Faculty Nominated Work (Harvard GSD)

The sine curve, like all periodic functions, is a pattern that repeats itself predictably. If we abstract the sine to its components, and consider 1.0 to be the positive peak, and -1.0 to be the negative peak of a time based patterning, in application, we can understand intuitively that there will necessarily be a transition between the extremes, that both extremes are at either end of a single spectrum, and that in time, the location at any point on the spectrum is a function of time elapsed since the prior peak.

Taking the sine as an abstract concept, I am interested in how a mother’s love and racism, safety and freedom, decay and adaptation can be mapped along such a curve. Let’s consider that if mother’s love is at one peak of the sine curve, racism is at the other, and the same is true for each of the pairs represented above. Each repels and propels the other. Each is the other’s necessary opposite magnetizing force. In some cases, such as that of mother’s love and racism, it may be obvious how these two are opposites. It may be less clear how they share a spectrum, but in all cases, they do.

In the following pages, I will describe each contrasting pair through a brief analysis and a chapter of a short story. The goal of doing so is not to excuse the drawbacks of the negative peaks by identifying them with the positive peaks, it is not to undermine the profundity of the positive peaks, and it is not to assign ‘good’ and ‘bad’ values, as there are cases to be made for each topic to be placed at either end of the curve.

It is, instead, to dissect the extremes of these examples, and a spattering of the points between them, in order to better understand their mechanistic systems, dissolve pressures imposed by externally validated hierarchies of value, and make room for us to rebuild as we see fit. This, I think, is the primary goal of the course: to teach us how to see, so we can identify patterns and peculiarities in the periodic rhythms of human life, to recognize where, in time, we manifest within them, and to learn how to surf the sine.

One

The Children of the Queen

The King and Queen sat merrily atop the cushioned seats in the arena. Their son, the Prince, on the Queen’s right, sat stiffly obedient awaiting his joust, which was…as customary… reserved for the end of the tournament so that he may conquer hearts and emerge unscathed, victorious before the crowds.

Their daughter – a wicked fool, danced on the fence between the aisles on the field before them, and bewitched the crowd by catching lance splinters, stealing helmets as they rolled to the dusty earth, and otherwise practicing illusions which led in turn to uproarious laughter, muted gasps, and electric wonder, at her will within the stands.

On this day, the Fool had the crowd so captivated that she was sure, if she stole a glance up to the royal box, her family would be smiling too this time. She looked. Her brother’s face was squinted and his lips pursed – a shield, he was well practiced at concealing ripples of his heart and mind behind this mask. Her father darted her an eye twinkle and curved one lips’ edge in amusement before turning back to his wine and fussing with a threaded knot he had discovered in his robe.

The Queen was not smiling, twinkling, or masking her emotions – any who dared to look closely could discern the red ears and piercing gaze of rage she made no effort to obscure.

The fool’s cheeks flushed and her trickster heart – without her mind’s consent – launched her off the fence in a cartwheel, and she walked off the field towards the box without a glace to her left, where a knighted horse missed her narrowly as it barrelled through. The sound of striking lances and no fallen bodies confirmed to her that the match was a tie, and so she did not look back, but instead held the eyes of the Queen as she advanced toward her.

The crowd hushed as the fool stepped close enough to stare into her mother’s eyes without obscuring them behind the pedestal on which her family sat. She turned to her brother and spoke loud enough for all to hear as she challenged him to his joust. It was next, and she believed that no knight had proven so distinguished that any would fight her for this honor.

The Queen quickly nodded her consent – a radiant smile, keen and consuming, infected her every feature as she loudly mourned the anticipated, tragic early death of her precious little girl, nodding to her son to suit and ready himself for the competition. The Fool, desperate and starved for smiles such as these, mistook the Queen’s pleasure as an invitation to win her heart.

Though the Prince loved jousting, even measured himself by it, his stoic shield faltered as his eyes tendered towards his sister. Mouth agape, he dared to turn his head one way, as if to shake a silent ‘no’, but from the twisted angle of his spine, he spied his mother’s rage turn local, and a jolt of fear launched him quickly to his feet. Confused, but sensing a waver in the current of the scene, also encouraged, the fool mounted her steed and turned to face her brother at long last.

