Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind

The Briefcase

I have a problem, not a monumental one; it is merely an aggravating issue.  Simply put, my briefcase smells like an old goat.  Sure, I have a story.

Many years ago, I started searching for a briefcase.  Not that I desperately need one.  I don’t require one; I just wanted one.  I spent some time looking around on Amazon; after all, I wouldn’t know of a place around here that even sells them.  There is not a significant demand for briefcases where I come from.

I did my due diligence, looked at many designs, and read positive and negative reviews.  I  finally settled on the one that I wanted.

{Excuse me for a few minutes.  I am sitting at the library while trying to write this post.  The yelping guy just walked in.  He is heading right for me.  This time he is hurling obscenities at an unknown interlocutor.  I may have to engage him.}

Many reviews noted that my briefcase was made of Morrocan leather, a fancy way of saying goat.  Consequently, the reviewers mentioned that the product smells strongly of an old goat.  The smell, many noted, is overpowering.

{He is back.  Roaming from aisle to aisle, still fighting with his unseen enemy.  He is circling me.  I wish he would go away.}

I researched the issue of goat leather and the problem of the smell that comes about from the curing process.  Most people claimed that the smell would disappear after a few weeks if you exposed the briefcase to sunlight.  Others argued that all you had to do was let it air out, and the smell would dissipate in no time.  No one stated that the briefcase would still reek six months after purchase.  Maybe I will write that review.

{He somehow grabbed a cup of coffee.  He is walking toward me.  He is grinning like a man who knows something I do not.  I am not overly concerned, but I am a little on edge.  The library is mostly empty.  There was a police car outside when I came in, but I do not see any security inside now.}

My briefcase still smells after six months of sunlight and air.  I do not know what an old goat smells like, but I do know what my briefcase smells like.  The odor is of a robust chemical variety.  I do not think it is going away.  I am the owner of a stinky briefcase.  I really like it, I use it, but it sure does stink.

{A woman, an older woman, probably in her 50s, just approached the yelper.  Is she in league with him?  What is her story?  Is she a social worker sent out to get this man some help?  Is she an undercover police officer?  I am not sure.  He is walking away from her, and she is following.  He is calling her every profane name he can think of.  He is not being clever with his insults, but he is loud.}

Some anonymous person, a helpful one, suggested that I dunk my briefcase in baking soda.  That will do the trick, they said.  I tried it and failed.  If I look closely, I can still see a few particles on the leather.  Another suggested I shoot it with Febreeze.  That’s the ticket, they said.  Sigh.  I can smell the case from my seat as I sit here typing.

{Two women just walked past me.  They are weathered.  My guess is they are here to charge their phones.  It is a gorgeous day, so they are not seeking refuge from a storm.  At least not one that is apparent.  The yelper has disappeared into the stacks.  He is unseen and unheard.  That is a happy combination.}

Is the stench from my briefcase overpowering?  It is pretty bad, but I can live with it.  Do I want to get rid of the smell?  Absolutely, but that appears to be a wistful dream.

{The yelper just approached the two women charging their phones.  I would say he seems troubled, but that goes without saying.  The women ignore him.  He mulls around for a bit and then walks away.  He is not walking toward my table, and that lets me let out a sigh.  He is in desperate need of help.}

The list of things I need to get done today is long.  I don’t need these distractions.  There was a time decades ago when I would seek out loud and angry places to test my powers of concentration.  Those days are long gone; my mind has a mind of its own.  It generally wanders where it wants, not where I tell it to go.  Then I smell it, the strong chemical odor coming from my briefcase.  Only the smell keeps grounding me, bringing me back to the reality of the library and the characters surrounding me.  I suppose it is time to go home.  At least for today, there is nothing for me here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Ask

“Don’t ask,” she forcefully said as she stared him down.

He sheepishly scratched his forehead as he twirled his pen between his fingers. He was skilled, a pen twirler from way back. She wasn’t impressed.

She let out a deep breath and looked around the library. Typical day, more workers than patrons. The only people there were looking through the DVDs. By her calculations, over 90% of the library’s business was DVDs. Few people bothered to approach the counter with a single book. No big surprise.

Two men walked through the door. She immediately guessed where they were going. Most people who came through the door were looking for the bathroom. That is all they wanted. Another set of people needed to use the computers for a bit. The rest were homeless, trying to get out of the weather. Along with the warmth, they needed to charge their phones if they were lucky enough to have one.

A young mother with two kids, the oldest might be four, walked in next. They headed straight for the children’s section. The older one ran for the toy train with his little sister close behind. Mom breathed a sigh of relief; for a few minutes, she could relax, if only for a little.

The librarian at the Information Desk was watching cat videos supplied by her computer. Her headphones looked official, letting the library customers think she was researching some problem posed by one of the literate people from the community. Most people realized the chances of that were low; anyone literate in this community would know better than to ask a local librarian for help with anything.

She leaned back and looked slightly to her left. Was she there? Was she on the schedule for today? She was young and pretty with the body of a college cheerleader. Just her type. Sure, the odds they could go out and do anything were low, but hope was all she had. No matter how outlandish or impossible, hope got her up in the morning, or afternoon, or whenever she decided to get out of bed.

“If you would just…”

“Don’t talk to me. Why don’t you move to another table? You’re bothering me.”

The young man picked up his large backpack and made his way to the exit. He knew the drill; if she called out for help, he would have to spend hours dealing with the police. His attitude would have been different if he thought they might bring him in and feed him. He might have gotten aggressive and made sure that security called the police.

As he walked through the doors, another man entered. Loudly mumbling to himself, he made his way straight to the restroom. She imagined that if she were any closer, she would smell him before she saw him. He yelped as he turned the corner to the restroom. She shook her head.

She checked her phone, 80%. The charge might get her through the night if she could stay a little longer. It wasn’t raining; there was none in the forecast, even though it was going to get close to freezing. She would probably need to find someplace to stay. Never one to depend on the kindness of strangers, she thought of the possibilities.

Decades ago, this would have been easy. She had more attention than she wanted. Never had a problem staying where she wanted for as long as she wished. Youthful complexions and athletic bodies are treated that way. No one told her that the party would be over one day and that her looks would fade to a point where people would instead look away than be forced to make eye contact.

She looked down at the book she had grabbed randomly from a shelf. It made it easier for people to ignore her if they thought she was busy reading. As she turned a page, the yelping man came out of the restroom. He was cursing up a storm. She sighed as she looked down at her book. Don’t do it. Don’t walk my way. You better stop.

