Implicit Self
Images from my soul, dedicated to the world that makes me
People of the Amazon
A week ago I returned from the most unforgettable trip of my life. Like I told the expedition leader Dennis in an email, I am not so old that I have seen it all, but I am old enough to know when the best has passed.
These are some portraits of the people and children we saw at the villages or in canoes by or on the Amazon river. More to come soon, hopefully with my travel story. This one will be hard to write, because often, to write it all out, is to let it go. I am not sure I am ready yet.
To have so little, to want so little, to be so content with what they have: the people I saw looked at us with surprise and welcome, I did not sense that they wanted our lives. They were as curious about us, as we were about them. And as happy to be where they were, as presumably, most of us were and didn’t want to exchange places, despite what we, the visitors seem to ‘have’ that they didn’t.
What are we striving for, after all. Or maybe the question to me really is, what am I striving for, when I pass through this world.
When Claire Underwood and Mycroft Holmes adopt Jim Moriarty
Now why would I not write about Francis (Frank) Underwood and Sherlock Holmes? Both Kevin Spacey and Benedict Cumberbatch, emphasis for girlie screams at the latter, are really beyond compare in my mind. To anyone. However their characters on my favorite TV shows are not as enigmatic as their wife or older brother. Sherlock is brilliant, observant and despite professing all kinds of sociopathic feelings, is very perceptive and even human when needed. Which is actually an essential trait for a good detective, because having an genius type rival is not that common, and even if the main rival is that type, the people he will work for and with are not likely to be all geniuses. Therefore, perception of the generic human nature is indispensable for a detective. No matter how bored with and apathetic to the plight of people with much lower intellect, than his own, he claims to be.
As for Frank Underwood, well, other than being more amoral than even (his surrounding) current crop of politicians, he is nothing special. He doesn’t have a conscience, so he doesn’t have anything to ignore. He lies, he kills even, is a hypocrite and has no qualms. So what. Most people do most of these things, they just do it in smaller measures, battling a conscience or morals or just the fear of being caught. He takes big risks for bigger gains, yep.. so do a lot of traders in stock market. He has clear goals: immense political power. He rose to be the President ( oops, spoiler alert!) not because, admittedly, a rather sharp mind for contingency planning, but because of what we the people call, pure luck favoring his orchestrations. He seizes every opportunity that was offered and bargains for others. Great politician and even better actor ( well, ha! it is Kevin Spacey!) Full score ( to Frank Underwood) for acting skills that fool other seasoned politicians in particular. Although, most of them, other than the liberal leader Rep. Donald Blythe (Reed Birney), just want to take the path with minimal personal damage ( including that of morals) and highest personal gain. Francis doesn’t need supernatural bartering or black mailing skills, when the President can hardly fire his entire cabinet nor can he separate himself from his party. Whereas, Francis can move upwards and will do them favors if they just stay out of his way and do what he says. It is the President, that appears to have the most vulnerable position, who takes all the falls and discredit, while mostly being blind sided ( true story, that!). He should, as Ronald Reagan did, have kept his ostensibly non-political business adviser (Raymond Tusk) by his side, the only way to safeguard against people’s political motives. Or, have had a wife like Claire Underwood.
Claire is the woman not easily defined and defies definition and boundaries. Undoubtedly TV’s most complex and enigmatic characters, as only a woman can be. Instead of the quintessential politician’s wife who appears to be supportive of a cheating husband, played over and over my real and reel life politicians’ wives, she is a wife who can make a smart woman, half her age – having an affair with her husband, feel like an insect, easily stamped on. She is the one with real power because she wields it without display. All the good wives standing beside their husband as they confess to cheating, even if it is just to preserve their political ambitions later, look like fools. Claire Underwood made sure from the very start that she never had to. Her partnership with her husband is based on honesty and mutual respect. He never has an affair with someone who could blackmail them, and in fact, his muses are even hand picked by Claire herself. If she feels disrespected she doesn’t stand around and mope. She goes to the guy she has true feelings for, Adam Galloway ( last season). When she is with him, we can see she really cares for him, loves him even. Reneging on a promise to her, is not something Francis can do and live without repercussion. However, her real power is that she can end Galloway’s dignity and public image (season 2) without a second thought. Real feelings and even slight jealousy are there for people to see as Robin Wright delivers an immaculate performance every time. Galloway has found someone else. She hadn’t known or anticipated that: slight jealousy- so she still has feelings for him. But not a flinch when she black mails him into making a public spectacle of himself. There is no other way and she is not one to hesitate making the tough decisions. Where she keeps the added weight to her conscience, we don’t know. We do see that she has one. From time to time. She is the one who notices how hard it is for older people to conform to new technology in jobs (at Starbucks, where a middle aged woman cannot use the computerized registration), and actually sees the homeless. In this, she acknowledges the plight of people she fires ( to fulfill personal ambitions) and yet, out they go. One gets the feeling that she has big goals. Bigger than the people who have to be sacrificed – even if she feels their pain- on the way. What would they be? Bringing clean drinking water to African countries? Making real social reform?