A rush of rhythmic hooves, dissonant clattering of metal plates and labored breathing smashed infinite in a masterful swooping clack.

He lay, unhorsed, a splinter through his thigh in crushing shock upon the soil, as ruby bloomed around him turning dust to mud, to tears and blood. Collapsing by his side, the fool felt his blood as hers. Reflected in the pool, she saw her shadow eclipsed by the sun, and behind her ears, a devil’s crown appeared – distorted by the drops falling from her eyes which rippled through the thick mirror that submerged them both. His face, a shield still, exposed no hint of tenderness, no unbridled brightness, none of the fierce boldness within that sometimes glimmered there below the mask. She looked at him and saw only the Queen’s eyes, looking back into hers.

Oh foolish fool, oh wicked witch, she cried. Why did she need to beat him at his game? She had enough, as is, atop the fence.

Never had she thought she might win the match – a game she had never played and often mocked. How cruel a joke, how vicious and corporal this academy, that she should slay her child love, and now sit suffocating in the light this mighty oak unveiled by tipping to the earth. Men came quickly to carry her brother away.

After a deep breath, she raised her eyes to the arena. The Queen had not stayed to laud the champion as she received her hard earned prize… as was customary… nor had the King, nor had the bestower. The stands themselves were empty.

Alone in the arena, she sat for hours staring at her fence. She had always been told that it was her place, the place of a fool, to balance there between her family and her people. She knew of second born princesses from other kingdoms who sat amongst their families, but she never had. She had believed this was because she lacked the skills of her brother, and her family’s continued scorn at her foolish ways proved this again, and again.

She had mastered her domain, and now knew she could compete in his. Yet, this victory only brought her pain. Now she knew that there was no path that led to a seat for her amongst her kin. Silent screams violently rattled her suffocating memories and split her. Humiliated, and buried by shame, she was lost. Was she now a knight? A fool? A princess? A ghost? She thrashed through her tunic and laid bare her chest in her frantic searching for a heartbeat. There, yes. At least, she thought, she lived, and knees caked in blood, she stood to leave.

A mother’s love, and hate

When a baby is born, and laid into her mother’s arms for the first time, the mother releases a flood of oxytocin. Oxytocin is a powerful chemical that facilitates bonding, and feelings of love. In fact, when a baby is first laid into its mother’s arms, the levels and patterns of oxytocin that are released strongly influence the strength of the bond that forms between the mother and child.¹ It is considered to be of crucial importance for this type of relationship development.

The bond between mother and child is so ‘special’ that research suggests that its strength is such that if injury befalls a child, the mother will feel it as her own. ²

The very same naturally occurring chemical, oxytocin, is responsible for causing individuals to feel that their group is centrally important and superior to other groups.³ Beyond social factors, this is the cause of prejudice, xenophobia and racism. The chemical is responsible for promoting in group favoritism and out group degradation, just as it is responsible for promoting feelings of deep love and bonding.

Racism, prejudice and xenophobia are difficult to defend, but in-group thinking can be motivating, healing, and inspiring. The Harvard Study of Adult Development⁴ was an eighty-year study that tracked almost 300 Harvard Sophomores beginning in 1938 through their lives and their descendent’s lives. It found that relationships were the single most determinant factor of happiness, more than money or fame, and that “those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.”⁵ There are also many trauma therapies that are founded on the principles that connection with other living beings is an important stage in healing. Professor Emeritus Dr. Judith Herman or Harvard University suggests that healing from trauma includes three necessary stages, the last of which is re-building connections with the community. ⁶

The need for connection among living things is so profound, that in Harlow’s famous 1959 study, infant monkeys who were separated from their mothers at birth developed significant social challenges, and were unable to develop peer relationships. Harlow put two surrogate mothers – one made of cloth and the other of wood and wire – into the cages of the motherless infants and found that the monkeys clung intently to the cloth surrogate preferentially over any other items provided. They would only approach the wood and wire decoy briefly when food and water was placed nearby. ⁷

The goal of sharing these studies is not to excuse poor parenting or racism given that oxytocin is a chemical produced by the body independent of will. Rather, it is to demonstrate that love and hate are two polarized nodes on the same spectrum. What if, as is perhaps the case in the short story above, oxytocin did not adequately facilitate bonding between the Queen and her daughter? What if this phenomenon is observed by the child? What options are available to her? Is the absence of early bonding recoverable by choice, or is she doomed to live an isolated life?

