the random oracle

French bureaucracy is reknowned for its sluggishness and unresponsiveness, but every once in a while it can move with startling speed.  When I arrived in Paris and went to sign my employment contract, I was greeted with a piece of paper addressed to M David XIOA, who was a Chinese citizen, and whose contract ended August 31, 2009.  Needless to say this would not fly with the French government when I apply for a residence permit, so the whole thing had to be redone.

The kind ladies who were responsible (both for the problem and for fixing it) told me that it took over 3 months to get the original contract, so it might take another 3 months to get it fixed.  I told them that this would not work: I needed to apply for my residence permit within 2 months of arriving.  They told me they’d see what they could do.

Lo and behold a short 5 days later I had a new corrected contract, signed and all.  It goes to show you that when you put a fire under their seat the French are able to hop into action and get things done.  Now if only I could open a cell phone contract…

It’s gonna be a busy summer!  If you’re in any of the following places at the following times, let me know and we’ll hang out / catch up / explore.

Midwest:

May 9 - 11: Chicago
May 12 - 13: Urbana, IL
May 14: Madison, WI
May 15 - 19: Minneapolis, MN

DC:
May 29 - June 2

California:

June 8 - 15: LA
June 15 - 21: Bay Area

Europe:

July 14 - 18: Paris
July 18 - ??: Somewhere (Dublin? Madrid? Suggestions?)

America:

August ?? - probably taking a road trip somewhere, any recommendations / offers to crash on your couch?

Last night I went to the Natick Mall, the scene of many prior jaunts back when I lived in Wayland.  I hadn’t been back in several years and the whole place has been completely transformed in the meantime.  The size of the mall itself has nearly doubled, but in addition the new sections are populated with high-end retailers like Ferragamo, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and the like, as well as being anchored by Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.  The whole place is flanked by a ring of condos that link to the mall internally so that the moneyed residents don’t need to ever step foot outdoors to get any of their luxury shopping done.  The complex itself is actually quite impressive, the expansion was done quite tastefully with lots of natural sunlight coming through the glass sunroof and large open spaces inside.

My main impression however was how many teenagers were putzing around the mall.  Somehow living in Manhattan I’d forgotten that there was this awful stage of human development called adolescence… you don’t really see many teenagers hanging out in New York.  Either they don’t exist, or they’re much better at pretending to be grown-up than the suburban variety.  But here they were, in the Natick Mall, in all their hormonally confused, sexually frustrated, acne-ridden, and socially awkward glory.  There were the skanky hos, wearing neon tube-tops and short shorts as if they were going out in Ibiza (in 1985), the slackers in their hoodies, the wannabe thugs in their gold chains and baggy pants, the goths, the jocks, the lipsticks, and so on and so forth.  I’d forgotten about all these little tribes and how much they meant back in high school… not that we don’t have our own tribes now, but somehow we seem to be able to get along better ever so slightly.  Maybe we do grow up at some point… or at least we get better at pretending to get along.

Those of you who’ve heard me complaining about New York know that I lost my infatuation with the city a while back.  Don’t get me wrong there are still things about it that I love: the fact that everything’s open late, the excitement in the air, the creative and talented people you meet, the diversity in all aspects, the people it draws from all over the world, the all-night subway, and so on.

But something has been nagging me and did not feel quite right.  I had two main culprits in mind: my poverty and the difficulty of dating here.  But, like a physicist in search of a Grand Unified Theory, I thought there might be something more fundamental behind it all.  And now I have my theory: what really bothers me about New York is excessive ambition.  The most visible aspect of it is money, and the unimaginable amounts people spend on apartments, restaurants, and luxuries here is mind-boggling.  But I’ve decided that money is just a symptom, not the source, of what bothers me.

Everyone here is trying to outdo everyone else.  It’s all about who got a bigger bonus.  Who went on the most exotic vacation.  Who has the nicest apartment.  But it’s not just about money, it pervades everything else too.  Who knows the most obscure restaurants.  Who knows the password for that underground bar.  Who’s in on the latest fashion.  Who is recycles more.  Who has more angst.

Ambition and a desire to outdo others leads to excellence, but it also leads to neurosis.  What really bothers me about New York is how far on the neurotic end of ambitious it is.  New York shouldn’t stop pursuing the next great thing, or else it wouldn’t be New York.  But I think it (and people here) could stand to take a second every once in a while to stop and appreciate that, gee wow, we’ve already got it pretty good here.

One positive side-effect of this financial crisis is that fewer people will stop working in finance.  A significant fraction of my friends went into finance after college and I don’t think there has been a single one who has said to me, “I love my job, I think I’m helping people, I’m improving the world, and I feel fulfilled professionally.”  Instead what I heard was that, “Well you know the hours suck, my boss is an asshole, and I’m basically skimming money off the top of a big bubbling cauldron of mysterious financial goo, but at least my bonus last year was six figures.”

Finance has attracted so many talented, hard-working people into its fold with the lure of easy money, a fast lifestyle, and early retirement.  It offered an easy route for kids who might have come from modest family backgrounds to become multi-millionaires within years of graduating from college, easily making their parents’ lifetime incomes many times over.

