Redemption, re-imagined

The true cultivation of minds in a University happens not in fenced-off fields, but is sown where those coming from distant walks of life find their paths cross, and is enlivened by the bracing winds of cross-fertilization. "A cultivation of minds to what end?", one might ask. The Foundation Stone of the University of Southern California laid in 1879, proclaims that this cultivation is pursuit "dedicated to the search for and dissemination of Truth;to Freedom of Thought and discussion; to intelligent, unbiased analysis of the forces that have shaped the past and will mold the future, to the development of Manhood and Womanhood for Christian service and loyal citizenship".  'Christian' here is treated as synonymous with noble and the culturally contingent choice of the word is unsurprising, considering that the word 'Arya' is a synonym for 'noble' too in many Indian languages, while elsewhere in the world the same word carries alienating racial connotations. What does it mean to be 'Christian'  or for that matter to be noble, what does the Cross stand for and what do the symbols that move millions move them towards, are questions which perpetually seek revisiting and whose answers need to be perennially re-imagined. An apt and recent instance of the commitment of the University to promote 'intelligent, unbiased analysis of the forces' that move us as individuals and societies, is the ongoing art exhibition entitled "The Serpent and the Cross" conducted by the Office of Religious Life.


The call for student submissions for this event was addressed to "All USC students of any or no religious backgrounds", who were invited to, "submit original artistic expressions for consideration for inclusion in a public exhibit to be held in the Fishbowl Chapel of the University Religious Center from April 11-23 (the two weeks before Catholic and Protestant Easter)."  The announcement continued "The artworks can be in any medium and should be between 4 inches square and 3 feet square in size, and able to be displayed on a wall.  Each should be accompanied by a separate written description no more than 150 words in length, including the artist’s name and very brief bio. They should take the form of crosses that illustrate some way in which people today “crucify” themselves or others, individually or as a society.  Examples:  a cross made of pills (illustrating how people try to “save” themselves with drugs, but end up “crucifying” themselves instead), a cross made of bullet casings (illustrating how people buy guns to protect themselves, but sometimes end up causing more violence.)"


The exhibit which began yesterday, features besides the examples listed above, other striking images of contemporary crucifixions, crafted using the unlikeliest odds and ends, like a cross made from a pair of earphones outstretched in a silent lament about how technology that supposedly connects people actually ending up isolating them and a stark armature of crossed barbed wire making a forbidding image of border fences that supposedly guard nations but divide humanity.

(Please click on the images, if you would like a larger view)


A particularly telling exhibit was one in which Rev. James T Burklo, USC's Associate Dean of Religious Life, confronts with the dreaded "Kill or cure?" question the one resort of society that is zealously guarded from the trespass of doubt: Religion. This exhibit,entitled 'Crucified by Scripture" , is a cautionary collage of scriptural injunctions that have been the cause of much oppression, warning society how the most trusted Word can become the most feared war-cry or echo in the most cruel whip-lash.

My own offering for the exhibition was entitled "The Ersatz Credit Card Cross" and accompanied by the following statement: " The 'Ersatz Credit Card Cross' is built from the likenesses of real credit cards, from the reams of promotional junk-mail that we receive. These are cards that promise to deliver us from want by leading us into temptation. They promise that paradise is available for purchase on borrowed earnings. The wages of buying into their delusion of an ersatz paradise, is having to carry the cross of debilitating debt. The credit-card-fueled debt crisis is a monument to human folly, which has been recognized but indulged in for ages , heedless of sage counsel against it.  From one far end of the faith divide,we can hear the critical voice of Epicurus cautioning society against the consumerism of his time, saying that all that money can buy is of little worth compared to what really matters: friendship, freedom and the examined life. At the other end of the faith divide, the New Testament's Parable of the Talents speaks of how a servant who did not gainfully spend the gold entrusted to him, earned the wrath of his master. Worse than that servant, we in today's world end up earning the scorn of society unless we spend gold we don't yet have! "Ours is a story of a people persuaded to spend money we don't have on things we don't need to create impressions that won't last on people we don't care about!", says the economist Tim Jackson. This cross symbolizing the tyranny of consumerism, is placed against a backdrop of the dead-tree business-reply-envelopes which accompany this wholly avoidable paper-intensive marketing spree. Together, they tell a story of how we are living beyond our means, as individuals, as societies and as a species."

While the Romans employed the Cross to devastating effect as an instrument of repression, the early Christians re-imagined and recast it as a symbol of redemption. The contemporary crises we confront as individuals and societies demand a re-imagination of redemption, that is meaningful only if begun with a re-imagination of suffering. By re-imagining our suffering we might find meaning in it, which in itself is a redemption from despair, according to the counsel of Dr. Viktor Frankl who says "In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice." In the words of Albert Einstein, "Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.", and we can take it to mean that a redemption from our present suffering will continue to evade our imagination if it is limited by age-old convention and prejudice, and has the chance of occurring to us only if we dare to re-imagine the commonplace, what we were once numbed to. To imagine anew, needs a change from begrudging numbness to a sprightly innocence, like a childhood that is not reminiscent but relived. Peeping from behind the lines of artistry and the layers of allusions in the exhibits is a welcome childlikeness, where no pebble is just a pebble, no twig is just a twig and no cross is just a cross. "Lawyers I suppose were children once.", says the epigraph of 'To Kill a Mockingbird". So were pastors. So were grad students.

