I just realized Vulfpeck has released one thing a year since their founding in 2011. I have written here before about my admiration for Cory Wong producing 8 albums in 2020. I am on a good trajectory with so many papers in the pipeline in 2021...
I want to do a deep dive in 2021.
Work. Crank out proposals and grants.
Nutrition and fitness. 6 days a week. Swim, run, lift, bike. Make new recipes.
Sleep. 7+ hours a night.
Music. Get the Bach Cello Suite #2, prelude at least, in playable shape.
I don't want to lose the ability to have this feeling, ever. The feeling I get from listening to Lucca EST, which graces my ears thanks to Bartolomey & Bittmann. (And the same for Wo Der Hund.) That is the goal - to achieve that sort of high.
The high that I felt when listening to Arstidir's Christmas concert today.
The high that I feel playing jazz. Or Bach. Or the kind that I would presumably feel playing bluegrass or progressive jazz-rock.
Alive.
Jankowski's gone now. I am 100% certain he would want me to keep going. Words have meaning. Use language carefully.
As long as I live, I will keep the fire burning.
Things going through my head at the moment...
...I hope I can get a bunch of publications submitted in the next couple months before I go up for renewal.
...I hope I can get at least a couple more proposals submitted before renewal is due as well. There's the DOE pre-proposal due in January. There's the DNA nanoparticles proposal that's due whenever. There's the NSF thingy with Pilgyu...December 9.
...I wonder if my achievements in these areas are commensurate with the mental energy I devote to thinking about them.
...In all these arenas, I need to build good habits. While running the other day, I had a vision of charging heartily straight in the right direction. While practicing I have a vision of doing just one small finger maneuver which I know for certain takes me in the right direction. I need to hone that. I need to honor it and apply it to my work as a professor. As I said to Jayme tonight, "bring the target closer." I need to start by mastering stage one, and then advancing.
Relaxed muscles move faster and with more agility.
Went back to the apartment today just briefly. I had the entire empty living room to myself, plus Lowla. Something about being in that room with nothing else happening made me let loose a little bit. I played expressively and for a few brief moments, I got a glimpse of what it feels like to have Bach really gel. Pretty cool.
During this impromptu performance, I allowed my fingers to be a little more loose and found that this yielded a nicer sound up and down the fingerboard. I wonder if this could be a kind of metaphor for other forms of creating things.
When doing creative scientific work, I need to get in that same frame of mind. Non-judging. And don't always look at your hands. Just close your eyes and let the melody come forth.
A strange creative confidence is coming over me. I feel free to express myself at the moment.
It started with a thought that goes something like: "what will sound pleasing to me?" "What will add to the groove?" This idea is applicable to playing bass, of course (I'm into smooth jazz playalongs lately...), but also to other areas of my creative life.
I think I noticed it when I was working on a recommendation letter for a student to study at a program in Japan. It's funny, I was kind of dreading writing this letter, but it turned out to be kind of fun. I think with more experience writing these letters, I've started to branch out and express myself a little bit more than I otherwise would. It reminded me of some of the sentences in my NSF GRFP application...things like "the battle against environmental damage would indeed be joined" or something along those lines. I think those will be key to further success in grant writing.
Good proposals are about dreams. You need to invite the reader to dream along with you. To inspire them to think about what might be possible. The emotion needs to suffuse the writing, because panelists and program managers are people too.
Since we've moved into the new house, I have been trying to be more fully myself around Jayme and in general. There have been several instances in which I've said something that I might've been a little embarrassed to say out loud, but went ahead and did it anyway. The general idea is to decrease the barriers and roadblocks between a thought occurring to me and me vocalizing it. I don't want to just speak in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, and words must be chosen carefully, but at the same time, I need to get more thoughts out onto the page.
A Piccardy third at the end of a sometimes-difficult day.
I was inspired by the WaPo conversation today on "Chasing Cancer." When I hear that immunotherapy doesn't work for a lot of solid cancers, I am reminded of why I am in this job.
Running the 4-VA program is a good test of my leadership abilities. I feel up to the challenge. May I continue to push myself and my team ever further. And also remind them to have fun.
