Is it finally going to happen? It is. In a few months my life will be different, and not only in the technical sense. I have my hands on the steering wheel, ready to lift the sails and turn the rudders, anxious to leave this little pond I've been floating around for years.
How different? What will it be? I'm not sure. I have ideas - nebulous spirits of possible futures, all of which I want to taste of. I will explore - whether I explore the remote stretches of the world and its peoples, the unseen subtleties of myself I've so long neglected, or simply other avocations, I don't know. But I want to explore. I NEED it. I want to feel that I'm fulfilling my potential, unlike now, where I drag my unwilling, coward self through a program I no longer like for a degree I realized I no longer desire. Sure, I'm not going to quit without getting a degree (Why, my inner self still wonders? Fear. Of an uncertain future, of financial instability, of not being able to prove to others that I have knowledge and skills worthy of plentiful remuneration. And though I aspire to a Life without monetary worth as a goal or even a primary factor, I still do not believe whole-heartedly either in my own power or in the happiness that this aspired life will provide me with, to renounce to the material world right now. Yes, I could - yes, the doors are open. Yes, I have the keys to my own chains. But darned fear! Fear of regret, THAT is the main one. Will I regret my decision in the future? But couldn't this be argued about ANY decision, including this one to stick it out for the few upcoming months? Why is staying here just for this final semester the decision that I will NOT regret? Because it adjusts most easily to societal ways? Isn't that exactly what I'm releasing myself from? But am I not bonded to society unless I turn entirely ascetic? And would that truly be a fulfilling way of Life, or am I simply starstruck with lofty ideals I cannot yet understand?), but I so often want to. I'm urged to - my body says "GET OUT OF THERE!", my future self already reminds me of what would could've been if I had dedicated this tiny semester to purposes I more desire. If I desire it... why shouldn't I do it? And why not now? Unfinished business. Unwanted advisor advice? "You don't want to allow things in your Life you might later regret". "But I WON'T regret it!", shouts my body. "GET OUT!". Yet here I am, only typing and waiting for my experiment to run, figuring out why my lousy Weka Random Forest classifiers do not serialize and deserialize properly - unbelieving in my audio-classification goals, but still curious about the details. The curiosity that brought me here is still alive, but it yearns for other objects. Objects with Life, objects with spirit, that arise excitement and passion in me again, unlike the curiously enticing elementary-school-like, look-at-me-I-know-the-answer kind of anxiety that I too often allow to power my activities, not only here in school, but everywhere I go. I want to deal with those issues, to figure out what I want (if anything), to find something better - to drive myself, and not to be dragged as I am now, as I have been for so long.
I've done this - I've wanted to leave, I've found ways to do so. I left once. I excitedly threw myself out into the world with a bicycle and a desire to traverse the USA, hoping to meet new people, try a new lifestyle, change my life. Two days into it and WHAM, a car hits me and cripples me for half a year, through which I barely had time to hide my self-pity away and scurry back to this sterile academic bubble, where I hoped to nourish my body back to full fitness and agility. (I haven't achieved that yet, but my body has done a good job of allowing me to do what I routinely ask it to. I want more, but that's another story). The project I was most passionate about - shattered in an instant - a year of potential experience dissolved into nothingness by one moment of too much momentum transfer. Did the Universe bring me back to settle some unfinished business? Did it force me back to stay with my parents for three months so I could somehow reconnect with them, although my whole being wanted only to be AWAY from them at that time? I felt it as a sharp punishment at that time - and not only the stopping of my trip, but my return to my family, to need from them again, when what I wanted with such a passion was to strengthen my independence. So was it fate? Or foolishness? Who rides a bicycle on a main road without a large reflector on their backpack, right? I did. Or was I the victim? Who rear-ends a bicycle on a flat straight road, without any possible obstacle to block his view?
All these things are true, and nothing can be done to change it now, but my spine still tingles and my eyes plead me to tear and my throat and my chest beg me to vent my frustration and anger through them, to tell the universe how much I disapprove of the accident that shrunk my goals back into this pond of academia. And I know that it would benefit me to vent so, that blocking such potent negative energy is not the good for my body, my mind, nor for the rest of me. Yet I don't, because I'm at the office. Out of "respect", out of conditioning, out of the same hateful habits I so anxiously hope to liberate myself from. I sit here still, and I look forward to my escape from this place with almost as much excitement as I saw my upcoming school vacations every year back in elementary school. Finally I will be free, I will have time to do things I want and not things that others want. Yet I ask myself - will I still find my previously sparkling willpower beneath the years of dusty layers of unwanted conditioning and repressed emotions? Is this energy through my spine a sign that I am really still alive inside? Then oh, dear God (merely as a form of interjection), why don't I let it out NOW??? Why do I risk not finding it when this semester is over? The idea of daredevil rebelliousness spurs me, yet the memory of what happened the last time I acted to one threatens and dampens my excitement. Why don't I live my life?? WHY????????????????
