the will to be vegetarian

At the turn of 2011, I went to a local Thai restaurant and ordered a spicy noodle dish topped with grilled salmon. It was delicious. It also marked the very last time that I will eat fish. A little unceremonious, perhaps; it was certainly not the best fish I've ever eaten and this restaurant is not especially well-known for their fish. In some ways, fish's quiet shuffling off the stage of my life was fitting. While I have really enjoyed fish in recent years, it never really rose to a level of prominence or indeed obsession in the way that chicken has at various times.

For those of you who are unaware, I have been on a slow transition to vegetarianism, and I am quickly approaching the end. The only meat the remains in my diet is chicken and in just under a year, that too will come to a close. While I have made perfunctory efforts to reduce the amount of meat in my diet generally, I must confess that chicken still constitutes a substantial portion of my diet. Still, I feel good and confident about becoming vegetarian. The arguments for doing so still resonate within me and feel right. They are predominantly ethical, environmental, health-based and to a lesser degree, cultural.

I think it is important to acknowledge that my decision to become vegetarian is a choice, and as such is a manifestation of personal agency.

Consequently, I always say that I don't or won't eat certain things instead of saying that I can't. Often, I make a point of clarifying this when somebody says something like "Nitin can't eat turkey anymore." Of course I can eat turkey, but I won't. I don't make this correction to be a stickler for correct English usage. I actually think the distinction is important and has implications for the kind of person I want to be.

I grew up occasionally eating a small variety of meats like chicken, fish and lamb, but never ate beef or pork. This was the one place where my parents drew the line and it never really bothered me, so I never thought to push the line. If my friends were eating hamburgers, I would have told them I "can't eat beef." While it was strictly true that I could eat beef at that time (I didn't), it was appropriate to use the word can't because the reasons were exogenous to me.

Of course that is no longer the case. I am choosing to stop eating my favorite food in the world in just under a year. This decision does not come lightly, but I obviously believe it is the right thing to do. So I have made the decision to be better. I am empowered and am exercising informed human agency. I have the ability to do that. And I will.

resonance and representation on the telephone

When people exchange text messages or chat on some instant messaging platform, the communication feels removed and abstract. We see the words pop up but there is a strong and present understanding that we are perceiving only a representation as opposed to the other person. On the other hand, talking on the telephone or over video-chat feels more real somehow. This should hardly be shocking to anybody reading.

Incidentally, I spend a significant amount of time on the telephone.

A few days ago, I began to think about just how abstract a telephone conversation really is. Of course the representation is far more multidimensional than the plain-text methods of communication mentioned above. Nevertheless, you're not really with the other person. Ultimately, you're engaged with a machine. On the other end, a machine has taken note of what the other person sounds like and your little machine is only following those instructions to coldly reproduce the sounds for you. It's a fine imitation, but an imitation all the same.

Another reason that physical presence is so important, I suppose. To actually feel the other person's resonance when they talk. That human energy, it seems, cannot be replicated by telephones or by ever-increasingly-fast Internet lines piping in video. This has implications for considering the relative capabilities of virtual communities and actual physical communities, right?

Paradoxically, traditional letters offer greater authenticity in many ways. Setting aside the old fashioned charm of receiving one (we all know the feeling), consider that it really comes with part of the writer. The paper and envelope has been touched and handled, breathed upon. The message you ultimately receive carries part of the other person in a way that your telephone never can.

a thanksgiving letter

28 November 2010

Dear Professor Lee,

While reading the November 22 edition of The New Yorker, I came across your piece entitled Magical Dinners, exploring your own memories of an immigrant Thanksgiving. I wanted to write to let you know that your writing resonated with me on many levels and I really enjoyed reading it.

When I took your fiction workshop at Princeton (in fall 2004), you would often speak to the effectiveness of employing 'important' details; that is, including details in our writing that advanced the reader's understanding of the characters or narrative. In this regard, the peppering of your essays with the details of how you used to lick different objects for taste is so wonderfully done. The moments are simultaneously senseless and remarkably relatable. Who among us doesn't remember surreptitiously putting our tongue on the bumpy end of a battery and the like as children?

Your stories of asking your mother to make American food struck a chord with me. This phenomenon is, I think, nearly universal among immigrant children. I wonder what it is that causes us to inexplicably beg for Kraft dinner in place of our mothers' rich traditional cooking. You rightly observe the tremendous power that children have to hurt their parents: and given that they are just that-- children-- I suppose it is inevitable that we will hurt our parents from time to time.

When it comes to food, at least, I have been thinking that there is a sense in which our adult lives are given to repenting for the way we treat our parents in our youth. At some point while growing, up we realize with a shock what a culinary treasure we had in the kitchens of our childhoods. For me, moving away from home was what really helped me to appreciate my mother's Indian food more than ever before. Today, I take great pains trying (in vain) to replicate that kitchen alchemy. Beyond culinary matters, too, I think many of us in emerging adulthood try to undo pain we may have caused our parents in our youth.

Just some thoughts.

Incidentally, I also enjoyed reading your essay in anticipation of my first Thanksgiving in a Korean-American household. Among so much else, our dinner included turkey, tofurkey, jeon, and paneer makhani. Cultures came together and the food was almost as delicious as the company. It will be interesting to see how Thanksgiving traditions evolve as increasingly diverse groups of immigrants come of age and as different cultures continue to come together in America. In many respects, perhaps this was a quintessentially American Thanksgiving.

I hope that you are well. I think often of 185 Nassau.

Sincerely,

Nitin

PS - I hope you don't mind that I will likely publish this letter on my blog.

when right is wrong

By now, one can safely assert that over the past few years, Canada has experienced a disconcerting drift towards the political right.