A security guard intercepted and guided him toward the exit as he approached her table. Only after the man swung at him did the security guard motion for the desk staff to call the police.

She turned another page as she scanned the room for other threats. Seeing none, she picked up her phone to check the charge. 85%, still not good enough. She needed a little more to be sure she could get through the night.

She felt someone coming up behind her. She quickly turned to find one of the library employees on her shoulder.

“You alright? Do you need anything? Social Services has a van outside. They have a nurse and some food.”

She nodded without looking the woman in the eyes. She was too embarrassed to say that she was desperate and needed more help than people in a van could give. Most of us can’t survive on good intentions. She wanted to tell the woman that all the homeless in the library needed more help. They needed to believe that they were worth something, that they were something more than a burden on society.

She glanced at her phone, still 85%. She wiggled the cable. It appeared to stop charging. She pulled off the electrical tape and then retaped the end of the cable. Still nothing.

As she looked up, another man carrying a large pack walked through the library doors. He was another yelper. Yelp, two steps yelp, two steps. Same today as every other day. Same tomorrow, too. She knew him; the entire community knew each other. She collected her backpack, quickly put the phone and cord into a compartment, and headed toward the disturbed man. She caught him just before he reached the restrooms. She flew into him as fast as she could. After he fell, she jumped on top of him and started beating him as quickly and as hard as possible. The man didn’t fight back; he just kept yelping at the same rate.  A metronome, I am beating a metronome.

The security guard seemed to take his time getting to her. He and the police were still dealing with the first man. When the police caught a glimpse of the altercation, they rushed toward them. One of the officers grabbed her by the backpack and quickly pulled her off the yelping man. They dragged her toward a wall and cuffed her. Only then did they turn their attention to the man on the ground.

A librarian, shaking her head in disgust, walked toward her and sighed.

“You and I know he is harmless. Why on earth did you do that?”

She looked up and tried her best to catch her breath. All she could think to say was, “Don’t ask.”

We’re Going Back to State!

My niece, Haley, did it again.  She qualified for the state tennis tournament for the second consecutive year.  Big news in these parts.

When she qualified as a freshman, I posted some thoughts.  I put her accomplishment in a historical perspective.  This essay will frame her latest exploits on the tennis court from a different point of view.

I mention Harvard University in many of my essays.  Why?  Is that just a flex?  I am wearing a Harvard hoodie right now; do I walk around with that to show off?  Not at all.  I have no interest in impressing anyone.  For as long as I can remember, I have been out only to impress myself.  No other opinions have ever mattered much to me.

I arrived on campus in 1986 and received my second degree in 1993.  I left in 1992 and wrote my thesis back in Ohio.  While in Cambridge, I told anyone who would listen that we were living in what we would eventually refer to as “the good old days.” I knew that was true for me, and I spent every day taking in my surroundings.  I really did appreciate how special every moment was.  I miss that campus every day.

A month ago, I was talking to Haley.  I told her about a question I heard come up quite often at Harvard.  In my experience, it is a question specific to that campus.  I am sure other people discuss it, but it was always in the air at Harvard.  If not expressed explicitly, it was always implied.  I asked Haley if she could guess the topic of the mysterious query.  Her initial guess was the meaning of life.  Good guess but wrong.  I am sure many people think along those lines and ask the appropriate questions.  This question, the one on the minds of many people in Cambridge on that campus, is different.

In other posts, I have mentioned that Haley’s grandfather, PaPops, was the first high school graduate on her dad’s side of the family.  Not only that, he was the first to even attend high school.  Trust me that is a lot of inertia to overcome.  I recently read Tara Westover’s Educated and am happy for her.  She managed to escape the cycle of ignorance.  That is not the easiest thing to do.  An unseen tug pulls people back to the past; that is just how it is.

I remember my mom calling down to West Virginia to tell her relatives that I was studying at Harvard.  None of them had ever heard of Harvard University.  One asked if the school had a good football team.  And on and on it goes…

That inertia caused by family history will not impact Haley at all.  She has good role models.  Unlike me, she does not have a bunch of uneducated uncles on missions to drink themselves to death in their 40s.  Trust me that makes a difference.  She is in a great private school surrounded by high achievers.  Listen when I say that also makes a difference.  Back in the day, my cohorts exhibited no such potential.

So, finally, we get to the question.  What is that question that I asked Haley to guess?  It is something that she and she alone will decide on.  Is it relevant to her?  She is the only arbiter of that decision, no one else.  She will determine if it is her responsibility to make a contribution to humanity or not.  Only she will decide if she is required, due to her abilities, to leave the world a better place than she found it.

It plays out in the following manner.  “All right, Bubba, what equation will be carved on your gravestone?” I heard that question in varying forms throughout my Cambridge years.  “What contribution to humanity are you going to make?” Indeed, that was another form of the same question.  “Will The New York Times even care that you passed?  Will you get an obituary, or will you die anonymously?” The people at Harvard, in general, arrived on campus asking themselves those questions which are, in essence, the same question.  And if they weren’t asking it when they arrived, they were asking it when they left.

It comes down to apparent responsibility.  Does a talented individual have an obligation to substantially contribute to humanity?  I don’t know.  Harvard University made it explicit that any graduate was tasked with conjuring up a contribution to society.  That part of the implied mission statement was made clear.  For others, the answer to that question is left to every individual; outside opinions do not matter.  I know profound impacts can be made with ballet slippers, computer keyboards, guitars, and (of course) tennis racquets.  I think everything will be fine if we maximize our abilities, whatever they may be.  The specifics seem to me to be irrelevant.

If you think such a question is designed to put undue pressure on people, you approach the issue incorrectly.  The question is more of a guiding principle, a way to clarify motivations.  If you can ask if your actions are making the world a better place, then you are taking a well-considered, thoughtful path, not the route of selfishness or greed.

There it is, the question Haley may or may not ask herself.  It is up to her to decide.  For now, she just needs to work hard, learn as much as possible, and enjoy those “sprinkles on the cupcake” at the state tennis tournament.  For the rest of her life, there will be no tugs of inertia.  That I can guarantee.  All she will feel is the wind beneath her wings.  She has lots of people in her corner making sure of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 7

A man, I believe it was the same one I saw at the parking deck, came to my door a few days ago.  He greeted me with a smile and then shoved a pistol into my ribs.  He pushed himself inside and then threw me onto the carpet.

“Fine job getting those questions answered.  Now we need more from you.”

“What is this?  Why did you push me down?  I am injured.  You have hurt my back and hip.”

“Just get up.  We need to talk.”

I struggled to get to one knee.  At that point, I fell back to the floor.  It was clear I was seriously injured.  I needed a doctor.