In some cases it feels like she channels the pain she felt for others she treated badly, or others who treated her badly, towards a political goal or social reform that seems very important to her. But then, she is not loyal to that goal, that energy that emotional torpedo can dissipate whenever needed.
Francis does what is needed and often as a last minute improvisation, these eventually need a lot of covering up. Claire plans her moves. Makes them count. Even if she doesn’t lie on live TV, probably because lying is never done convincingly leaving no shadow of doubt, additionally because telling the truth makes her more powerful as her true grit is seen. Also using half truths, dislodged true incidents are much more convincing gives time for tying up lose ends in the background- as others flounder about to find details about the truth. What makes her public image less than maternal ( yes, the public doesn’t vote for cold women) is used to forward the Underwood’s political motives as she befriends the President’s wife. That friendship brings about the fall of the President.
However, what Claire Underwood really wants, remains an enigma, because she clearly is not totally devoted to her husband’s political career. She does have an affair that can harm it, she doesn’t have a traditional family that can help it. Her slight indecision about having a family, as she sees Peter Russo’s children and consults a doctor seem to underscore her steel. She may want tenderness, but she refuses the vulnerability that must come with it. When she sees the defiant and strong Gillian Cole ( Sandrine Holt) ready to compromise for the health of her child, she snubs whatever maternal instincts had got to her. For the last time. She is what I would be tempted to call a true, pure cynic. But that too, she defies. She does beleive in the impregnable nature of her marriage to Francis. Or seems to.
If Mycroft Holmes and Claire Underwood started a partnership and adopted Jim Moriarty, that would be one hell of a power family. Mycroft is smarter ( even Sherlock admits to that) far less endearing and far more ruthless than Sherlock. He can kill without hatred, while Sherlock can be blinded by it. The reason everyone likes Sherlock, is because he wants to be liked ( even if he will die before admitting that). He wants to be cool, he wants to show off ( a little). He is a darling. In a recent interview Cumberbatch says that no one should love Sherlock because he would ‘destroy’ you and is a ‘bastard’. Even though I am no match to his, not inconsiderable, sublime mental acuity, I still don’t agree. ‘Love’ is a cheap emotion, if given away that freely to someone you don’t even know; admiration is another matter. You just have to be half (or full) decent and a person with integrity, he won’t harm or destroy you then, even if you do ‘love’ him (Sherlock or Cumberbatch, I imagine). If you are not, and you still love him and want something back, well, then you are insipidly stupid and we all know what he ( or any smart-ass worth the title) does to those people. The interview is here: (http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/the-case-of-the-accidental-superstar/?_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=TM_TCO_20140307&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=0)
Mycroft, on the other hand, actually does not care about what people think, or who or what kind of people they are. He only knows where they stand. He picked a side that is conventionally the right one, but who knows what is right? I know why creator Mark Gatiss chose to play that character. He is the real player, someone to actually fear. In Claire’s merciless decisions we see that she has not picked a side, she is the side you want to be on. That is the winning side. Right or wrong.
The family of Mycroft, Claire and Jim is what Karl Marx -hoping for an equal world, did not anticipate and Orwell predict s. It can rule the world without ever being visible. Shudder at the thought. And yes, I miss you Jim Moriarty.
Does publishing in Science make me less useless?
