RECF

The other day I was sitting out in Princes Street Gardens, just killing some time before an afternoon class, writing and thinking and this little old Scottish man walked past me and said, “Cheer up!” I smiled at him as a gut reaction and promptly went back to my thinking, which had been about how I plan out future interactions in my head and whether that was a good or terrible thing, and whether thinking about thinking about the future was a layer too deep or not.

I wanted to feel a flash of annoyance at the little old man- something along the lines of, “How dare someone tell me how to feel!”- but I really didn’t mind. I know that my thinking face is not a cheery one. I have Resting Existential Crisis face. Drives my professors nuts, because even if I’m following along and totally engaged with the material, I have this look of panic stuck on my face. It’s not the feedback one wants when one looks around the room during a lecture. 

Literally the first picture of me on facebook

This gem, right here.

THIS IS WHAT MY FACE DOES DAILY

Of course, my RECF doesn’t bother me at all- I don’t have to look at it, except occasionally in candid pictures. It doesn’t necessarily help in the making of friends or in portraying a generally approachable demeanor, but then again, that doesn’t bother me either. I meet my social quota daily and I don’t ever feel like the town leper, which I know is a low bar, but I’ve never felt a need to raise that. I was talking to one of my friends after class about how our friends from back home all asked if we’d made any friends yet. It's a weird question to us, like we're five again or something. “I like my own company,” she said. “A day that I don’t have to leave my flat is a good day.” 

I would like to register my strong agreement with that statement while also acknowledging that “good days” are few and far between and maybe that’s why they’re good. On the flip side, though, outside has been really pleasant recently. I’ve been able to sit outside almost every day and this weekend, I went on an adventure to watch a building being demolished... 

Specifically, this

...and met some lovely people and had scones and quiche, so that was nice. (By the way, shout-out to my high school friend, Clay, and Jonathan, who picked me up from the airport and helped carry my bags to my room and invited me to see this building blow up- instant old friends are one of the best kinds of friends.) 

I almost feel like these are the days that diaries are meant for- all the big events that you experience the first time you move somewhere new, all the people you meet before you settle into your friend-group, all the smiling at strangers and getting lost and rediscovering yourself that you do as you start again in a new phase in your life. It can be chaotic, like stepping onto a boat for the first time, and I know that I’m in this with plenty of other new people who deserve to have their well-meaning looks met with something other than Resting Existential Crisis Face. It’s a little unfair to be enigmatic at this stage, while the world’s rocking around us, but it's hard for me to help.

In class yesterday, I did a presentation, basically just a recapitulation and response to the reading. Now, I’ve done presentations. I’ve done talks in front of large groups of people. A stage doesn’t scare me. But as I talked, I could hear myself speeding up and feel my face turning red and my eyes focusing on my computer screen much more than the room around me. My southern even came out with one or two words, and that never happens when I'm sober and caffeinated. I rushed to the finish line and actually did a little curtsy at the end, as I do when I don't actually have control of my body or my actions due to intense nervousness, and I spent the rest of the lecture trying to cool down my face with my freezing cold fingers. Now, objectively, the presentation wasn’t an unmitigated disaster and I know the nervousness came from the complexity of the topic, but it wasn’t my best. And that’s a shame.

But then after class as we were walking down to the courtyard, two of my classmates asked about one of the quantum mechanical experiments we had been talking about in the discussion and I was able to clear up some of their questions and misconceptions. It was one of the best conversations I've had so far- they brought up really good points and great questions on a topic that was right in my wheelhouse. I think I would have cartwheeled all the way to the library after that, if I knew how to cartwheel. 

I know few people knock it out of the park on their first try. I know that I don’t have to expect that from myself. I know that I’ll keep working until my comfort-level with the material equals my comfort-level with presentations and I know that day will come. But my awareness of those facts did infinitely less to help my mood than the fact that I was able to do some educating after it all was over. So, thanks, I guess, Universe. You’ve done really well recently, even if my face doesn't always show that.

The Problem of Greetings

"Hi, how are you?"
"I'm well, and you?"

"How's it going?"
"Good."

"Hello."
"Hi."
"Lovely weather."
"Yeah."