'In the presence of mine enemies...'
-On wild mongoose chases-

An expatriate student is at once an intrepid explorer and an unwitting exile. Having come to a distant land, one must first of all 'make oneself at home' even before trying to 'make a mark'.Be they visiting scholars in exchange programs, professionals on a sabbatical, recipients of scholarships or simply students enrolled for higher education programmes, they are not only faced with the challenges of meeting their personal quests and beating their personal bests; but are often fazed by the keen awareness that their efforts and earnings are owed to and anxiously expected by sponsors, employers, parent institutes or perhaps parents. For someone like me who quit the clamour of a conventional workplace in my home country, and now on a different quest in the conducive calm of university environs, these concerns are best expressed in the words of Kahlil Gibran, "A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?". Having 'come all the way' to a distant land, one is certainly not expected to return empty-handed. I have found it heartening to read about expatriate university alumni of US universities who return to their home countries to dispense their newly discovered treasures with confidence, often by single-handedly pioneering a certain field of research in their countries and sometimes founding research institutes. Today I found an outstandingly inspirational example of what it means to share treasures with one's countrymen.

Dr. Thrishantha Nanayakkara* was a guest speaker today at a talk entitled, "Biomimetic Legged Locomotion and Odor-Guided Behavior for Humanitarian Landmine Detection". I will not expand too much on the title, for my motivation for writing this is not as much the talk but the man himself and what drives him. It will suffice to state that a demining squad needs 'biomimetic legged locomotion' because animal legs are much better than automobile wheels while negotiating densely forested territory where mines are commonly found,that they are interested in 'odor guided behavior', motivated by sniffer dogs who continue to be the most tried and tested means in explosive detection, that 'humanitarian landmine detection' does not mean clearing a minefield by blowing it up and leaving a hole in the earth, but reclaiming the land unscathed. Coming to the man; Dr. Nanayakkara, currently a visiting researcher at Harvard, hails from Galle in terrorism-ravaged Sri Lanka and has a multidisciplinary academic background including a bachelors in Electrical Engineering from University of Moratuwa in Colombo, a doctorate in Systems Control and Robotics from Saga University in Japan and post-doctoral research in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. As a background for today's talk he gave a brief bloodcurdling account of ethnic violence in northern Sri Lanka raging over the past three decades. Landmines, a staple for guerrillas the world over, are 'indiscriminate weapons' built not to target a known enemy but to wreak blind destruction on perhaps a hapless toddler. Children joyfully treading to village schools have fallen prey to landmines, scaring their classmates from taking the same route the next day, robbing them of childhood education and thus making them susceptible to the canvassing of militant groups. Breadwinners on their way to the workplace have met their end in landmine explosions, leaving families destitute and again susceptible to terrorist recruitment. In four simple words capturing his patriotic and humanitarian concerns, Dr Nanayakkara summed up his description of landmines by simply saying with a grim, sardonic sigh, "I don't like them!". But he did not stop by just 'not liking them'. He chose to draw upon his education in Electrical Engineering, Robotics and Biomedical Engineering not merely to climb pedestals of publications and patents in a pedagogic world; but move right to the war-zone as it were in his professed mission: to rid his homeland of landmines within 15 years. Enriched by an international education, the treasures he wishes to dispense among his countrymen are not treasures shipped from a foreign land. Rather, he is reclaiming for his people the bountiful earth that is their own, but which they aren't able to farm; the schools and shrines which are theirs but languishing in ghost towns. What he is doing is not just dispensing treasures with confidence. From the fiery landmine-infested hell that his homeland has become, he is doing nothing less than reclaiming, fearlessly and resourcefully, the Paradise on Earth which he and his countrymen are justly heirs to. May his tribe increase!

Besides the obvious humanitarian and patriotic passion which Dr. Nanayanakkara brings to his work, the research** itself is cutting-edge and literally operates at the frontiers the robotics and computer science fields(while its results are operational at frontier mine-fields!) Just to give a hint of why this work ought to excite engineering researchers at large, I will just paste here what USC's Viterbi School of Engineering's online announcement listed as keywords for the talk, "Keywords: Field robots for landmine detection, animal-robot cooperation, adaptive control, reinforcement based learning, fuzzy and neural network based control, evolutionary optimization." The requirements of any solution to the de-mining problem is that it must necessarily be unmanned, capable of mobility on soft muddy terrain, capable of navigation through dense vegetation and be able to locate a target with a signal gradient analogous to the sniffing of a dog. I will dwell briefly upon a thought that struck me when Dr. Nanayakkara mentioned one of the remarkable conceptual innovations his group had made. Conventional robots, while undertaking a navigation task, use an approach of 'obstacle avoidance' ie. dodging and evading an obstacle as soon as it is sensed from a distance. The approach he uses is one of classifying 'obstacle impedance' and moving accordingly; so that obstacles are not just dodged but first probed and then possibly pushed aside or even penetrated if their 'impedance' or the constraint they enforce is small enough. A robot operating using obstacle avoidance would stop short on even detecting tall grass in a forest, while a robot using obstacle impedance characterization would know that the grass can well be trampled upon and does not at all represent a barrier. Digressing with an analogy; when we think that a door is locked just because it appears closed and pass it by without even knocking, we are 'obstacle avoiders'. When we are we use a smart approach of classifying 'obstacle impedance', we would nudge even those doors that seem to be closed and find that some are actually ajar and lead to productive encounters. An approach of overcautious withdrawal stalls all advance, and one of alert assessment at every step may reveal paths which were earlier not obvious.