I only just realized that I had not gotten around saying (specifically to my scientist friends and to hopeful immigrant graduate students) that my thesis research was published last year, finally. In Science Translational Med. That would sound like victory to some, it was not a bad feeling for me either. Somehow it didn’t linger, I have felt happier for much longer following things that did not take >4 yrs in the making and >7 years of my life. I had finished my part of the project ( and yes, I am first author for all those, who like me, believe in appropriate credits) by January 2010. So, don’t ask me why I was still trying to defend that it was real work for a year until I finally, with aggressive follow ups with individual thesis committee members, was able to convince them that I had enough to write a thesis and an article. Had my adviser been less picky about the journal, I had already written one! It is true that seeing how much of a pain it is to get to the publishing point, from reviews to additional changes ( and we were lucky that we weren’t asked to do any extra experiments after submitting, just some additional analyses) it is a tortuous route and less rewarding for the advisers than for the graduate students. Making it understandable for them to be that selfish. Not justified, though, as the longer a graduate student takes to publish, the harder it is for the next step in academia.
In my position I was just made to believe (sometimes proactively by suggesting I couldn’t give presentations, sometimes by showing no appreciation and many times just calling me lazy) incompetent.
After one large scale failed project that had been ongoing for 10 yrs in our lab. I started and finished this one in 2 and a half years, with no prior experience in behavioral neuroscience or even neuroscience and no one in our lab available for guidance. It took more than 3 years for expert labs to conduct the electrophysiology experiments that ‘completed’ the paper. It made a Science publication. So, maybe I shouldn’t complain. See if I care in two years.
As for my presentation skills in par, if not better, than almost any other graduate student in my department, anyone who attended my PhD. seminar would tell you that. I would include most post docs of that department as well. Never did I go to a presentation in the department, let alone our own lab presentation, which was not just about average. In lab it was not even that. So, who was I being compared to, exactly? My thesis committee did have two or three faculty members who genuinely cared about my well – being and didn’t treat me as a sacrifice in the altar of science.
Other than the new tenure track faculty recruited to the department, who were both very nice and cared about me and my future, I have nothing good to say about anyone in my ex- department. After the talk that apparently sucked so badly and was the greatest disappointment of my advisers life (even though it had generated a lot of questions during and after the talk), I asked one of the new recruits if it had been, really, so bad via email. He told me it had been understandable and he remembered the results ( him and others in my department do not work on even closely related fields). Being a nice guy he said that advisers want the best for their students. I don’t know about that. Despite being the only person in the lab with any results, let alone seriously good ones, I was not given a lab farewell dinner. Or even a lunch ( that he throws for the less deserving people). Probably because at that point I had not taken up any position anywhere.. No one and nothing was going to drive me towards more years of despair to prove a point.
In my adviser I saw a person who claims to care about all the children and their parents leading a difficult life due to a disease, who he has never met, and not caring about the people who have been his students for four years or more, his junior faculty collaborators and lab technicians. He claimed that 25 years of research he had contributed to had led to a particular class of drugs going into clinical trials. Well, he had as much to do with that particular research as I did. Which is nothing really. He did use a ten year NIH grant of several million dollars to come up with exactly squat. Just by remaining in a field ( a small one at that) one cannot claim the successes of the field and ignore the failures and treat real people as sacrificial goats. This is science, not religion.
(This is not to say that he didn’t do anything in the field, his contributions are significant, publishing every 7-8 yrs or so in a decent journal, however, nothing translational has come out of those, other than my results that are remotely translational at best)
I was a better scientist than my supposed teacher, before I ever went to that lab. And since then, we don’t even belong in the same platform.
You may think I am full of it and ungrateful. I am sorry, I did not and do not do science to be grateful to anyone. I have had good teachers in my life, and I have the full mental capacity to discern when I have one and when I don’t. Also, you will think that these are professors in highly idolized Universities, all over the world. Well, in science, as in most other things. Buyers are amenable to sellers who sell better. They must do that. And that is perfectly practical and universally acceptable.
I just didn’t want to sell my life to remain that that ‘peerage’. It didn’t inspire me at all. I have much more respect for everyone I came across during my Masters in India.
I had a few friends whose faith helped me stay sane and finally, I knew that I had done more work than anyone else who had passed through the lab, and remained alive to graduate (or do a ‘successful’ post doc). There were four graduate students, two of whom are my good friends who just left, fourth year in graduate school, because of really risky projects which were poorly envisioned or in areas that our lab had no knowledge about. Had I stayed in India I would have had a much larger group of like minded friends and made bonds that last through life. Whereas, as a result of the toxic lab conditions: when a friendship only reminds you of terrible times, add to that distance, it is just easier to let go. I am only in touch with two graduate school friends now. I am in touch in people I knew only for a few months in my lab or department in India, 10-12 years ago.
