Awkward pre-M1 summer

Jonah Lehrer’s is the new Malcolm Gladwell - super trendy pop science writer. Basically, a writing version of Jad from Radiolab. His newest book is, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer tries to demystify creativity, and splits the book in half explaining personal and group creativity. I loved the personal creativity part, a lot of ideas about how to have better ideas. It didn’t have a whole lot of ideas that felt new, but it’s always fun to read something that reasserts your own beliefs. Overall, it’s a great lay science read – definitely recommend. 

One point that touched close to home was the impact of moving on creativity. He highlighted David Byrne of the Talking Heads, who loved New York City because he could bike from Latin jazz club, to Nigerian music hall, to punk rock show. He eventually fused all of it to create the unique sound of the Talking Heads. New places give you a different taste of life.

Each stop I’ve made has introduced me to new people and challenged my endless philosophizing. But then, why don’t more people move? Why do Williams alums flock to Boston? Why is there a Kenyon bar in DC? 

Well, the awkward pre-M1 MD/PhD summer is a great example of why most people stay put. Sidenote – M1 stands for med school year 1, M3 is med school year 3, etc. 

As an MD/PhD student, I have the privilege? responsibility? of arriving early to start a summer rotation in a possible PhD lab. It would’ve been great to spend one last beautiful Portland summer with my friends, but here I am in the Charleston library. None of my classmates are here yet. The other MD/PhD students will be here in June or July, and my MD classmates won’t be here until August. I’m counting on school for about 80 - 90% of my community, so until then, I’m mostly hanging out with me. 

During the days, the lab keeps me busy. I'm in f-you-mode trying to carve out a potential PhD project. My goal is to get out in 6 years, below the average of 7.7 years, so I’m not planning on spending too much time at the bottom half of the learning curve. 

As an introvert it’s nice to have nights to myself, but it also gets boring. The time I would have spent at happy hour with my friends or chatting with my wife is now spent watching Scrubs or surfing the internet. I should probably read or write.. but I just don’t have the mental energy. 

Times like these I get why you wouldn’t leave your comfort zone – your old friends and routines. I know it’s just a temporary summer, so I’m ignoring it and forging through, but still.. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

remix: notes outside the margin by a medical student seeking truth

I've decided to remix sidenote. Now it's, "notes outside the margin by a medical student seeking the truth." Part of what I originally wanted to establish through sidenote was a set of core themes for my life.  After sorting through all sorts of ideas for two years, I want to give sidenote a more distinct flavor.  I figure the main ideas I have to contribute will be as a married, early 20's, hippy-Christian, MD/PhD student, so for the time being I'm trying to focus sidenote on life during med school.  Anyways, the inagural post of sidenote v2.0 will be the updated "about" page.  Enjoy,

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"Humanity, which they loved as we did – was for them something complete that must be maintained and protected.  For us, humanity was a distant goal toward which all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down.”   - Max Demian

Sidenote is a concept originally invented in a summer email chain by Iyer, A* and Noguchi, K*, 2008. 

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Imagine you’re fourteen, puberty hormones are rushing through your veins, you’re stuck sitting in Sunday school, and all you can think about is sex.  The teacher is up there lecturing about Cain and Abel.  Abel was the good brother, Abel provided God with great offerings, Cain grew jealous, Cain murdered Abel, and in doing so he became the first human. 

You’re fourteen, so by now you’ve heard this story a million times, and you’re definitely zoning out.  Maybe your unconscious drifts off into that creative zone, and instead of writing in the margins, you start scribbling outside the margins, writing "Cain and Abel; The Remix". 

Behind closed doors, Abel had been threatening Cain and stealing his crops.  One day, Cain stood up for himself, fought back against his brother, and killed him.  Abel was everyone's homie, so everyone assumed Cain was the bad guy.  I’m not saying that’s the truth, but is it possible that there was more to it than the cut-and-dry story that everyone agrees on? 

Sidenote is about searching for the truth.  Sidenote believes that the truth is complex.  Sidenote believes you should listen to your heart.  What would the world look like if people took sidenotes seriously?

That is the sort of world Sidenote envisions.  It might be a better world, it might be a less productive world, it’s hard to say, but one thing is certain, it would be different.  At it’s core that’s all Sidenote envisions.  An alternative to the current reality.  

This blog chronicles my vain attempt to understand the truth.  I have chosen to discover the truth through marriage, medicine, relationships, Scrubs, Christianity, and basketball, so you'll mainly hear about those few topics.  They all have their ups and downs, but I believe they will eventually lead me to the truth.  At the very least, I'm hoping to become JD from Scrubs.

If you haven't had enough, read "about me!"

See you on the other side,

from ken

(*both authors contributed equally to this work)

What I believe: post-Portland-sabbath

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” 

- Gandhi 

In college this was one of my top three favorite quotes. Of course, then I got to thinking, what do I want to see in the world? I self-righteously decided the world needed more selflessness, so I threw myself into a world of activism. It was great, and I’d love to go work in Haiti someday, but most days the politics of activism is too much for me to handle. But then.. what is the change I wish to see in the world? 

Post-college I spent two years in Portland – where young people go to retire. After the intensity of undergrad – studying non-stop, gunning through experiments to finish a research thesis, interval after interval of track workouts, long nights spent causing havoc – working 40 hours a week left me uninspired and lazy. That said, Portland gave me tons of time to reflect, and develop my core philosophies. 

Sidenote - I imagined Portland being a stage of life similar to when Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to get the hell away from everyone, meditate, and contemplate life. Maybe he was going through a quarter life crisis too – “What do all these people want from me? What should I do with my life?” 

Anyways, in this time I read a book Katie owned called This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. It’s what it sounds like – a compilation of personal credos written by a wide range of people from bartenders to Helen Keller. It has a slew of great ones like “There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Barbeque.” 

Sidenote – my favorite personal credo? David Foster Wallace’s This is Water. It’s actually a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College. I would say he believes in the struggle of life, it's extremely close to how I experience life. 

So this bring me back to my own core philosophies - what do I believe? Well, I believe life is a gray scale, and it can’t really be boiled down to simple maxims. I believe there are many roads to the truth. Some days I believe in fate, but most days I believe an individual determines their own fate. I believe in God and a higher power than myself. I believe in Kobe Bryant more than Chris Paul (this is definitely a future post, Kobe is the best player of the 21st century). Each of these could be its own post, but underneath all the complexity I believe in one important thing. 

I believe in friends. 

I’ve learned a lot of things in my 23 years of life, but the main thing I’ve learned is that life is about the same for most people. Rich or poor, drug addict or professional athlete, Harvard or UMass, stay-at-home mom or trophy husband, people aren’t that different. Life is hard for everyone, nobody's struggles are "not a big deal", and no one should be expected to survive by themselves. 

There’s nothing like going to a bar with a good friend and breaking down the latest struggles of life. Or going for a long run without saying a single word and just getting away from life. I could ramble on, but I’ll stop here since I’m already getting too long.

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Ken Noguchi has made friends in Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wyoming, Oregon, and currently makes friends in South Carolina. He is attending school in hopes of producing the second and third coming of Gleevac. When he grows up, he hopes to be his daughter’s favorite comedian.  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.