Was I drunk for the past 2 years?

I should be studying as always but I just can't focus. So many things scare me right now. I'm scared I'll fail my midterm tomorrow. I'm scared our app will be rejected tomorrow. I'm scared I'll fail a class when I'm so close to finishing school. But what mostly scares me is this US election result. I think for so many people it was a wake-up call. A reality check regarding the world we live in and all the issues we've been ignoring for some time now because school, because work, because cleaning the apartment, because your friend's birthday, because you always have something more pressing to think about and to deal with. But this has got to stop. We need to break out of our bubbles and take a good hard look at the world around us and just do something. It might be too late now, but we need to do something nonetheless. Because for all the massive amount of information and data we have at our fingertips, there is twice or three times as much misinformation. Because people need to be educated, but first we need to educate ourselves. Because we let ourselves go and tell ourselves things will be ok. But sometimes things are not ok. Sometimes we fuck up. And I feel like so far I've been pretty sheltered in my life in the sense that I haven't fucked up that much so far. Sure I didn't always get the job that I wanted or I didn't always get the best grade or every scholarship I applied for, but somehow at the end of the day I wasn't worse off than I started. But right now, I feel like we really are worse off than we were at this time yesterday. Not because Trump will have access to the nuclear codes. I'm pretty sure his staff will take away his access just like they did with his Twitter account. But just because the US officially decided they would rather live in the past than move forward. There are so many issues with what happened but at the end of the day it all comes down to information and how we are exposed to it. We all have our favorite channels. Some like old fashioned newspapers. Others like cable TV. Others go on Twitter or Facebook or Reddit. The problem is that based on our sources, we get stuck in our own little bubbles with a feedback loop that reinforces our confirmation bias and leaves us perplexed and ill equipped to deal with unfolding events. We become blindsided more and more often these days because we never really get the full picture. And this has got to stop. I refuse to believe that after all the data that is being collected starting with the amount of sleep that you get, to how many steps you take each day, to how much time you spend on which website, we are still incapable of understanding our next door neighbors. And the question remains, how do you bridge the gap across social and ethnic groups, across generations, across countries. I won't lie, I'm scared for the future. And seeing Hillary Clinton's concession speech actually made me cry. But at the same time I'm motivated. I have been letting myself go, continuously lowering my standards for what I considered as an achievement. Because I was tired, because it was hard, because I didn't see the point. But no more. I need to spend less time worrying about things and more time actually doing them. You have no control over the outcome of things or how other people will react. But you do have control over how much effort you put into the projects you undertake and I'm done half-assing my life. In 11 days I turn 26 years old and in 6 months I will be done with school for ever. And for the past 3 months I keep telling myself I need to sit down and figure out what my goals are for the next stage of my life but I never seem to have time for it. Well I think I should make time. If this election taught me anything, it's that pushing things at the back of your mind and not dealing with them will get you nowhere. On the contrary. One day you wake up and you realize you don't understand the world you live in anymore.

The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder

I have always been fascinated by the human brain and the power it holds to make or break a human being. And of course this leads me to read many books about troubled individuals and their psyche. I can't help it, I'm attracted to them like a moth to the light! Well one such recent read involved the (fictional) story of an individual who locked himself up on his 21st birthday and proceeded to catalog the contents of his memory up until that point. Said operation lasted 30 years. Now the whole narrative takes the shape of a flashback as Max is already dead and his best friend Adam is recounting the events that have led us here and why Max made these decisions.

I could say that for any introspective individual, the story is relatable even if I don't know anyone who would go as far as spending more than half their lives on such an endeavor. Myself, I have often felt as though if only I could block away the world and just be able to write down my thoughts and my experiences and if I managed to dissect them, then the world would make more sense and everything would be much clearer. I would understand myself better, where I went wrong, what I did right, the paths I should have taken and maybe if I could or should turn around and start over. But this isn't about me, it's about Max. At 21, he had everything going for him. A great family fortune, a good education, a nice girlfriend he could have married, he was cultured, he had traveled the world and had experienced many things, he had friends, he was generally well-liked. So why throw it all away? One theme that comes up often throughout the book is death. This is something that had always haunted Max and that he never really knew how to deal with. The death of his parents, the death of people he knew, even the death of strangers. He would always obsess over what would be left behind after a person dies. So maybe his catalog was his way of leaving behind his mark for posterity. Maybe the recent death of his father was just too much to deal with and this was all an excuse to hide away from the world.

In any case, whatever his real reasons may have been, the real question of interest here is "was he happy?". Were his efforts a waste? Was his life a waste? Physically speaking, he died at 51 due to "a short illness". However, can we really say that he was still alive during those 30 years that he spent cut off from the world? Was he really different from someone who might have been run down by a car in a tragic accident at 21? In a sense, this book has made me realize that life and death can be a lot more fluid concepts than I initially thought. What makes death, well "death"? Why is it so feared by so many people around the world? Is it the finality of it all? I think it's essentially that. The fact that we always put off a lot of things for various reasons. But once you're dead there are no more do-overs. You will never be able to ask those questions to your grandfather or build that app that was going to change the world. So maybe this was Max's way of leaving his mark on the world. A library filled with the most intricate details of every year of his life to be dissected for generations to come.