As a Canadian living in the USA, I frequently engage in the sport of contrasting inherent Canadian liberalism with US conservatism. At times, I even allow myself to feel smug, comfortable with the liberal 'cred' to which I am entitled simply by being Canadian. Recently, however, when I defend Canada's heritage of robust social support structures and multicultural tolerance, I feel like my parents must when they defend an India of their childhood that no longer exists. More frightening, perhaps it may never have existed-- my own flawed memory could be heavily coloured by romantic ideals.

When Martin turned into Harper and Bush turned into Obama, it seemed like the political differences that I (and other Canadians living in the USA) had been so fond of asserting were dissipating into nothing. Admittedly, this conclusion dramatically overstates the case. In spite of all the changes in Canada, our national consensus on issues like health care, gay rights and parental leave to name only a few, are far more progressive than anything currently imaginable here in the United States. Moreover, the recent midterm elections in the USA cast doubt on the staying power of the great Change of 2008. All the same, it saddens me to think we (Canadians) are losing our edge when it comes to progressivism.

The most recent manifestation is the astonishing election of Rob Ford as the next mayor of Toronto. I will take this moment to observe that when New York moved from being governed by Rudy Giulani to being governed by Michael Bloomberg, the city regained some of its lost dignity; Toronto seems to have moved in precisely the opposite direciton with this most recent election. Though one can hardly imagine a Canadian tea party, Ford seems to embody all of the ethos and positions so inarticulately advocated by these groups. For example, Ford bizarrely seems to be vigorously oppose bike lanes. This is a strange position to take in any major city but strikes one as particularly inappropriate given Toronto's historical problems with urban sprawl and with the usually strong Canadian respect for environmental initiatives. He opposed funding anti-AIDS initatives on the grounds that "if you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably." This is wrong and offensive in so many different ways! To round out ihs profile, he is concerned about "Oriental people taking over" and has suggested that Toronto stop allowing immigrants to arrive. That one of the most multicultural and progressive cities in the world could elect such an awful person to lead is beyond embarrassing and speaks very poorly to the direction of Canadian political sentiment.

Rob Ford seems so antithetical to everything that Toronto and Canada stands for. I want to write this off as the product of a tumultuous economy and a confusing mayoral race. Nevertheless, this has happened. I really cannot overstate how taken aback I still am by this news. I want to say that this will all be over in a few years, but then I never thought the federal Conservatives would win consecutive races. I continue to believe that Stephen Harper is one of the most uninspiring politicians I have ever seen and I resent that he represents Canada to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, Canada happens to have had a remarkable few years economically, particularly when viewed in the midst of financial and economic collapses in other markets all over the world. Canada's economy has done quite well, and much of this has to do with relatively open trade policies.

Are Canadian social supports, healthcare, and our multicultural diversity standing in opposition to this economic success? Of course not. On the contrary, these are conditions that provided the human capital to drive this growth. Did the stability of our financial sector have anything to do with the conservative principle of keeping government out of the way? Absoutely not. Canada's financial sector was as robust and resilient as it was precisely because strong government regulations kept the institutions from taking on unmanageable and dangerous levels of risk.

Am I naive or nostalgic in my assessment of Canadian ideals, and am I misguided in observing this rightward drift? I cannot, for the life of me, reconcile my understanding of what Canada is with the fact that Toronto just elected Rob Ford to be their next mayor.

Other Canadians, can you help me out? Would love to hear your thoughts.

the diary of a young girl

Yes, I cried. Yes, I laughed.

Last week, Ania and I took a trip on Metro North to see Molly perform in The Diary of Anne Frank at the Westport Country Playhouse. What a wonderful production! The theatre and its grounds, built in what looks like an old barn, is the sort of community space that channels the aesthetics of a small rural boarding school. Lately, I've been reading about John Cage's premiere of 4'33" at Woodstock, New York and when I picture the concert hall, it looks a lot like this Westport playhouse. As a pleasant surprise, there were free sandwiches, drinks and snacks laid out for all of the guests to eat and drink before the afternoon showing!

Oh, and the show. Wow. I came away shaken and moved. The cast was uniformly superb. The dramatic and emotional intensity that such a story demands was present without any sacrifices in portraying the honesty of Anne's adolescence. Perhaps one of the most psychologically daunting aspects of this story lies in the thought of prolonged and crowded confinement. To convey this from the stage effectively requires a dept feat of dramatic irony since a performance stage is so literally antithetical to the notion of a closed and secret space. This director and cast proved more than up to the challenge. The audience laughed but was far more often (as I think is appropriate) forward in their chairs, shocked and engaged, mouths slightly ajar. This really happened.

The story is, of course, one that is well-known to most in our society. Nevertheless, like all good stories, something new is revealed or discovered with each retelling. For me, what was most apparent watching the play was the sense that my life is a charmed one. At the risk of sounding cliche, we tend to take things like space and mobility for granted. Who among us has been so openly, callously and horrifically isolated for his race or for any other reason. Who among us has literally been selected for extermination. I say these things not from any profound insight, but because we have to say these things. We have to remember and art is one way we can do so.

When I was on a road trip last year, I was involved in a minor car accident. A friend of mine was upset by the accident for most of the trip; I tried to comfort him by reminding him that things "could be worse"-- nobody was hurt, for example. He bristled at my reasoning, noting correctly (to paraphrase) that I could use this logic to argue against feeling bad about most anything. At the time I thought "exactly: that's the point." Now, I wonder: maybe there are times when even this logic cannot stop one from feeling bad. We have the story of Anne Frank, trapped hiding in an attic against a regime that said Jews, you really should not exist. Silence and stillness during the day. Not even allowed to peer through the window. Exasperated, I kept asking myself in the theatre: can things get worse than this?

The wonder of her story is that in spite of all of this, Anne's voice does reflect a measure of optimism and even levity. Certainly, The Diary of Anne Frank teaches us about human resilience. About the nature of family.

But it's tragically about so much more.

And we ought to remember that this really did just happen.

Thank you to the spectacular cast and crew for a moving performance and for reminding me that my life is charmed.

Why do we need to lead?