And I can only blame myself and my cowardice. Then again, I might later regard this same cowardice as wisdom that helped me, I don't know, find a kindred spirit or develop the next cutting-edge audio recognition technology. Hindsight too easily serves to justify one's current point of view, and not to elucidate one's objective reality. Then again, is there such a thing as an objective reality, as filtered as we perceive it through our own biases, prejudices, and emotions? (1. Is there? 2. If yes, can we ever truly understand it?) I think this is a solid example of an intellectual education conflicting with the human soul. The first says "Optimize! Find out why! Leave no room for doubt or for regret! One last semester of dragging now will make itself worthwhile when your US Masters degree allows you much higher probabilities of acquiring money-making and travel opportunities for the rest of your future.", while the second says "Live, dude. You want to live and travel, so go do it. You've got money now, things will take care of themselves later. You just go and do stuff you want. Every second of your time is irreplaceable, why waste it on what you don't like? Go and stand on Flagstaff Hill, shout your determination to the world, run back to your apartment on your leaden yet functional feet, pack your bags, choose your course of action, and go DO. Isn't that what you want? Time will pass, degree or not. So go and enjoy the present, for tomorrow never comes. Right?"
Still, here I am, almost two years later, in the same office, with a different research topic, willing to pretend only mild curiosity about the topic I'm researching, dreaming of the shiny yet fuzzy dreams of adventure. Why does the trained classifier that correctly chooses "crickets" as a particular instance's label, choose "sheep" for the exact same instance after being serialized and deserialized? Wouldn't that effect the accuracy of my results drastically enough to warrant investigation? I believe it does. And that is why I'm still here at 4:05AM, juggling breakpoints and overriding equals() methods to get to the bottom of the serialization bug. Ah, well. It's 5:27AM now, and I think I found it. Let's see what this does to my accuracy scores...
How different? What will it be? I'm not sure. I have ideas - nebulous spirits of possible futures, all of which I want to taste of. I will explore - whether I explore the remote stretches of the world and its peoples, the unseen subtleties of myself I've so long neglected, or simply other avocations, I don't know. But I want to explore. I NEED it. I want to feel that I'm fulfilling my potential, unlike now, where I drag my unwilling, coward self through a program I no longer like for a degree I realized I no longer desire. Sure, I'm not going to quit without getting a degree (Why, my inner self still wonders? Fear. Of an uncertain future, of financial instability, of not being able to prove to others that I have knowledge and skills worthy of plentiful remuneration. And though I aspire to a Life without monetary worth as a goal or even a primary factor, I still do not believe whole-heartedly either in my own power or in the happiness that this aspired life will provide me with, to renounce to the material world right now. Yes, I could - yes, the doors are open. Yes, I have the keys to my own chains. But darned fear! Fear of regret, THAT is the main one. Will I regret my decision in the future? But couldn't this be argued about ANY decision, including this one to stick it out for the few upcoming months? Why is staying here just for this final semester the decision that I will NOT regret? Because it adjusts most easily to societal ways? Isn't that exactly what I'm releasing myself from? But am I not bonded to society unless I turn entirely ascetic? And would that truly be a fulfilling way of Life, or am I simply starstruck with lofty ideals I cannot yet understand?), but I so often want to. I'm urged to - my body says "GET OUT OF THERE!", my future self already reminds me of what would could've been if I had dedicated this tiny semester to purposes I more desire. If I desire it... why shouldn't I do it? And why not now? Unfinished business. Unwanted advisor advice? "You don't want to allow things in your Life you might later regret". "But I WON'T regret it!", shouts my body. "GET OUT!". Yet here I am, only typing and waiting for my experiment to run, figuring out why my lousy Weka Random Forest classifiers do not serialize and deserialize properly - unbelieving in my audio-classification goals, but still curious about the details. The curiosity that brought me here is still alive, but it yearns for other objects. Objects with Life, objects with spirit, that arise excitement and passion in me again, unlike the curiously enticing elementary-school-like, look-at-me-I-know-the-answer kind of anxiety that I too often allow to power my activities, not only here in school, but everywhere I go. I want to deal with those issues, to figure out what I want (if anything), to find something better - to drive myself, and not to be dragged as I am now, as I have been for so long.
