I am broken…defeated. I fought the good fight, but I lost. Better people than me have experienced a worse fate. The future I always had planned for myself is dead. There is nothing I can do about it.
As some of you know, I spent my best years at Harvard University. I was there for about 6 years. Those are my ‘good old days.’ I still dream about the basement I lived in across from Tufts University. For a time, I had a lab at Vanserg Hall. It was miles away from my little apartment, but I used to walk. The entire area is charming.
I didn’t want to leave. I really didn’t want to leave. The Harvard community calls it “Exile from Eden” for a reason. They kick you in the butt, give you a mission, and tell you to go. For the most part, you have to go. The first time I graduated, I stayed and got another degree. They really wanted me to leave after that, and so I did.
I like telling people about how remarkable that place is. I could easily sit down at a table with nine other people and know that there was an excellent chance that I was the tenth most interesting person there. Where I live now…not so much.
I have been thinking about Harvard because I am getting old. My brain has betrayed me. I don’t have trouble learning anything, but retention is a different story. Sometimes, I can not remember what I studied five minutes after getting up. That might be the main reason I study so much. Perhaps I am in a constant loop and have no clue. I do know I still love learning. And that brings me to Cliff Stoll.
I have written about the great Cliff Stoll, an astronomer who makes Klein bottles. He is a national treasure. Seek out his TED talk (The Call to Learn); he is a force of nature. He made one of the most profound statements I have ever heard during that 17 minutes. He said that if you do something once, you are a scientist; if you do it twice, you are an engineer; three times makes you a technician. I would add that the fourth effort makes you a trained monkey.
Stoll was talking about the mindset of a scientist, those true-born intellectual explorers. Once scientists have done something, they aren’t interested in ever doing it again. The appeal is to move on to the next problem. What else is unknown? Confirming someone else’s discovery is uninteresting.
One of the great tragedies is when a scientist, through circumstance or bad luck, is forced to do repetitive, soul-crushing monkey work for their entire working life. If you were not born with the spirit of a scientist, I imagine the monkey work is a little easier to take. For the scientists, even those doing the work of an engineer, it is heartbreaking.
Is there a point to this short post? Sure, as always, I like to bury the lede. I want to plant it deeper, but I am tired, worn out. As I said earlier, I am broken.
I fought the good fight; I really did. Some dreams die hard, and I am still shocked that mine passed away. I am shaking my head at the prospect of a dreamless future. I am disappointed. I need more time to reflect on this. I will wake up tomorrow knowing that I need to win the lottery if I ever want to pursue my life’s work. I do not anticipate winning the lottery.
At Harvard, people would often ask what equation would be on your tombstone or what the first line of your obituary would say. Yes, it really is that kind of place. As I have gotten older and my abilities have faded, I find myself thinking about that ‘contribution to humanity’ we were supposed to make. They were serious about it. We were all tasked with making the world a better place. It never occurred to me (until now) that I wouldn’t leave the world a better place than I found it.
I have yet to make that contribution; I haven’t done anything substantive, at least not in my eyes. That might be one of the reasons I have not set foot on that campus in over 30 years.
Some of you would disagree with my assessment, but I am the only true arbiter of success or failure. Just as you are with your life. No one else’s opinion is of any consequence.
I have been busy, I have written 16 novels and books under various pennames, but none are extraordinary. One was really good, but that contribution the Harvard people told me to make remains elusive.
I always knew I would spend my last years writing that great novel, the work representing my contribution. I worked hard to put together a plan that has been in place for decades. I was going to get a little place in Portugal or in South Africa, and I was going to drink some warm beer and write…a lot. I would leave behind a record of what it was like to be me. Now, I am hurt. If I believed in a soul, I would say mine is wounded.
Pushing my attempt down the road was not ideal, but I had little choice. I kept getting up every morning because I knew the day would come when I could sit by the beach with my computer or notepad. I would fight off inferior insights as The Muses battled for my ear. That is not going to happen.
I have told friends I prepared for every eventuality except what has now befallen me. The universe broke me. Of course, I always knew it was indifferent to me, but it has been known to go way out of its way to make me feel its destructive power. The evolutionary biologists at Harvard used to constantly remind me that the universe is not cruel; it is simply indifferent. They had to keep telling me because I had difficulty believing it. I still don’t know what to think.
I won’t be going to Portugal or Africa. I will remain here in Hillbilly Land, a scientist stuck in the monkey clutches of an apathetic world. The hows and whys of my plight are uninteresting and don’t matter. I must find a new reason to lift my head from the pillow.
The odds of me writing a great novel while stationed in Hillbilly Land are nil. I can’t fake inspiration; unfortunately, this is this continent’s most uninspired piece of land. Hope does not spring here; this is where hope comes to die. This town is depressing, the people are (predominantly) uninteresting, and the weather is terrible. I do not understand where I am supposed to draw the inspiration from.
I will let out a sigh as I contemplate my fate. I am sorry for all the people back in Cambridge who believed in me and expected something substantive. It is unlikely that is going to happen. The New York Times will certainly not notice my demise. As for that tombstone, burn me and throw me to the wind.