Commit to daily practice. Do one small thing every day that will get you a little bit closer.
Thoughts from Dennis Hong:
“Everyone falls sooner or later.
But when u get up from your fall,
u become a bit stronger
a bit smarter and
a bit wiser.
So when u fall again next time,
which u will,
u will fall a bit better
get back up a bit easier and
get near your goals a bit closer.”
Condemning myself gets me nowhere. Worrying gets me nowhere. It's hard not to feel inadequate when viewing the awesome achievements of people in similar positions to me. But I must remember that I'm not them and they're not me. Everyone's situation is, indeed, different.
The MIT seminar I attended on impostor syndrome concluded by saying it's not an entirely bad thing. It can be good if you channel it properly. Sometimes, when I'm stressed I can be propelled into productivity.
Getting myself into a state of healthy stress forces me to grow. Something propelled me into action when I was studying jazz bass with Dwight Kilian, and I think it had something to do with him calling me out on my intonation or time feel. Something caused me to grow while a student of Jankowski, and I think it was the feeling of inadequacy I got when subjected to the Socratic method in front of my peers, and his withering remarks when I messed up an answer to one of his questions.
Today, I was in the midst of writing when Jayme asked me to take Agnes to the vet. I was perhaps a little more irritated than I needed to be by this. By the time I got back I was in a somewhat more productive state. It consistently happens - somehow I'm made to feel like I'm not up to snuff, and it works.
On one clip from the Jocko podcast where he's asked about feeling inadequate, Jocko referred to some folks who "try to hide it. They're afraid to ask questions, afraid to say they don't know so they end up looking scared and stupid...which equates to looking incompetent." He spoke of a beloved captain who "asked questions, asked for guidance, and admitted his mistakes."
On episode 221, Jonny Kim said, "You should never think you are too good to do a job. Be a forever new guy. Never think that you are above taking out the trash."
The dream is alive.
Quick post: why not post videos like Jeniree (post on LinkedIn tagged by Charlie and Keilys) about becoming a US citizen? I need to find opportunities to continue opening up to people (e.g. Jayme, Laurie, myself, this blog...) If it's something I feel in my heart, it deserves to be shared in some way.
Frustrating today. On Friday, I was led to believe that a DARPA program manager might be interested in ideas relating to thermal management of satellites. It sounded like a job for AHTF. I've been wanting to get DARPA funding for this for a while now: it's high-risk high-reward, and could be useful for a variety of defense applications. A couple years ago, Prof. Qiliang Li encouraged me to go big with the idea. He said, "this is not an NSF idea; this is a DARPA idea." (Sidenote: I appreciate him for encouraging me like that. I could write a separate post about people like him and John Martin who lift others up.)
Anyway, after looking through the opportunity announcement for this year's DARPA Young Faculty Award, I couldn't find any of their interest areas that fit neatly with this idea. I got sucked into my usual pattern of impostor syndrome, feeling like I don't have the skills, etc. I ended up going down a rabbit hole and missing out on an opportunity to watch a show with Jayme and we got into a minor tiff. I started to get down on myself.
And then I stopped. I thought, "I can refuse." I can refuse to go down that self-defeating path ever again. If I take that mental energy and channel it instead into actually doing something, what could I achieve? It's not actually as hard as I made it out to be.
On Jocko Willink's podcast, Jonny Kim said something to the effect of: "If you get back up every single time you fail, you will have a positive impact on the world." He also said, "I'm not gifted. I'm not smarter than everybody else. I'm not stronger. I just have the ability to stick to a plan and not quit." Grit paragon.
No matter what happens with any of these opportunities, I will never give up.
"You're going to run for President someday."
That line, spoken by President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) to Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) in the West Wing reunion episode, could have been spoken to me. It made me simultaneously think of what I could become and see how a true leader empowers those working for him.
I was remembered "for [my] intelligence" in elementary school. I can be remembered for my fierce intellect going forward.
From here on, I will lead. I will empower others. I will empower myself.
Amidst the chaos, I must continue to create.