While oxytocin plays an essential role, it is not the only factor involved in deep bonding and love. It is possible to slide along the sine to a new vantage, if motivated to do so. Otherwise, it would not be possible for adopted children to develop the mother-child bond with their non-biological mothers,⁸ or for people to connect, despite all odds, across in-group and out-group divides.⁹ Given that positions are changeable, sometimes organically and sometimes through willpower, where you lay on the spectrum, or where others lay, seems to tell more about life choices than it does about inherent goodness, and people can always begin to make different choices, once they realize their former decision making strategies have led them astray.

That is not to say that changing your position along the spectrum between love and hate is an easy endeavor, only that it is a possible one. Many people never question their position, or how much of what they have inherited is necessarily innate. Many are conditioned to believe that change is futile,¹⁰ and many more find comfort in this belief.¹¹ Yet, while difficult, understanding the powerful influence of oxytocin and the role of willpower in practicing love may help demonstrate that free movement along this spectrum is possible with hard work and perseverance. We may not be able to choose the cards we were dealt, but we are able to choose how we wield them, if we are brave enough to identify the opportunity and risk failure in the name of improvement. This takes us to the next pair on our list: safety and freedom.

Two

Es ist der geist der sich den körper baut

Her fingers shook as she peeled off her multi-colored leggings, the last of her belongings, and folded them neatly in a pile at her feet. She smiled as she reached for the thin black robe before her and sucked in a deep breath to calm her excitement and her nerves. She had always dreamed of being a holy woman, but she never imagined that she would ever have the courage to pursue this life. The fabric felt like dyed burlap and she shifted uncomfortably within its boxy fit, but thought little of it as she left her traditional garb behind and ran off to meet the others in the temple.

The room was filled with robed, hooded men already, and shortly after she arrived, their quiet conversations puttered into silence. A man climbed the altar steps before them. With each step, a hollow clack filled the room, and drew the starry eyes of every monk below. Atop the temple acme, he cleared his throat and turned to the sea of hooded heads beneath his feet.

“If you pray long and hard enough, you may achieve enlightenment.” He smiled, knowingly. “Most of you will fail. The way is hard, and you are weak. Only the smartest and strongest amongst you will join the others by the meadow’s edge.” She quietly turned to peer beyond the temple walls at the men who sat in the tall grasses beyond. They faced away, and seemed still as stone against the swaying reeds. They were so close, and yet as distant as a dream. She turned back to the speaker, committed anew to joining them there when the time was right.

Each monk was allocated a square in a large grid that had been painted atop the temple floor. They sat for months in silence with closed eyes. They were told to transcend their bodily needs, for the enlightened knew no hunger, and needed no sleep. She sat near the window, missing her fence, stealing glimpses of the treeline beyond. She grew restless and old awaiting enlightenment, but each time she raised her weary eyes to meet the leaders’, their scorn brought color to her cheeks and forced her gaze downwards once more.  

When night fell on her third new moon, she wept. She did not feel more enlightened now than she had when she arrived. Her soul and body ached and her skin had turned pallad and thin.

One night without thinking, she flung herself out her open window and fell hard on the earth outside. A shock of pain swept through her spine and she gasped until her lungs refilled with air. Fearing attention, she wobbled to her feet, and moaning at the sight of her shrunken legs, she hobbled through the tall grass.

As she neared the hooded figures, and the dark woods beyond them, she felt stupid and weak. She shuttered in anticipation of the eternal judgement that lay in store for her when she reached the far side of the meadow, without having first achieved enlightenment. She moved forward still. Her heart faltered, and she collapsed to the earth an inch from the knee of one shadowy figure she had observed from her designated square in the temple. “How,” she said aloud in a raspy heave, as it had been so long since she had spoken, “…how do you not flinch when I lay before you here? Is your enlightenment so profound that you have forgotten the body entirely? Do you live only in your mind and care not for earthly pain?”

