant adaption, reorganization and resource/strategy reallocation. In short, these are considerations that need more than "turning the crank" they take more than a system, they take an organization to address.

While the demands of modern government are high, it is not managed as an organization but managed as a system. It takes more than money to function a government. Like a garden, governments take management, not simply the provisions of water and sunlight. And, because we look at it simply as a system government constantly underperforms and is easily manipulated--as systems are often manipulated.

Continuing the comparison to a garden, as a governing populace, we allow government to have its course corrected, but often government needs to be managed. We simply reap what we sow when it comes to government. We don't nurture government to grow and prosper, we treat it as an entitty that needs more or less money, more or less procedure or legislative guidance. But, government is about people. We need to grow the best people, with the best ideas, with the freedom to act boldly. Growing often involves growing pains.

But, instead of placing blame on ourselves for treating government as a system instead of an organization, and getting results as such, we distrust government and claim it doesn't to do the job that it should do...the job that an organization should do. Whether or not government--conceived as an organization--could do the job is an unanswerable. We treat government as a system, so it behaves as one. Because it behaves as a system and we are expecting it to behave and show results as an organization, we begin to distrust government. The longer this goes, the more we distrust government. So, how are we to know if government can function as an organization if we don't treat it as one?

Also, I think it's also important to complete the transformation of government from a system to an organization. There's probably discrepancy among the various participants--notice the use of the word 'participant' instead of 'stakeholder'--as to whether government is a system or an organization. How do we do this? I think by motivating elites to be 'creative' (meaning ingenius as well as moving to create resources/ideas instead of allocating or extracting them) and getting the governing populace to be creators as well. By doing this, government will have to move towards being an organization because assuming the governing populace is essential in the creative process, the governing population will not want to treat itself as a system rather than an organization.

Of course this raises larger concerns: does the governing populace have the efficiacy do involve themselves in creative processes? Does the governing populace have the capacity to be creative? Would the governing populace even trust itself if it was to act? If so, great, but if not, what would that mean for governance in general, would we even be able to government without a basic trust between the governing populace and elites or even within the elites or governing populace?

More immediately: What will Obama do? Does it even matter what Obama does, what will we do?

Family Ties

Why do we value family ties more than other ones? Why do family ties receive special treatment? It doesn't seem to make sense. Well, I'm not complaining that the ties do, just it doesn't seem like it should be a given.

I think that it could be compared to nationalism. I wish I could remember some of the arguments for and against nationalism. I know they exist, I wish I was more of a philosopher to be able to derive the arguments I guess.

Anyway, family ties are blood ties, they have no bearing on the nature of the relationship between two people or a unit of people. They have no indication on what the relationship between two people or a unit of people should be.

I think this is exemplified in relationships between adopted children and parents. I doubt that many parties of an adopted relationship would say that their relationships are any less familial or strong. Similarly, I doubt people in non-adoptive relationships would say that parties in adoptive relationships have ties that are any less significant than ties in non-adoptive relationships.

So, the kin relationship is self-defined. It's just what we sort of say it is, or it might as well be. It seems to be morally equivalent to saying somebody is in our family...we can really make family ties whatever we want them to be. Family relationships are really whatever we want them to be, with the exception that we have a narrower set of rules for defining them then we do with most types of relationships.

So, why must "family" come first. Family, an ambiguous term in this sense, as I've tried to demonstrate as self-defined. That is to say, I don't think it's good enough just to say that "family is family" or something along those lines.

So "family" ties seem to at least in a morally non-arbitrary way seem to be weightless ties. Furthermore, they seem to be morally questionable (to even think of ties as family ties) at least if a moral actor thinks that nepotism, favoritism, ethnocentrism, elitism and the like are morally questionable. Indeed, even within families "playing favorites" is scorned upon. Favoritism meaning preference (one way or the other) purely as a result of an arbitrary tie. Say if two people are linked by the color of their jackets or their hometown (even though they might have never met before). Putting "family first" seems to be on the same level.

So, in a way family ties and the preference we give them might not be so morally kosher.

Though, there are probably some exceptions that distinguish family relationships between nationalistic and ethnocentric ones. For one, the "shared history" component of familial relationships are probably legitimate and more genuine. On top of that maybe tribalism is really necessary in the case of families because family ties are a "last resort" sort of relationship so if family ties don't hold, maybe no other ones will. Hopefully that makes it better.

But at the same time, why shouldn't we have moral obligations to be ruthless about our relationships so long as our actions in relationships are moral. Being choosy about relationships, why the hell wouldn't we care deeply about them.

Even if it is immoral, or morally questionable, I'm certainly going to value some relationships over others. I have to. I have to be selfish in that regard. I can't function without meaningful relationships and not only do i think it's necessary to prioritize some relationships over others (of course not in the sense of undercutting some relationships, just in the sense of making sure some relationships get special treatment)

I feel guilty in a way at putting some relationships higher than others. But I've just got to. Family has to come first. Friends have to come first. At least on some things. Maybe not if the world hung in the balance, but maybe so too. It just has to be done. We have all have to be special to someone I think.

The catch though...we have to try so hard that nobody gets left behind. We might not be able to, but we have to try.