A lot of the books I've read over the past couple of years in an effort to improve my productivity (whose efficacy so far has yet to be demonstrated definitively) boil down to a simple thing: set aside time, every single day, when you chip away at difficult things.
Deep Work talks about "lead measures." Tenure Hacks calls them "billable hours." How to Write a Lot talks about making a writing schedule and sticking to it, making writing a banal habit instead of a major event.
I need to take a cue from people like Cory Wong who continually crank out album after album. I'm still not sure what the proper units are for me. Papers? Proposals? Something in between?
What if I just say to myself "I am going to create research-related things from 9 to 10 AM every single day this week, and see where it takes me?"
Today, sending emails and revising the documents for the JMU/GMU joint capstone program served as a catalyst to get me in the frame of mind of a leader. I often struggle to get myself to work productively or stay focused or be a leader or whatever. But this... this is the kind of professor I want to be. And this is how I get there.
It's an attitude. It's a version of the attitude Dwight Kilian exemplified in those formative years I spent studying with and being influenced by him. It's like Cullen said: Act like royalty before you receive your crown. Act like a leader and look like a leader before you are given leadership.
This is how I will conduct myself at work from now on.
Watching an NYT documentary on "Slomo" - a 69-year-old guy who left a medical career to pursue his passion for skating. It reminds one of Bill Watterson's statement "having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another." Of course, it would be ideal to have both, but they are indeed separate. The guy seems to have found his happy place, even if people mistake him for a homeless guy.
It's hard not to turn it on myself and see what it means for me. For me, science is sometimes a passion, sometimes a job. I don't think Slomo would say that everyone who has a demanding job that requires a doctorate needs to abandon it and just skate around all day.
But we need to find ways to feed our souls with our science. I need to take a step back, amidst all my proposal submissions, and reassess: what matters to me?
What is it that really gets my heart racing about mechanical engineering?
Today, I saw a news release saying that Hyundai had started to build flying cars that it expects to be zipping around cities by 2028. In 2020, my instinct is to say, "fat chance." But it could happen. I need to have the same forward-thinking attitude towards my science. As Bob Langer said, "make the discoveries of tomorrow." As Ron Adrian supposedly said, "do what everyone else is doing...5 years before they do it." Could chemokinesis be key?
I'm inspired these days by Joe Dart's general statement "play as much music with as many different people as possible" or something along those lines during the interview with him. Inspired by that line of thinking, I shall continue to get involved in many different projects and contribute to the fullest extent to each one.
I built some momentum last month with the submission of the CDMRP and IMAT proposals, as well as the paper submission to Nature Communications and, subsequently, Scientific Reports. I shall continue that momentum this month with more papers and grants.
I really enjoyed the brainstorming session with JMKM today on the relationships between turbulent flows and history. It increased my confidence in my own ability to come up with new, interesting ideas. I shall exercise the idea muscle daily.
I'm seeing the need and utility in feeling like I'm being a "jerk." Especially up front in a project or a semester, I want to enforce high standards on everyone (including me). I have to stick up for myself at the end of the day.
I can feel my faith in myself beginning to grow.
I must continue to speak in my very own voice. "I am now allowing myself to be more and more excited." Et cetera. Be exactly as badass and careful with words as I really am.
Let me be emboldened to put in the work. Daily.
I finished the thing. Well, I need to iron out an issue with my biosketch. But I finished it.
Sometimes you need a video like Ballercello to lift the spirit. It did that for me in this moment.
I will charge forward. It doesn't matter how hard it is, I will fight for my dreams.
I must watch my thoughts. They turn into actions. My actions turn into habits, which become who I am (in large part).
Today I had a good run while at the office. I was able to get into a groove and start getting words onto the page felt good. Tomorrow I will make another run at it.
Mark my words - I am going to finish this thing. Maybe it will get funded, maybe it won't, but the value in this exercise is in the finishing.
I talked about some cool research ideas with Xun today that I don't want to forget, so I am putting them here.
Bliss: (n) listening to Wo Der Hund after getting myself into a relaxed state.