A rustling in the trees startled her, “You speak to rocks, child. Come join us in the wood.” Sure enough, when she touched the hooded figure beside her, the robe fell, and in its place a cairn stood. She could not see the speaker, and began to rise. Thighs flushed, she quaked and steadied her hand atop a stone in the cairn. She gripped it firmly, as if it were the handle of an axe. Glancing back at her class, she felt a pit in her throat. She knew she could not return for them, or she would never find the speaker who beckoned her into the wildness, but she pitied the futility of their effort, understanding now that they would never be told to run, and that they would likely grow old in obedience, becoming increasingly less adapted for their true task by the day. Indignant, she tightened her thumb over her fingers, and so armed, followed the stranger’s voice into the dark wood.

Safety and Freedom

In class we discussed the role of cellphones in changing gender and social dynamics, the risks and rewards of adventuring, and the impact of fear based thinking on our perceived abilities and efforts. By concentrating too much energy on how to remain safe in a given situation, we learned that we may be overweighting the risks, and that this can result in incompetence and inaction, even when we are equipped to handle the problems that lay before us. We also learned that movement and action, while risky, can lead to growth, independence, and flourishing in a way that fear based thinking never will. It seems that the tradeoffs are simple: safety brings inaction, and freedom brings risk. Finding the optimal point on this spectrum ultimately seems to be a question of risk assessment.

This framework can be applied at all scales, and perhaps if it were, we would have more nuanced conversations instead of strict bipartisan divides on complex issues. In their 2015 book Wedged, Nathaniel Greene and Erik Fogg discussed the bipartisanship in America, and how it has evolved over time. They break down how hot social topics such as gun control, abortion, wealth and taxes have distorted over time towards bipartisan extremes. This is unfortunately due to the efficacy of polarizing ideology in attracting or repelling the American public towards one tribal group versus the other. Polarized magnets. Yet, as they demonstrate in their book, these issues are complex and multifaceted.

At the societal scale, if we reframe the issue of gun control around risk assessment, it becomes less about being okay with school shootings or taking away American freedoms, and instead about what degree of risk and freedom we are comfortable with as a community. As it turns out, independent of party affiliation, most Americans do not want the government to raid American houses and take all the guns, nor do they want children to have access to assault rifles. By flattening this topic into ‘yes guns’ or ‘no guns’ opportunities for resolution become diminished by fear and tribalism.

At the national scale, safety is provided by military power, and freedom is perhaps defined by the reduction of centralized government. At the individual scale, operating alone may drive you precisely in the direction of your goals and aspirations,¹² but without social support, you may not get very far, or worse, you may attract negative attention.¹³ Conversely, ‘staying in the pack’ may keep you safe, but you won’t necessarily be moving in a direction that is organic to your values, and so the question becomes: what path can you take to capitalize on your inherent strengths and abilities, while minimizing your risk of holistic rejection?

As demonstrated in the short story above, the two poles of safety and freedom seem to have fractal applications. They are often disguised as each other, until, under the complication of externally applied value systems and social pressures, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern the true nature of a circumstance. Consider that our heroine has been told that she will never be able to sit by the meadow’s edge if she does not forgo her bodily needs and achieve enlightenment, but that the truly enlightened ones do not sit idly, and instead run freely through the trees. Both sitting still and moving constantly require discipline, and perhaps this is how the monastery justifies its methods, but how do shrivelled legs prepare you to run?

We discussed how American primary and secondary education has been distorted towards the lowest common denominator, and that this has led to a pervasive lack of risk taking, inspiration and individuality.¹⁴ If it is no longer acceptable to endeavor to teach children things that they may not be able to understand or that are frightening, at the risk of offending them or making them feel stupid, then how will those who are able to handle the discomfort ever recognize their ability to do so? How will those who are afraid ever learn that fear is an accessory of actualization, and something that can be conquered? How will teaching monotony lead to inspiration?

However, due to the deep roots of educational systems and their perceived social value in our country, rejecting institutional pedagogies indiscriminately in favor of independent learning is risky as well. Fantasizing about systemic overhaul may be nice, but is probably futile,¹⁵ and so learning how to ‘get along’ seems the most promising point of influence. For some reason, it is very important to museum-goers that the masters of our modern arts are first capable of wielding more traditional mediums and styles before they do things differently. Proving competence at conformity seems to be an adaptive trait. Perhaps this is because divergence then seems less threatening or more relatable. Or, perhaps this is because people don’t like feeling rejected, and rejection of the system feels like a rejection of the people who operate within it, whether or not the system is overtly oppressive.

