To do research?

I'm trying to pinpoint why I'm getting that little-bit-of-a-freaking-out feeling when again another professor has agreed to take me on to do research. Here's an attempt to understand:

Fears

-pidgeonholing

-time commitment

-> missing out on other opportunities

-> wasting time

-messing up

Attractions

-opportunity to do some legitimate work

-interesting research area

-good prof + postdoc

-learning about something that could be useful/applicable to other things I'm interested in

-getting involved with FSE

Doubts

-is this exactly what I want to do?

-how 'valuable' is it really to do research?

-how applicable / how much does this stuff really matter?

-boring

I guess if you sell your soul... this is where it can get you to. $322 round-trip flight SFO-JFK the day before you're flying out.

Okay maybe I exaggerate when I say "sell your soul" -- but if you drop all the really scary, more religious connotations of that, you can just think of it as "quashing your spirit" (quashing can be thought of as neglecting, sidestepping, ignoring).

thoughts about study...

so what's it about computer science?

thoughts of computer science as a tool -- what do you want to use it for?

what's it that you want your life to amount to?

taken from stars (post-in-draft; then again, aren't they all?):

11/23/2009

is a life even supposed to amount to something? can it amount to something?

I guess this is might be one of those meaning of life questions -- it's one of those things that I sidestep. I've accepted some sort of thought on it, but it's something that I don't usually think about much, because I don't find it consequential to daily life. Something like religion.

It's just right now I'm starting to wonder. What am I doing with myself? What am I doing? Why am I doing what I'm doing? What do I want? How ironic a situation it is to not know what you want. Or maybe I know what I want but I've just buried it in me somewhere and hence can no longer find it.

I live my life feeling. I see a picture of a girl..

taken from stars (blog where i'd started writing other things); post-in-draft:

11/9/2009

I live my life feeling. I see a picture of a girl with a bloated stomach, my hand moves to my own.

I want to cry when I think of Gandhi. I cannot think of him any more...

...but was he just human? Should I accept him for his whole, his flaws?

What I want to do

-live (work) in Amsterdam

-work in rural India

-work in the African continent

-fashion; design

-design MechE like things for extreme affordability

-learn Spanish, French, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Dutch, Mandarin, Bengali, Punjabi

-study poetry

-make a documentary of impact

-move a movement

-go mountain biking, hiking trekking, surfing

-work as a waitress or shop staff or etc.

-bring better technology to farming

-do something about the urban poor

-do something about education, schools

-make music; learn Hindustani vocal

-start a Gaelic football team at Stanford

-be an actress; do drama

I visited a friend and teacher of mine; I wanted to see if I could learn some dance from her during my month in Chennai. After catching up on the past year and eating milk sweets and pakoras, as I was getting ready to leave, her daughter came visiting.

I'd certainly heard the descriptor "sparkling eyes" before, but never had I met someone whose eyes sparkled as much as Jyotsna Aunty's did. 

They drew me in, and before we even got the chance to exchange the regular pleasantries, I had already asked her the question that had been on my mind that day: what exactly does yoga mean?

"Yoga has to do with the mind."

"Yoga is the mind -- it is mindfulness. It's not weight-loss, it's not getting fit, it's not about the body at all. Ayurveda may be about the body. But yoga -- yoga is about being aware. And with complete awareness (of the body and more) comes natural physical fitness (which is often viewed as the purpose of yoga). But it's not a cause-effect thing, no, she said. It's a cycle. 

Yoga remains about the mind, and thus involves the breath above all else.

She learned dance when she was younger, and so I asked her what the connection between dance and yoga are. "Dance IS yoga!"

"Push yourself. Take one step, one thattadavu or any basic step. And do it for 30 minutes. or 40 minutes. Do it in different tempos, do it in different talas. And focus entirely on it. 100%. Push yourself. It's incredibly hard. Do it without stopping! You have to go beyond! 

"And it's so beautiful! It's not beautiful to watch and it's not the dancer that is beautiful. But it makes me feel beautiful. and it makes you feel beautiful. And it creates beauty!"

These were the golden words. Creating -- revealing -- inherent beauty. The sense of beauty that simply is. The beauty that is revealed when you really push the mind. The beauty that comes when thinking ceases. When the mind is completely aware.

Whether it's dancing, whether it's swimming, whether it's an asana, whether it's breathing. Whether it's eating or it's talking, whether it's brushing your teeth or whether it's running a marathon, Push Beyond. Dedicate 100% of your awareness to it. Fully engage. And only beauty is. 

Listened to a RadioLab podcast on "choice." Case study on Elliot, incapable of making choice; discovered that the tumour which had affected his brain had cut him off emotionally. Rationality is good, but need that emotional drive; we can't be purely rational.

WNYC: RadioLab: Choice

...more later.