I think it has been a little bit too long since I've last blogged. As per my timestamps, the last post I made was in May of this year. As I recall it was just as I was heading in DC. I suppose that a lot has happened since then, perhaps nothing meaningful has. Maybe everything meaningful has. Regardless, I thought it was about time for an update.

I was watching television this evening. It was quite a big deal, because I don't really watch all that much television these days, Grey's Anatomy, College Football, and anything Jeff (my roommate) happens to have on. But anyway, I was watching the Comcast local access channel. It was a high school football game between Rochester Adams High School (one of my high school's rivals) and Farmington Hills Harrison (a traditional powerhouse) in high school football.

Now, one thing to add as background is that I'm all about football analogies. The complexities of the game seem to parallel life in general better than most activities. At least more so than badminton, croquet or speed skating. Anyway, back to the story.

So I clicked over to the channel just as the post-halftime kickoff was happening. Harrison high school was down by at least 25 points and were kicking the ball to Adams High to start the third quarter. This kid, fields the ball deep in his own territory. He runs. He cuts outside the right hash...he picks up a block...he picks up some more blocks, and cuts inside...now he has a team ahead of him, one guy to beat and he cuts back inside and then...touchdown. Just like that. It was unbelievable. Less so because of the run (to be honest, it was High School Football and it lacks the elegance that NCAA or NFL football have) but because running a kickoff for a touchdown is pretty impressive, it doesn't really happen that often.

And then consider exactly what it took for that one young man to run the kick back. He had to catch the ball, he had to make the right cut initially, he had to pick up tons of blocks, his teammates had to release off their blocks and march down field in sync with him, then he had to keep running forward, he had to break tackles. Running a kickoff for a touchdown is not simple, quick-strike sort of task. Several layers of decision making have to be in near perfect synchronization. It takes perfect execution of 11 people.

I've thought about this before (naturally, right?), but never to this degree. Lately, I've been thinking about how fleeting relationships are. All sorts of relationships I mean, friendships, marriages, business relationships, teams, fraternities, military alliances, everything. All of these relationships fleeting. When I say that I mean that they are rocky and have lots of variables and can end abruptly, and need to be nurtured. Relationships come and go quickly, or that's their nature. They take much effort to go in the same direction, naturally relationships seem to want to go in their own/opposite direction. That's fleeting.

Yet, we seem to go after them. Because their precious, we are probably relatively skillful at maintaining relationships by the time we are adults, but that doesn't mean that building them is any less glorious. Man, I can't really imagine taking relationships for granted. At least at this point in my life (it will be curious to reflect upon this entry when I'm say...45, if the world doesn't end before then, insallah)

I don't get why relationships are so fleeting, especially when I find them to be so valuable, almost defining even.

Cameron (one of my bros) has been telling me about fluid mechanics. Random, I know. We've been talking about it in the context of engineering (he's obviously the engineer in this duo, ironically). Fluid flow, there's a word for when it's smooth and predictable, I don't remember the term at the moment. When it is smooth, it's very easy to predict the behavior of the fluids. It is stable, it makes sense, it can be modeled.

Then, there's turbulence.

Turbulent flow, is chaotic. It's unpredictably. We've been aware of liquid flow for millenia, but we still no nearly nothing about turbulent flow. We can't model it. We can't really understand why it does...well anything. In a way, turbulent flow is fleeting...it does what it wants, we have little understanding of it. It's a discord in our wannabe harmonious systems, kind of like relationships. Relationships and turbulence, seem pretty analogous, at least in our understanding of them.

Perhaps turbulent, because they're a zero-sum sort of game/commodity? I don't think so though, because that seems to imply that there's a "winner" or supreme beneficiary in relationships, which seems to be dismissed out of hand, or should I?

I don't have a damned clue, hence the title of this blog.

So - Relationships are Fleeting
- Relationships are analogous to turbulence
- I don't really know why any of it matters, or why.

Okay...why are relationships turbulent...
1. Their inputs are people and people are changing constantly, causing uncertainty? - So, we should communicate to undercut uncertainty, okay that seems simple.
2. Relationships are a complex web, so in a resource constrained environment, people have overlapping preferences in relationships so, when they are mapped onto eachother there is conflict (or at least impending conflict) which causes turbulent behavior? - Don't know what to do about this...discover our intentions in relationships and not be greedy? But I feel like we out to be greedy (in a sense, not in the exploitative sense, but in the get fulfilled since) in relationships.
3. I don't really know.

I took a little break and watch some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles on You Tube. But as fate would have it, I ran across a video clip that flies in the face of the other stuff I've written. As with everything around me, things seem to contradict.

What dreams may come?
As golden fields of corn
turn to ranches, then mountains, then desert.

My father and I
He a young man again
Traveling for a new life
out of circumstance, not choice.
He needs a life.

Like a younger man, again.

I see myself in the windshield.

[pause]

I am a younger man, too.
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There's some shit that people shouldn't just have to do.
Like burying a child, or a mother before marriage.

You grow up real quick, if you hadn't already.

Gotta be a grown up. a grooowwwn alllll up.
A GROAN all up.

And the first thing you think is, FUCK.
And not even about something moderately important, like what to do next, or how life will be different...but about some stupid shit like if you need to get your oil changed. Or whether the dishes in the dishwasher are clean.

Not mortgage payments or funeral arrangements. That comes later.

After you get to be grown up. Or when, you have no choice but.
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