The most adaptive people seem to be those that demonstrate empathy and understanding towards those who think or operate differently than they do, while also maintaining empathy for themselves. Empathizing with the natural rhythms and pressures of a system does not necessarily require operating within it, so long as you have mastered it or otherwise remain unthreatening.This seems to be the most adaptively advantageous point of balance between safety and freedom. Starting with empathy may provide opportunities for mutual learning and growth, it may lead to a balance of individual actuation and support, or, depending on the collective, it may only serve to free you from scrutiny as you pursue your own way. Sometimes a little compromise goes a long way, and sometimes it leads to risk-aversion or capitulation despite correctness or insight. This brings us to the balance of decay and adaptation.

Three

What is man that thou art mindful of him

Once she was deep into the woods and no light from the meadow reached her, she realized she had lost the stranger. Her throat clenched and tears of loneliness and fear slipped off her cheeks. She wiped them furiously away.

Standing there in the darkness, she wished for the first time in her life that this moment would swallow her whole. Deep in the woods as she was, she could simply cover herself with leaves, will herself to sleep, and be at peace at last.

Her waking dream dissolved abruptly when a flame erupted from the tip of a match near where she stood. The lighter gave a startled gasp upon seeing her face, but when their eyes met in the halo around the flame, she felt as though she had stepped into the sun. “Who are you?” he asked with a smile after a pause, and despite the misery she felt in asking herself the same question, she was consumed by pure and blissful joy that he wanted to know.

“A witch, or fool I think… if you wait long enough, perhaps a tree,” she said the words with a twinkle to mask her fear that she spoke the truth. “Well you’re dressed as a monk and you speak like a princess,” he said, and he gently held her hand as he led her out of the woods. Eventually they came upon a small cold frame greenhouse.

It was his home, and he cared for it diligently. Each morning, he explained, he would walk the perimeter to ensure that no pane of glass was broken by a bird in the night, and that every plant was well tended both inside and outside of the enclosure. He usually slept on a blanket that was folded in thirds on the floor, but because he now had a guest, he shook it out and folded it again, in half. The princess was delighted and felt immediately at home.

With their hands wound together, she closed her eyes to wonder at her luck, and while drifting off to sleep, she heard him do the same. With no moon above to set their clocks upon, the magnetic glow of new love curved every plant towards them as they slept. In the morning light when they awoke, every bud had blossomed.

For months they basked in blissful laughter that echoed in their dreams and sent the plants into a wild spurt of growth. They greeted new sprouts gleefully as proof beyond their hearts that showed the power of their bond. In time, the greenhouse trees grew tall, and cracked the ceiling of the structure. In their blind love, they did not see.

Her gardener prince awoke before her one morning to find a frosty sheet had bit the blooms of half his peonies and a third of his lilies. Almost all the buds of his blue nepeta rolled into a pile by his feet, carried by a gentle breeze. He traced its path, and found the crack. When she awoke, she found him weeping.

Upon seeing death, memories of her brother erupted from behind the levee their love had built around the still-living fragments of her heart. The dream she lived these past few months had caused her to forget herself, her brother, and the pain she left behind. She forgot the dam was built in haste, and now, treading grief, she looked upon her love in pain, and feared she was its harbinger. It dawned on her that she had left her kingdom before she learned the fate of her brother. If he was dead, perhaps she was a wanted woman. If he lived, perhaps he hated her, or perhaps the queen now hated him. How had she forgotten him? What had she done by bringing this new joyful love into her life without alarming him to the danger it put him in? Shame choked her as she watched him weeping. What fate had she damned him to by allowing him to love her? The chill in the air sent a shiver down her spine.

“My love”, she choked, “there’s something I must say,” and she told him everything. He left the house and did not return until nightfall. Under the full moon she watched through a frosted pane as he approached, and braced herself that he might send her on her way.

He met her with a kiss, and fell a broken man into her arms. They knelt upon their bed. In a soft whisper, he forgave her. “I understand your path, and what has led you here. Yet,” he warned, “I fear it’s futile still, for with our broken crop, we will not last the year.”