First off, many thanks to NKW for permitting this little experiment. I would have made my first post yesterday but I was out of the house all day to, among other things, watch the really excellent, but dark, Swedish detective movie 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' Highly recommended.

A post by economist Dean Baker with regards to the dialogue over financial regulatory reform caught my eye recently. He criticized NPR for not presenting a free-trading perspective in a recent piece on the concerns of those who worry that increased regulation of financial derivatives will drive that industry abroad:

There is no more reason for people in the United States to be concerned about buying derivatives abroad than we are about buying shoes and clothes from abroad. If other countries choose to attract trade in derivatives with a more poorly regulated financial system -- implicitly having their taxpayers assume the risk of a meltdown (e.g. Iceland) -- then there is no reason that we should not simply buy our derivatives from these countries and concentrate our production on areas in which we enjoy a comparative advantage. NPR should have included the economist's position in this segment.

This insight struck me, partly because the general issue (the value of having a particular financial product brokered or sold domestically) seems to be present in some of NKW's reflections regarding the frequently proposed financial transaction tax (FTT or a 'Robin Hood Tax') and, indeed, in a lot of discussion regarding the impact of financial regulation in a globalized market. This is different than the, question of how much revenue a unilaterally imposed FTT could raise given the likely diversion of that business abroad. This capital flight factor strikes me as more important in setting the level of a FTT than whether or not to impose it; clearly there are reasons why many consumers of financial goods prefer to buy in hubs like London and NYC and there must be some appropriate level of taxation before deadweight losses and lost revenue eliminate those advantages and start to be counterproductive for society. I do not disagree with NKW that global implementation is preferable or that the taxation of financial goods is a complicated and delicate balancing act.

More generally, what Baker has here challenged is the value we as Americans associate with being the leader in the global financial industry, even as this requires taking on higher levels of risk and, potentially, future bailout costs, all despite the fact Americans might regardless benefit from the financial products offered by a foreign market.

The U.S. perception of the value of a strong domestic financial industry is the subject of a recent post by Ezra Klein (himself ruminating on Tyler Cowen's post critiquing the book 13 Bankers) who hypothesizes that the limiting factor in financial regulatory reform is not the partisan disputes going on now but the degree to which the U.S. government believes it needs a powerful Wall Street (in order, according, to Cowen, to maintain the dominance of the dollar and finance U.S. debt)

I am very skeptical of the degree to which regulating derivatives, granting the feds resolution authority and the other main issues addressed in the current financial reform bills will compromise our ability to finance government operations or jeopardize the American economy. I do see, however, that stronger regulation would be figuratively akin to taking away the punch bowl at the Wall Street party at midnight. I wouldn't personally cry much over more staid domestic financial markets- the major effect might just be that a particular, and not terribly vulnerable, portion of the NYC and Chicago labor pool would have to reinvent themselves professionally. Perhaps the societal benefits to being the leader in the world's casino economy outweigh the opportunity costs and the risk or more thorough regulation (like what Canada has) is incompatible with being an economic powerhouse.? I am interested in other people's general thoughts: In a globalized economy need America have the most lively and innovative financial industry in the world in order to maintain our economic position or way of life? Is the cost of doing this taking on the risk of serious future financial crises that require the use of taxpayer money?

One possible objection to Baker's implicit 'export the risk' argument is that the U.S. could end up bearing the burden of offshore financial crises anyway, through IMF bailouts or domestic economic losses, with less control over the consequences.

surprise!

We are going to try something new over the next few weeks on gawking at clouds. My good friend Robe will serve as a visiting guest contributor. I think this will be a really positive experience. You'll get to read more commentary and hear a different point of view from mine. Hopefully, Robe and I will try to engage in public discourse by going back and forth on a few things.

don't worry, chicken curry

I have really enjoyed cooking lately. This is some chicken curry that I made last night.

that karma yoga

Recently, I found myself washing a sink full of dishes for the first time in a long while. Over the past few years, I've grown accustomed to using the dishwasher. So it is that while I will occasionally hand wash a pot or pan after cooking, I load most of my dishes into the dishwasher and press a button. This is easy and it leaves me with time to do other things while the dishes wash. My laundry happens in much the same way. On Saturday mornings, I take my laundry bag out of the closet and walk down the street to the laundromat. I leave my laundry with Ming, leave to do other things (while my clothes are washed and folded), and pick my clothes up a few hours or a day later. When it comes to dishes and laundry, I seem to be coordinating more than doing. I was surprised, then, at how much I enjoyed doing the dishes. I've written before about the ways in which we feel human by doing things, and the extent to which this is lost in an increasingly information-based society. I felt very peaceful doing the dishes. It is one of the few times when I can suspend many of my thoughts and just be in the moment. Friends used to find it funny that I enjoy cleaning the bathroom as much as I do, but it's much the same effect.

Yoga and meditation is in large part about clearing your mind. The cessation of thinking. Stop for a minute and just be. I spend so much time thinking about what comes next, and wondering about big ideas. Meditation requires practice and focus. Perhaps the act of doing something with attention and without analysis begins to approach the same goal. When I am washing dishes, when I am scrubbing a counter, when I am sweeping the floor. These, like an autumn forest, are a chance to be alone with(out) my thoughts.

the story

Call me a retrograde, but I find something very romantic about the idea of traditional journalism. While the world is undoubtedly changing quickly; a friend who is a reporter for Dow Jones tells me that a colleague recently remarked to her that "we are all wire reporters now", alluding to the increasing pace of reporting and publication. Still, the image of a gritty reporter chasing down a story, studying the issues meticulously, and reporting with an active sense of professional pride has salience to me. I read something recently espousing the idea that there is a sort of heroism in the notion that reporters do not merely report facts. In being physically present where the stories happen, they testify to the experience. This grants their reporting a special sort of credibility. We used to demand that our journalists not just know about something, but that they know something. Do we still?

