Principle of [In]sufficient Reason:

• The obscurity of what forces formed the final vector.
• Accepting that I may never know what all led to here
•     but deciding that I know enough.


• Montaigne's "this is all we have, and that's fine" mentality and Peter Dinklage's commencement address ("have already happened" line)

• A
  • Archery (to draw, hone, be the pen stroke on paper - no more, no less)
  • Awe
  • Adventure (and its key traits: found above and below)
  • Awareness
  • Appreciation
  • Acceleration
  • Aggressiveness
• B
  • Bravery
  • Bugs and birdsong (hear them, as I hear my wants and fears, without a stymie in my step)
  • Baroque musicians, unbothered by societally imposed myths of musicianship
• C
  • Compassion
  • Concentration, as with the candle flame
  • Can't fail, can succeed
  • Courage
  • Confidence
  • Childlike wonder
  • Competitiveness
• D
  • Dignity
  • Disdain, including for doubt
• E
  • Even though -- self-esteem; setbacks; nevertheless.
  • Engage. I choose to engage.
  • "Enclaves of order against entropy"
  • Enthusiasm
  • Efficacy
• F
  • Fear as opportunity
• G
  • Granular, not general (in terms of process, feedback)
  • Gratitude
• H
  • Heat
  • Hopefulness
• I
  • Industry
  • Internal locus of control

• Industry and effective operations
• Constructing (conjuring) devisements and strategies under uncertainty
• Impressions and perceptions
• Spatial and mechanical thinking
• Clear thinking; effective exposition and argumentation
• Learning from the masters; delighting in the historical song and dance of mathematical and scientific ideas
• Humanity's throughlines and timeless edifices
• Beautiful design, inspired problem solving
• "Thing"-ness, discrete invention and innovation
• Phenomenology and ontology, subjective experiences as primes, nostalgia, sensory limits, augmenting perception
• Identifying, contextualizing, and leveraging “idea landscapes" like Koutsaal mentions and the Flip Ship demonstrates; experimenting with institutional organization and incentives
• Micro-material design principles that can also be applied in macro situations (operations, optimization, origami, honeycombs)
• The heart-to-bursting, all-enveloping joy that community and collaboration bring

Geometer and and people person. Love the cultural psychological and operational. Projects light onto woodcarvings for fun.^[1]

I'm studying math and policy design. My math study is supes spatial. I experiment with media aplenty, using whatever I happen to snag from an ever-growing grab-bag of tools. Play is a constant. Emotional, social, and metacognitive skills deserve their own writeup. When I'm scared, I love myself.

My journey to now has endowed me with a willingness to mine the essential and recycle the remains. I'm fascinated by the limitations of human perception, beginning with the physical but extending to notions such as "context," "meaning," and "beauty."^[2].  I'm playing with math for the time being. Perhaps it will prove useful in exploring the vestibular system and exploitating its geometries for the good of others. In the abstract, I'm really into geometric group theory; after all, group theory is the study of symmetries, and geometric interpretations build intuition for our physical world. Doing so creates a bridge to central configurations and n-body problems, to choreographies (of bodies both human and celestial). Both vestibular and satellite dynamics can be captured in geometric nonholonomic mechanics -- also useful for describing rigid rolling bodies. Extending notions of duality and convex theory, I'm fascinated by operations and strategy under uncertainty. These will serve the theater on a few fronts. Stage dynamics, human physiology and proprioception, and operations (for when I work in production design, too).

The vestibular system is a crossroads of the senses. Beyond the self-adjusting equilibrioception that consolidates auditory and visual inputs -- then these with bodily awareness (proprioception) -- it turns out the vestibular system may be intimately related with our perception of time. One can imagine the cascade of functional effects or pathologies that might follow; I would imagine their scope is far greater than just vertigo. It's a wonderful opportunity space to tackle geometric, continuous, mechanical, and statistical problems. It also gives me an excuse to learn about the perceptions of creatures with whom we share this world. I'm likely to cap my formal education with a research master's degree. One day I'll start a production design company. Weekends and vacations are for motorcycles and travel.

I believe the social fabric of a locale should be better considered and delineated than it has been. I also believe that there’s a solution space far more sensually, psychologically, and aesthetically attuned just waiting to be plumbed.

I develop supplementary skills insofar as they help me to glean the essence of things, within or without, and in so doing hackle my adventurous spirit. It's all the better if one skill coheres with another, sewing consilience, but that would be incidental. I'm already seeing some incipient skills begin to intertwine. Who knows what I won't see coming next?

I prize uncertainty, recalibration, and raw, unabashed play. Life exists in the motion, the action, the disappearing now.

Sometimes I supplement the social studies germane to operations and policy by reading up on anthropology (semiotics, sensory ethnography), seeking lost or forgotten things to better grok how modern institutions are informed by ideology, narrative, and culture. I test my understanding of current events by participating in forecasting competitions. My love for diving into dusty troves dovetails conveniently with wanting to relay what I learn to the wider world. (!!! Reorganize this para / combo with para above about underrepresented social parameters)

Makerspaces and escape rooms are cool.

Meditation and exercise daily (dumbbell PPL; cardio through dance or VR). Cardio in the morning, lifting in the evening.

3 meals a day, heavily Mediterranean principles (mostly veg; protein mostly fish, nuts, or legumes; some [complex] carbs; fruit-based desserts). Minimal snacking.

I was sundered across and held in severance, rent in the negative space beneath a cloven roof. I will bind the cliffs of that aberrant abyss with a resurgent heat. Raze the stifled fields above, relieve the brimstone of its lightning, and plunge that fulminance into the horizon. Yield to me the vital dawn, the forgiveful dusk.