Freed from her secret and forgiven by her love, a lightness filled her. “No,” she said with a bowed head, “I will make this right,” and raising her eyes to his he saw a fire in them so fierce and strong he knew she did not lie. Leaving him to tend his plants, she did not run away, as she had after she thought she killed her brother, but instead set off for the town, and bought herself the fixings for a fence.

Decay and Adaptation

In The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben discusses how trees learn to support themselves by explaining the ways that they adapt to changing environmental conditions. When an old growth tree is felled, sometimes the trees around it that had been relying on it for support – either by leaning on its thick, sturdy trunk or by accessing nutrients from its root system, have a difficult time adapting to the canopy gaps created in its absence. Formerly comfortable trees become unstable, and it can take between three and ten years for them to become firmly rooted again.¹⁶

In the absence of a fallen neighbor, learning stability takes a lot of work, and is triggered by painful micro-tears that are caused by the tree bending in the wind. By redirecting energy towards strengthening its weak, painful areas, the tree can not grow upwards as quickly, and while the canopy gap means that there is more light available, leaves that have become adapted to low light are often very sensitive and tender to the sudden onslaught of scorching sun. Only after all foliage has been replaced will the tree finally feel comfortable again.¹⁷

If we apply this same principle and process to human adaptation and growth, where environmental factors are supplemented with social ones, it seems that it may be beneficial to rely on strong existing systems only insofar as they allow you to reach upwards, and only if you also take stock along the way of the atrophy and weaknesses within your own structure that develop due to redirected energies, and reliance on external supports.

This becomes complicated very quickly. By growing fast and relying on existing systems, you may grow taller but see catastrophic failure when your systems of support are removed, and by growing slowly, you may never see the full light of the sun. It seems then that some discomfort – or breaking and reforming – is adaptive, but too much can lead to disastrous consequences, depending on the individual and their ability to ‘take it’. This is the relationship between adaptation and decay that I wish to discuss. It becomes more complicated by the inability of most living beings to gauge the ‘self’ in relation to the environment, as exemplified by the ‘frog in boiled water’ syndrome discussed in class, in which adapting without a clear understanding of external circumstances can inadvertently lead to degradation.¹⁸

In the context of our modern era, where most efforts at inclusion seem to be premised on being inoffensive and sparing feelings, this is particularly concerning. If we refuse to acknowledge or accept the existence of potentially harmful environmental features, we will not be prepared to withstand them as they inevitably grow and adapt themselves. If we consider this trend in a global context against countries with less protective philosophies, it becomes very clear very quickly how defiantly unadaptive our country has become. ¹⁹

In class, we discussed how the advertising industry redirects our dominant collective emotive and reactive fluctuations towards profitability through targeted misdirection by association, and within government, political language is often used to convince the public that it is moving in a globally adaptive direction, while motives remain self serving. ^20,21

Growth – either to reinforce foundations or to stretch, involves sacrifice and hard work, and so accurately evaluating when it is most adaptive to grow upwards and when it might be better to reinforce systems of support seems essential for cultivating adaptive behavior. Because adaptive abilities vary between one person or system and the next, adaptation must be some function of external circumstances (the environmental pressures acting upon the self), intuition (immediate, instinctive reasoning) , and self reflection (accurately seeing the self in relation to the environment).

Over the course of each short story chapter, the Fool encountered moments in which she was forced to evaluate whether she should stay her course, pivot, or adapt. In the first chapter, she chose to leave her kingdom after identifying that the conditions for advancement towards her goals of inclusion would never be met, and in the second, she chose to pivot away from a monastic life after identifying a discord between the system requirements and its asserted output. In the third chapter, she adapted.

Based on this story, for the individual, it seems it would be helpful to regularly stress-test systems of operation for discordances between personal goals and systemic goals. Tracing trends through to historically-based projected outcomes may help individuals avoid adapting to faulty systems, and spare them the fallout from ‘sudden’ systemic failure. At the institutional scale, adaptive companies must appeal to values that are shared by a majority of the desired applicants, and that are forward looking, provide opportunities for upward mobility, provide observable indicators of advancement, provide opportunities for individual agency and growth, and promote causes that inspire investment.²² Perhaps most obviously and controversially, interest in adapting to a system seems to be related to the system’s interest in adapting to you.²³

Deeply embedded in the relationship between adaptation and decay is the role of time and memory. Our intuitions are based on our abilities to pick up social and environmental factors beyond our rational understanding, and our ability to listen to these intuitions is directly correlated with our ability to love and forgive ourselves, our fears, and our shortcomings in the context of these larger systems of operation. In the next and last section of this essay, I will elaborate on this point, reflected in the illusive and recursive nature of time.