“Just get up; you are fine.  You fell onto the carpet, for crying out loud.  Get up.”

“I am an old man.  I don’t bounce like I used to.  I am hurt…bad.  I need to go to the hospital.”

“I don’t get paid enough for this.”

The man took out another slip of paper and tossed it on the ground near my feet.  I watched him slam the door behind him.  After I was sure he was gone, I called a neighbor, a guy named Tibor, and he drove me to the hospital.  I am writing this post from my hospital bed.  I am in a lot of pain, but if I turn just so, I can breathe without much trouble.  I told the doctors that I had slipped and fallen.  They bought it.

I haven’t told Warren what happened, and I probably won’t.  He has other things to worry about.  I know he has other pen names; I think lots of others.  He certainly could replace me if he was so inclined.

I finally got around to looking at the slip of paper the criminal left at my house.  There was just one question.  In bold capital letters, it stated, “IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN?  In lower case was written, “ask him.”

So, that is where I am at.  I am supposed to ask Warren the question.  Why would this man and the gang he represents want to ask such a question?  I don’t know.  Warren is not a theologian and holds no influence over the public.  I am quite certain that no one cares what he thinks about anything.  He would be the first to tell you that no one listens to him, just as no one reads his books or clicks on his blog.

And yet here we are…

Below is the text of our short exchange.  As always, it was lightly edited for clarity.

RTNM:  I have just one question.  It is a big one, so you can answer it however you see fit.

WAS:  Wait, you are now comfortable telling me how I should or should not answer questions posed by you, a humorless baboon with the cranial capacity of a juvenile Australopithecus.  Really?  You are in need of serious revision.

RTNM:  Fine.  You are going to do exactly what you want anyway.  I can’t imagine a scenario where I can influence or counsel you.  All I will say is that this person, the criminal who keeps accosting me and demanding that I ask you these questions, is a serious and dangerous individual.

WAS:  I’m not so sure about that.  Maybe he is just misunderstood.  Also, you might be delusional.

RTNM:  Fine.  Here is your question, IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN?

WAS:  Yes.  Is that all?

RTNM:  That is all that was written on the paper.  Elaborate if you want.  Leave if you wish.  I am beyond the point of caring.

WAS:  Very good.  I’ll leave.

RTNM:  Are you sure?  I don’t know what will happen if you refuse to answer this question.

WAS:  I did answer it.

RTNM:  Why won’t you elaborate?

WAS:  I have limited time.  By that, I mean limited time alive.  Turning sixty puts that into an even sharper focus for me.  There are things I need to get done, and interacting with you isn’t helping me.  You are nothing more than a bizarre distraction.

RTNM:  There is more I am not telling you.  I think I know who the person is, the one who attacked me.

WAS:  Fascinating.

RTNM:  You don’t want to know?

WAS:  No.  I could not care less.  What did I just tell you about time?  I have to focus if I want to get some important things completed.  At least, they are important to me.

RTNM:  Certainly, I understand, but…

WAS:  No buts.  I have to go.

With that, Warren got up and left.  We were at a library.  We were able to get a rather large study room for the interview.  That was just by chance; we didn’t reserve it because I had no idea when or if he would agree to meet me.

I watched him close the door to the room.  He was headed toward the exit when he was approached by a beautiful young woman, much younger than him.  I saw him furrow his brow as the conversation became more animated.  She kept pointing at his shoes, red checkerboard Vans, as he stood stupefied.  I have no idea what the conversation was about.

After a minute or so, she left him and disappeared up a flight of stairs.  Warren watched her go.  He then turned toward the exit.  I knew it was going to be some time before he talked to me again.  After all, he is a busy man with a limited timetable, and I am just a figment with all the time in the world.

POSTSCRIPT

I did a little sleuthing, and I found out who the young woman was talking to Warren after he left the study room.  She is a Worthington Fellow; she recently graduated from Harvard and was brought to Iroquois County to work on the local paper.  The Worthington Fund is sponsoring her stay, paying her salary at the paper, and providing accommodations at The Worthington Compound.  Apparently, she was talking to Warren about the announcement from Harvard University that they are discontinuing all alumni email accounts.  Any graduate used to get a Harvard email address that they could use however they saw fit.  The emails would come to Harvard and then get forwarded off to wherever the person wanted.  They will all be inactive by the end of the year.  The argument is that it is getting harder to forward emails through the spam detectors of the big email services.  This has become a problem not only for Harvard but for all email forwarding services.  The university decided it would be too expensive to give each alumnus (some 400,000) their own dedicated Harvard email account.  The university argues that they would have to hire a bunch of customer service people and that there are several legal hurdles they would rather not attempt to jump through.

Interesting, isn’t it?  I thought they were angry with each other when I watched the two of them talking.  I made up all kinds of stories about why that might be.  You know how imaginations work, right?  An animated discussion about an email forwarding service was not among the possibilities.  I stand corrected.

Is there anything to be learned from my mistake?  Any great lesson?  I would think not.  Had I known there was a Harvard-related email issue in the wind, I might not have jumped to conclusions as I did.  Nothing to see here; let’s all move along and get on with our days.  If we try, maybe at least some of us can be productive.

An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 6

Last week I was trying to navigate through an oversized parking garage in downtown Cleveland.  It doesn’t matter why I was there; I don’t feel like telling you anyway.  There is nothing wrong with a little mystery, is there?  As I circled my way down to the exit, I noticed a figure off to my right.  The person seemed to be waving to me.  That’s when the fun began.

I pulled over into a subcompact-only spot, and the figure approached.  I could see that under the trench coat and the fedora that it was a man.  He puffed his cigar as he lowered his head to speak through my window.

“Hey, you are the guy who has access to Warren Andrew Slay, right?”

He looked around nervously to see if anyone was watching us as I nodded my head.

“OK, listen.  I need you to ask him a few questions for me.”

“Why?  What is this about?”

“All you need to know is that I represent a group of interested people.  You don’t need to know any more than that.”

“Well, this is all very strange.”

“Brother, you got that right.  You don’t want any details.  Trust me.”

“I couldn’t be any more confused than I am at this moment.  I guess my first question to you is, “Why not ask him yourself?”  I don’t believe he is hiding.  I don’t think you would have trouble gaining access to him.”

“So you would think.”

“Look, I am in a hurry…”

“Ah, I recommend you listen to me.  Certain people would be seriously disappointed if you tried to drive away right now.  “

“OK, is that supposed to be some thinly veiled threat?”

“Yes, it certainly is.”

