Zygon—The First-Year Specialist

The Ever-Swelling Sphere of Knowledge

“I think you have already met Hieronymus Septimus Simkin, my paternal cousin, once removed, whom I affectionately call Seven,” Solus ‘Sol’ Simkin, my philosophical soul-mate, boomed in his avuncular voice, as we walked by the calming banks of the river Gonza.

“I have indeed heard of him, but only now have I met him,” I replied, shaking Seven’s ample hands, and staring into his shining, genial eyes.

The three of us fell into an easy stride of walk and talk, as three kindred spirits who looked upon life and the world with the same Weltanschauung.

We exchanged ideas about contemporary world affairs, geopolitical power shifts, movers and shakers, and slowly drifted to speculative thoughts like whether Elon Musk was an Atlantean reborn, and why Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein were late bloomers. And we circled around the last topic like eagles around prey, debating about whether children needed more time to figure out our technological world and their place in it before they were ready to make their career choices.

“If it took several hundred years for mathematics to gel into its present form, how could we expect the poor critters at school to gulp it down and digest it in ten or twelve years?” I asked. “And the same is true of the physical and biological sciences”.

“Well, is that not a volume problem?” chimed in Seven. “I mean, look at the Web. It was modest to start with. It is now so immense that its size alone might be difficult to estimate. And if there is no physical limit to its growth, we have an enormous knowledge management problem. Who determines how much new knowledge gets into the school syllabus, how much old knowledge gets retained, and how much old knowledge gets kicked out?”

“It was easy in the past. Latin was unceremoniously shown the door. Whether that was prudent, I still haven’t a clue,” said Sol.

An hour passed as we discussed the difficulties of sitting in judgement on what knowledge should be passed on at school and what should be left for self-discovery by students. Would utility rule the roost? Or would fundamental knowledge always retain its sheen and place? It was an impossible question that perhaps only Darwinian evolution would decide, and while that answer would be optimal in some respect, would it be wise? On that ambivalent note we parted with a commitment to dwell on the issue when we met again at the Hlafka park in the city.

Of Chemical and Musical Bonds

It was a lovely spring morning on a public holiday when we met as arranged at the Hlafka park to resume our discussion on whither contemporary education was headed, or better still, should be headed. The exuberance of the day evoked some cherished dreams as well. And since Seven was the newcomer, he was given priority. He began by recounting his early personal trials and triumphs with music.

“This ten thousand hours of deliberate practice is pure hogwash,” Seven said, not with bitterness but with the disappointment of a staunch believer, let down by his strongly held dogma.

“I think all mastery is like an ionic bond. You need a sodium atom. And a chlorine atom. When they are close enough together, magic happens. And to split them again, you need to rain energy upon them before they will part. The maestro’s mastery is like that. Like an ionic bond. It is the result of the electropositivity of sodium and the electronegativity of chlorine. Most people who learn and play a musical instrument approach it like covalent bonds. They bond. But not like sodium and chlorine.

“It is unrealistic to expect an organic compound that normally only makes covalent bonds to suddenly turn ionic and make bonds like chlorine and sodium. Nor should one expect sodium chloride to polymerize. To each his own, as Cicero said,” Seven was waxing poetic, scientific, and eloquent all at the same time.

I was listening thunderstruck that the Simkin family held within its fold such a clutch of geniuses, each a unique offering from the Goddess of Wisdom. Their wit, mastery, and dynamic range were astounding. My musings were interrupted by Sol’s interjection.

“But you do realize Seven, don’t you, that amphotericity exists and that behaviours can change with time and situation? Why, semiconductors are precisely what drive our technology. Are they insulators? Or conductors? They are semiconductors. These fence-sitters drive our technology. Might we not find such fence-sitters in the musical world who start off playing a violin and end up excelling on the flute?”

