I’ve just finished a book entitled The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. I also copied and highlighted some key parts as I always do with books since I usually borrow them from the library stacks or interlibrary loans. Certain pages of the book spoke right to me and will certainly influence my near and far futures. And I think that from the last chapter mainly, the book will indirectly influence the way that I make decisions, big and small, and with that leave a lasting daily taste in my mouth: a taste of comfort in the overwhelming modern world of information and knowledge.

Here is an excerpt from the middle of the book [emphasis mine]:

“While students at many colleges are happy to discover a subject to study that not only do they enjoy but that will enable them to make a living, many of the students that I teach have multiple interests and capabilities. These students face the task of deciding on the one thing that they want to do more than anything else. Unconstrained by limitations of talent, the world is open to them.
 
Do they exult this opportunity? Not most of the ones I talk to. Instead, they agonize: Between making money and doing something of lasting social value. Between challenging their intellects and exercising their creative impulses. Between work that demands single-mindedness and work that will enable them to lead balanced lives. Between work they can do in a beautifully pastoral location and work that brings them to a bustling city. Between any work at all and further study.
 
With a decision as important as this, they struggle to find the reasons that make one choice stand out above all others.”
 
- The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz

And well: that resounds into the past college years of my life like no other. I like to think of myself proficient in the modern age of time-wasting devices, loads of information, and deceptive items of value. Yet with all of the opportunity laid out before one’s self, we reach a state of bliss and un-motion. This is evidenced by looking back on this very day, a day for me of photographing in a cemetery with a rudimentary understanding of exposures and composition, having a delicious bowl of seafood Pho and wondering how I can make it, wandering about a craft store glaring at the pastels/fancy paper/technical drafting kits, watching a lecture about high performance computing, and finishing off the day by burning a fire model of a church (for research purposes of course).

While I am a big proponent of randomness and a wide range of inputs, I am also a succumber of the pleasures of random input and a productive intake of massive amounts of information. This leaves me feeling adrift in a sea of decisions, which leads to indecision. Luckily, the book that I just mentioned talks of some ideas during the closing chapter. Not solutions, but guides to help you walk across the sea of paralysis. Instead of always looking back and wondering, I just don’t think there is a use in pondering the fourth dimension. Unless, of course, you are also interested in philosophical exercises as one of your too-many hobbies.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I am going to pursue the action of writing a to learn list (see here). Whether or not this will help with the multitude of choice that has materialized in front of me for the past years; I don’t know. But I have a deep and comforting feeling that while it will not make a difference in happiness, it will certainly grow and satiate my soul; and so I share these thoughts with you.

I sat in a three-hour long class today, browsing over random websites trying to seek valuable information and input for myself. I digress though. The class is supposed to teach students efficacy with computers, programming, and applied engineering concepts. The first half of the course will use Excel, and the second half will use Visual Basic. Both are tools which are not freely available and actually quite expensive in the latter case; tools that are built upon using proprietary formats and working with others leads to specific idiosyncrasies.

Why does the modern education system do this, even at the university level? Think about it. If you submitted the above purposely-vague course description in order to have a class formed, who would approve that mess? Who would want to take that class? A class that closes your mind and limits your exposure, the opposite of what you should be doing at this time; exposing your mind to tons of different random inputs, tools, methods, and opportunities in the world.

Furthermore, instead of learning how to adapt and use existing solutions and integrate them into your wonderful tool pouch, the students distantly type up examples from a non-existent space in a book and go home for the week. Going home and never again caring or wondering how technological tools can help them and challenge them to the point that it will change the way that they work, think, and solve problems.

When I worked in the summer of 2007 at a research firm in Maryland, I got to use any tool that I wished to solve an endless number of problems (my dream environment), as long as the results could be effectively communicated, shared, and built upon by all other participants in the problem. Of course, I had to use MS Word and Excel a couple of times, but I did not let that limit me. I must have gone through using over 50 different applications, many times on just a single problem. I used MATLAB, R, FORTRAN, Google Docs, Perl, Python, PHP, TextWrangler, SigmaPlot, OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Linux, Mac OS X, GMail, Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator, Applescript, shell scripts, Google Video, Google Code, Google Apps, Google Groups, CyberDuck, SmartFTP, SmartSVN, TeXShop, and tons of other tools, many of which were free and open source.

And that is not to say that I am an expert in any or all of those applications, but that I have the engineering ability (I use this in the traditional and broad lifelong sense of the word) to be able to know when to use a certain tool, how to fit it to my needs, and how to use it efficiently. Being able to pick up any tool for a job from cold and cater it to your needs is certainly a skill that will separate you from 90% of your peers in school, work, life, relationships, and personal progression.

That being said, how does one teach this skill to a class of engineering students who may or may not know that they want or need this dexterity and competence? Well, how does one learn the skill in the first place? I think that when a problem arises, any problem at all be it an assignment, a task, or a hobby, one starts to look for answers in places that he or she is formerly comfortable with. This usually means that they miss out on a well-structured Google search where the answer would have been right in front of them in this collaborative world, waiting for them to use it and mold it to their needs. But the students continue on, not aware of the opportunity and challenges that are waiting to enrich their daily lives.