I aspire to the level of creativity that Bartolomey and Bittmann achieve. I shall not aim to follow in their footsteps. I will seek what they sought: I will push the limits (in the words of Bartolomey).
Quite the romantic vision, taking trains through Europe, drinking espresso, etc. Over time, I will develop my own style that is entirely new. I will incorporate things I like, but also force myself to create, again and again and again.
The thing I did today that enhanced the AHTF project was to delve deep in the meeting, to start thinking about the nitty-gritty details of this project: How is the propulsive force going to be applied in the simulations? Finally, after more than three years of thinking about it, I have the chance to actually try to answer this scientific question that's been vexing me.
Also, apparently we're into house hunting now. I'm actually OK with it, and perhaps I'm more OK with it than I should be, but I just don't tend to think too hard about these things. It would be nice to have a place to play my bass and record video lectures (e.g. set up a whiteboard wall).
Meanwhile, I must continue to do whatever it is that agitates me into productive action. Watching Steve Brunton videos and 3b1b lectures helps. It reminds me to sharpen my own game because I know I've got the chops to compete with those guys.
I need to step it up, but I generally feel okay with how things are proceeding.
Writing the email to the JMU/GMU joint capstone collaboration reminded me that I am a leader. Specifically, the commands using the imperative tense, the succinct and targeted writing, the concrete instructions. This is my new normal. This will be my fuel to cut down on wasted time in the coming days. I can't afford to waste time anymore.
The things I did today to advance the AHTF project:
I am fucking inspired.
I'm not sure why, but I was compelled to search for the research thumbnails that the MIT NSE department posted to their YouTube channel a few years ago, particularly Scott Kemp's, because I liked the professorial way he said "I want to update you on..." It made the rest of what he had to say seem more interesting. Almost immediately I went down a rabbit hole of different videos. I saw a thumbnail that Artyom, one of Jacopo's students, recorded about his research on boosting CHF margins in LWRs after I left MIT, and it brought a smile to my face (I'm Facebook friends with his dad, Sergey!)
I watched the first few minutes of Mike Short's introductory lecture to 22.01, the introductory class to ionizing radiation that I audited a few times. I loved the way he absolutely hit the ground running with his class and got to talking about the content, in a compelling and exciting way, almost immediately.
I also watched some of Scott's talk at the APS March Meeting in 2019, which absolutely piqued my interest.
All this increased my gratitude and wonderment at the fact that I have this job at all.
May I honor this gift that the universe has given me. May I use these videos as inspiration and fuel. For the critical ingredient, the sine qua non, is inspiration. It will propel me forward.
In this moment, more than in most recent moments, I know that this life is the life for me.
I feel grateful to have my wife with me during these times. That's about all I am feeling right now.
I like being Jeff Moran. I would rather not be anyone else.
But sometimes it seems like it would be good to be Joe Dart. The fact that he played bass in Vulfpeck would have been enough. But then on a casual perusal of his Instagram account (which I have to do on my phone since Insta doesn't allow people without Insta accounts to view posts on the computer), I noticed a video clip about some group called "The Olllam." I was intrigued. I love Celtic music, and have ever since falling in love with Punch Brothers about a decade ago. It turns out Joe is their bass player, or at least has been accompanying them on their albums and tours, though he may not be an official member of the group.
What a life that must be. It's hard not to think "wow, if that were me, I would be deliriously happy."
And why shouldn't I shoot for that in my own life?
I have it pretty damn good. I just got about $71k from NSF to pursue an idea that I think is cool. That's pretty damn awesome. And I'm going to keep going. Why not use Joe as an inspiration to push myself further?
Play bass in a Celtic band myself?
To record the Bach inventions on the upright + electric basses, as I'd wanted to before?
To study chaotic dynamical systems, like Steve Brunton?
Let me seek what I seek, as they sought what they sought.
"To be a person of knowledge, one must be light and fluid."
Decent day back at work today.
I had a very productive few hours working at the FFX office. Didn't think too much about it. Just went to the main office, chatted with Ardiana. Stopped by Nathan's office and had an important conversation that led to him sharing the notes from 351 with me. And, of course, had a good Webex meeting with Remi's group and gave Shrishti some feedback on her presentation. I'm proud of her.