At that point, the mysterious man in the fedora stood tall and flashed a pistol he had holstered about his waist.  It was small, bigger than a Derringer, but certainly big enough to make any point he wanted.

“Sigh.  All right, what exactly is it that you want?”

“As I said, I represent a consortium of individuals, a gang, if you will.  They have tasked me with getting your cooperation in this rather serious matter.  Trust me, you don’t need to do much.”

“Is this all legal?  I mean, I am not keen on breaking the law.  I enjoy my freedom.”

“Oh sir, you have nothing to worry about.  Everything is 100% above board.”

“All right then, what do you want?”

The man reached into a pocket, took out a yellow piece of paper, the kind you find in a legal pad, and passed it to me.

“All you have to do is ask him these questions and then post the answers in your blog.”

“That’s all?”

“Simple, right?”

“All right, I’ll look this over and see if he will talk to me.  He seems to be losing patience with me.”

“Make sure you get through to him.  The consequences are dire if you fail.”

“Another threat?”

“Absolutely.”

With that, the man backed up into the shadows of the concrete.  I didn’t bother looking at the piece of paper he handed me; I just wanted to get out of there.  When I got home, I talked to Warren Andrew Slay.  The transcript appears below.  It was, of course, lightly edited for clarity.

 

 

RTNM:  Thank you for agreeing to this.  I know the circumstances are strange, but I don’t feel the need to apologize.  I am the victim here.

WAS:  Good grief.  Poor you.  Do you need need a drink?  Perhaps I could call in a masseuse to give you a relaxing rub down.  I am apprehensive about you.  You look a little more pale than usual.  Do you have a primary care physician?

RTNM:  I see someone, yes.  Can we just get on with this?  I will be much happier when I have asked you these questions, and you have tried your best to answer them.

WAS: OK, shoot.

RTNM:  The note I received stated that I must read these questions verbatim and in a specific order.  So, here we go.  Question The First.  Are you a Platonist?

WAS:  You have got to be kidding me.  Do you even know what that question means?  I can’t believe this nonsense.

RTNM:  I didn’t have time to research these questions.  The note strongly suggested I needed to ask you these questions as soon as possible.

WAS:  Have you thought about retirement?  Perhaps your cognitive decline is accelerating.  No harm in that; it is just part of being human.

RTNM:  Would you please answer the question.

WAS:  When I woke up this morning, I tried to figure out a scenario that would allow me to stay there.  My intuition told me that getting out of bed today was a bad idea.  Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about it.  I couldn’t think of a good reason to get up, but I thought of many reasons not to stay.  And here we are.

RTNM:  Fascinating.  Would you please answer the question?  The man at the parking garage flashed a gun while talking to me.  Trust me, I am more confused than you are.

WAS:  I am not confused at all.  Thank you for insulting me.  I would have thought that you would have learned to think before speaking at this point in your life.  You do want something from me, right?  It is pretty much standard practice that insulting a person whose help you need is bad form.  That’s some real hillbilly nonsense.  And I know what I am talking about, my mom was a coal miner’s daughter.  That hillbilly blood runs deep through my veins.

RTNM:  Sorry, I truly am.  Could you get to the question, please?

WAS:  Sure, I would be happy to answer if I knew precisely what you mean by a Platonist.

RTNM:  All I have is what is on the paper.  No other information was offered.

WAS:  All right then.  Against my better judgment, I will answer the question exactly how I want to.  If you mean to ask me if I am a Mathematical Platonist, your answer is an unqualified yes.  I most certainly identify with that camp.

RTNM:  Question The Second.  Can you elaborate on your answer?

WAS:  It comes down to a simple question:  Are mathematical truths invented or discovered?  The Mathematical Platonists, of which I am proud to claim membership, believe that mathematical truths exist outside the mind of human beings.  The Pythagorean Theorem was as valid before it was discovered as it is after it was revealed.  If humans never evolved into existence, the Mathematical Truth of The Pythagorean Theorem would still hold for a plane surface.

RTNM:  So, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, it still makes a sound?

WAS:  Is that one of the questions on the paper?

RTNM:  No.  That was just me being clever.

WAS:  Try harder.  Please.

RTNM”  Question The Third.  Please tell us more about your position.

WAS:  As for objects, the five platonic solids have always existed.  Just because the Neanderthals never contemplated them, at least as far as we know, doesn’t mean that the idea of them wasn’t written in the fabric of the universe, or universes if you are so inclined.

RTNM: Didn’t you once tell me something about Neanderthals and material culture?

WAS:  Is that on the list?

RTNM: Sigh…

WAS:  I had a professor once claim that the Neanderthals might have been great singers.  They might have done things with harmony that present-day humans can’t even dream of.  Of course, they wouldn’t have left behind any evidence of this, so we have no way of knowing.  He liked to remind me that this was not probable but certainly was possible.

RTNM:  Fascinating.  So harmonic utterances aside, you believe that all math is discovered, not invented?

WAS:  Good grief, you need to be precise.  We have been talking about math that leads to Mathematical Truths.  Mathematical Truth is discovered.  Nonsense math is invented every day.  There are all sorts of yahoos out there creating flawed ways to trisect an angle or…

RTNM: Or what?

WAS:  String Theory appears to be the most enormous waste of brain power in the history of the universe.  Perhaps it will one day prove fruitful, but I don’t believe those people have yet contributed anything substantive.  They go on and on about the beauty of the mathematics and how the equations are so elegant that they have to point toward Mathematical Truth.  I guess I would say that beauty, that elegance, do not equal Truth.  Beautiful, yet powerless, equations do not lead us down the path to Truth.

RTNM:  You have never been a fan of strings, have you?

WAS:  To me, the entire enterprise isn’t even wrong.  Peter Woit wrote a fantastic book called “Not Even Wrong.”  He also has a blog where he writes about String Theory.  I will leave it to him and other like-minded individuals to fight for Truth over beauty.  Trust me, no one cares what I think, anyway.

RTNM:  Question the Fourth.  Where are we on the Mathematical Yardstick?

WAS:  Impossible to know.  My guess is that we are only a fraction of an inch from zero.  Why do you say yardstick?  Why not meter stick?

RTNM:  Because that is what the paper says.

WAS:  Interesting.  You are most likely dealing with a band of U.S.-trained hooligans.

RTNM:  I hate to bring this up, but what is a Mathematical Yardstick?  As I explained earlier, I didn’t have time to prepare.  I have no idea what such a thing is.