And the rest of the world has suffered as these bright minds were tempted into what essentially is the task of shifting money around.  Now granted the allocation of capital is an important task; money that sits in a pile collecting dust does no one any good.  But somehow the amount of money that was made doing this investment and redistribution was always surreal, and now we’ve found out that indeed it was all a mirage.

Maybe if more of the people who went into finance had gone instead into government and figured out sensible ways of regulating the investment banks maybe this crisis would never have happened.  Maybe if more of them had gone into science and worked on renewable fuels we would be one step closer to energy independence.  Maybe if more of them had gone into the civil service we would have better diplomats and friendlier relations with the rest of the world, we would have a healthcare system that isn’t falling apart, and we would have teachers who actually know the subjects they are entrusted to teach.

And maybe after the dust settles after this crisis people will re-consider their alternatives more carefully and choose one of those jobs instead of finance.  We will always need bankers and financiers, but do we really need so many?  And does finance really deserve to employ such a large fraction of our best and brightest?  Without the lure of 6-figure bonuses (that had little correlation to actual value created), maybe we will shift back towards an economy and a society that actually produces wealth, culture, innovation, and prosperity instead of producing the illusion thereof.

The whole Madoff scandal is absolutely incredible.  How can one man steal $50 billion?  What does that even mean?  Did he spend it all?  Did he stash it in a Swiss bank?  Did he just have a big hundred-thousand-dollar-bill bonfire?

Unfortunately this scandal is emblematic of the entire go-go decade, as Paul Krugman so eloquently put it. We’ve been living in a fantasy world where unrealistic returns are viewed as normal and no questions are asked about just where all this magic money is coming from.  How exactly does the SEC, not to mention all the other regulatory authorities that Madoff evaded, miss such an incredibly ridiculously enormous fraud?

If Madoff is (almost certainly) convicted of the crimes he committed, what will be his punishment?  Should he go to a white-collar jail and live out the rest of his life in relative comfort?  How exactly does that work anyway?  What exactly is the “harshest” punishment that should be meted out in such situations?  We commonly hold the death penalty to be the harshest punishment available; does it fit in this situation?  Is it commensurate with the crime, or inappropriate because the crime wasn’t violent?

I’m still on the fence about whether the death penalty itself is humane or not.  I have my reservations about whether we as imperfect fallible people have the right to judge whether someone else lives or dies.  But I do believe that, assuming that the death penalty is acceptable, there should be no question that someone like Madoff, if proven guilty, should receive it.  He has caused almost incomprehensible harm to such a vast number of people that we will be picking up the pieces for years if not decades.  Maybe no one has died directly at his hands, but the number of lives that he’s ruined, the number of organizations that are now bankrupt because of his actions, the immeasurable wealth squandered because of his crimes has resulted in far greater harm to this country and to the world than any single act of violent crime could ever cause.  If this judicial system has any pretentions to justice, I hope that it lays down a punishment that’s comparable with the judgments it’s laid down for other crimes, and makes Madoff pay as dearly as anyone possibly can for his crimes against his investors and, more pertinently, for his crimes against humanity.

Family today means something different than it used to mean.  People don’t live next to their parents and grandparents anymore, and it may be years between when brothers and sisters see each other.  A child might be cared for by just her mother or just her father, or maybe even just her aunt or uncle. But those bonds are no less important and no less valuable than what the Mormon church or the Catholic church tells you family should be.

In fact, those bonds of family are our anchors in this age where everything moves increasingly faster, where our lives can change overnight with a layoff, a cancer diagnosis, or an order to go to Iraq, and we are helplessly swept along in the tide of vicissitudes and upheavals.  Those bonds of family are what keep us grounded, keep us sane, and provide us a bit of shelter in this cold, difficult world.

Family is all the more precious to those of who are gay because so many of us risk losing them simply because of who we are.  I dreaded my parents’ reaction when I came out to them… for a few days, a few weeks even I thought that I might have permanently damaged those bonds.  I can’t say that those bonds have fully healed, but at least the immediate danger of losing them completely is gone.  There’s nothing scarier in this world than to think your parents might abandon you simply for who you are, and it’s something that I wouldn’t wish on anyone else.

With very few exceptions, we are born with our family, we can’t choose them.  We can’t go down the street to the courthouse to get a new mom or dad, a new brother or sister.  We have to make the best of what we’re given at birth, come what may.

There is only one exception to this rule, one family member that we all have the right to choose.  Well, I should say that YOU have the right to choose since we don’t.  You have one choice, one chance in this life to share with someone the intimacy, shelter, love, and companionship of being married, of forming your own family.

That’s what marriage today is about.  Whether it’s just the two of you or you have kids, whatever your race or religion might be, whether you married your high-school sweetheart or found a new love in your golden years, however you choose to express your love and commitment to each other, your marriage is your choice to share your life with someone and to build one together.

Your husband or wife is the one family member that you get to pick.  That’s your choice, your chance.  Shouldn’t we get that chance too?