This afternoon, I met a journalist from Mexico City named Jose, and we spoke about the notion of journalism as a craft. While this may seem obvious, it occurs to me that we sometimes lose sight of the extent to which the quality of writing matters. Much of this, it seems, has been supplanted with breaking news alerts, tweets, and the like. While I don't mean to suggest that carefully written stories have disappeared (they haven't), I do think we're paying less attention to them. Publications like the New Yorker help to remind us that writing can, and should be taken seriously.

One story that shocked me with its power is Fatal Distraction, for which Gene Weingarten was awarded a Pulitzer Prize last week. In it, he writes about parents who have accidentally killed their children by forgetting them in locked cars. This is profoundly tragic when it happens, and Weingarten handles the narratives with a stunning amount of sensitivity and grace. The story really sheds new light, emotionally and factually, on this occurrence. Outrage is easy, but Weingarten upends that automatic response and challenges us to engage with the issue in ways that may be uncomfortable. Simply, this is beautiful and moving writing. I really urge everybody to read it.

don't call it a comeback

oof
snarf
erm

*back*

could robin hood do good?

Last week, Syon sent me a link for a group called ‘The Robin Hood Tax’, advocating a financial transactions tax in the UK and globally. I have been thinking about it over the past week and decided to post some of my thoughts here. I hope some of you will respond, whether here or elsewhere, as we could all benefit from thoughtful dialogue.

To quote directly from the website, the pitch is broadly as follows:

The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

By taking an average of 0.05% from speculative banking transactions, hundreds of billions of pounds would be raised every year.

That’s easily enough to stop cuts in crucial public services in the UK, and to help fight global poverty and climate change.

There are a few implicit assumptions underlying the proponents’ line of reasoning. The first is that the volume of transaction in the financial services industry is unnecessarily large relative to the economic activity, and effectively just bloats the financial industry. As I will discuss below, I think there is some truth to this argument, although a tax as outlined must be globally adopted in order to address this. The second is that bankers and their speculative trading were largely to blame for the current crisis, and therefore it is appropriate that they should be punitively taxed. This argument, I think, oversimplifies the issue and has more to do with targeting misinformed public sentiment than in making a thoughtful claim.

Framing and the Fungible

While I believe there is merit in considering the implications of a financial transactions tax, I take exception with the campaign’s framing of the policy. Invoking Robin Hood alludes clearly to the idea of stealing from the rich to provide for the poor. The notion of the fortunate subsidizing the less fortunate in society is nothing new. Most developed nations, for example, have progressive income tax rates (the tax treatment of capital gains and dividends for US investors is a glaring counterexample). A tax on financial transactions may have substantive merit and should be defensible as a natural extension of this philosophy and through appeals to reason. Instead, the focus on vilifying bankers creates an adversarial scenario that appeals more to rage than to thoughtful consideration.

The other aspect that irks me is the false assertion that the revenues produced by the tax will solely serve to benefit domestic poverty programs, social services, and climate change initiatives. These are worthy causes, to be sure. While the framers may legitimately be advocating for this allocation, the reality is that existing commitments to these causes are likely to be reduced. Unfortunately, money is fungible. Governments have revenue and they have expenses. An increase in revenue will broadly impact the amount a government can spend, and is likely to do so across the board. While money from programs can be earmarked to a specific cause, there is always enough money to move around elsewhere in a budget to render this meaningless. Given the amount of discretion available to governments in setting budgets, it is at best naïve (and at worst misleading) to put forth the notion that these new revenues will be strictly additive to the intended programs.

Blaming Bankers

Are bankers solely responsible for the economic crisis, and are they fair targets of punitive measures? Without a doubt, bank share a role in the blame. On one hand, the banks in many cases took on irresponsible levels of risk in order to produce profits. Furthermore, their role in packaging huge amounts of risky loans surely contributed to a global decline in the quality of outstanding credit. When the banks were on the verge of collapse, governments around the world rescued them. Given this eventuality, should we be surprised that they were driven to take excessive risks? It may be unreasonable to expect corporations to act in socially responsible ways, which is why government is so critical to establishing boundaries and rules. In Canada, for example, banks are more heavily regulated than they are in the UK or the US. Consequently, these banks had few of the major problems that were happening elsewhere. Canadian authorities, on these grounds, have expressed skepticism about adopting a financial transactions tax in Canada.

In the case of the risky loans, I would argue that banks were trying earnestly to help society better manage risk. That the models underlying these efforts ended up being seriously flawed is hardly evidence of malicious intent. Moreover, many other agents were involved. Governments that irrationally and excessively encouraged home ownership, and most importantly that failed to adequately regulate the banks. Perhaps most significantly, the high frequency trading most likely to be affected by the proposed financial transactions tax is quite distinct from the securitization markets that were at the heart of the credit crisis. Thus, when the website claims “So it’s time for the people who caused this mess to pay to clean it up.”, it seems misguided.

My point here is that law and policy should prevent banks from being able to make a mess of the entire economy. To put in place a framework that motivates these institutions to act dangerously and to demonize them when they do so seems unreasonable.

Substantively Speaking

A financial transactions tax of .05%, while it may seem nominally small, would have tremendous effects on most traded markets. In particular, businesses that make profit through high frequency trading would be adversely affected. Keep in mind that .05% of the notional value of every transaction may represent a far more substantial share of the profit. With many trading strategies, this would probably eliminate all profit. So while the figure may appear small, the implications are huge. Those engaged in high frequency trading argue that they are providing a service by making markets more efficient and liquid, which benefits companies that use markets to finance themselves. I don’t find this argument terribly convincing. Primary market participants don’t typically have a need to transact at these speeds. The main beneficiaries turn out to be speculators who are involved in the markets to make money as secondary participants. To the extent that their businesses are harmed, this may not be socially problematic.