After describing 'obstacle impedance classification' and other innovative features of his mine detection robot, Dr. Nanayakkara described another ancillary area of research,namely, training mongooses to sniff out mines in fields. While traditional sniffer dogs take as long as a year to train and require a human master to accompany it to the life-threatening minefield, mongooses can be trained in as little as two weeks. Who will accompany the mongoose to the field then? Here came the kicker, when he nonchalantly said as if it were the most obvious thing, "We have a robot. We have an animal. Now we tie them together!". While the audience listened astonished, he described how the mongoose 'yoked' to the robot is an effective hybrid system to survey minefields. To prevent the problem of the animal and the robot pulling in different directions, the system incorporates what he calls a 'bargaining mechanism' where the mongoose is trained with Pavlovian methods to respond to signals from the robot when the robot is more likely to be on the right track, and the robot is programmed to respond to feedback from mongoose's movement when it is the mongoose that is one the right track. In a relatively flat field where the robot has superior navigation, this system ensures that the robot pulls and the mongoose obeys. When it is a dense thicket which demands the mongoose's natural skills, it is the robot's turn to obey. Unlike the crude and callous use of live dolphins as minesweepers by the US Navy, the use of mongooses here causes almost no harm to the animal given its naturally gifted nimbleness. Unlike the oft-quoted anecdote about bullocks drawing a motorcar in India (jovially called the Ox-Ford by none other than Mahatma Gandhi) due to the vehicle's malfunction, the mongoose and robot drawing each other is a picture not of subcontinental resource-crunch, but of indigenous resourcefulness. When the state-of-the-art in landmine detection in his country was old-fashioned unreliable metal detectors or more realistically, simply rakes; this pioneering researcher proved how a wild rodent so far seen only as an exotic pet could drive his pet project to unprecedented accomplishment. Indians have a word for this kind of resourcefulness: jugaad, which is vividly described in an article that appeared in the Times of India, which says, "The operative world of jugaad, implying alternatives, substitutes, improvisations and make-dos, is spurred by a native inventiveness steeped in a culture of scarcity and survival."***

The talk had begun of course with a narrative on the horrors of war, and at the end of it, there doubtlessly lingers in mind not just benedictions for Dr. Nanayakkara and his group but an almost urgent prayer for Peace on Earth. A reverie brought to mind these lines from the Bible, which seem so apt and would be so reassuring to those who brave deadly minefields probing for mines with little more than rods, hoping to liberate farmlands and lay the tables of the famished community with the yield of a bountiful, peaceful earth to come.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me....

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies...

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life...

-Psalm 23, King James Bible

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* Dr. Nanayakkara's University of Moratuwa page
http://www.mrt.ac.lk/iarc/thrish/

** Dr. Nanayakkara's research and video clips
http://www.mrt.ac.lk/iarc/thrish/research.html

***Link to the article on 'jugaad' in the Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/398740.cms

Founts of Wisdom

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

That is what the exiled forest-dwelling Duke Senior in Shakespeare's As You Like It, had to say, about lessons the most ordinary of natural surroundings have to offer, if only we turn our eyes and ears to them. The Duke calls this outlook of life that sees good in everything, one of the 'sweet uses of adversity'. Human nature demands either the thrill of novelty or the promise of reward to recognize the good in anything; and we are so often dismissive or plainly unaware of the good in what is familiar and commonplace. It is only in times of loneliness and lessened accomplishment; where all our experience is confined to the commonplace; that most of us manage to see the good in things which we would have commonly taken for granted. It is only with some training that we are able to overcome this limitation of human nature; and are able to see new lessons in not only the novel, but also the familiar; not only in the inviting, but also in the innocuous; not only in hard times when we are forced to make virtues out of necessities, but also during the few vacant moments in the busiest of times. A bustling university campus is not exactly exempt from public haunt as the Duke's wilderness, and a student on his toes does not usually stand gazing at the many fountains on campus the way the Duke's retinue would have at the brooks. Fountains in this day and age, to most people mean dispensers of soft drinks. Even so, while passing by the many fountains on the way to the campus at different times of the day, I somewhat fancifully see the fountains spouting philosophies of life, somewhat like how the Duke saw books in brooks.