"Hi, can I have a grande mocha?"
"Whip?"
"No, thanks."
"For here or to go?"

*Awkward smile acknowledging interaction*
*Nod and quick return to the task at hand*

These are just a few examples of the many interactions I am prepared for. They happen at grocery stores and at restaurants and really, any given service industry interaction. I ask you how you are, out of an obligation to be polite, and you respond with some generic acknowledgement that your current state of existence is acceptable. And even if you don't, in America, I am prepared for that as well, because I will more than likely be able to understand what you say. If I ask how you are and you tell me that this is the worst day ever because your dog just died, I have the Awkward Arm Pat ready and waiting to go, along with the Sympathy Face.

What I'm not prepared for are the "all rights" that do not sound like they have enough consonants to be those words, the "sittin' in or take-aways" which take me a minute to process even though I know I want my coffee to go, and the variety of other noises that I assume are words that I haven't been able to decipher yet as I get to the checkout line. I had a system back home, Scotland. You have thrown that system out of whack. I could catch flies with the amount of time my mouth is open, trying to figure out how I'm supposed to respond to the question? statement? remark? that someone just made to me.

I think my problem is that I picture adulthood as some kind of magic land where you flawlessly dance from task to task. Adults don't say "you're welcome" when they mean to say "thank you." They are more practiced than that. They're at the very least sure of who and what they are.

Moving to another country takes out one round of that sureness, at least for a little while. I live my life in fear of the behind-the-counter-eye-roll that people in cities have for tourists. I'm not a tourist. I live here. I'm just not great at it yet.

But hey, cashiers and tillers of Edinburgh, I brought literal sunshine with me when I came here. Please accept that as my gift until I've once again perfected the expected social interactions. Here's hoping it'll be a while.

Internet Find of the Week: Really just a quick reminder that this exists in the world:

Processing Week 1

I’m a week into my program and already I have some thoughts that I need to work through. Let me again remind you that I’m a week into my program, with a lot of growing to do as I begin to process all the new information coming my way. 

Excitement? 

There are things in life that you can share with a kind of exuberance, the excitement of new, interesting knowledge, like new astronomical discoveries or a new album by a favorite musician, and there are things that are complete sloughs, piles of information you feel you need to wade through because underneath it all, you’re sure there’s a truth hidden somewhere. Studying Science and Religion offers both of those things. 

Like, did you know that more Britons believe in angels than believe in God? 

And, have you ever heard of the idea of emergence? Basically, from what I can tell, it implies that everything “emerges” from physics, that the basic laws of the universe are set and everything that exists just follows from them. You are a product of the random distribution of matter at the beginning of the universe. That’s a reductionist naturalist view, of course. I’ve had to put a lot of time into sussing that information out of papers and introductions and scholarly essays and it’s just a chunk of ice on the iceberg that is the systematic study of science and religion and I’m not sure I’ve even got that right. I feel like I’m playing Hide and Go Seek with the fundamental truths of the universe. And they’re winning.

Through all this, though, I’m convinced that there’s a way forward. In my mind, there’s too much human time spent hating other people and this debate, this concept that science and religion can’t work together, is a solvable problem. It’s the bold statement of someone new to the field, but it’s something I believe in. For now.

Initial Problems

Say you’re having a discussion with a friend of yours over what color headband Donatello wears. You’re convinced it’s purple, because it is, and he swears it’s red, which is dumb because everyone knows Raphael wears red. It’s alliteration, man. It’s, like, the easiest one to remember. You’re both sure you’re right and there’s no real easy way to walk away from this with any kind of agreement. It’s a fact that Donatello wears purple. That’s all there is to it.

gif source

Of course, this fact, this truth, is only slightly complicated by the fact that all the ninja turtles wore red in the original comics. So you’re both right, in a way, though one of your answers applies to the current incarnation, and if both of you can accept that complication, the discussion can move on, probably to which version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the definitive version. 

It probably won't be this one. gif source

You see the problem here? 