WAS:  Imagine that all the mathematical knowledge there is to know is represented on a yardstick.  As we learn more, we move along the line.  When we reach the end of the stick, math is essentially solved because there are no more truths to uncover; there is no more math to learn.  So, my guess is that we have only a tiny fraction of that total at this point in time.

RTNM:  …and some of that math will be invented.

WAS:  Yes, some will, but the important stuff will be discovered.  It was always there even before we were around to contemplate it.

RTNM:  Question The Fifth.  Is there anything more fundamental than quarks?

WAS:  Why on earth would anyone want my thoughts on such a question?  I am not a physicist.  The last I checked, I am an archaeologist.  In fact, I don’t understand why anyone would want to know what I think about any of this.  The questions you are asking me are bizarre.

RTNM:  Please, I am simply reading from the paper.

WAS:  All right, I think that if we ever discover anything more fundamental than quarks, it will be the pure equations themselves.  I believe that the basic fabric of existence is represented by the equations that created the universe and govern all behavior, even ours.  Especially ours.

RTNM:  You don’t believe we are living in a simulation, do you?

WAS:  Well, isn’t that an interesting question.  There are lots of smart folks out there that take that scenario seriously.  Are we living in a computer simulation?  I have no idea, and I don’t see how it changes my life one way or the other.  I will say that I love The Matrix.  It is one of my favorite movies.

RTNM:  That is all for now.  I have completed the questions on the list.  I would like to ask if you have anything more to say.

WAS:  Only that mathematics has been and will continue to be unreasonably effective.  Eugene Wigner’s essay on that topic is sublime.  The only people who disagree with that viewpoint are those who cannot comprehend the specifics of the math used to solve the problem in question.  We all know such people.  That is just the way it is.  One more thing, let me see that paper…

 

 

 

Dusk

“Hurry, the sun is setting.”

She glanced back at him and frowned.  Her bandaged hand waved dismissively as he shook his head in disgust.

“Look, you have to hurry.  We need to get on the road.  You know better than this.”

She reached down and grabbed the gun from her holster.  The shot was quick.  He tried to speak, but the bullet was quicker.

“Fast enough for you, jerk?”

She looked down at the bag she was packing, quickly thinking about the new travel arrangements.  As she zipped the bag, she looked at the corpse on the floor.  “The bag is lighter with food for only one.  Idiot.”

She stepped over the dead man and made her way to the large, heavily bolted steel door.  She worked on the locks, starting from top to bottom.  They had to be unlocked in a specific order to free the mechanism.

Her concentration was focused as she worked on the last lock.  She needed more than the combination to open it.  The hinge had to be worked just so, or it would not come loose.  She remembered her training.  Don’t force it.  Do not pull hard; let the lock mechanism do the work.  If correctly placed, the hinge will pop open.

“There.”

She removed the large bolt and started to open the door.  The wind knocked her back.  Why so much wind?  The force was much stronger than she had anticipated.

She pulled the bandana over her mouth and nose, lowered her head, and headed toward the only working vehicle left, a rusty Ford truck with a shaky transmission.

The wind was standing her up; she used all her energy to keep from falling back.  She felt the wind suck the air out of her lungs.  She struggled to remove the gas mask from her vest as the wind caught it and ripped it out of her hand.

She quickly turned, and the wind shot her back through the door, back to the body on the floor.  She quickly tried to shut the door, but the wind was too strong.  She moved to the side, stepping on the body, to get out of the wind stream.  She waited patiently for the wind to die down so she could close the door.  Her life would become complicated if the door did not close.

Ring.  Knock, knock.  Ring, ring.  “Notification.  You have movement at your front door.”

Sigh.  The Writer looked up and over at the computer monitor.  He saw a figure covered in dark clothes and a mask standing at his door.

“Back door view and notification.”  At the command, the camera switched to the back door.  He saw three men with sawed-off shotguns standing at the ready, their communication devices creating an asymmetrical pattern around their heads.

“Call the police, code 9.”

“Notification.  Police called.”

“Prepare gas canisters, front, and back.”

“Notification.  Gas canisters enabled.”

“Put me through to the police.”

“Notification.  Police on the line.”

“Hello, I have a problem at 137, Section 1.  Armed men at the front and back doors.  I am asking permission to gas them.”

“Permission to gas granted.  I assume you are using the cocktail “Easy Money.”

“Yes, they are all wearing masks.”

“Good luck to them.”

“Yes.  Please send a clean-up team.  I am in the middle of something.”

“Certainly.  Release the cocktail, and we will be by in 30 minutes to claim the bodies.”

“Thank you.”  As soon as the call ended, he hesitated for only a second.   “Disconnect and release Easy Money.”

“Notification.  Easy Money released.”

He watched the monitor.  The A.I. knew the perspectives he wanted.  He watched the men fall, struggle, and then go quiet.

“Notification.  Extraction teams will be here shortly.”

The Writer looked at the screen with indifference, not even morbid curiosity.

“Notification.  All clear.  You may continue the manipulation of subject 5863.”

He glanced down at the keyboard he still used to seal the fate of nameless people, some deserving, others not.  Everyone else in his department had moved on long ago to the spoken word or direct brain interfaces.  He refused.  He felt that the keyboard gave him a better feel for creating fate.  The microseconds it took to type allowed him to think just a little about what he was doing.  It made the process slightly less impersonal.  Not that he cared about the people “out there,” he just wanted to feel a little better about himself.

He leaned back and thought for a moment of the woman in the room with the corpse.  What was to become of her?  His training taught him to never ask such questions.  All it did was waste time, the only commodity people with his job had.  Quick, decisive, impartial.  There was no place for passion and certainly no sympathy.  He got up.

“Notification.  Writing chair is unoccupied.  Why is writing chair unoccupied?”

He walked down the stairs to his front door, the large steel door heavily bolted with locks running up the length of the seam.  He looked out the fortified window and saw that it was getting dark.

“Notification.  If you wish to go out, you need to hurry.  The sun is setting.”

“CUT,” yelled The Director as she stood up and took a few steps toward the proscenium arch.  She paused and slumped her shoulders.  As her hands touched her face, she started to tremble.

“This…is…awful!  What are we doing here?  We have a story that goes nowhere, has no tension, and certainly does not have an ending.”

The Writer removed his sunglasses, rose up from his chair, and approached her.  “Listen, this is a required episode.  We need to set up later action.  All this episode is supposed to do is give a little context for forthcoming action.”

“Look, I understand I was hired at the last minute to get this episode shot, but this is terrible.  If you insist we keep on shooting, I can not be a part of it.  I will not allow my name to be attached to this project.”