The first fountain I see is one at Mount St Mary's College, en route to the USC campus. The fountain here is within a small well, and on it's inner wall are engraved the words, "Seek the good, the true and the beautiful from the Fountain of all Life". The sentence at first sight seems too much of a platitude even to merit mention. Most of us will stop mid-sentence and tell ourselves that it goes without saying, that we must seek good and avoid evil. When we ask whether 'any good will come out of this', we generally mean whether any pleasant outcome, mostly reward or recognition will come out of this activity. Most of us also have strong opinions about what activities and associations any good can come out of, and hence we have our own mental models of 'good people' and mental lists of 'good books'; and societies have an idea of what 'good professions' are. This way, in our mental landscape, there are some landmark sources of good, call them fountains of good if you will. Similarly we have also mapped out the 'roots of all evil'. Are good and evil so clearly separate and disparate in origin? How often have we found good and evil arising out of the same source? The best of role models have chinks in their armour, and no person among those we may hold in the greatest contempt can be so depraved that he lacks a single virtue however buried in vice. The most memorable of experiences might have a tinge of regret over a missed opportunity to have made it still better, and the bitterest of experiences might have hidden lessons that stood us in good stead later. Good and evil are intermingled in the stream of life experiences, and do not spout from two separate fountains. There is only one Fountain of All Life, as the engraving says. The wisdom of life, it says, is not in clinging onto something as good and dismissing something else as evil, but in straining and gleaning what is good in every single thing. The mythical Indian Swan, which can drink just the pure milk out of milk diluted with water, is a vivid Oriental motif of this view. The Swan does not fly far in search of its elixir, but finds the same in a seemingly impure source. Likewise, we too will be wise not by wandering to 'good places' or waiting for 'good times', but finding good from whatever we face here and now.

A more ornate fountain is the one facing the splendid Doheny Library building. This fountain has a pedestal set upon four figurines like the caryatids of Greek antiquity. A figurine bearing an infant represents Home, one making a gesture of giving represents Community, one with praying hands represents Church and one with an open book represents School. Atop the pedestal is a dancing nymph reaching for the sky. The fountain illustrates in sculpture all the foundations for raising human society to newer heights. Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Indian nation, presented his entire nation-building program through his Ashrams which were self-sufficient in the needs of the family, community, religion and education. In his writings, he describes how the boundaries between family and community vanish, how labour in the Ashram and the words of wise ones can themselves be an education in their own right and how adherents of different faiths can engage in collective worship. The kibbutz movement in Israel is perhaps the most well-known attempt in recent history to unite home, community, church and school into a single collective institution. However, it is now almost a thing of the past since any overarching institution that tends to subsume individual talent and aspiration has eventually yielded to change. We must remember that the central tenet of even Gandhiji's seemingly collectivistic social engineering experiments was the individual volunteer's inner resolve and devotion to truth. Likewise, even as the global community today experiences greater connectivity and more collaborative activity; order will be maintained only by individual responsibility and cannot be enforced by an institution. Progress will still be driven by individual genius, however much it may be facilitated by the right institutions. Like the figurines in the fountain which set the stage for the nymph to take flight, and do not nestle the nymph in a tight embrace; the truly beneficial social institutions are those that create conditions suitable for individual achievement, without binding enterprise and imagination by convention and tradition.

Outside the majestic Mudd Hall of Philosophy, stands another fountain bearing the inscription, "O stream of life run you slow or fast, all streams reach the sea at last.". This might sound like a defeatist message to some, who may think that it is pointless to take pains to be skilful and speedy when eventually the fruits of all efforts will count to nothing. To others, this very message infuses a sense of urgency, that we must when we still can , be our most sparkling and agile selves and infuse grace however fleeting into all our movements. The message, often forgotten, is to keep in mind even when things are streaming along smoothly and speedily, that any state of affairs however desirable, lasts only for a time. Likewise times of difficulty and stagnation also pass. The wisdom of life seems to be to pay utmost attention to the course of each stream of thought and action, while at the same thing acknowledging the uncertainty of the fate of each stream as it rushes into the sea of endless possibility. This inscription, in a way, both inspires action and tempers ambition, and has a message similar to the more oft-quoted "Do your best and leave to God the rest!".

Perhaps the most prominent fountain at the northern entrance of the USC campus is the one at Gavin Herbert Plaza. This one bears no inscription and does not proclaim any philosophical message, but in its own way is proof of the fact that a gesture may be worth a thousand words. The Plaza bears an unconventional sculpture: a juxtaposition of tall blocks that seems to be a cubist expression of a human hand with an upraised finger. The popular interpretation is that this is a well-known offensive gesture aimed at a rival institute. This somewhat profane interpretation, which might even have been the intent of the artist, is however not what strikes me most about this public artwork. What is impressive is that the artist operating with such minimalistic motifs as straight-edged stone blocks manages to convey an image as intricate and distinctive as a human hand. The evocations and associations caused by this assembly of stone blocks are illustrations of how the aesthetics and acceptability of any artwork are shaped as much by the intent of the perceiver, as by that of the artist. That such an artwork, carrying an irreverent meaning for most and an abstract meaning for others, lies on a university campus is proof of the fact that the sublime and the ridiculous often coexist in proximity in the most well-meaning of human endeavours. Again it is upto us to choose either, just as we are to choose the good from the intermingled Fountain of All Life. Even those plain fountains that bear neither inscriptions nor sculptures do have a message. That the planners decided to install those fountains at all, instead of leaving the parkways unadorned, speaks of an innate human urge to look beyond bare necessities, create things of beauty and offer some comfort however fleeting to travellers one might never see. In the mild gurgling and cool whiffs around the plainest of fountains, I find reassurance, that there have been men who valued art enough, to create these spaces that can calm weary minds and occasion contemplation.

