To the happy few

I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So, that’s what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally.

— Conan O’Brien, in a Harvard Graduation Speech

There is a growing concern amongst the marine scientific community of the diminishing number of competent plankton taxonomists remaining in, and being recruited, to research.

— R. Simpson et al, in Biological Pattern Recognition By Neural Networks

I read this and I imagine a secret meeting of the Central Committee of Marine Biologists. The mood is sombre; horrified biologists whisper around the table, shaking their heads, until the boss, a Marlon Brando-like character, enters, punching the table with both fists, vociferating about the appalling lack of plankton taxonomists.

– Et quand j’aurai signé, messieurs, quelle sera ma garantie?
– Ma parole d’honneur, monsieur, dit Athos.

Mazarin tressaillit, se retourna vers le comte de La Fère, examina un instant ce visage noble et loyal, et prenant la plume:

– Cela me suffit, monsieur le comte, dit-il.

— Alexandre Dumas, in Vingt Ans Après

Kundera said that love is the only way to escape the divine computer, by making someone more important than it. I might agree with him, if he used a loose definition of love, that made it resemble friendship; as Eco said, through Belbo’s musings, the rest is the survival of the species. Even friendship within the family, or the species (and so on…), is still close to a genetic program that makes us protect their heritage. There is nothing more romantic than saving an insect from dying, or giving one’s life for a rock.

My disagreement with the author is not on the value of love, but on the nature of the divine computer. He saw it as a creating God, even though an absent one, whereas I consider evolution to be this force against which it is heroic and absurd to fight.

A long time ago, Pedro Lomba wrote a text in his website about lawsuits in the United States. In his opinion, although those lawsuits are mocked in Europe, they show a vitality of the civil society that is not so frequent in this continent. I tend to agree with him, and reading about the subject I cannot help thinking that despite the frivolous lawsuits that undoubtedly exist (and they are most likely dismissed as such), it would be a tremendous loss if such a mechanism of defence for the general public became politically incorrect. The most paradigmatic case, popping up in almost every discussion about “tort reform” and “jury duty”, is the elderly woman who sued McDonalds because her coffee was too hot. The incident was thoroughly depicted as being the ridiculous acme of irresponsibility for one’s actions, but the facts of the case were much more complex. The story on SSQQ McDonalds Hot Coffee, seems to be a balanced account of the issue, and I like the closing sentences:

What all this means is that the jury’s decision in the case of Stella Liebeck was not necessarily the sign of a legal system gone mad. Maybe if you’d been on the jury, hearing all the evidence, you still would have decided for McDonald’s. That’s okay, too. But the case is more complex than how politicians, late-night talk-show comedians, and Cosmo Kramer have made it seem for years.

Look more closely.

(On a side note, this is why I don’t like comedy that is not true to the facts, even if – or perhaps especially if – it is aware of its misrepresentation. As Somerset Maugham wrote in The Razor’s Edge, fanatics have found a much more effective substitute for the burning of their enemies: the wisecrack.)

This is one of the most beautiful moments of Kundera. I like the way he circles around the theme and suddenly comes forth with the unexpected conclusion. It reminds me of the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which seemed to wander aimlessly through the soul of Dedalus, until the final pages resolved everything and left me amazed.

She had always secretly reproached him for not loving her enough. Her own love she considered above reproach, while his seemed mere condescension.

Now she saw that she had been unfair: If she had really loved Tomas with a great love, she would have stuck it out with him abroad! Tomas had been happy there; a new life was open for him! And she left him! True, at the time she had convinced herself she was being magnanimous, giving him his freedom. But hadn’t her magnanimity been merely an excuse? She knew all along that he would come home to her! She had summoned him farther and farther down after her like the nymphs who lured unsuspecting villagers to the marshes and left them there to drown. She had taken advantage of a night of stomach cramps to inveigle him into moving to the country! How cunning she could be! She had summoned him to follow her as if wishing to test him again and again, to test his love for her; she had summoned him persistently, and here he was, tired and gray, with stiffened fingers that would never again be capable of holding a scalpel.

Now they were in a place that led nowhere. Where could they go from here? They would never be allowed abroad. They would never find a way back to Prague: no one would give them work. They didn’t have a reason to move to another village.

Good God, had they had to cover all that distance just to make her believe he loved her?

— Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact – that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed – which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favor of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

— Karl Popper, in Science as Falsification

“Do as you like,” said Raoul, who was beginning his apprenticeship with that particular class of society [inn keepers], who, when there were robbers on the highroads, were connected with them, and who, since highwaymen no longer exist, have advantageously and aptly filled their vacant place.

— Alexandre Dumas, in Twenty Years After

Highway robbery, as seen in the 19th century. Kundera said there are many more persons than gestures, and the same is true for words and expressions. When I read “I have to do something that no one can do for me” (referring to the use of the bathroom), in Anne Frank’s diary, it amused me that such a phrase was already in use. Platitude exalts the brotherhood among humans, of all times and places; at the same time, it robs life of some of its freshness.

Agrada-me a brevidade das histórias d’O Imitador de Vozes. Ultimamente nunca tenho vontade de escrever textos longos porque me parece que as ideias se diluem e a comunicação perde eficácia. Walt Whitman: “I am so sorry to write you such a long letter, I didn’t have time to write you a short one”.

Narrá-la-emos pormenorizadamente, com exactidão e minúcia. Na realidade o interesse de uma história ou o aborrecimento que nos causa dependeram alguma vez do espaço e do tempo que ele exige? Sem medo de sermos acusados de meticulosidade excessiva inclinamo-nos, pelo contrário, a opinar que só é realmente interessante aquilo que é minuciosamente elaborado.

— Thomas Mann, in Montanha Mágica

Todas as aspirações são nobres.

A reception desk in a sort of office building.

Receptionist: Yes, sir?

Man: I’d like to have an argument please.

Receptionist: Certainly, sir, have you been here before…?

Man: No, this is my first time.

Receptionist: I see. Do you want to have the full argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?

Man: Well, what would be the cost?

Receptionist: Yes, it’s one pound for a five-minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.

Man: Well, I think it’s probably best of I start with the one and see how it goes from there. OK?

Receptionist: Fine. I’ll see who’s free at the moment… Mr. Du-Bakey’s free, but he’s a little bit conciliatory… Yes, try Mr. Barnard — Room 12.

Man: Thank you.

[…] The man knocks on the door.

Mr Vibrating:(from within) Come in.

The man enters the room. Mr Vibrating is sitting at a desk.

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