“Not a problem.  We can go the Alan Smithee route.  All I would ask of you is that you keep your participation silent.  Don’t go advertising that you directed this shoot and that you are unhappy with it.”

“I still get paid, right?”

“Of course, you will get your money.  I can give you cash as soon as we are done.”

“Works for me.  Have someone grab a garbage can and put it next to my chair.  I am sure I am going to barf.”

“Sure, no problem.  Can we get back to work now?”

“I can’t believe how low I have sunk.”  The Director quickly sat down and adjusted her lanyard.  “Let’s get this over with.”

With all once again right with the world, the people took their places, and scenes were shot.  The actors worked to the best of their ability, and the crew acted like the professionals they were.  The sun was low in the sky when everyone called it a day.

The Writer went home to his empty trailer.  The Director did whatever it is directors do when they leave.  No one bothered to invite her out for drinks.  Not a single person bothered to say goodbye.

One of the actors, the guy from the front door gassed to death in the story, was slow in leaving.  He walked around the set, slowly taking everything in.  He knew the script was terrible and that the part was small, but it was work.  He had spent the day earning his living as an actor, breathing in air as a true artist.  As a young boy, that was all he ever wanted, all he ever dreamed.  His mouth started to form a smile as he turned to leave.

 

An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 5

Warren didn’t want to answer any more questions, but I did my best to tease some more answers out of him.  He is too polite to leave me hanging when I ask a question that is even remotely intelligent.  Here is Part 5 of our wide-ranging talk.

RTNM:  I think if you wrote a memoir, it would be interesting and compelling.  Are you sure you won’t do it?  Write a memoir to get your story out to the world?

WAS:  Good grief.  My story pales when compared to that of someone like Tara Westover.  Her memoir, Educated, is remarkable.  She is a special lady.  I would very much like to meet her one day.

RTNM:  I hate to tell you this, but you are way too old for her.  You recently turned 60.  You are an old man.  Yeah, I know you are in great shape and that you work out 2 hours a day, but you are old with a capital O.

WAS:  Good grief.  I said I wanted to meet her; I didn’t say that I wanted to strike a series of muscle man poses in front of her like some sort of jacked-up bower bird.  I really admire her.  That is all I am saying.  So, to get back to your question.  I will not write a memoir.  First of all, I believe the greatest truths are told through fiction.  That is how my story, such that it is, will be presented to the world.

RTNM:  You and I both know that you are desperate to leave behind a record of “What it was like to be me.”  Just write the memoir and be done with it.

WAS:  One of your problems is that you don’t realize how easily you are replaced.  You’re feeling yourself a little, I get it.  Keep puffing yourself up; we will see how far that gets you.  One problem with writing a memoir is that there has to be a conclusion, there has to be a payoff at the end, a resolution.  My story has no such thing.  It is too early… (he trailed off here and bowed his head)  …I think there is a good possibility that the good stuff for me is yet to come.

RTNM:  You can’t really believe that.  From where I am standing, it is clear that you are just hoping that is true.  Why?  Because if it’s not…

WAS:  What makes you think you have any insight into my life?  That is outrageous.  You are nothing more than a collection of middle names, one, I might add, with a finite life span.  Tread carefully.  Death can come at any moment.

RTNM:  You would know, right?  In the last 6 years, you nearly dropped dead twice.  It is my understanding that you got very lucky both times.

WAS:  Yes, I am fortunate.  People drop dead every day from traveling blood clots.  I am hopeful that my clots are under control and are in my past.  The fact that I got a second and then a third chance makes me work harder.  I do not want to waste any time I have left.  There are several things I need to get done before I die.  I am working on those things now.  I will admit that it is getting harder to work long hours, but here I am, late at night, answering your inane questions.

RTNM:  Yeah, everyone here is proud of you.  Blah, blah, blah…your problem is that you think your life matters.  That when you die, the world will be a lesser place because you have faded away.  What nonsense!

WAS:  You don’t know what you are talking about.

At this point, Warren got up and left.  I called after him, but he ignored me.  My people called his people in the hopes of scheduling another interview.  He, not unexpectedly, declined.  Surprisingly, he agreed to continue the interview by email.  The following is the email exchange we had.

RTNM: I was out of line.  I didn’t mean to insult you.  I apologize.

WAS:  My guess is that you have a list of ways you don’t want to die.  I’ll bet that getting eaten alive by any animal is at the top of the list.  Am I right?

RTNM:  As a matter of fact, yes, you are correct.

WAS:  Good luck to you.  I have deep concerns about your future.  You might want to get your affairs in order; no telling where a man like you might end up.  An adventurer such as yourself might face an infinite range of dangers.

RTNM:  Look, I was trying to get you to talk about the responsibilities you feel you have to humanity.  Nothing more.  I never meant to insult you.

WAS:  Did you ever see Jaws?  Remember that poor guy getting eaten alive at the end of the movie?  Man, that was sick.  I remember I saw that at the movie theater with Todd Gunter, a friend of mine from grade school.  As I recall, we both jumped out of our seats.  I certainly wouldn’t want to go like that.

RTNM:  Look…I apologized…

WAS:  The best we all can hope for is to die in our sleep.  I wish you the best.   I’ll be thinking of you.  Thoughts & Prayers.  Thoughts & Prayers.

RTNM:  If I were you, I would be working on that novel of yours, the special one.  Don’t worry about the other ones; get to work on the big one.

WAS:  It is getting harder and harder to sustain deep concentration.  This I know; I will never be a guy playing out the string.  You, on the other hand, have your own set of problems.

RTNM: Well…

WAS:  Listen, everyone has a responsibility to humanity.  Everyone needs to contribute to society the best they can.  There is no arbiter, other than yourself, as to the success or failure of your efforts.  It doesn’t get easier as I age, but it does bring the problem into focus.

RTNM:  Is there anything else you would like to add to this portion of the interview?

WAS:  Yes, I have a few more thoughts specifically for you, the great and mighty figment of a declining imagination.  Watch out for comma splices and never, under any circumstances, end a sentence with a preposition.  Sleep well; it is the only respite you are going to get.

 

 

An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 4

In this section, Warren talks about his experience during what historians and philosophers have called “The Science Wars.” He had a front-row seat; consequently, he has much to say about postmodernism’s short-term and long-term effects on scientific theory and society at large.

RTNM:  What was the deal with The Science Wars?

WAS:  Well…I don’t know where to begin.  I think you need to get a little more specific with your questions.  Didn’t you prepare?  Do you even know what The Science Wars were?  You disappoint me.

RTNM:  I was trying to give you a wide berth.  I know you have a lot to say about it.