“I am glad that you brought up semiconductors, Sol,” said Seven. For I am reminded now of the strange tale of Zygon. If ever there was a late bloomer, or a non-bloomer, it was he. Indulge me awhile, as I recount the unusual account of Zygon, the first-year specialist. It is tale both sorry and sordid. In the end, he became neither a conductor nor an insulator. He morphed into a rare gas, friendless and alone. And it will be quite a digression from our current discussion on what to retain and what to discard in contemporary school education. Do I have your accord to digress?”

“Indeed. Do tell us about the fabled Zygon,” I chirped, joining in the conversation sideways.

The tragicomic tale of Zygon

“Zygon and I started high school together, many decades ago,” recounted Seven. “He was a restless spirit, always seeking, never finding. It was as if he had never defined a goal to start with but calibrated the result of his quest against an ever-changing inner feeling that functioned as his barometer of success. Sometimes, he was satisfied for a while, and he kept at what he was doing. The moment either boredom, or dissatisfaction, or satiety, or some other feeling crept in, he would start his restless seeking again.

“When high school led to university—with its greater laxity in choice of degree and courses—Zygon was like a chained bull suddenly freed to graze wherever he fancied. He wandered with great joy among the faculties. He enrolled for a Bachelor of Arts when I was in my first year of Engineering. He tried out Music and Philosophy. When I entered second year in Engineering, he said he had lucked out of Philosophy and wanted to try Mathematics with Music. For six months, he seemed passionate and exhilarated by his choice of majors, but toward the end of semester, he was like a ball-bearing in glycerine, falling ever so slowly to the bottom, with little enthusiasm.

“When I entered third year in Engineering and chose to specialize in Information Engineering, Zygon had decided to enrol in a first year program doing Biology and Chemistry hoping that it would lead to something like Genomics or Bioinformatics. It was always the second semester that deflated the gung-ho, devil-may-care enthusiasm that Zygon exhibited at the start of each academic year.

“And mind you, he was not a serial failure. He did respectably well in all the courses in which he enrolled. It was simply that he was an incurable romantic as far as the pursuit of knowledge was concerned. He was always after the peak or Eureka experience. Alas, much of life and academic work is decidedly mundane. You don’t get to conquer the Everest every day, or even every decade. In Zygon’s case, as each academic year wore on, the thrill of the unknown eventually gave way to the ennui of the familiar, impelling him to enrol in different first-year courses the next year.

“He was fortunate that his family was sufficiently well-heeled to afford his fanciful excursions into serial first-year studies. But in the end, they too could not sustain his extravagance. And when they pulled away the money bags, he could not face the world. But most of all, he could not face himself. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he did not like the person staring back. He decided to become incognito. He joined some closed community¹ whose name escapes me, and I lost touch with him. Poor sod! By cutting himself off from all who knew him, he hoped to douse his sorrows, and perhaps begin afresh yet again! By the time I lost contact with him, he would have attempted fifteen first-year courses in all!”

Lessons from Zygon

“That was indeed a tragicomic life.” said Sol. Let us do it justice by commenting on it in some way so that its re-telling enriches others. “Let us embellish the elements with little gems from our own experiences that we may present them to others for their contemplation.”

“That is a noble idea which I second,” said I.

Since Seven had already spoken a mouthful, and I had been the quiet one, I took the lead now.

Success is seductive

“Success is seductive. Recall the tragic story of Australian medical doctor William McBride. He gained fame when he alerted the medical world to the correlation between the drug Thalidomide and the birth defects that it might be causing when taken by pregnant women.

“Twenty years later, he published another paper, claiming that another drug, Debendox, was again causing birth defects. But this time, he falsified his data: a cardinal sin, for which he was struck off the medical register. One wonders why he did it. My speculation is that he wanted to re-experience the intoxication of success. Success and fame bring adulation, which is very seductive. Life is not a series of peaks alone. If every moment were a peak, how would we ever know what is a peak? Peaks are valued because of the valleys that lie in between.