The Moral of the 'Story so far'
Part 3
-Probability and Providence-

We have heard it said so often that, "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people". Introspection, the process of placing oneself on trial, is so much more difficult than judging others. Natural curiosity makes it easy for our minds to get interested in other people, even with the smallest effort. With more than average effort, our minds can shift from a passing curiosity in personality traits and quirks, to a keen observation of events in the lives of people, their behaviors and circumstances. Our minds are at their greatest when natural curiosity and persistent observation are both harnessed, by resisting the urge to stick to prejudices or jump into conclusions. It is now that the ideas that drive people and events become clear. A story, especially a true-life story, has something for all minds; small, average or great; because a story always has people, events and ideas: characters, plots and morals. A story harnesses our natural curiosity, sustains interest and keen observation and hence imperceptibly prepares us and makes us attentive to a lesson of life. A moral may find authoritative expression in a commandment or sermon, but the subtle suggestion of a moral by a good story is a more evocative and memorable expression. While a sermon demands obedience; all that a story demands is our natural curiosity and coaxes the mind into seeing something beyond. A moral may inspire through a story, but a moral is not the only way a story can inspire. This is the reason why more people find inspiration in 'The Fountainhead' than in the 'Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology', though both convey the same message and philosophy of life.

What has been written so far may sound like a chapter outline for a proposed book entitled, ' 'How to read biographies'. Even if such a book is written, it is unlikely to teach more than a single good story will; and is unlikely to add anything to the learning of those who have heard many good personal stories. Writing now about a thought-provoking life story I heard recently would not therefore, be out of place. It can bring a narrative concreteness and liveliness to this exercise of learning to examine lives. After all, any discussion between even the most seasoned book-lovers is not just about the history of literature, but is always replete with reviews of recently read books with mentions of interesting episodes or lines. This is about the first talk which I got to attend in person at USC's 'What Matters to Me and Why?' series, the one by Dr. Jeffrey Nugent, a renowned development economist.

Dr. Nugent warmly recounted experiences from his early years, whose unexpected lessons stood him in good stead through his illustrious academic career. He recalled with special fondness the spiritual quest of his mother, who would always explore any question of faith from the viewpoint of different faiths like Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism; and frequently ask him his views on such topics, eliciting from him frank admissions about their imponderability. His mother's unprejudiced quest continued well into her elderly years and even after she suffered visual impairment. Growing up in New York, Dr. Nugent was an ardent baseball fan as a boy; and according to him, his special interest in developing economies has its beginnings in his trait to root for the underdogs in baseball games. To this day, he says, he finds himself cheering with as much gusto as he would in a baseball match, when he sees a developing economy anywhere in the world make the right policies and flourish. During his college years, he was once required to escort an elderly classmate home after class, who inculcated in him a life-long love for English poetry during their conversations in the walk back. Years later when Dr. Nugent was performing compulsory military service without access to books and entertainment of any sort, this love for poetry helped him form a group of poetry-lovers in his camp who would meet often and each recite a poem from memory to maintain sanity and preserve the aesthetic self during troubled times. He spoke about how he decided on a whim to take an archaic course like the electoral history of 19th century America during his later college years, where he happened to read the classic speech 'Cross of Gold'. This speech would supply him later with inspiration and references for his first tenure-winning paper.

While relating such instances of how things picked up casually along the way came in handy in the long run, Dr. Nugent spoke of two turning points in his career which were made possible by opportunities he almost missed by hair's breadth. The first of these was an offer to perform research in Nigeria, which he was apprehensive to undertake given his newly married status and a general unwillingness to relocate to an unfamiliar land. After mulling over it and even missing the deadline by a day, he decided in a flash to get back to those who made the offer. To his pleasant surprise, they were only too glad to let him come and he spent a very productive time in Nigeria. The second one was an opportunity to fulfil his longtime desire to perform research in Greece. Knowing that an eminent Greek researcher was in town, he had kept a research proposal ready. As luck would have it, he suffered a severe attack of diaorrhea throughout the visiting professor's stay in town, and had no means of reaching him. At the nick of time before the visiting researcher boarded his flight home, Dr. Nugent managed to track him down at the airport. As luck would have it again, a native speaker of Greek happened to be passing by and was promptly recruited by Dr. Nugent as an interpreter to get through his proposal to the visiting scholar and eventually got to spend several productive years in Greece as was his cherished desire. In Nigeria and Greece, he got to learn new languages, make friends for life and grow greatly in stature as an economist of international repute.

