Rationality:Love - 1:0
On October 3, 2005 I wrote an entry where I spoke of taking risks and following one's heart rather than pure cold logic. Yet we all know that life has a fetish for irony and in my case this ultimate irony was that the very person who once had motivated me to make illogical, wonderfuly risky choices was the same person who two days ago told me that the only way for me to live my life is follow that same cold logic that he condemed so harshly that fateful night in Scotland. What is logical? Do we follow our proffessional ambitions? Do we dedicate our lives to helping fellow humans? Or do we work to make ouselves happy, whether this happiness comes from money, power, or even love? How do we decide what is logical? And can even know that are choices are rational until we live the consequences and are able to look back at them in the rear-veiw window of life. While hind-sight is 20/20, these choices need to be made now. But how does one decide between passion for a vocation that pays so little that one can't even pay the bills and a monotoneous carreer in a field that makes one feel moraly dirty for selling out? How does one decide between loving a man so fully that one is willing to give up a year career building to see if one can be happy with him and choosing to build this very career?
Two weeks ago, I walked accross the stage in the Greek Theater as rain soaked my robe and my family watched from the stands. Those few hundred feet were the easy part about graduating college...now comes the hard part - what next? I've always known that I'm inteligent and, in fear of sounding full of myself, that as long as I applied my mind I would never starve (this doesn't mean being passionate about my job, but I knew that I would always have one). I know how to work hard, I'm ambitious, and if I don't know something I have full confidence that I can learn it. The rational choice has always been to apply to graduate school, do a post-doc, and then either enter the rat-pack of accedemic life or sell my considerable skills to the highest bidder in the pharmaceutical market. Unfortunately I'm not an emotionless machine. I hate the pettiness of the acedimic world, I'm moraly opposed to what most pharmaceutical companies are doing (namely keeping their new drugs pattented as long as possible preventing generics from being manufactured at much lower prices and made available to not just the wealthy of this world...I hate that they have made a world where only the rich seem to deserve to live and I refuse to be part of this), and I genuinely want to help people. However, helping people comes with a price - many of them don't want help. Yesterday, I offered to buy dinner for a poor man asking for change outside of a grocery story, he got angry at me because to him this was yet another example of how "rich white folk want to put down the black man". No matter my race, all I had done was offer to buy this man dinner because all I had on me was a credit card.
Unfortunately, if I choose to dedicate my life to helping people I will always encounter hostility. Most whites be they poor, agricultural workers, religious individuals, and the majority of the those working blue-color jobs see me as an outsider and a threat because I am a Jewish female who practices a very liberal life-style, who's a foreigner, and who appears to be one of the hated stuck up inteligensia. Asians, Blacks, and Latinos see me as an intruder into their world who lacks any fundamental understanding of their experiences. This is true, I don't understand but outright hostility will only take away from any potential understanding. I have planned to work in public policy of science, but how can I hope to educate people who see me as an outsider, a sinner, and a degenerate? But if I don't understand these people that I'm tring to help, how can I work for politicians and actualy do any good?
My whole life I have always been an outsider. I am an immigrant. I have never felt fully American, yet I no longer feel Ukrainian. I live in the middle of the gay world, yet I am bi female who hopes to one day have a conventional family. I have never felt comfortable enough to join homogeneous organizations like sororities, clubs based on common characteristic such as Biochem or the Russian culture. I surround myself with friends who are very different and often don't get along with each other. I enjoy it that way. I love knowing different people and I get bored with "normal" individuals. Yet, it is these kinds of individuals I need to understand...
Thus, choosing to do what I actually believe in is a hell of a lot harder than walking the "rational" path. Not only is it harder, I will also most likely fail...because if you think about it - how much can a girl from the liberal hub of America really do? Still, most people would tell me - Go for it! My friends would tell me to at least try it because at least I will never regret it and will know that I did everything I could. Why is it different with emotional success? Why does everyone I know tell me that its alright to risk my proffessional succees for the good of the inhabitants of the Oakland ghetto, but not for a man I love? How is one irational choice better than the other one? Why does even he tell me that essentailly he will loose respect for me if I was to postpone my proffessional plans and move to be in certain proximity to him so that I can determine if things will work? If it is out emotional success that makes us trully happy, why do we always sacrifice it for professional goals?