“Poor Zygon was looking for peaks all the time and became crestfallen at the tail end of each academic year when the thrill of the new and the challenge of the unknown wore off. He ended up being literally a Jack of all trades and a master of none. May the passage of time heal his wounded soul.”

“Amen to that,” chorused both Sol and Seven.

Transient versus Steady State

“I will have a go next,” said Sol. In electrical engineering circuits, we have transients and steady states. When a switch is used to turn on a light, there is an initial onrush of current that is nothing like what flows afterward. That first onrush is like an untamed torrent.² But once the contact is well and truly made, the steady-state prevails and the familiar predictable, sinusoidal, electricity flows and we get the steady³ light that we are used to.

“I daresay that the transient current is like the thrill of a new course or a new field of study. But it cannot be sustained. As the subject becomes familiar, the knowledge settles down into the rhythm and flow of the predictable. The thrill may be gone but the mastery is just beginning. This is what good subject knowledge is built upon.

“Indeed, I will go so far as to say that relationships are also built upon this paradigm. If I recall correctly, Nathaniel Branden once wrote a book called The Psychology of Romantic Love. He identified two types of love. One was short-lasting, fast burning, intense, and quickly reduced to ashes. The other was long-lasting, slow-burning, less intense, but more useful. It could be used to heat home and hearth.

So too with learning. The initial thrill of engagement with a new subject is like the fast burning fire: sizzling but short-lived. If one always goes after such thrills, one never reaches deeper into a subject. Poor Zygon never got to the stage of productive engagement with his subject to reap its manifold benefits. He was always after the romantic stage of thrills and spills with a new subject.

“Seven, you go next.”

Wasted Restaurant Meals

“Let me give you a third paradigm illustrating our friend’s tragicomedy. Imagine Zygon going to a topnotch restaurant.⁴ It has an exquisite, mouth-watering menu. For those unfamiliar with its offerings, the restaurant provides a ‘sampler’ combination dish that has small portions of everything, to allow a newcomer to decide what to order as main and side dishes later on.

“Any sensible person will try that ‘sampler’ before choosing the main and side dishes. But not Zygon. For him, it was ‘all or nothing’. He chose the main and side dishes unguided by the ‘sampler’. And each time a main and side dish arrived, he would peck at it with gusto, only to leave it half-eaten, and to be taken back by the waiter to be binned. No meal was ever fully eaten. He would then order another main and side dish, only to waste them in like fashion.

“Imagine this orgy of waste going on for a full seven servings of different main courses, while everyone else had progressed from their respective ‘soup to nuts’, and you would get a whiff of the tragicomedy foolishly enacted by Zygon. He had frittered away time, food, and sensibility, not to mention social graces, and conviviality.

“I think the Zygons of the world deserve not only our pity and opprobrium, but also our constructive help. How might we show the mirror to their faces, that they may realize the unbridled error of their ways? Only time and experience will tell if they have in themselves the humility and fortitude to mend.”

And on that sobering note, Seven concluded our serious discussion on Zygon—the First-Year Specialist.

May the Good Lord preserve his soul, wherever he is.

Epilogue

This epilogue is the joint opinion of Sol, Seven, and myself. From ancient times, there have been some people who have advocated an aimless and indolent life, bereft of goals, in which a person lives on the support of others, and gives nothing in return to the society that offers them sustenance and shelter.⁵

Such total irresponsibility was also Zygon’s unfortunate and ultimate state.⁶ It is our hope that Zygon and others like him take heart, that as long as life throbs within them, there is scope for beneficial change. They can choose a life that values familial obligations, collective responsibility, mutual respect, and shared experiences. It will lead to a fulfilment that they might never before have experienced. And it might unleash an exhilarating happiness as well.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the multiplicity of Zygons who have crossed our collective paths. Some of them, when they became conscious that they were Zygons, have been absolutely keen to change for the better. Other Zygons were proudly obstinate, and wore their Zygon-ness as their exclusive badges of identity and honour. With unbowed heads, and obdurate resistance to change, they taught us how not to live, for which we are ever grateful.

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