Then I drove home and listened to a few tracks from Mr Finish Line, and felt a wonderful warm feeling of enjoyment. I remember thinking that different stuff makes different people come alive. For Preet Bharara, it's justice. For Remi, it's probably DNA nanoparticles. For me, it's a mix of things, and that's what I like about me.
I'm also proud of myself for working from 10:30ish until 2:15ish, and crossing some things off my to-do list.
Generally, I want to remember the feeling of being "light and fluid." I didn't think too much, I just did it. There isn't much to it in the end.
Short post today.
From James Clear:
"A few things you need to achieve exceptional results:
1) Quantity: You take lots of shots.
2) Quality: You take thoughtful shots.
3) Consistency: You keep shooting for a long time.
4) Feedback. You take better shots over time.
5) Luck: You get a few favorable bounces."
I have decided, in the spirit of the above (and previous posts on here), to submit 1 proposal or 1 paper per month, from here to renewal time. I hope to have some of all 5 of these along the way.
Today, after hearing more horror stories about how some people are currently suffering, I am grateful to simply be alive and healthy and able to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I must treasure my health.
"Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas, in that order." - Patrick Henry Winston (1943-2019)
So let me get to doing more speaking and more writing.
Generally, I've had a decent day. Had some ups (nice run, yummy breakfast burrito + aglio e olio for dinner, discovering some truths about pancreatic cancer, listening to Cory Wong's latest album, Agnes attempting unsuccessfully to jump onto my journal on the desk), some downs (Bob refusing to share his notes with me for some odd reason), some in-betweens, but overall not so bad.
Cory Wong is a beast. 4 albums this year? It's not even September. Goes to show what one can achieve when one puts one's mind to things.
I'm legitimately excited to do microfluidics modeling in COMSOL again. I feel in my element.
James Altucher's spammy email of the day was entitled "All I want to do is play." It made me think: what is my ideal mix of play and work? What's the difference between the two anyway? I wonder how Cal Newport would square his "Don't follow your passion" advice with the quote from James Michener: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both. ”
I need to stop writing about productivity and start being productive.
I know what I need to focus on.
Just discovered the videos of Steven Brunton, who is apparently a prof at the UW, and he got his PhD in 2012. 90 pubs. 3 books. h-index 40. PECASE. Essentially the dream career of an assistant prof.
I'm simultaneously jealous, inspired, and...I don't know what. But I know that this is the kind of professor I want to become. In the past, I would get down on myself about things like this. Would get on my own case, say that I made bad choices in college, that I should have taken my fellowship and gone elsewhere, but...all that shit is irrelevant.
The point is: what am I going to do about it?
Am I going to continue to berate myself for not being more productive? Or, perhaps, can I harness the energy, motivation, and healthy stress from reading about the achievements of others, bring the blood flow to my brain, and channel it into my own work?
I just want to do whatever I possibly can to bring the best out of myself.
I make the conscious choice not to compare myself to anyone else anymore. I will simply seize this opportunity I have been given. I will put myself on a deadline so that every month, I will submit either one grant or one proposal or both.
I will fight my way through. My hand on my heart. I promise.
I had a good moment today.
I was chatting with Matthew Tao, a recent Purdue ME graduate who's about to commence his graduate studies at UC-Berkeley. I've had on-off experiences with research meetings lately. Not sure what it is. But prior to this meeting, I thought "just let me sink into the discussion."
The meeting with Matt was one of the instances when I said to myself "there's not a thing I would change about that." I just talked science. We got into the weeds. I solved an issue he was having, and that made me feel good about myself. We often say those words in jest, or we only say that when we're being facetious. But it's good to feed good about yourself sometimes. By definition, it feels good.
It felt like this job was fun. It felt like maybe, just maybe, this could end up being worth it.
I need to figure out how to cultivate this attitude in myself. Not going to put huge pressure on. Just need to put myself in more situations where the ideas just flow freely. I think it largely boils down to trusting my own instincts and abilities, and letting them guide me.
Let me sink into tomorrow.