My substantive critique of the financial transactions tax is that these ends are only met if the policies are adopted globally and across asset classes. This is incredibly difficult to effect in practice. The Robin Hood website bizarrely cites a tax in the UK on stock transactions as evidence of why this idea could be successful. I say bizarrely because the consequences of this policy were a shift of stock trading from London to other markets, and a dramatic increase in the use of untaxed derivatives rather than stocks in London. Sophisticated investors were able to replicate the economics of a stock transaction through the derivatives, thus avoiding the tax. I entertain serious doubts about whether the proposed tax could be coordinated globally and across different types of financial transactions.

I think I’ve written just about enough for now! Thoughts?

food in my neighborhood

fort greene / clinton hill

socks like me

The owner pulled up in a Jaguar and came into the building. From where I was working, I could hear him speaking to one of the supervisors. Shortly, he came into our room, with a smile:

"Thought I'd come in and meet the summer hires."
He faced me. "So what are your plans after the summer?"
"I'm going to University."
"Oh, congratulations. Where will you be studying?"
"At Princeton."
A pause. "What are you doing here?"
"I needed a job, and I couldn't get one anywhere else."

On a quiet part of Power Dam Road, in Cornwall, there used to be a sock factory run by Richelieu Hosiery. I had a job working there the summer before I started college. Later, I would convince myself of a narrative that said I had taken the job in order to 'gain perspective' on things, but the truth is just what I told the owner: I took the job because I needed money and it was the best job I could find that summer in Cornwall. I'd been rejected by, among others, the City of Cornwall, a call center called Startek, McDonald's and KFC. This last one particularly stung, as I had been resubmitting my resume almost every two weeks. I'd heard rumors that the employees working the night shift got free chicken at closing time, and I wanted in. I told the local managers about how much I loved KFC, and about how I'd once even written to their head office, but to no avail. Maybe it was a problem with my cover letters, but I spent that summer working with socks.

I performed a variety of different functions relevant to the sock industry. Labeling socks. Sorting socks. Packaging socks. Counting socks. Moving socks from one package to a different package. I came to learn that any number of different sock 'brands' (Nautica, Polo, KMart, Osh Kosh B'Gosh) were exactly the same socks!

The task that I remember most vividly is stretching socks. Most people don't know this, but socks are very small when they are first sewn. They resemble baby socks. How do they reach their eventual adult size? Somebody has to stand in front of a large machine that with a conveyor belt carrying many feet-shaped metal casts. To his right is a board full of unstretched socks. As the belt moves, he has to take the unstretched socks and place them on the hot metal casts, taking care to line up the heel and toes. When the stretched sock comes back around, he has to remove it and place it on a second board for the stretched socks. I spent hours doing this, often burning my hands when I would accidentally touch one of metal casts. Sometimes, I'd put a sock on backwards, and share a conspiratorial laugh with the person working the machine next to me. Stretching socks is, to be frank, one of the most boring things I've ever done.

Motivation aside, working in the sock factory really did help my sense of perspective. It continues to remind me of just how fortunate I am to be in a situation where I can pursue almost any profession that interests me. It elucidates the mental resilience that people who work these jobs have. The thought of spending my days carrying out boring, menial tasks with no end in sight is a frightening one, but thanks to my summer at the sock factory, I can at least begin to imagine it.

hiatus

I apologize for the dearth of posts as of late. The blog is on hiatus, but I will return with full force in early February.

mr. nation

Imagine yourself at a dinner party, where everybody speaks English, but many are more comfortable in another language. There are enough people in the room to allow for several conversations to happen simultaneously. If three native speakers of Hindi are engaged in a conversation, should they feel a social obligation to carry on their conversation in English? I'm not sure where I fall on this question. Certainly, this action precludes the possibility that anybody at the table who doesn't speak Hindi can enter the conversation. Practically speaking, is this different from carrying on a conversation about a topic that certain members of the party can't speak to? I think it clearly is-- the feeling of not being able to meaningfully contribute to a conversation is surely different, and less isolating, from the inability to contribute in any way at all. Does the situation change if the majority of people at the table are conversational in Hindi? The sense of alienation for those who do not understand Hindi is stronger, I think. Perhaps we now have a stronger obligation to them, to attempt to carry our conversation on in English. While in this scenario, some may feel less comfortable in English, none will feel truly excluded.

On the other hand, when we convert the conversation to English, it is very likely that the quality of discourse will degrade. The bounds of conversation, in terms of ideas, concepts, and argument, is always constrained by the linguistic abilities of the speakers. One chooses which ideas to express from the range of available ideas, and this range is probably both broader and deeper in one's native tongue. Furthermore, while we make the English speakers more comfortable by switching to English, we are inevitably making the Hindi speakers less comfortable. Given that there are enough people for multiple conversations to be happening, should we really insist that they all happen in the shared language? Is it worth trading the quality of dialogue for a more complete sense of linguistic inclusiveness?

To make matters worse, the dialogue may be crippled because certain ideas do not translate. This has always been a fascinating (and humbling) idea to me. Culture and language are so closely intertwined; anybody who speaks multiple languages and has experienced multiple cultures has surely experienced that there are terms and phrases for which no suitable translation exists. The subtle meanings, implications and subtext in a phrase may be dependent on a cultural understanding generally only held by speakers of the language. This is a fascinating, if unnerving idea. Many areas of knowledge and ways of understanding are inaccessible without learning the relevant language.

At times I take for granted that English is, in some sense, the closest thing to a global language. All around the world, people grow up with the understanding that to be successful in a global sense, learning English is a near-necessity (at least so far). My Hindi and Punjabi, while conversationally adequate, are by no means strong. I'd have trouble carrying on a conversation of any depth in these languages. Despite having studied French and Spanish through school, I can't say that I speak either language very much. I opted out of studying them in college, and told myself that this was the right decision, since "I'm no good at learning languages." When I think about it now, it seems sort of obnoxious; arrogant, even. An luxury afforded to me by the fact that I speak the language of the conquerors. I think about when my mother first moved to Saskatchewan, and she would answer my father's white friends' questions with the word "yes" and a smile, regardless of what the question happened to be. I think about the fact that she overcame this with grace and persistence, and became a fluent speaker of English. She never had the option to decide that she wasn't very good with languages.