WAS:  OK.  Let’s start at the moment I realized something curious was happening.  Harvard University has a bookstore called The Coop.  The books for the classes are all shelved and categorized as they would be in any university bookstore.  Every semester I would buy my books, and I always took time to look around at what was on the shelves.  I was confused by how many courses in multiple departments were reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

RTNM:  Tell me more about that.

WAS:  There were thousands of copies of Kuhn’s book on the shelves.  When I looked at the courses teaching Kuhn, they were all in the humanities.  The English department taught Kuhn’s book in nearly every class they offered.  At this point, I was a newly arrived hillbilly from Ashtabula, Ohio, and had never heard of Kuhn and his book.  Now, of course, I understand completely.  They were using Kuhn’s ideas to preach their postmodern deconstruction and relativism.

RTNM:  I have heard you say that Kuhn’s book is one of the most important ever written.

WAS:  Yes, it is.  Kuhn made science a human enterprise.  His sociological view of science was highly influential.  And, yes, it did herald in our postmodern, post-truth world.   Kuhn’s Structure is a seminal work, a bible for the anarchists and postmodernists.

RTNM:  So, Kuhn set the stage for The Science Wars?

WAS:  In my mind, yes, he did.

RTNM:  That is quite the legacy.  What happened next?

WAS:  Sigh…let’s start with Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction, a sloppy line of thinking that gave us a world of “alternative facts” and the death of respect for science and scientists.  Along with Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, and Bruno Latour, Derrida deserves a big chunk of the blame for where we are now in The Western World.

RTNM:  And where is that?

WAS:  We are living in a Post-Truth world.  COVID is considered a liberal conspiracy, along with climate change, evolution, and the efficacy of vaccinations.  I could go on and on.  Derrida and his crew started all this nonsense.  They tried their best to devalue science and the role of scientists in a civilized society.

RTNM:  Why would they do that?

WAS:  I believe there is a simple academic answer.  As a Harvard University student, I heard and read a lot about “Physics Envy.”  Other academic disciplines were deeply concerned about how effective the hard sciences are at getting to the fundamental nature of reality.  The social sciences and the humanities certainly couldn’t make such claims.  A seminal moment in this story is the 1960 publication of a paper by Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner.  His “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” was a brilliant paper.  It angered academics in other disciplines because Wigner stated the case that mathematics, as the language of physics and the other hard sciences, has done much more than any other line of inquiry to add to human knowledge.  Mathematics had done more to give us control over our natural surroundings than any other form of investigation, and he was right.  Because of mathematics, we have space shuttles, MRI machines, particle accelerators, GPS devices, microwave ovens, and countless other technological marvels.  When people fly, they get to their destination because someone has added and subtracted correctly.  The contributions of literary criticism pale in comparison.

RTNM:  Derrida had no respect for mathematics, did he?

WAS:  All postmodernists, notice I didn’t say postmodern thinkers, as I try to avoid oxymorons at all costs… They think that all mathematics, and all knowledge in general,  is socially constructed.  They believe all science is socially constructed, that it is created out of the ether by balding white men whom all have political agendas.  It is really very depressing.

RTNM:  So…

WAS:  Let me say that postmodernists, with Derrida leading the charge, believed that science was just another way of thinking about the world and that the results were no more valid than what anyone else thought.  Sound familiar?  We live in a world where the president of the most powerful nation can deny science when it suits him.  If he doesn’t want climate change to be true, it is not.  Suppose he believes that there were 10,000,000 people at his inauguration when photographic evidence refutes his claim.  In that case, he has “alternative facts” that are just as valid as any so-called evidence people may point to.

RTNM:  Postmodernists…

WAS: Certain people, the mighty Deconstructists in Derrida’s Army, were calling for Harvard to become open admissions.  They wanted to do away with academic rigor; they believed it to all be socially constructed nonsense brought into existence by people wishing to keep power.  In their opinion, science wasn’t discovering any truths.  It really was an astonishing time.  I remember talking to one such person, and I brought up DNA and how helpful its discovery has been to humanity.  She looked at me angrily and said, “You believe in DNA?”  That is a true story.

RTNM:  Why were you exposed to this?  You were studying archaeology, right?

WAS:  My first graduate degree is in The History of Science, my second is in Anthropology/Archaeology, and it was in the anthropology department that I got a front-row seat to all this nonsense.  Postmodernists forced their way into anthropological and archaeological debates.  It was a mess.  In the 1960s, there was a revolution in archaeology that led to what is called “processual archaeology,” which, to gloss over it, was the introduction of scientific methods into the discipline.  It really did change everything about archaeology.  Archaeologists were no longer about the discovery of objects; they became interested in discovering the laws that govern human behavior.  Processual archaeology was well established from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s when I was in Cambridge.  Then came what was termed “post-processual archaeology,” along with all the deconstruction and other nonsense proposed by the postmodernists.  The postmodernists suggested that the archaeological record be read as a text and criticized and analyzed as any other text.

RTNM:  I recall you telling me that your advisor was very interested in these ideas.

WAS:  Bob Preucel, yes, he was.  We had many long talks about this stuff.  He took a deep dive and had many interesting things to say about postmodernism.  I am not sure we ever agreed about one thing, but he is a great guy.  I always enjoyed talking to him about the processual versus the postmodern; he was (and I am sure still is) a deep thinker.  He was genuinely interested in what was happening in what was then our increasingly postmodern world.  That said, I kept telling him that if we did away with rigorous academic standards and valued the irrational as much as the rational, we would have nothing more than tribes running around clubbing each other over the head.  I was right; for a long time, that is what happened.

RTNM:  And then along came Alan Sokal…

WAS:  Yes, thankfully, the universe conjured up a brilliant mathematician and physicist named Alan Sokal.  I encourage everyone to research The Science Wars, and when you do, you will come across something called “The Sokol Affair.”  Many people believe that Sokal put an end once and for all to The Science Wars.  Victory, of course, belongs to the rational, the mathematical, and the academically rigorous.

RTNM: Take us through what happened.

WAS:  Sokal wrote an article called  “Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.”  He sent it to a journal called Social Text which was affiliated with Duke University.  The journal, a product of postmodernists (notice again, I did not say postmodern thinking), was not peer reviewed and, in proper Derrida-inspired form,  had no explicit standards.  Of course, the journal published the paper.  Shortly after, Sokol revealed that the article was a joke, a string of nonsense that he pasted together that had no logical structure or meaning.  He scammed the journal to illustrate that standards based on reason were preferable to anything the postmodernists offer.  As I recall, it was a beautiful day when I read what happened.