From what I’ve read so far, the biggest problem in reconciling science and religion is fundamentalism on either side. When you know that you’re the one with absolute truth on your side, you’re not going to be the one to budge. You’re right. And if the other person happens to disagree with you about that absolute truth, they’re not going to listen to you either. Then insults get through and dirty secrets get pulled to the surface and everyone else gets drawn into your fight and that’s what’s happened with science and religion, in my opinion. We’ve all been drawn into their fight. 

So how do you convince anyone to think that maybe they’re not exactly the rightest person in the room? In my opinion, we could all use a little humility around here, but that’s like telling the person about to start the barroom brawl that they need to calm down. To them, they are calm, dammit. And anyway, who are you to tell them what to do?

Existential Crises 

You know me. I’m big on sitting back and letting the panic of existential doubt wash over me like so many ocean waves at high tide. If I wasn’t occasionally lapsing into periods of wondering if anything is even real and what it all means, I wouldn’t be me. And boy howdy, am I in the right place for someone like me.

There’s this idea in philosophy of time that time is like a block- all moments in time exist simultaneously and we just happen to be experiencing this particular series of time. While I like that as a basis for time travel, it kinda sucks if you’re in favor of free will- your choices are basically already made. Thinking about time in general makes you wonder if you ever had any choice at all.

Then there’s the solipsistic view of the universe, where no one can tell you if anything is real besides you. 

But then, what exactly are “you”? Where does consciousness come from? Is consciousness even real? What if you’re just a machine tricked into thinking that you’re creating your own thoughts and making your own choices? THIS IS A REAL QUESTION.

Not to mention the ideas that the universe could be a hologram or that we’re all part of some big alien experiment and could be having our experiences fed to us, Matrix-style. 

And none of this even gets close to the problems of reducing all human existence to terms of physical processes, which is logical but also really hard to hear and sounds wrong somehow. Like, you feel something when you’re in love, probably due to all the chemicals that your brain is sending along because biology definitely wants you to get your groove on so you can make some babies, but is that all there is? How do destiny and fate factor into all of this, if those even exist? And I feel like that’s what I should primarily be concerned about because societally I’m conditioned to think that if I just have someone to love me then it’ll all be worth it at the end of the day, no matter whether I achieved anything, and besides, there’s no proof that all of our existence is more than just a shout into the void and if that’s the case, why not be in love before the impending oblivion reaches us all? 

*catches breath*

*composes self*

I just have some thinking to do, that’s all. 

Laundry Day

I did laundry on Monday. I’ve been here a week and a half and I already needed to do laundry. And though I can’t believe that, it makes sense to me. There are hills. Hills, as far as the eye can see, when you can see past the rain. Everything I’ve worn in the past week and a half was damp due to one cause or the other and most of it had been sitting on a chair until I got a laundry basket the other day… you can see why laundry was the sensible thing to do. As my mother said when I was FaceTiming with her, some things never change.

Now, I always, in my heart of hearts, expect laundry day to include some of this:

gif source

But it never does. Doesn't stop me from humming "My Freeze Ray" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, though.

I met a Taiwanese girl who’s studying criminology while doing laundry and we talked about where we’re living. She’s in the residence hall section of the buildings while I’m in the apartments but they’re all so new and standard, she said it was like living in a hotel. And I have to agree, having lived in hotels for three years, though the hotels I lived in where a might roomier. It’s hard to make this place your own, to feel settled. 

I remember walking into my room at my parents’ house this summer and being pleasantly surprised when I realized that it smelled like me. It’s a weird awarenesses that you can’t get unless you’ve been away from a place long enough to lose your nose-blindness, but at the same time, it’s a really pleasant one. I can’t place what makes something smell like me. Maybe my detergent, which I left in Chapel Hill with at least 30 loads of laundry left in the bottle, or maybe my conditioner or body wash? But it was always a comfort. 

Now, with clothes and sheets freshly cleaned, my room smells both clean and like the air freshener I bought for the days before laundry and I suppose that’s all part of settling in. A year from now, the room will have lost its “new room smell”, probably, and will have taken on something more like me, whatever that means. And it’s a weird thought, to try to make this plain and standard room your own for a year, but then again, this is home. Whatever that means.

Nerd Alert

I’m imagining some of the questions I plan to ask in class just based on the nerd deep-dive I did this weekend and I have to say that Tuesday afternoon cannot get here soon enough. Come, my friends. Nerd with me. 