I have a friendly banter with Ming, the man who runs my neighborhod laundromat. "Mr Nee-teen!", he'll exclaim, when I walk in every Saturday morning. He is most comfortable speaking Mandarin, but he's made a life for himself here. His happiness and energy in this city of foreign tongues is inspiring to me. Whenever he takes my laundry, he writes down my name on a ticket and hands it to me. When I was first coming in, I'd tell him my name, and he'd write down "Mr. Nitin". Soon, as we began to recognize and know each other, he would take to writing it down without asking. One day he mistakenly wrote "Mr. Natin", and began writing my name this way for a few months. Most recently, this has morphed into "Mr. Nation." I chuckled at the irony the first time I saw this; perhaps I ought to brush up on my foreign language skills.

morning birds

fort greene, 6:50 am.

a quartet for humanity

A few days ago, I had the privilege of bearing witness to a beautiful experience. The C train was stopped at Hoyt-Schermerhorn station; four older gentlemen had a quick discussion on the platform, and decided to board the train together before the doors of the train closed. One man held a small paper bag. They surveyed the car, smiles on their faces, until one said to the others "Let's tell them about it. Let's talk about Him." With this, they began to sing a harmonious quartet; they sang a Christian hymn, and engaged people gently. It was a welcome change to the crowded isolation and social sterility that so often characterizes the anonymity of riding on a train. A good many people dropped money into the small paper bag. At the next stop, a homeless woman stepped onto the train, and stood by the door, withdrawn, while the men continued to sing. The lead singer approached her quietly, reached into the bag, and handed her some bills. She accepted the money without a word, signing the cross on her torso in gratitude. She seemed obviously hard up, and the scene was heartwarming (I use this word with the full knowledge of the cliche it normally carries).

Irrespective of my views on the accuracy and validity of their literal message, I felt as though I was seeing something fundamentally good. The men had visible warmth in their hearts, and nobody on the train seemed bothered-- on the contrary, most people I saw were smiling at the scene. These externalities of benevolence are, in my mind, some of the strongest reasons to view organized religion and communities of faith as a good thing. Examples abound, whether they are soup kitchens, free schools for the destitute, or the men lightening up so many days with their subway song. Put simply, people who profess to be religious often do great things, and in many cases, will assert that religion motivates them to act in the ways that they do.

On the other hand, if our measure is to be a utilitarian one built on tangible outcomes, then reason demands that we examine the full range of consequences. Now the picture is more muddled. What so often brings us together perhaps more often divides us. Think of the way certain major religious groups have sought to suppress the teaching and discovery of new and relevant scientific knowledge on global warming and on evolution. Consider the way Hindu fundamentalism has been used to galvanize large segments of the Indian population into tacitly and actively supporting the alienation and displacement of so many Indian Muslims. And this is only a start to the list. It is hard to think of any major community of faith whose name has not served at one point or another as cover for systematic killing and displacement.

There are some clear problems with my reasoning above. First, it could be argued that in each of the examples above, the behaviour of some small subset of a group is being used to describe the group as a whole. I take exception with this characterization. Those who choose a community, and then resort to complacency and a failure to actively tackle wrong behavior from within said community bear some of the responsibility. Furthermore, the sorts of division and communalism frequently engendered by fervent political movements seem to affect more than an insignificant minority. Perhaps more persuasively, my reasoning glosses over the fact that historically, religious and political systems have been so closely intertwined. Thus, attributing the actions to religious rather than political motivation can be seen as an arbitrary decision. To this, I would respond that many consider themselves more beholden to their religious convictions than to their political convictions. The fact that systems of political power may exploit this is hardly a defense of the negative impacts of religious communities of belief.

Ultimately, however, these arguments of consequentialism and of political and religious power are rendered moot by the 'truth card.' These contingent arguments are irrelevant if a religious philosophy espouses absolute truth (a claim confidently and impossibly made by most all religious groups). I remember one day when we were rehearsing Bach's St. Matthew Passion, our choir director said "this music makes you want to believe." I've fallen into this sort of thinking myself. How can something so beautiful not be divinely inspired? This sort of reasoning is flawed, and sells humanity short. Isn't a better explanation that the majority of composers at this time were working for some sort of religious institution? Has the last century, with its proliferation of secular artists, failed to produce beauty? We need to recognize the potential and ability of humanity itself to inspire, independent of the need to believe.

On consequences, there is no clear answer. If the question comes down to truth, then we are left in an intractable situation, for no amount of reasoning will lead to concensus. And critically, vast numbers of people are claiming ownership on absolute truths that are, to be plain, contradictory. Do I believe in God? Probably-- but I doubt that anybody knows very much about him, least of all those who profess most loudly to.

grimaldi's

Grimaldi's is one of those legendary New York pizza places that you always hear about. One of the many establishments said to have the best pies in the city, the wait for a table is normally an hour or more. They don't sell slices (you have to order an entire pie), they won't take your credit card (cash only), and the menu is charmingly short. If you haven't come for the pizza or the calzone, you're in the wrong place.

I first heard about Grimaldi's when I was a summer intern living downtown Manhattan. This mysterious pizzeria in Brooklyn was said to be the perfect way to complement an afternoon walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. So one afternoon, I set off on a walk across the bridge, with the intention of going to Grimaldi's on the other side. Unfortunately, when we got off of the bridge in Brooklyn, we couldn't find Grimaldi's! Everybody had told us that it was "right on the other side of the bridge", but none of the people we now asked could tell us how to get there! Most claimed not to have even heard of Grimaldi's. In the end, we went back home without the pizza; it would have to stay a legend in our minds.

