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The Large Professor
Portals To The Present

By John M Berardi
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Jul 4 2003.

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Although I don’t often like to admit it, I’m gonna just go ahead and say it anyway – I’m a busy guy. Now I don’t normally admit to my busy-ness because there’s rarely a situation in which this admission would be advantageous. After all, I’m willing to bet that there’s probably no one walking the face of the earth that thinks they’re un-busy. Therefore hoping for a fellow human being’s sympathy by telling them that you’re busy is roughly the equivalent of hoping for an Eskimo’s sympathy by telling him that Ontario winters are cold. I’m afraid that he just won’t shed a tear for me, let alone offer up a pair of long underwear.

But today I admit to my busy-ness - not for sympathy - but in order to juxtapose my usual and formidable Science Link and University of Western Ontario activities against my few pensive moments of un-busy bliss. That’s right, once in a while the ol’ gray matter does get some much-needed rest as it sinks back in its comfy recliner, props up the ol’ brainstem, burns a well constructed Cuban, and waxes philosophical. As a result of my recent travels as well as the fact that the Large Professor should be finishing his grand educational escapade in December – then it’s Dr. Large Professor to you – I’ve been doing more waxing that the Karate Kid. We’re talking mounds of metaphysical musing.

With graduation looming on the horizon, the end of a ten-year journey is coming near and my recent mental reclines have been focused on one particular thought – what I’m gonna do when I grow up. Not only don’t I know what I’m gonna do, I don’t even know how to go about figuring it out. It’s my guess that this is an issue for most of you - no matter your age. I also figure that as many as there are individuals, there are are motivations driving them toward a particular path in life. Some probably defer to what their parents do or did. While fine - that’s not for me. Others probably defer to what they dreamt about as a kid. Since I never did quite grow to WWF proportions, I guess that’s out as well. Yet others probably go for what’s going to make them the most money. However 10 years of university and relative poverty has probably broken most of the materialistic bones that were once in my body. Yet others probably just pick what they’re good at and do more of it. Now that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing - but since I’m good at a number of things that I don’t enjoy all that much, I think I need another criterion.

What I think I’ll end up doing is deferring to what’s always worked – what’s gotten me to where I am now. Yep, I think what I’ll do is ask myself the question - “what is it that I really like to do?” I asked this question back when considering majors for University and although Business seemed more lucrative and English was what I was good at, I picked Health Science (with a focus in Exercise Physiology) and played around with Psychology and Philosophy. I simply liked these more. When it came time for grad school, Med School seemed the thing to do but when I asked myself what I really liked, Ex Phys and Nutritional Biochem rose to the forefront. I simply liked these more.And when it came time to pick a dissertation topic, exercise in senior populations was very fund-able but when I asked myself what I really liked, I realized that I needed to study athletes despite the lack of funding in this area. I simply liked this work more.

So, with my PhD work coming to a head this year, I’ve asked myself what I really like to do. Here’s the short list.

-I like to dance to the Latin pop rhythms of Ricky Martin, sliding dramatically in socked feet, across my kitchen floor during a particularly spirited chorus -

"Livin’ La Vida Loca!”

- I like to sob obnoxiously; loudly honking my runny nose into a soft Kleenex during re-runs of Dawson’s creek – especially the episodes with montage sequences of Dawson and Joey’s young exploits – revealing an immature love that would not stand the test of adulthood and responsibility. These episodes just tug at my heartstrings - very cathartic.

- On some days I like science a whole lot, especially when it’s time to analyze the data that I’ve spent the last few months arduously collecting. For those that haven’t had this pleasure, it’s kind of a Christmas morning feeling in which the long months of uttering little more than words of the four-letter variety seem but a distant memory.

- Writing exercise and nutrition articles – that’s is pretty ok too, although my enthusiasm is sometimes tempered by the difficult articles – the ones that can be so brutally unrewarding to write, progress crawling along at a pace that can only be described as geological.

So with my list compiled and examined, it’s obvious that while these things all seem pretty cool, only two of them are potential professions – unless the pilot I pitched to NBC – Kitchen Pop Idol – is accepted. So why not pursue a career in science or in writing exercise and nutrition articles? Well, as you can see, they are definitely on my list of likes but they haven’t quite made it to my list of loves. So what about that list? After all, my high school guidance councilor said I should choose a career doing something that I really love to do. Unfortunately, at the time, the only thing I really loved to do was skip class so she didn’t really spend any more time with me or suggest anything too ambitious.