After the speech, I had the following question for Dr. Nugent, " You mentioned in your talk how you made a last-minute decision to go to Nigeria and how you could get your Greek proposal through at the very nick of time; both of which later proved to be life-changing decisions. Both of these are experiences where things could have gone wrong at the last moment.
What would you attribute your last-minute decisions that later proved to have unexpected benefits? Are they:
a) fortunate coincidences and a matter of chance
b) expressions of 'Providential harmony' as the more religiously inclined would say
c) a consequence of the fact that people who try out more things and take more chances than others eventually get it right once in a while!Is it true that 'The only way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas'?"

Dr. Nugent's face lit up and he said that he found the question very interesting. He replied that his decisions were based on an inner conviction that an idea was good and seemed right. At the moment of reckoning this conviction eventually won over the indecision. Most interestingly, he was unwilling to rule out the possibility that some decisions may be 'divinely inspired'. In a later e-mail exchange, Rabbi Susan Laemmle, the Dean of the Office of Religious Life at USC also concurred with Dr. Nugent's views. In her own words, "I think that one of the most important things in creating a good and meaningful life is to listen to your own inner voice -- to learn to understand yourself and what matters to you, and to notice what makes your happy and sad and angry and depressed. And then to take actions that accord with your developing and solidifying inner nature. I do not see this process as primarily a spiritual matter, directed by God, but more of a psychological/emotional/cognitive matter. However, it is not all that cut and dried; since I do see God as connected to, even if separate from, our inner natures. In my view, sometimes things are a matter of sheer luck, and sometimes there is an element of luck -- as perhaps there was in the Greek speaker actually being at the Eastside terminal when Nugent arrived there."

In a way, my basic question was about the nature of luck. Is luck simply a series of flukes, part of a yet-to-be-revealed Plan of heaven, or is it the sum total of byproducts and unintended consequences of our own conscious decisions? Is it Providence or simply probability? Is it the play of the gods or simply of the odds? This question is one of the many variants of the perennial debate between free will and destiny. The economist and the Rabbi, both very learned and distinguished in their own fields, concur that our lives are mainly shaped by our decisions made when conviction wins over doubt. But they concede that our decisions and convictions may themselves be shaped by unknowns. While they readily acknowledge that there are unknowns, conventional wisdom often does not. There are two common metaphors that usually figure in any debate between free will and predestination. One is that fate deals us cards and it is upto us to play the cards we have got as well as we can. This is like a description of a system in which we have no control over the inputs, but freedom to change the process and hence alter the outputs. This view gives free will the last word. Another metaphor is that all our efforts are the grist of the 'mills of God'. This seems to suggest that we have control only over the inputs and then a larger process takes over. This approach gives destiny the last word. But irrespective of the worldview, we are expected to do our best: play our cards well and supply our best grain to the mills. In practice it really makes no difference if it is free-will or destiny that decides: for in any case all that we have to do is refine our own personal gameplan and avoid whatever goes against the grain.

Without expecting miracles and windfalls, and by taking upon themselves the onus of coming up with the best response to a situation; the two learned respondents to my question suggest that we can actively propose a course of life even if it is not entirely at our disposal. They have freed themselves from both fatalism and delusion, and give a balanced message that avoids both the complacency of expecting Providential guidance all the time, as well as the arrogance of being in full control. This is not to belittle the role of religion in our inner lives. Every great world religion offers its own set of answers to the perennial questions of philosophy, but these answers are not meant to spare us the effort of seeking our own answers. The purpose of religion is defeated if we rely on traditional assumptions instead of assessing each situation on its own merits; or begin to expect miraculous resolutions whenever we err, all in the name of faith. There really is no conflict between religious faith and faith in oneself. When truly practised; both require us to find our own true needs and fulfil them with our best efforts; to examine our own deeds and see if they are true to our values; and not to expect our needs to be fulfilled by fortuitous stars and our deeds to be forgiven by lenient gods.

At the very outset, we saw how seeking meaning in everyday mysteries is the first step to begin understanding our own lives. Then we saw how we can learn best from the lives of others by putting ourselves in their place and examining what stance we would take. Finally we have learnt to take a balanced view of our own role in shaping our lives, which many of us tend to assume is entirely our own, or entirely at the mercy of something beyond us. We started this exercise as an attempt to 'read our lives'. It is said that Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic are the 3 R's of education. We may say that the three R's we must undertake to be able to learn from life are:
1. Research into what we find most mysterious and meaningful
2. Roleplays placing ourselves in the experiences of others and observing our stance
3. Responsibility for decisions coupled with refraining from wishful thinking and unjustified expectations
We have seen how learning from life means not allowing ourself any self-pity, refraining from making condescending judgements or delusional comparisons, not resorting to any convenient beliefs we may grown up with, and dealing afresh with each situation. Giving up so much of what has been second nature to us, and untiringly exercising our intellect, imagination and patience to examine and redirect our own lives seems to be a tall order. However, sustained effort in this direction will allow us to stand tall in our own eyes, and bring more order and harmony into our life; to make it the stuff an inspirational biography is made of.