RTNM:  Many people who read this interview will not be familiar with postmodernism.  Can you give a brief overview?

WAS:  I always quote Homer Simpson when asked about postmodernism.  I say that postmodernists live in a world where people throw ducks at balloons, and nothing’s the way it seems.  That sums up their position perfectly.  I know, I know, you want a little more.  Postmodernists believe there is no discoverable objective reality.  All knowledge is socially constructed and is biased in favor of the constructor.  Therefore, there is no scientific “truth” to be discovered.

Moreover, any historical truth is also an illusion.  That was why they attacked archaeology (at least partially why) during The Science Wars.  They are dubious of mathematics and logic and believe there is no objective truth to be discovered.  They are very suspicious, no make that downright hostile, toward science.  They believe scientific knowledge does not describe reality; it is merely political in nature.  Old, balding white men use it to remain in power.  As I said, they throw ducks at balloons.

RTNM:  Anything more you would like to add?

WAS:  One thing always struck me about the radical, deconstructionist, postmodern adherents I have known.  They passionately spew their thoughts and act like they believe everything that they say…until they get sick.  Everyone I have known runs as fast as they can to find the best practitioner of Western Medicine available.  They don’t go to psychics, they don’t have their tarot cards read, they then instantly believe in the power of science when their life or the lives of their loved ones are at stake.  I have always found that interesting.

RTNM: Final thoughts?

WAS:  The postmodernists did their best to devalue science and were successful.  We are now living in a post-truth world where fewer and fewer people believe that scientists have any authority to speak on scientific topics.  Climate change has become nothing more than a liberal conspiracy.  People who are against using vaccines are running for Congress and winning.  The situation is dire, and I am not optimistic about the future.

Of course, Warren has given a broad overview of this topic.  He stressed that the arguments are sometimes very subtle and peppered with nuance.  The average person need not care about the details.  The important thing, he said, is that postmodernism is nearly dead, but its legacy of science denial is growing stronger.  The stakes, he said, couldn’t be higher.  He mentioned that he thinks it is probably already too late to do anything about climate change.  It will take a technological intervention of tremendous magnitude to fix things.  He just hopes that people will be willing to fund the science necessary to get the job done.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Tara Westover Is Educated

Educated, the memoir of Tara Westover had been on my reading list for several years.  I had heard all the good things, everyone, except her parents, had to say about it.  I finally got around to reading it.  I suggest you do the same.

Westover’s story is compelling.  I will not review the book or relate what happened to her.  I am going to write about how I reacted to her story.  She was very fortunate; she broke free from the ignorant hillbillys that raised her.  I have known many who did not.

Whenever I write about hillbillys, I preface my remarks with the following.  My mother was a coal miner’s daughter.  My father was not only the first person on either side of the family to graduate from high school but also the first to attend high school.  Now that my hillbilly bona fides are revealed, I can feel free to write what I think.

Reading Educated brought up many deeply buried memories.  I once dated a woman whose parents were ignorant hillbillys.  At the time, I was teaching at a university in Ohio.  Many of the courses were based, at least in part, on evolutionary theory.  The woman, let’s call her Sandy, let her parents convince her that if she married me, she would go to hell because I was obviously a “tool of the devil.”  That was one of the kinder things they had to say about me.  Hillybilly ignorance runs true and deep.

Whereas the wrath of Westover’s parents was directed at her, I got it from the parents of a woman I loved.  It was outrageous.  Westover’s book is filled with stories that remind me of how Sandy’s parents acted.  Kindred Hillbilly spirits, one for all and all for one.

Sandy wasn’t strong enough to break away from her parents; somehow, Westover was.  The last I heard, Sandy was in a mental institution.  Westover is working at Harvard University, my favorite place on earth.

Westover’s parents are Morman survivalists.  Sandy’s parents are high school dropouts, one a Pentecostal holy roller, the other some kind of Catholic.  All four think like they do and believe what they believe due to the historical accident of their birth.  If they had been born in The Middle East, they would all be Muslim, and they would have been dancing in the streets when the twin towers collapsed.  Think about that for a bit, and you will realize I am right.

I am very happy for Tara Westover.  I am also proud of her.  She did something astonishing; she broke away from the chain of ignorance and set herself free.  Sandy chose to make her mother happy by accepting The Bible as a science textbook.  On and on it goes.

I was affected by Westover’s book much more deeply than I anticipated.  I highly recommend that everyone read it.  It is even better than the best reviews.

Alcaraz

Richard Gasquet is a French professional tennis player with a beautiful backhand.   He has been as high as number 7 in the world.  He has long been one of my favorite players.

At 16, Gasquet became the world’s number one junior tennis player.   Many thought he would become number one in the world with time, good coaching, and a bit of luck.  Andre Agassi was not one of those people.  Agassi hit with Gasquet when the Frenchman was a teen, and Agassi was asked about the young man’s prospects.  Agassi was quick to say that not only would Gasquet never reach number one, but he also would never win a major championship.  Why?  Foot speed.  Gasquet didn’t have enough.  Talent becomes irrelevant when a player’s feet don’t move fast enough.  That is a simple fact.

That brings me to Carlos Alcaraz, a Spanish teen who just became the number one tennis player in the world.  The ATP rankings say so.  I have heard about Alcaraz for a while now; the reports have been unbelievable.  People have been saying that Alcaraz combines the best attributes of Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.  I had a hard time understanding this…until I saw him play.

Alcaraz is a tennis prodigy, Mozart in shorts.  He is clever, tough, and, yes, fast…very fast.  His movement around the court is astonishing.  I am still trying to process what this teenager can do on the tennis court.  He is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Perhaps the most impressive attribute Alcaraz has is his ability to wave off pressure.  The big points seem to mean very little to him; they are treated the same as any other.  He plays with joy and a sense of purpose.  He is creative and confident.  I suspect he will win many, many more major titles.

The best athletes in the world can get tight during big moments.  We all have seen great tennis players choke and shrink during critical points in a match.  Alcaraz appears to do the opposite; he embraces the challenge.  His calm and coolness under pressure are astonishing.  I am a little confused by how good he is at his age.  He is something special.

Not a tennis fan?  Couldn’t care less about sports in general?  If this describes you, I recommend you follow the career of Carlos Alcaraz, a Spanigh teenage who has the chance to become one of the greatest athletes ever.  The reincarnation of Mozart has arrived, but not in the guise of a guitar-slinging punk rocker.  This one wields a tennis racquet unusually and provocatively.  I have never seen anything like him, and I can’t wait to see where his inexplicable talent leads him.