Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.
The Brazilians believe that one can imagine his life only as far as the years that he has lived. At this time, looking out to his thirty-sixth year, Pemulis saw little. In fact, he refused to even look. Most young men do, and therefore see, the same. Here and now, and even next, they embrace, but many years later, at the apogee of his younger self's vision of time, Pemulis not only looks, but seeks fervently, though with apprehension and uneasiness, the infinite paths of a life tree before him. Years earlier, the turns, left or right down the infinite tree, held a far lighter weight; the chosen path opened further routes, and those routes could always re-connect with that which might have unfurled but for an earlier decision. The chosen passage now is heavy and rather than expanding the tree below, each choice leads to a pruning of the tree's roots, and unchosen pathways disappear forever. The ultimate fate of the infinite tree leads inexorably towards its beginning; the big crunch is on the horizon. No longer does the infinite tree expand, but it begins to contract.
And so, rather than choosing the optimal path (which alas is intractable), Pemulis seems to seek the untenable: forgo the stability of a tree with a strong base (for the correct path leads to strong roots); forgo the search for the ideal choices at every step; forgo homo economicus (for he is not him). Rather, take actions that lead to the fewest paths being pruned. Is it a harder problem? Why seek comfort only to flee its eventual embrace? The search for the true path is age-old: to only want what you cannot have. This is a Taleb Distribution. We can take it directly from the definition: "there is a high probability of a small gain, and a small probability of a very large loss, which more than outweighs the gains. In these situations the expected value is very much less than zero, but this fact is camouflaged by the appearance of low risk and steady returns". Vorsicht, Pemulis, for you know not what you do.
Pemulis, this is your editor. Dumb of you to hire me to do it when you could have chosen your dad who is actually qualified. However, people get chosen to do work they're not qualified to do all the time while those who are qualified (typically it's because they weren't born in the right country) get passed over.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, all this to say that because you're not 36 yet, you haven't lived 36 years.
The rest of the post was cool, but that was a major oversight. Almost as major as using me as an editor instead of your dad. The English language totally confuses and escapes me and there are likely 5 or more grammar issues with my comment. Feel free to point them out, but act quickly, your dad is likely ready to pounce all over it.