Also, as an aside, I was not able to acknowledge the Tech ( who quit the lab) and my very good friend and listener to my laments in the article: there is space at the end of all research articles to acknowledge such contributions, the tech especially deserved an authorship. Apparently they didn’t do enough to deserve any credit. They did more than anyone else I met during my PhD. for my work. I Know. I am the first author after all. However, it was not going to help them in their career much to be acknowledged and I just wanted all correspondence to be over as quickly as possible.
My sincere apologies to them. I did fight. But it wasn’t a battle worth winning. He had wanted to add the name, as an author, of someone who knew nothing about anything in my project ( and has also since quit, deservedly, in his fourth year). I did not let that pass.
I am still quite bitter. Can you tell ( ha ha!). However, what doesn’t kill you…
The upside is that my parents are very proud of me and got to read about my work in several news articles from all over the world. Science might have been dull at that time, because my article was taken up by several newspapers, even Salon ( the blog) and the area’s TV news ( FOX).
I don’t think I am a failure or even a failed neuroscientist ( even if not a BIG one). I work on autism now.. and am trying to work out a way to rationally organize large amounts of data from mouse phenotyping ( behavioral, neurophysiological, anatomical and molecular). And no, if people think it is not science, I don’t fight them. I don’t even know who they are. That is how much my own opinion matters to me now, one lesson learned well! I don’t think I ever intend to be identifiable as a bioinformaticist, but, its not a big deal.
My only suggestion (or advice) is for the immigrant graduate students to place faith ( as we are used to on our teachers/advisers) only where it is deserved and definitely never on anyone more than themselves. It is hard for eastern cultures to come to terms with respecting without obeying. The thing to remember is that this is just like any other field, each man to himself, in the end. It is true that an advisers opinion can make or break a career, in the form of a recommendation letter and only a minuscule number of graduate students probably make it ‘big’ with the support of any external person, like a thesis committee member. However, one cannot be a slave in mind, body and soul, for a letter. No one will actively lie (even if they can cast shadows and forget about the good things) on paper, because it is a portrayal of themselves. I do not doubt that my adviser will say the truth about me, even if we did not get along, although I have not needed the words till date to help me. This is a risky career path, where building good working relationships with people who hold too much power over you is a critical factor. Be prepared to lose it all, but still, save yourself.
Experience
The leaders of anarchy? Aam Admi Party is in fact too aam ( common)
I believe that Mr. Kejriwal was being honest when he said he didn’t know what it means to be an anarchist. He really doesn’t, because if he did he wouldn’t call himself one. It would require that he leaves the government, dissolves his party, stops being a political leader. I believe some political scientists or political thinkers have already made that clear, but the common person would hardly be expected to read their views.
Anarchists do not believe in government rule and while it would in general be considered a compliment to some people to be called one ( such as yours truly under the scholarship of Orwell, among others), the leader of India’s most recent and influential party (when weighted against how long political parties have been in existence to how much the public supports them) is not one.
On the other hand, accepting that one is, without knowing what ‘it’ means, just brings out the sort of significant problem this new political party and its supporters have. The party for and of the ‘common man’ – Aam aadmi, represents him, embodies him. However, it is a party known to have intelligent, educated and most importantly perhaps: non- criminals and in all likelihood well-meaning people as its members and supporters ( does that mean that uneducated people, or petty thieves are not common people?) The significant problem is, a lack of understanding of what actually is significant, what actually is the cause and not a symptom and why acting on impulse is okay when the government is being run by the ‘other’ not so common men and women, but not that okay when you are the Chief Minister of the capital city of undoubtedly, one of the most complex countries in the world. None of the problems of the common man and woman here, are actually simple. It is again the overindulgence in ‘simple’ rules that separates a common man from one who has the clarity of thought and clairvoyance to actually make an assessment and plan for change. Where a common man is allowed to and should, go to the streets and demonstrate for his rights and social issues, unfortunately, the Chief minister and other ministers having attained the uncommon status ( however unwillingly) cannot do so whenever they feel like it and without thought of repercussion.
Why? Because when a common man in Delhi, or even a woman or a group of them think that all Africans are drug peddlers, African women are prostitutes and drug addicts and they are ruining their children’s gentle mind. It is of not much consequence, it is merely a portrait of ignorance and yes, racism. Neither of these issues ( ignorance and racist outlook, I mean) can be solved by direct government intervention, unless the government plans to police people’s thoughts. But when the law minister belonging to the ruling party thinks the same and goes out and makes it public, it is shameful. Not only does it mean that prostitutes are not people ( let alone a common person)- because wouldn’t the minister be responsible for their well being too- had they been that, it also means that simply on the basis of what a person looks like, chooses to wear they can be categorized as such and be robbed off any rights. It also means that being close minded, as a lot of common men feel free to be, is okay and acceptable. There is a reason, the common man should lose his commonness (not so much his muchness, though- that cannot be lost) when he or she becomes a leader.