A friend of mine decided to attend the medical school at UC Davis, which is ranked much lower than the one at UCSF that he was also admited to. UCSF is one of the best Med Schools in the nation and even the world, located in an area that he enjoys much more than the rural boredom of suburban Davis. But he's going to Davis because a girl he loves is there and he feels that making this small sacrifice of proffesional success will ultimately be worth it because over all he will be happier. I haven't cried or yelled, but simply felt quitly sad that I too will irationally sacrifice love to the "logical" decision of coldly persuing a carreer and monetary success. Still, money will never leave me with that wonderful glow or make feel like I'm floating all day just from hearing his voice. Oh well...such is life. It seems that the most valuable lesson I leared in college, actaully came 8 days after I extaticly walked across the stage to recieve my diploma.
Two weeks ago, I walked accross the stage in the Greek Theater as rain soaked my robe and my family watched from the stands. Those few hundred feet were the easy part about graduating college...now comes the hard part - what next? I've always known that I'm inteligent and, in fear of sounding full of myself, that as long as I applied my mind I would never starve (this doesn't mean being passionate about my job, but I knew that I would always have one). I know how to work hard, I'm ambitious, and if I don't know something I have full confidence that I can learn it. The rational choice has always been to apply to graduate school, do a post-doc, and then either enter the rat-pack of accedemic life or sell my considerable skills to the highest bidder in the pharmaceutical market. Unfortunately I'm not an emotionless machine. I hate the pettiness of the acedimic world, I'm moraly opposed to what most pharmaceutical companies are doing (namely keeping their new drugs pattented as long as possible preventing generics from being manufactured at much lower prices and made available to not just the wealthy of this world...I hate that they have made a world where only the rich seem to deserve to live and I refuse to be part of this), and I genuinely want to help people. However, helping people comes with a price - many of them don't want help. Yesterday, I offered to buy dinner for a poor man asking for change outside of a grocery story, he got angry at me because to him this was yet another example of how "rich white folk want to put down the black man". No matter my race, all I had done was offer to buy this man dinner because all I had on me was a credit card.
Unfortunately, if I choose to dedicate my life to helping people I will always encounter hostility. Most whites be they poor, agricultural workers, religious individuals, and the majority of the those working blue-color jobs see me as an outsider and a threat because I am a Jewish female who practices a very liberal life-style, who's a foreigner, and who appears to be one of the hated stuck up inteligensia. Asians, Blacks, and Latinos see me as an intruder into their world who lacks any fundamental understanding of their experiences. This is true, I don't understand but outright hostility will only take away from any potential understanding. I have planned to work in public policy of science, but how can I hope to educate people who see me as an outsider, a sinner, and a degenerate? But if I don't understand these people that I'm tring to help, how can I work for politicians and actualy do any good?
My whole life I have always been an outsider. I am an immigrant. I have never felt fully American, yet I no longer feel Ukrainian. I live in the middle of the gay world, yet I am bi female who hopes to one day have a conventional family. I have never felt comfortable enough to join homogeneous organizations like sororities, clubs based on common characteristic such as Biochem or the Russian culture. I surround myself with friends who are very different and often don't get along with each other. I enjoy it that way. I love knowing different people and I get bored with "normal" individuals. Yet, it is these kinds of individuals I need to understand...
Thus, choosing to do what I actually believe in is a hell of a lot harder than walking the "rational" path. Not only is it harder, I will also most likely fail...because if you think about it - how much can a girl from the liberal hub of America really do? Still, most people would tell me - Go for it! My friends would tell me to at least try it because at least I will never regret it and will know that I did everything I could. Why is it different with emotional success? Why does everyone I know tell me that its alright to risk my proffessional succees for the good of the inhabitants of the Oakland ghetto, but not for a man I love? How is one irational choice better than the other one? Why does even he tell me that essentailly he will loose respect for me if I was to postpone my proffessional plans and move to be in certain proximity to him so that I can determine if things will work? If it is out emotional success that makes us trully happy, why do we always sacrifice it for professional goals?
A friend of mine decided to attend the medical school at UC Davis, which is ranked much lower than the one at UCSF that he was also admited to. UCSF is one of the best Med Schools in the nation and even the world, located in an area that he enjoys much more than the rural boredom of suburban Davis. But he's going to Davis because a girl he loves is there and he feels that making this small sacrifice of proffesional success will ultimately be worth it because over all he will be happier. I haven't cried or yelled, but simply felt quitly sad that I too will irationally sacrifice love to the "logical" decision of coldly persuing a carreer and monetary success. Still, money will never leave me with that wonderful glow or make feel like I'm floating all day just from hearing his voice. Oh well...such is life. It seems that the most valuable lesson I leared in college, actaully came 8 days after I extaticly walked across the stage to recieve my diploma.