“How do I insert the footer here?” “How do I log into the wireless?” “What formula will show today’s date?” Please, for the love of all that is spinal, use the help file, use Google, use your minds in this environment that is not only openly and excitedly available to you, but that you are paying about 500 dollars to be purposely surrounded by! If most of the time is spent adjusting margins and Excel specific commands and headers and print previews, where will the guts of learning and inspiration come from? I do not mean for this to be a generic rant, but rather a resounding and powerful call to these types of courses and professors to turn around and challenge the intellect of the student in solving problems and furthering their thinking capacity in life. Anyone can achieve this if they try and are provoked in just the right way that stimulates that certain passionate part of their mind.

For instance, consider a slightly disorganized and unformatted spreadsheet that effectively and elegantly solves a problem in which the student spent 3 hours on the solution and 5 minutes on the design. I would much like to see this sort of result and output rather than a spread of pretty colors and fonts that only serves to find the area of a circle – go and solve something real. Come on mentors, teachers, and those in charge of challenging us as humans: summon our great and collective minds!

There is something to be said about meaningful work. My first day of school comes, and I am hit with the randomness that my mind yearns for. A random day that involves a balance of valid and worthwhile work. One with action, conversation, exercise, dreaming, and so on. And perhaps not in the traditional sense.

For instance: exercise. I am an idealist, and exercise to me means working my brain to death. By meditation or focus. Action to me means working towards something that is meaningful, not just a todo list. However, what is meaningful work? Well, as I find out, I humble myself and think that I do not yet have the wisdom to pick out the meaningful work for myself. This is where mentors come in. Mentors in the damndest sense of the word. Mentors that lead you to greater things in life.

So I am here today. The first day of my last semester. The end of another chapter. Revelations.

Today I encountered conversations of natural and synthetic happiness, readings about paralysis and choices from the macro scale to the micro, lectures of sprinkler and fire protection, ideas of numerical analysis and prediction, the dexterity and grace of a game of air hockey, a movie about the modern culture of counter-culture, and so on. The ideas and environment that exist in an academic environment spark the beauty and relationships that exist in nature and bring them to the forefront of my thinking.

On a more practical level, I am excited about this semester as I have some higher-up duties to perform at school throughout the semester, all the while I plan to keep working away at fulfilling days of creation, writing, and expression. Hence, the artful scientist continues with yet more action-packed days.

—

While I am on the topic of everything, there is a feeling in the air that forces me to stop what I am doing and write or read. I seek to take action in non-action and a day full of empty decision scares but amuses me. Here is a list of readings and ideas that I hope to pursue in the next week or two:

• The Paradox of Choice – Schwartz: The idea that we are faced with an almost unlimited amount of choices in our modern lifestyles and how this can lead to paralysis of action and thought.
• The Great Adventure: Essays and accounts written by former volunteers of the Peace Corps. Excellent range of topics and experiences of worldly cultures and monumental tasks taken on and how it affected and influenced the lives of the volunteers.
• Against Love – Kipnis: Book about the trappings, routines, mindsets, and rituals that the idea of modern relationships put us humans though by marriage or otherwise. A call for all to love more and resist the urge to “work on ourselves” relentlessly as if we are double-majoring in jobs and relationships for all 16 waking hours of our lives.
• Breaking away from my todo list for most of the day and filling it instead with reflection, creation, and true action.
• Contemplating the summer of 2008 and what it may bring. Research at a fire protection firm? Coding mathematics at a Google-like place? Working closely with a fire research firm? Or taking a long term sabbatical on a somewhere mind boggling journey.
• Considering wrapping my head around the 1.5 – 2 years that I will be (probably) in Maryland studying fire science and mathematics and ensuring that I get everything that I can out of the experience while again maintaining a free, open, and exploratory mind.

—

I ride the night freeways going northbound at 75 mph on the way to my new temporary home. The red jacket keeps the chilling winds at bay by utilizing technology and a thin layer of polymers. My mind wanders to the night sky and sets in a lull, considering the different paths to go on mentally during the ride home. Choices suffocate my deliberation on any subject, and as I arrive at one thought or experience to soak in, my senses quickly jump to the next set of problems or decision to be made.

Snapshot of paralysis of the mind in real-time from a real human:

When I get home, should I have a glass of water or a beer? [2 minutes]
Moving on, should I waste some time with internet games or entertaining forum postings? [1-2 hours]
Should I write a blog post? [20 minutes]
Should I read one of the five books that I am currently in? [30 minutes-1 hour]
Should I write some more Perl code for that project? [1 hour]
I could always just go to sleep right now and forget all of these decisions. [8 hours]
Or I could practice my typing. [30 minutes]
Wait, I could try to edit those three rolls pictures that I took. [1 hour]
I should attack a few items on my todo list like brainstorming for the semester and writing a few emails. [1 hour]
Screw it, I should delete half of the items on my todo list that won’t matter in five years anyway. [20 minutes]
Oh wait, I could write down the top 10 things that I want to do for the next month, then narrow it down to three ideals, then ignore the rest so that I actually progress at something. [30 minutes]
I should grab a bite to eat. [20 minutes]
Or just meditate about everything above. [30 minutes]

Welcome to the modern renaissance life. Thanks for listening. Next time: answers?