I have about an equal number of posts in my drafts as actually posted. Hey, I only said I’d make a post once a week, I never promised to post them.

I was kind of out of it the week before last, a little on the stressed side. My most recent draft seems to be a mix of self-pity and “drastic action” (pretty much just getting enough sleep and gaming less). I have been doing more school work (especially after dinner) since writing that draft, so I guess it helped, but that may also just be because I’m less stressed now. In particular, I’ve been hanging out a lot, which actually does do wonders for your mental health, even if you’re on the introverted side (holy s@#%, I’ve discovered work-life balance, what a genius I am).

So I have increased my work volume a little, but I’m back to cruising altitude. I crushed last week’s series. I’ve been working hard to solve the Physics Cup task in my spare time. Bloody hell, it’s impossible. Even with Griffiths I still can’t seem to find a term for the charge density. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the first hint and see what happens from there.

The Physics Cup isn’t the only thing beating me down. On Thursday, I tried boxing for the first time. Everyone there was incredibly muscular and thus very intimidating, but they were really nice – this one guy showed me the ropes and told me the basics: Foot stance, how to punch (from the shoulder and hip more than the arm) and, most importantly, to always keep one’s guard high. The drills and practice were very intense – I could barely even hold my arms up by the end of it. Unfortunately, after the drills, we went over to actual sparring.

However, it was very good. In every martial art, the mutual respect the fighters have for one another is something you get rarely – this is, of course, the basis for allowing them to hit you. And I got hit. Once, I attacked with one hand, then the other, without bringing the first back to guard my face, and was instantly punished with a jab, right to my nose. It didn’t hurt – as a matter of fact, I liked getting hit. It was instant feedback, I knew immediately what I had done wrong. In effect, it was like a ball rolling down a hill in some force field. You give it the potential and the laws of physics do the rest – the force pushing it in a direction and the constraint force restricting the number of possible paths. In our fight, a potential – an opening to attack – was also transformed, under a constraint we call “respect”, in a “field” of possible attacks given by the opponent’s skill.

That’s a nonsensical analogy and, also, a huge reach, but it’s good enough and the more I write the better I’ll get at it.

In any case, it was fun and I got to hit people, which is something you don’t normally get to do. At one point, I was fighting against this girl, and she had holes in her guard fairly often. Every time I’d connect a jab, I’d mumble a “sorry” – instinctively. The fact is, I need to get used to not apologising, because I used to restrict my actions very heavily based on an overly-large concept of respect.

In high school, I’d talk to my friends, then, as soon as I thought I’d picked up the slightest hint that they didn’t like me, would attempt to avoid seeing them whenever possible – not because I had suddenly snapped and from then on disliked them, but because I thought they would prefer not to see me. I’d never push for things I wanted, would never defend my opinions and always let the situation wash over me, bottling up my emotions until I’d explode with rage or sadness. I did all this out of “respect” – even when the situations ended up worse for me (and often, worse for the other person, as I didn’t even point out minor errors!).

So now, I need to learn how to metaphorically tread on people’s feet. I use this analogy because I was recently at a (very, very good) concert. Trying to push your way through those crowds will always upset people, no question. There were some dunces who would push you if you so much as touched them. While I was jumping up and down to the music, I would inevitably end up treading on the feet of whoever was behind me. In theory, this is immoral – I’m causing suffering and if I just didn’t mind not jumping, not pushing my way through, the world would be better off if I didn’t. But this childlike obsession with causing absolutely no suffering restricts you to living in a world where you take absolutely nothing. It’s impossible to live this way, just by virtue of there always being people who will hate you, no matter what you do. Plus, in most everyday situations, it’s impossible to know if a given action will cause suffering or not!

I say this because it’s impossible to simulate a whole human being in your head. Most of it is already being used to operate one – two is just way too many. We have personality and temperament as abstractions of mental states in order to simplify this simulation of another human being, but even then these abstractions aren’t perfect, nor are they particularly self-consistent. Thus, it’s impossible to know, if you tread on someone’s feet, whether they’ll roll with the punches, just accept it, tell you off, or get angry. The only way to find out is to do it.

Of course, I’m not saying you should go to the HB and literally step on every shoe in sight like some kind of toe-annihilating robocop. What I’m saying is more abstract: You should be ok with potentially and, in particular, minimally offending people if you’re working towards a good goal. You should be able to go towards (but not over) people’s personal boundaries. And, in return, to be good in such a world, where foot-stepping is not only not bad but necessary, you should call out when people hit your boundaries – with respect for the other party. And again, in return, you should take criticism with happiness – it is the only way we can know when not to step on others’ feet, and whose feet not to step on.

Based on this idea, I have recently started defending my opinions in a respectful manner. There was a big discussion in our degree’s chat recently around people asking questions during the lecture. Now, this is something normal and good – a few questions, especially during the hard parts, are important. Professors don’t always know the pace at which students move, so it’s important to have people that slow down the speed when they become like runaway trains. The issue, however, was that a small handful of people were asking a large number of questions – quite a few of which could have been answered by reading the script or taking proper notes.

Case in point. In physics, there were two rows of equations: One with a p (for momentum) and the next with an m and a v (for mass and velocity, respectively). One individual asked where the m had come from. Of course, it’s perfectly understandable to not grasp this on the first reading of a formula. However, I do find it odd that that person didn’t try asking their neighbour first, or try re-reading the equation a little more precisely. Here’s what I suspect: Either they were drawn in by the idea that they had spotted a flaw in the professor’s sheets and ended up putting their hand up with too much haste, or they simply didn’t bother to re-read the line, after not having understood it at first glance. In either case, a re-reading would have been a good idea. But there’s a bigger problem: The latter case here does seem to crop up too often. This style of question would be acceptable for a high-school classroom, but not really a lecture hall. It slows down the lecture (and, thus, all the students) and goes against the idea of “getting knowledge” – the so-called Holprinzip. The professors are there to explain it to you, not to understand it for you. That’s why there are so many other channels to gain knowledge on your own without, I’ll say it rudely, wasting everyone else’s time.

Of course, no offence to the person that asked that question. I will probably end up asking questions in that manner once or twice during my studies, and I have no doubt that everyone else will be annoyed at them and, by extension, me. But I would like to keep in mind, and argue, that it’s better to gain knowledge through own work than by asking the professor during the lecture. The fact is, by doing it on your own, you profit by getting better and faster at understanding things. It’s like riding a bike, whereas getting it re-explained is like being driven by car.

I argued to this effect in the group chat, after writing and thinking for around half an hour, and I got some words of approval and some disagreement. It particularly surprised me that nobody really seemed to be offended at my message, even though it was (in content, not rhetoric) targeted at that small handful of people asking too many questions too often. Thus, this whole exercise has helped bolster my confidence in conversational foot-stepping. As long as you argue your point well, taking time to think and being careful not to phrase things offensively, you can help work towards a common good, which is always a good feeling.

Of course, the discussion is not over, and some people remain obstinate in treating the lecture hall like a classroom (their words, not mine). However, most people seem to be in agreement that they don’t like the volume of questions permitted by the lecturers. It was pointed out that the number of permitted questions is more an issue of the professors than of the students, which is why the next round of discussion is going to involve them as well. In short, the problem will be solved, not by avoidance, but by bringing the friction to light and acting on it. And the laws of respect will turn this metastable potential for conflict into a valley of contentedness.

It’s still a terrible analogy. Deal with it.