Today, about five years later, I finally made it to Grimaldi's. The pizza was mediocre at best. The sauce lacked depth, and the cheese to sauce ratio was too high; the crust was great, but the pizza generally lacked flavor. It tasted fairly bland. The experience was fun, but this pizza was not worth the wait. Lucali's will, for the moment, easily retain my #1 spot, followed closely by Lombardi's and John's.

It's odd, but I almost found it difficult to admit that the pizza wasn't great. In an attempt to counter the hype, I'd preemptively lowered my expectiations. I wanted Grimaldi's to have a fair chance, and I think it did. Nevertheless, there is no denying that the pizza disapointed. There is a sense in which I question my judgement, given how much my own conclusions differ from popularly held opinion. I remember that a few months ago when I saw The Class with a friend, I was underwhelmed. I thought the film was good, but not great, and I had a number of sound reasons and arguments for feeling the way I did. When I went home and saw that it had a staggering 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, I could almost feel my actual view on the movie changing. How could so many people be wrong? Such is the power of the crowd.

In both cases, though, I think my judgment was sound, contrary to mass public opinion. Certainly, in matters of taste, there doesn't always need to be an objective right answer. It also helped to have a friend present (in fact, the same friend in both cases!) to reaffirm that I wasn't crazy, and that every now and then, hype really is just hype.

girls

Laura

Since last night, I've been listening to the new album by Girls, called Album, almost continuously. I like to listen to different types of music, and occasionally, I will get into rhythms where I spend weeks listening to old, comfortable music that I know, and that is 'pleasant.' Album is a nice album, in that it reminds me of what rock sounds like, and why I like it so much. This is a work that, to my ear, makes no pretenses about being groundbreaking, but is just very, very good. It sounds reminiscent of very aesthetically conscious efforts of the late 60s-- in particular, it really evokes The Velvet Underground and Nico to my ear. At times, the songs are simple variations on four bar blues.

The song above, Laura, is by far the poppiest song on the album; the rest of it has a grittier, darker edge to it. Laura makes me think of Sloan. Please give it a listen, and I think you'll want to hear the whole album afterwards. I highly recommend it.

zoo ambivalence

As a child, I loved the zoo. At some point, like most children, I became intensely interested in learning as much as I could about different kinds of animals. This was probably also encouraged by a Canadian school system that was, at the time, very much focussed on educating students on issues around environmentalism. While green issues that have only recently become part the mainstream conversation in the USA, I was fortunate to have grown up with an active awareness of these important issues. Getting back to the point, though, I loved to learn about animals. For a period of a couple of years, I even collected wildlife cards, that my parents graciously funded. Every month I would get 20 new ones in the mail, and I would spend hours reading about them and then try to tell anybody who would listen that pandas weren't bears and about just how slowly sloths ate their food.

The zoo was, thus, incredible. Poring over a book, no matter how intently, simply fails to capture the beautiful majesty of seeing a tiger up close, in the flesh. Beyond that, the zoo is an environment where noise is ubiquitous, making it an ideal place for kids to cut loose. I think the big cats and the monkeys were my favorite animals at the zoo, but much of the appeal was in the mere presence of so many different types of animals in one place. Lately, though, my experiences have been more mixed. I remember visiting the Bronx Zoo when I was a summer intern in NYC and finding the whole thing inexplicably disappointing. I chalked it up to the Bronx Zoo being subpar, relative to others that I'd seen. Still, that didn't seem to fully explain it. As a friend recently noted-- "It's weird. The zoo seems like it should be so much fun, but it isn't."

A few years ago, I had an experience that brought clarity to my feelings. It happened while I was visiting Robe in DC, who at the time, was living very close to the zoo. On our way to meet a friend, we decided to walk through the zoo and see some of the animals. In the monkey house, I abruptly and unexpectedly experienced a strong sense of pathos when I saw the orangutan behind in a small white room behind glass. Looking at him, I saw not a wild animal, but an old man, kept unjustifiably captive. I saw intelligence in his eyes, and most troubling, I saw what seemed to be a tragic sense of resignation. Across the room, a gorilla threw himself at the glass with such force that the loud thud made people gasp. The whole thing really messed with my head, and the zoo suddenly became something barbaric and distasteful to me.

At various points since, I've described myself as anti-zoo. In truth, my feelings are more ambivalent. Zoos can and do serve important preservation and education functions. Ironically, many of those who crusade for the rights of animals may owe their love of animals to some seminal experience in a zoo. Still, I question whether the end justifies the means, and I lean towards concluding that it does not. In fairness, there is also a wide variance in animal treatment across different zoos. At the end of the day, however, they all still forcibly confine animals in unnatural habitats and put them on display for many thousands of gawkers each day.

What about open air preserves and protected park areas? These serve some of the same positive purposes, and do so in a way that is not cruel to the animals. Are these problematic as well? Would be interested to hear others' thoughts on the zoo issue.

new moon

Taken from my roof. I could really stand to benefit from a tripod.

food, family and the freshman

One evening, during my freshman year of college, I decided to eat alone at an empty table in the corner of the dining hall. Some of my friends, sitting at a nearby table, looked at me curiously, trying to determine, I suspect, whether I was perhaps angry or upset about something. I had no books, no homework, and really nothing to make myself look busy. After a few minutes, a friend approached me:

Nitin, what’s the matter? Why are you sitting all alone?

Then another—

Is everything okay? Are you upset about something?

The truth is nothing was the matter. I thought it would be an interesting personal experiment to just focus on my food for a meal. I wanted to see what choosing to eat alone felt like. Turns out I hated it. I still find it very difficult to eat alone, although I’ve made some strides recently.

When I was growing up, eating dinner together as a family was a part of our daily routine. I consider myself very fortunate to have been raised by a mother who cooked fantastic food almost daily, and by a father who was active and present in a way that few others can claim. As a result, the five of us ate together most days between 5:30 and 6:00. This was when, clichéd as it may sound, we would talk about our days, about things that were coming up in our lives, and sometimes about general issues of interest or concern. It was in this context that I was first introduced to meals.