Spring is the mischief in me

I introduced this essay by stating that if we can understand the nature of global sines, we can learn how to surf them. I discussed how we can learn our positions by reducing issues to their polar extremes, and how this removes complications from social hierarchical influence,²⁴ and now in conclusion, I will address the role of time, and maintenance in this analogy.

Robert Frost’s poem, The Mending Wall, demonstrates the value of good fences. Fences support healthy relationships and need periodic repair. When determining where to put a fence, you need to know where you and your space ends and the rest of the world begins. Our values represent points on a sine. In three dimensions, these points define nodes in a fence that are formed based on our experiences, the lessons we have learned, our memories and intuition. We inherit some nodes from our upbringings and conditioned experience, and we build some from scratch. Without regularly walking the perimeter, our fences may become overgrown, fall into disrepair, or be moved without our knowledge or consent.

Because discipline is an exhaustible resource, habit becomes our greatest defense against erosion over time.²⁵ Building the habit of fence maintenance and careful observation may, in some small way, counteract the fact that humans tend to only function fluidly at specific oscillatory speeds,²⁶ and miss movement that is much faster or slower in relation.^27,28

As time, and history have a way of repeating themselves, maintenance may also be a useful tool for pattern recognition, and an opportunity for learning and growth. As you watch, you may become better at noticing how systems periodically fluctuate, when and where some patterns occur, and how to best predict and react to them given the circumstances.

Our decisions, experiences, and emotions influence our positions on these sines. Adjacent frequencies can amplify and dampen each other like spin glasses,²⁹ and this makes it much harder to maintain good fences (and good neighbors).  We cannot predict all interactions between adjacent poles, or exactly how our actions may influence global sines.³⁰ Because of this, we can’t guarantee ourselves an indisputably optimum life trajectory, even if we consider the curve of time. We can, however, employ our gifts, our experiences, and our aspirations, to help us correct course when we deviate.

I expect that it may be obvious already, but in case it is not, I developed the short story embedded in this essay based loosely on my life experiences during graduate school. Each chapter reflects life lessons that I learned while at Harvard, and that I plan to take with me after graduating next month.

I learned that no matter how painful it is to acknowledge an unpleasant reality, it is far more cloying over time to deny that the situation exists in the first place, and wish it away. Shortly after I received my admissions letter to Harvard, I understood that there was no amount of accomplishment that I could attain that would influence my mother’s recognition of my worth or value, and no amount of work that I could do to earn her respect as an individual.

Once untethered from the prison of low-self esteem that accompanies futile striving for acceptance, I wish that I had immediately stabilized and begun to flourish, but I did not. Like the trees, it took me years to regrow every leaf, and along the way, I forgot why I decided to come back to school in the first place. In the absence of my mother’s influence, I became polarized against the GSD and myself, and it took a while before I realized that my behaviors and beliefs had become maladaptive. I found myself again, defiantly, through love.

I learned from this class that empathizing with the imperfect, dangerous, and at times magnificent systems in which we operate helps us to empathize with ourselves in turn. It may be futile to try fixing every systemic flaw, but it is within our power to look around us, and learn what we can. By doing so, we may learn how to better predict when the waves will break, when to duck our heads, and when to ride momentum to reach new heights. It’s not perfect, but it is better than allowing storms to take you by surprise, even as their smell precedes them.

As I look forward to graduation, and life beyond Harvard, I feel grateful for this course, and the lessons it taught me. For the first time at Harvard since stepping into the Druker Design Gallery four years ago, I feel like my unique skills, abilities, and intuitions contribute to my value as an individual and designer, rather than detracting from it. At twelve minutes before midnight, I finally learned how to measure the world against my values, instead of measuring myself against the world’s.

I may still be a fool, but at least now I have the tools I need to begin mending my fence, and I am sure it won’t be long until I am atop it, dancing again.

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