The Water and the Wave

Yesterday in class I finally understood something because of Joe's project: the miracle of life is music.

Now I'm not sure if this is what Joe meant when he said music is with the sperm and the egg, because maybe I took it too literally. But I loved his description of music as the representation of both the water and the wave simultaneously. Music can be written down in a formula on paper, but the experience of the music cannot be explained on a piece of paper or broken down into some kind of arbitrary formula. Immediately when I heard this I thought of an experience I've had listening to music. I'm sure we can all think of a time when we were listening to music and some kind of transcending experience. Some weeks ago I attended a piano concert at person's house. The concert was held in the living room which had massive floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the falling autumn leaves in the background of a beautiful grand-piano. When the man started to play (I think he was playing Rachmaninoff), I found peace in the chaos that is my life for those ten minutes. I just stared at those falling leaves and didn't think about anything; nothing else existed in that moment, and I couldn't help a huge, goofy smile spreading across my face. Now what I experienced from this music I just tried to describe to give you an idea, but I can't really put it in words, and no one can reproduce it exactly the same.

Relating that to life, I realized life is also a simultaneous existence of both formula and experience (the describable and the indescribable), which is why we call it the miracle of life. We are made from the combination of DNA found on chromosomes that we get from our father and mother. These then make up our genes that give us specific traits and characteristics. This is the formula of life. But this cannot exist without the experience of life: the making of a new life (yes, sex) and the birth of a child. The indescribable joy on a parents face when they see their child for the first time. No one can put that into a formula. But both the experience and formula cannot exist without the other, but that is what makes it a miracle. The miracle that is life. 

A Few Thoughts...

First of all, I have had a fantastic time listening to all the projects. It keeps "startling" me how phenomenally creative and deep-thinking everyone is. It has been inspiring for me to listen to all the projects.

The first that came to my mind when I heard Alaine's poem was that I LOVED IT! (That's what I literally wrote in my notes). There were so many messages in it, as it contained everything, but what I loved most was how honest and truthful it was. It was like she had stripped herself of everything made herself vulnerable, just as Brooke said in her project. We are not only are strongest when we become naked, but also the most truthful to ourselves. Because there is nothing to cloud our image of ourselves, it's just us. And I think we're constantly fighting the cloud that tries to cover us up (smoke and mirrors?). Why is it so hard to be yourself? Shouldn't this be the easiest thing we can do? Yet for so many people it's often the hardest. Brooke made it clear to me with her project. It's because to be true to yourself, you have to become vulnerable, you have to become naked. And that's scary.


"The world wants you to do so much, but you want to do so much for the world." I believe this is a line from Alaine's poem? In any case, it matches my take on life right now. I feel like I am at a crossroad between what I want to do, what I feel like I should do, and what I feel like I'm expected to do. How do you know which one to follow? I like the idea of finding a balance. Because that's what life's all about, balance, right? It's all about figuring out when to do things because you want to, and when to do things because someone else wants you to. I think some people tend to one side more than the other, but I'd like to find a nice happy place right in the middle. Not sure how to do that though.....


I'm an engineering student, and Spencer's project really resonated with me. I too find myself in some of my engineering classes, thinking "how is that applicable to my life at all?" (Other than that I will be tested on it later and it will go on my transcript which will then affect going to graduate school, etc. etc.) Yet Spencer found a way to relate thermodynamics to life and so I wanted to try and relate what I'm studying, structures, to life as well. In a structure, you have to start from the bottom up. You first have to have a solid foundation, which needs adequate soil to be effective. And you need reinforcement in your foundation to make sure it will hold up under different kinds of loads. Then moving up, you have the different parts of the building, which need to transmit the forces you put on them back down to the foundation. And it can't be too rigid, otherwise it will create more stress on the different parts of the structure. And it all works together and builds off of one another. You can probably see where this is going. We all need some sort of foundation in which everything can build off. We first had to learn to walk before we could crawl, know the alphabet before we could write words, ride a bicycle with 3 wheels before 2, know our mythology before we could look at a fairy tale, and so on and so forth. That foundation needed reinforcement. We had to continually practice each thing to be able to move up to bigger things. Then each new task we learned in life was supported by that foundation, and each success could be traced back to having that good foundation. Any holes in the foundation and we would crumble. Each part of that structure, of yourself, works together to create you. But we can't be too set in our ways, otherwise we become stiff and can't change, resulting in our downfall. We must be flexible, able to see different perspectives.

For My Final Project

When I was doing some research on my topic, I came across this and I thought it was interesting. It's too literal for my presentation in class but it's worth viewing!