When I went away to boarding school, I began to eat with tables full of friends. Here, obviously, the dynamic was very different from eating at home with my family. Mischievousness and a more playful, as we adjusted to ‘independence’ and plotted our next set of pranks. And perhaps a little more guarded—everybody trying quietly to portray the person they wanted to be. Still, I treasured these times, and had some truly memorable experiences. Through four years of college, as well, I participated in meal plans and ate in dining halls with my friends. I’ve formed some of my closest friendships in these settings, and have grown with my family this way as well. It is for these reasons of precedent, possibly, that the social aspects of meals are so inextricably linked to the gastronomical ones.

The first period of my life where I was regularly eating dinner alone was when I lived in London in 2007. I remember feeling to odd-- I would fidget, sometimes even getting up and walking around the apartment between bites. I’d play music on my stereo or listen to the radio. I’d read a book or a magazine; anything to distract myself from the isolating quiet. This drew into focus just how much wrapped up I was in the social aspects of mealtimes.

Recently, as well, I have found myself eating alone more frequently. One of the main reasons for this is that I’ve really come to enjoy cooking at home. Further, I’ve tried to think more actively about food, as I eat. In doing so, I’ve sought to give thanks and also to appreciate the sensory experience of eating.

Still, I’ve found it difficult. Anybody up for pancakes?

"this must be what mechanics feel like"

In the (partial) spirit of Gaboworld, I am writing this post with no advance roadmap in mind. As a change of pace, there will likely be little to no thematic coherence, but I'm in a mood to ramble. Apologies to Gabo, but I will inevitably still self-censor as I write. Baby steps, I suppose, on the way to complete, unrestrained, stream of consciousness.

Over the past month or so, I've proven myself remarkably adept at taking things that were working just fine, and breaking them. In this week alone, I've broken my backpack (which, admittedly, had been terminal for some time), my headphones and my cell phone! This is frustrating, to say the least. My phone will occasionally receive calls, but all text messaging is completely gone, and I've been generally unable to place outgoing calls. In a way, the breakdown has been sort of liberating-- its nice to be forcefully disconnected for a time. I've been thinking about finally succumbing and getting myself an iPhone (because they're oh-so-pretty), but the recent quiet has me rethinking this move.

Today, as I engaged in conversation with colleagues at work, I fidgeted with a trinket I’ve had for a year. The device (pictured above) is much like a sand timer, only it’s filled, instead, with light sweet crude oil. Needless to say, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time watching the sludge drop slowly from the upper to the lower chamber. Today, unfortunately, I continued my recent trend of breaking things. I felt the weight in my hand grow lighter, and I looked towards the floor, only to see that the top had come off of my trinket, and black Texas oil was sliding over my shirt, chair, pants and shoes on its way to the ground. Awkwardly, I immediately shouted out “Oh my god, I got light sweet crude all over me!” My two coworkers laughed at me. Meanwhile, I took delivery of light sweet crude all over my pants. My clothes, my chair, and the carpet in my office are all damaged, perhaps irreparably.

The spill got me thinking about the disconnect between the functional and physical realities of my professional life. On a daily basis, I enter transactions to buy and sell many thousands of barrels of crude oil. Yet, when confronted with scarcely a litre of the substance, I was completely caught off guard, with no idea quite what to do. In an information-driven economy, this disconnect is increasingly prevalent and normal. Still, it is jarring to be made so acutely aware that I'm wholly unfamiliar with a substance that I transact in on a daily basis.

It occurs to me that my ability and competence with the manifest is quite limited. A few weeks ago, a neighbour helped me take the lock out of my mailbox, as I'd lost my keys. To date, my mailbox remains without a lock, though I've purchased a new one! Why? I haven't a clue how to install the lock. A close friend and I have recently been talking about 'the trades' and the value of skilled physical labour. Matthew Crawford, in Shop as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into The Value of Work, examines this very topic. There is honour, and arguably, there are metaphysical benefits to be gained, from crafting things with one's hands. I've been meaning to pick this book up, and my recent experiences with my lock. backpack, and crude oil just may prove to be the final incentive I need. In any case, I have tremendous respect for craftsmen and tradesmen, and recent episodes only serve to heighten this sentiment.

So I've broken some things, and have been forced to think critically as a result. Perhaps, now that all is said and done, I might just find a way to put these things back together.

doubt

Academically and professionally, I have been taught to understand the world as fundamentally stochastic. People often underestimate the amount of randomness that drives nearly every human process, be it physical or social. We make decisions under uncertainty every day, and this is something that most people are intuitively comfortable with. At times, we can convince ourselves that some situation is effectively deterministic, by ignoring a small probability to the contrary. Perhaps most confounding: in situations where our sample consists of only a single observation of the event in question, who is to say?

I have been thinking recently about the feuding cousins called doubt and faith. Doubt seems a natural consequence of an uncertain world, and I've found faith to be an elusive way to deny probabilistic realities. The truth is, for all my textbook exhortations, I often struggle to live under uncertainty. To make decisions and take steps that, given what I know, should be obvious. I've found it difficult to overcome doubt. This in spite of a firm intellectual understanding that one never has perfect information with which to move forward. Enter faith. I bristled the other day when somebody advised me about a problem I'd been having, to "have faith and it will turn out fine in the end." What gives strength to this kind of a phrase, and on what authority can this really ease my worries? We all know that things don't always turn out fine in the end. Some situations go well, and others go poorly. I can't reasonably take solace here.

Yet this is hardly an argument for paralysis in the face of doubt and uncertainty. Rather, the very sense of reason that causes me to reject the 'faith formulation,' should itself instruct against any tendency to seize up. Ultimately, we have to live and confront challenges with the understanding that while uncertainty and doubt will persist, the best we can do is to act in accordance with the best information we have. Sometimes this means using reason and common sense to mount a violent rejection of one's own irrational tendencies. At other times, quieting the voices that amplify deep-seated fears that threaten to debilitate. We have to move on.