So here I am with a list of likes – now I need a list of loves. You know the drill – make a list of things that you would do if you were to win the lottery, find a pot of gold at the end of some rainbow, or inherit a personal fortune from some distant relative you didn’t know you had. In my love musings I’ve come up with three things that I absolutely love to do.

- Read Books

- Ride Motorcycles

- Lift Heavy Weights

With this list, it’s clear that there are even fewer career options. No one gets paid much for reading books, riding motorcycles, or lifting heavy weights. It seems that in going from likes to loves, I’m progressing further from a post-PhD plan. While that may be true, the generation of these lists has brought about a major realization. And this realization takes encouragement from the words of Canadian painter Jean Paul Riopelle.

Jean Paul Riopelle was a 20th century abstract impressionist painter and perhaps Canada’s most famous artist - although the Canadians do have to share him with the French. In a recent biography on the deceased painter, a particular segment jumped out at me. In this segment, Riopelle was asked how long it usually takes for him to create one of his works. To this question, he replied with an indignant – “I don’t know”. When pressed for a more definite answer, Riopelle stated that when painting, he loses all concept of time. In other words, during the activity that he most loved to do, time had no grasp on him. He stated that the amount of time that elapsed from when he would pick up his brush to when he would put it down could be anywhere from 48 minutes to 48 hours. Regardless of the elapsed time, Riopelle would not notice the difference.

In contemplating my love of reading, motorcycling, and lifting weights, I realize that for me, these activities suspend time, just as art did for Riopelle. When engrossed in a particularly engaging piece of literature, I’ve been known to disappear for days at a time – lost in the work - barely taking time out to eat and often avoiding sleep – emerging only at the completion of the book. On several occasions, my friends have come to my door wondering if my corpse was rotting within as I had adopted a do not disturb policy that extended to both telephone callers and visitors.

When motorcycling, the same can be true. Often, when waking up on a crisp sunny morning and heading out on my XS11, I’ll run out of gas before realizing that I’ve been traveling for 6 or 8 hours non-stop. Motorcycling is an activity that commands your complete attention – there is no room for daydreaming or fatigue. The focused attention involved in motorcycling is so intense that there is nothing but you, machine, and very real, but largely controllable danger.

Finally, while endless weight training sessions are ill advised, maximal lifting certainly does suspend time as well as most other cognitive processes. In the midst of a heavy deadlift, squat, or power snatch, nothing exists but you and the path of the bar.

These are the things that I love to do. And like Riopelle’s painting, the things that we truly love to do place us directly in the here and now, independent of any past or any future, independent of any reminiscences or any strivings. The things we love to do offer us a portal to the present, an impetus for losing ourselves in the moments spent with them.

For those of you who appreciate irony, I’m sure the contradictory nature of this isn’t lost on you. In today’s culture, it seems that we actually need to find some pathway to the here and now. We’re so caught up in the past and the future that we don’t know how to live in the present. Think about out our very concept of time. Our idea of the clock has developed in such a way that it exists not to give us any useful information about the here and now but to give us a some perspective relative to where we’ve got to be later on.

After realizing what I love about reading, motorcycling, and weight lifting, I now understand that my guidance councilor had it all wrong. The difference between what I like to do and what I love to do is this. The things I love to do remain unsullied by the past, by the present, by habit, by routine, and by striving. The minute I begin to put time limits, deadlines, and expectations on my reading, my cycling, and my lifting – they begin to suffer. Just like with art. The minute you rush art – the minute you force it to obey convention and deadline – that’s the minute it suffers.

Graduation will soon be upon me. Come December, I think I’ll again ask myself the two questions posed in this article again. Then, I’ll pursue the things I like as a career. These things will be subjected to striving, routine, and habit. If I still like them after it all, I’ll continue to do them. With respect to the things that I love, they’ll remain my special portals to the present. To be complete we need both likes and loves; constantly re-evaluating what they are is our imperative – regardless of our age.