PREVIOUS PARTS:
Part 2: http://pencilofgod.blogspot.com/2007/09/moral-of-story-so-far-part-2-instances.html


Part 1: http://pencilofgod.blogspot.com/2007/09/moral-of-story-so-far-part-1-mystery.html

The Moral of the 'Story so far'
Part 2
-Instances and stances-

Retrospection would have served its purpose even if we are unsuccessful in elegantly inking our past life. It is enough even if we are able to get some inkling of what the living present means to us. Even if retrospection does not yield the moral of the story so far, it might place in our hands in the thread of the story to come. However, 'looking back' is purposeful only if we also 'look within' at the same time. Retrospection unaccompanied by introspection serves no purpose. Retrospection only provides personal instances, incidents and illustrations to the introspective questions of what we find most mysterious and meaningful: "What matters to me and why?". "What matters to me and why?" is also the title of a monthly series of lectures by eminent professors at USC, sponsored by the Office of Religious Life, currently in its sixth year. In the words of the organizers, this exercise is meant to encourage "reflection about values, beliefs, and motivations". Listening to the lectures in this series is an excellent opportunity to hear leading luminaries in academia, who are otherwise known only by sketchy media reports of their research findings, present vivid first-hand accounts of their own results of retrospection and introspection.

Among the speakers are the great minds of a generation, minds that were drawn towards to the problems of mankind: scientific and spiritual, physiological and philosophical ; minds that were also indrawn to untiringly seek solutions, remedies, insights, outlooks and wisdom to better the lot of mankind. To hear such minds share their experiences of their inner life in relation with their obvious outward achievements, is perhaps one of the most edifying experiences one can have on campus. It is humbling to see that the process of self-inquiry challenges even mighty intellects such as those of the premier physical and social scientists who address these gatherings. In the audio talks of past speakers available online, I could hear pioneering psychologists and award-winning engineers, professors from the East and those from the West. It was surprising and in a way heartening to note that, notwithstanding the obvious differences in their origins and their callings, they describe their personal journeys in uncannily similar ways. One thing that they all have in common is that they do not describe their journeys in terms of milestones, but in terms of crossroads. Not one talk I heard from these speakers made much mention of their first graduation or first publication or first award. The 'firsts' they did mention were the first time experienced the dilemma of tough choices and the first time they came face to face with the reality of suffering, even in events that to an outsider may have seemed commonplace. Indeed, according to the organizers of the series " Presenters are encouraged to talk about choices made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified."

The animals in each of Aesop's fables are different, but they all speak in human voices and have human traits. Every adventure tale, Gulliver or Sindbad, is different, but they all have shipwrecks that throw the travellers off course along unexpected journeys. Each speaker in 'What Matters to Me and Why?" has a different story to tell, but they all are narrations of human nature at its best, and bettering its best in the face of unexpected occurrences and challenging circumstances. The outlines of the personal lives provided by the speakers were of different shapes and forms; but without exception, they all dwelt at length upon character-forming parental influences in early childhood, and personality-shaping experiences of overcoming human suffering. Recurring themes in each personal story are unforgettable times spent with dear ones, unlikely sources of inspiration, unasked for good turns, unexpected turns of fortune and unusual interests that led to unintended possibilities. The universality of the themes provides the backdrop for the uniqueness of each individual instance.

Which one of us can claim not to have had experiences that were unforgettable, unlikely, unusual or unintended? Then how is it that not all of our stories are the stuff inspirational biographies are made of? In a manner of everyday speaking, greatness has less to do with 'what' happened to a person and more to do with 'how' he or she faced it. The answer perhaps lies not in the outer details of the instance, but in the inner stance of the individual. The great ones find their childhood experiences unforgettable because they did not just seek comfort in their dear ones, but also sought within themselves the aspirations to do their dear ones proud. They may have received unexpected favours from fellowmen, but almost always did so by deserving it through their conduct and initiative. They did face unexpected twists of fate, but when they were at their greatest, they saw these as an instruction in patience and forbearance, and not as destruction of hope. They found inspiration in the unlikeliest of sources because of their willingness to be instructed, a lesson they never forgot from their earlier experiences. Greatness is not entirely governed by the uncertainty of instances, coincidences and happenstances; but is attained by taking a certain stance: to stand erect and not rigidly, to stand at ease but not submissively and most importantly to stand corrected when needed. Instead of excusing ourselves for own ordinariness and dismissing greatness as a matter of circumstance, or amusing ourselves with trivial similarities between instances in our lives and those of great ones, we can step closer to greatest within ourselves by learning from the stances they took.