Yes, I have been away from Delhi a long time, I really don’t know what goes on there on a daily basis. Hence the rather delayed post: I, despite being common, take the seriousness of making a judgment call seriously. However, I will always know a general Delhiite, – what they think, how they behave, easily point them out in a crowd of multinational people. The city and its people hasn’t changed that much. Alas! I don’t mean to be insulting or condescending, I will always be from Delhi too.
So, I know that the fact that having African neighbors bothered the common men and women, would not have bothered them as much had they been Caucasian, and yes, it IS about the skin color. I know that what foreigners wear is believed to influence the ‘conservative’ families and Indian culture, even if, the kids of these families spend all free time in the Malls that, surprisingly, have only international stores. Watch ‘American’ TV shows and in general are not so innocent as one might imagine them to be. I know that the same disparaging attitude exists for the INDIANS who have moved from the north east parts of the country, who, in general and commonly, dress better than any ‘original’ Delhi girl, effortlessly.
I also know, for instance, had I been in Delhi I would have supported the Aam aadmi party, for sure. They are the harbingers of change, they speak up for the woman burned to death for dowry, the tourist gang-raped, the general lack of security in the city. Problems that no doubt need active attention, but of a sort that actually leads to solutions, not merely live T.V hours.
I may even have missed the tyranny in wanting the police to be under the control of the Delhi Government, because now, it is the government of the aam aadmi- the common Delhi man- who may take seconds in his mind to turn a girl into a prostitute and then one minute to undress her with his eyes. But I cannot miss it from a distance. Because it is from here that things are made clear, isn’t it? It is from here I can see that prostitution is not a problem that our Chief minister needs to sit on a dharna (demonstration) to fight, it is the grey area that exists in the outreaches/ fringe of all societies, all over the world. And, even if we consider it to be a problem, it will certainly not be solved by fighting the alleged ‘prostitutes’. The real problem is society looking down at them, so much so they are not even believed to have human rights. This problem of degrading women and the poor, the government cannot solve. This needs a change in the ‘common’ culture, psyche of the common Delhiite, the one we all know, the ones in our own families. However, it appears, the government of the common man CAN certainly aggravate it – many students of African nations are being ousted from their legally acquired rented apartments, leaving them with no where to go! Where is the culture of guests being representatives of God, of treating them well? God knows many Indians have lived in many African countries and such a treatment has not been meted out to them since the colonists left.
Drugs are and have always been available for people who want them and instead of blaming their neighbors, families should be a little more aware of what impressionable children are being impressed with and tackle the situation with sensitivity. The government cannot go in every door, even if – I have no doubt- this particular one would like to.
It is to reform the police department to empower it, to make it MORE independent, that I would have voted for them. Not to turn them more into slaves, this is what it would mean if they are made just another department under the government. Even if the Aam Aadmi party envisions ruling forever, such a transition is unthinkable in terms of logic. The fact that because the police didn’t say ‘how high?’when they were asked to jump by the party leaders, just does not warrant demanding the suspension of all possible police officials. How does that solve the problem for the victims? Stop crime in the future? It can only seem to reprimand police officials to do what they are told to, with the corollary of not doing anything unless told.
The common man belongs to R.K. Laxman. As the great cartoonist and illustrator knows, the common man never actually becomes a leader. His common troubles keep him busy for decades. To be a leader or one of the leaders of the common men, you have to be less common. And, more than one man. That is a distance a leader must travel, to be true to what he ( or them) has chosen as his calling of being the leader of men.
This same party wants to participate in the upcoming national elections. I wonder how many demonstrations a day they will be able to hold, given the size of the country. It should have been clear to them by now, demonstrations do not solve problems, reforms and corrective actions do and they have been elected to bring about those. If they want to continue demonstrating and not formulating policy changes, they should have remained activists. I do not doubt that they can make reform, I only doubt that they will. Everyone can do a lot ( in terms of potential), it only matters if they actually DO it.
I do not really think these people are khaas (special) at all, even though some people claim they are. Too bad!
Implicit Self 