“Hi, um, yes, when are we going to talk about how science tells us that everything is going to one day die and there will be no one left to remember that we ever existed?”

“So you’re saying that no one can prove that any of this exists and that it could all be a fever dream, a la Wizard of Oz? Follow-up question: Why don’t I have more interesting fever dreams?”

“Yeah, but if Frankenstein’s Monster could exist, would he have a soul?”

“Okay, well, then, can we talk about the history of anthropomorphization in human religions and how that carries forward into our current imaginings of the future? Angels and demons and zombies and robots, really, is what I’m going for here.” 

“Sure, but what does ‘being alive’ really mean?”

“Are we sure that ‘consciousness’ is a thing?”

“So you’re telling me that I can reasonably write a dissertation about the self-identity of artificially intelligent robots?”

I love that there are songs about scientific principles.

“How do you feel about the Fermi Paradox as it relates to human exceptionalism in Western religions?”

“So, say the universe is actually a hologram. Where do we go from there, in terms of Jesus and stuff?”

“Where do you think the line between supernatural and spiritual is? Follow-up: what is spirituality? Because google is all sorts of confused on that one.”

“Modal realism. Like, what even does that mean?”

“Is it socially acceptable to be mopey when I’m thinking about death or do I have to face it with scholarly enthusiasm? …Scholarly enthusiasm? Yeah, but, what if I want to do the other thing?”

“Am I allowed to ask if math is real? Because I was watching a video about that and had an existential crisis and I’d just like to talk that out, if that’s okay.”

“‘Ethics of Progress in a Christian Setting’- solid paper name, yeah? Mostly I want to explore what ‘helping the least of these’ will mean when robots do everything for us.” 

“I know it’s been done, but can we talk about Superman and current society’s rejection of him as a metaphor for the rejection of religious self-improvement?” 

-------------------------------------------

Internet find of the week: Kinda in the same vein as all of these fun questions, the internet find of the week this week is this fabulous post from Wait But Why on religion for the non-religious. 

Taking Stock

This morning when I was thinking about what I wanted to write about today, I was thinking that beginnings are good times for taking stock, analyzing where you are, and deciding where you want to be. Now I mostly want pizza but I’d have to walk down the street to get it and it’s getting to be that time of day when everybody’s at the store and I hate people, so that’s not really an option. Wait, stores close early around here. Better go before five. Be right back.

Actual view from my common room. Take a left and Tesco's like a 5 minute walk away.

Pizza acquired. Where were we? Oh. Beginnings.

You know, I have a deep personal awareness of where I’m at in life right now. It’s Act 1. We’re all familiar with the conceit of the show and we’re waiting to find out what the conflict is, where the story comes from. I have a feeling that this year's story will come out of the search for and writing of my dissertation, but who knows? A lot can happen in a year and I don’t want to lock myself into just any old plot.

So instead of taking stock, let me just send some wishes my way for eleven months from now when I’m turning in my paper and looking ahead to something else.

I hope your feet don’t hurt as much, Me From the Future. Surely you’re used to walking around by now, but take a second and remember how your feet were actually swollen after your first week in town. Also, you must have the calves of a goddess by now. I bet that in general you are looking fantastic, lady. Good for you. 

I hope that this year surprised you. I know that you’ve got your checklists and you’re prepared for many different scenarios and I know you find comfort in that, but there’s no reason to be world-weary yet. Be thankful for that. Be surprised.

Go to shows in fancy old buildings. See Night Vale again.

I hope you bought real silverware eventually. 

For my budget’s sake, I hope you did this cheaply and got a job.

I hope someone asked you to dance. 

I hope you said yes.

For this oven's sake, I hope you learned celsius.

Man, I hope you learned some dorky stuff, bro. Like, today, in the library, I was reading an argument about whether time actually exists or not and, dude, if you don’t have a well-formulated opinion on the metaphysical existence of spacetime by the end of the year, I’m not sure I even want to know you. UNLESS YOU LEARNED SOMETHING BETTER. PLEASE TELL ME YOU LEARNED SOMETHING BETTER.