NEXT: Part 3: http://pencilofgod.blogspot.com/2007/09/moral-of-story-so-far-part-3.html
PREVIOUS: Part 1: http://pencilofgod.blogspot.com/2007/09/moral-of-story-so-far-part-1-mystery.html


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* Audio talks of previous speakers in the 'What Matters to Me and Why' series at USC are available in the USC website at :
http://www.usc.edu/programs/religious_life/whatmatters/speakers/past/

Physicians and musicians

This weekend, I got to hear two piano concerts: one by a physician and another by a musician, one by a celebrity and another by a debutant. That I was able to attend two concerts within the space of two days, speaks a lot about the opportunities for cross-cultural experiences which university life in this country offers an interested visitor. The first concert was a lecture demonstration by Dr. Richard Kogan entitled 'Music and Medicine: George Gershwin' on Friday, 10th August 2007 at the Mayer Auditorium in USC Health Sciences Campus. I learnt from the online USC Arts and Events Calendar that Dr. Kogan " has a distinguished career both as a concert pianist and as a psychiatrist...and The Boston Globe wrote that 'Kogan has somehow managed to excel at the world's two most demanding professions.' " At the outset of the lecture demonstration, Dr. Kogan outlined his mission as promoting 'music as a healing modality' and cited some examples from antiquity to show that the view that music and medicine are totally disparate disciplines is a fairly recent one. In the Greek pantheon, Appollo was the god of both medicine and music. The shamans of old were both physicians and musicians.

The theme of the lecture was a biographical presentation on George Gershwin, who in the opinion of the speaker is the greatest American composer of all time. In all of 38 years tormented by childhood conduct disorders, hyperactivity, almost pathological narcissism and cut short by an untimely death due to a brain tumour, Gershwin has left behind a life's work that still captivates audiences and offers valuable insights into the masterly creations of the so-called 'idiot savants.' As part of the demonstration, Dr. Kogan played 'Rhapsody in Blue', one of Gershwin's best-known works. It was a piece as astonishing and as full of surprises as promised by the speaker's introduction. I found it compelling, but far too capricious to be good music, though I quickly warned myself that this may simply be because of my almost total ignorance of this form of music. When Dr. Kogan himself said many of that those who first heard 'Rhapsody in Blue' lambasted it for its total lack of any form or structure, I felt a little relieved! Dr. Kogan repeated some of the more pulse-quickening parts of the rhapsody with some light-hearted, though not entirely unfounded, comments on how such music could be composed only by someone with chronic hyperactivity. The lecture was generously sprinkled with a series of anecdotes offering vivid illustrations of the 'idiot savant', notably one in which Gershwin took home from Paris some Parisian taxi horns to be included in his concerts, since he found their honking irresistibly musical! I've read of the irresistible Song of the Sirens in Greek myths, and chuckled to myself that this was the Song of the Horns.

Unlike the audiences of the few Carnatic concerts I got to visit back home in India, the audience here seemed less pedantically erudite and parts of the audience consisted of incidental and even indifferent participants. Biographical presentations of the lives of composers are a staple in the Harikatha performances in Carnatic music, and they are more suffused with religious sentiment and devotional fervour. By contrast, this concert seemed to be a less emotional exercise almost like a documentary. But I was not disappointed and got an opportunity to quickly correct myself. Dr. Kogan introduced his audience to 'Porgy and Bess', a folk opera considered by many to be Gershwin's magnum opus. The devotional fervour that I had missed was made up for by the human interest in the story of the opera, a grim tale of the hardships of penury, racial abuse, physical handicaps and bereavement. The pieces Dr. Kogan played from Porgy and Bess were especially moving, and would have been more so had I a little more grounding in music. But he played the piano with a very visible angst that would touch a chord even in someone merely watching. In an active audience questioning session, Dr Kogan agreed with a questioner that most of history's greatest music is born out of deep sorrow and spoke as if it was almost intuitively obvious, and borne out repeatedly by his studies of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Tchaikovsky among others.

I had a tryst with some of the greatest composers in the Western world the very next day at the United University Church on the 11th of August 2007. The pianist here was Abraham Currameng from USC's Thornton School of Music performing as part of the requirement of his Masters of Music programme. The programme included pieces by Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Debussy, Prokofiev, Chopin, Granados and Liszt. After the unorthodox pieces of Gershwin, this was as classical an introduction to European music as I could get. The pieces sounded melodious and showed beauty of form and structure even to uninitiates like me, and the performance was undoubtedly first-rate given the responses of the more discerning audience in the church. The piece I found especially memorable was Reflets dans l'eau (Reflections in the Water) of Claude Debussy. I don't know if I allowed myself to simply be guided by the name of the piece, but it did have a languid, pellucid, tremulous feeling. Fancifully enough, the gentle movements of the pianist during this piece, made me think almost that his fingers were the feet of angels walking on water. The genius of the composers seemed to find adequate expression in the skill of the debutant. Some years ago I remember reading a heated conversation between two estranged bickering pianist parents of the protagonist of the book 'Eat Cake' by Jeanne Ray, where the runaway father scorns at his prim and proper wife, 'you play as if you never set foot outside a Methodist church!'. Here I was in a real Methodist church at a classical piano concert and am beginning to see sense in the choices of those hear and play nothing but classical. The beamed wooden roof, the stained glass windows and the Corinthian colonnades of the Methodist church, completed the classical experience. Perhaps, the 'music of the spheres' is simply a philosopher's metaphor, but my experience of the 'music of the spires' was most memorable.