I've done this - I've wanted to leave, I've found ways to do so. I left once. I excitedly threw myself out into the world with a bicycle and a desire to traverse the USA, hoping to meet new people, try a new lifestyle, change my life. Two days into it and WHAM, a car hits me and cripples me for half a year, through which I barely had time to hide my self-pity away and scurry back to this sterile academic bubble, where I hoped to nourish my body back to full fitness and agility. (I haven't achieved that yet, but my body has done a good job of allowing me to do what I routinely ask it to. I want more, but that's another story). The project I was most passionate about - shattered in an instant - a year of potential experience dissolved into nothingness by one moment of too much momentum transfer. Did the Universe bring me back to settle some unfinished business? Did it force me back to stay with my parents for three months so I could somehow reconnect with them, although my whole being wanted only to be AWAY from them at that time? I felt it as a sharp punishment at that time - and not only the stopping of my trip, but my return to my family, to need from them again, when what I wanted with such a passion was to strengthen my independence. So was it fate? Or foolishness? Who rides a bicycle on a main road without a large reflector on their backpack, right? I did. Or was I the victim? Who rear-ends a bicycle on a flat straight road, without any possible obstacle to block his view?
All these things are true, and nothing can be done to change it now, but my spine still tingles and my eyes plead me to tear and my throat and my chest beg me to vent my frustration and anger through them, to tell the universe how much I disapprove of the accident that shrunk my goals back into this pond of academia. And I know that it would benefit me to vent so, that blocking such potent negative energy is not the good for my body, my mind, nor for the rest of me. Yet I don't, because I'm at the office. Out of "respect", out of conditioning, out of the same hateful habits I so anxiously hope to liberate myself from. I sit here still, and I look forward to my escape from this place with almost as much excitement as I saw my upcoming school vacations every year back in elementary school. Finally I will be free, I will have time to do things I want and not things that others want. Yet I ask myself - will I still find my previously sparkling willpower beneath the years of dusty layers of unwanted conditioning and repressed emotions? Is this energy through my spine a sign that I am really still alive inside? Then oh, dear God (merely as a form of interjection), why don't I let it out NOW??? Why do I risk not finding it when this semester is over? The idea of daredevil rebelliousness spurs me, yet the memory of what happened the last time I acted to one threatens and dampens my excitement. Why don't I live my life?? WHY????????????????
And I can only blame myself and my cowardice. Then again, I might later regard this same cowardice as wisdom that helped me, I don't know, find a kindred spirit or develop the next cutting-edge audio recognition technology. Hindsight too easily serves to justify one's current point of view, and not to elucidate one's objective reality. Then again, is there such a thing as an objective reality, as filtered as we perceive it through our own biases, prejudices, and emotions? (1. Is there? 2. If yes, can we ever truly understand it?) I think this is a solid example of an intellectual education conflicting with the human soul. The first says "Optimize! Find out why! Leave no room for doubt or for regret! One last semester of dragging now will make itself worthwhile when your US Masters degree allows you much higher probabilities of acquiring money-making and travel opportunities for the rest of your future.", while the second says "Live, dude. You want to live and travel, so go do it. You've got money now, things will take care of themselves later. You just go and do stuff you want. Every second of your time is irreplaceable, why waste it on what you don't like? Go and stand on Flagstaff Hill, shout your determination to the world, run back to your apartment on your leaden yet functional feet, pack your bags, choose your course of action, and go DO. Isn't that what you want? Time will pass, degree or not. So go and enjoy the present, for tomorrow never comes. Right?"
Still, here I am, almost two years later, in the same office, with a different research topic, willing to pretend only mild curiosity about the topic I'm researching, dreaming of the shiny yet fuzzy dreams of adventure. Why does the trained classifier that correctly chooses "crickets" as a particular instance's label, choose "sheep" for the exact same instance after being serialized and deserialized? Wouldn't that effect the accuracy of my results drastically enough to warrant investigation? I believe it does. And that is why I'm still here at 4:05AM, juggling breakpoints and overriding equals() methods to get to the bottom of the serialization bug. Ah, well. It's 5:27AM now, and I think I found it. Let's see what this does to my accuracy scores...
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