I hope you learned the time and place for the words “dude" and "bro."

I hope you’re proud of who you are. You could settle into snarky and reserved, but genuine is good too. I mean, you’re never going to be an open book, so don’t be worried about that, but I hope you found people to be yourself around and I hope that this year only made you better. Then again, it’s not always the solutions we expect that actually help, so I’ll keep the surprise thing in mind.

God, I hope it was worth it.

Then again, how could it not be?

Welcome Week

Best and the Brightest

Don’t tell anyone. 

I was actually late to the first information session at the divinity school on Monday morning, so I didn’t hear the head of school say this, but I’ve heard it from people since: We students are the best and the brightest, selected from the cream of the crop. We’ve all worked hard to be where we are and we’re here to work hard.

Except I don’t feel like it. Imposter syndrome aside, it’s been a while since college and while I’m sure I studied more than some, I wasn’t in the peer group of physics majors that went onto grad school at Columbia. I have a lot of ideas and I have an enthusiasm about the topic and I have an interesting experience to add to the diversity of the group, but, as I’m fond of saying, the longest paper I’ve ever written was 11 pages on the music of Oklahoma!. I’m sure that I’m cut out for this, but I don’t feel like it when I’m meeting the person who’s working on a PhD studying a branch of a religion that I can’t even pronounce. 

Feelings are just feelings, though. One of the podcasts I listen to routinely asks writers when they first realized that people write things and the answers are always interesting. We all understand that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays, but you don’t really think of Shakespeare as a person sitting down with a pen and paper trying to figure out what Mercutio should say next. It’s a similar thing with academia. I had that discovery that the people who write books and academic papers, they’re humans like me, just a little higher on the academic ladder. Whether I feel like I can or not, I’ll be writing at length about some obscure topic over the course of the year. And that’s exciting, in its own way. 

*****

I can tell. You’re American.

Of course we have get-to-know-you games happening. It’s the first day of welcome week. Getting to know people is implied. 

As a former camp counselor and a frequent interactor with youths, I have a tactic for getting through situations like this: either “supervise” the game or participate as hard as you can so that you get to be in charge for the next game, meaning that you don’t have to participate. As I couldn’t be a game supervisor, I grabbed my name out of a hat and started asking the person with the name the questions they told us to ask. He was not, let’s say, ecstatic about this turn of events. At one point, desperate for an explanation, an acknowledgement of my go-getter attitude, I chirped, “I’m a participator!” and he said, “I can tell. You’re American.”

My thoughts now are along the lines of: I’m sorry? Do you think all Americans are especially participatory in events? Because I have so many people to introduce you to who would also like to sit with you in the back of the room throwing spitballs at everyone else’s honest attempts to break down communication barriers. If I were in charge of this, I would have tugged you into the fray just for spite. 

What I thought then was: Oh dear god, I’m being too cheerful. No one’s going to like me or take me seriously. This is the valley girl effect, but generalized to my whole country. They’re going to think I’m a ditz. I look and sound and act like a dumb American and I’m never going to get past it. I didn’t even know this barrier existed. How do I fix this? Everyone must think I’m so idiotic.

I want to be cool. I want to look less eager to please. I want to fit in so that I can be known for my intelligence and not for my perkiness. But everyone take a second to remember that icebergs sparkle in the sunlight too. 

*****

It’s scary, but it’s what we like. 

I’m sitting in a historic assembly hall at the beginning of a taught postgraduate welcoming ceremony and the dean, maybe, of postgraduate students is giving a quick talk to kick things off. She’s talking about the importance of balancing studying with life outside the classroom, which is made especially difficult for postgrads as we all like to study. It’s okay. We can admit it. “It’s scary, but it’s what we like.”

The gathered group laughed and the talk moved on but I took a note because it was an important moment to me. I’ve earned a place here. I’m going to love what I’m doing this year and I’m allowed to love doing it. And so is everyone else in that room. So much of undergrad and life in my twenties has been about experiencing things and being with friends and figuring out what you love, and I’ll do all of that here too, but I’m so comforted to know that the purpose I came here with is the purpose I’m expected to pursue. Being back at school feels right. 

I think I’m going to like it here.