vicarious.ly (8 page)

The last eight months have flashed by so quickly. One year ago, when I started this blog, I put a reminder on my phone for one year later that said, “
reread your journey.” I thought that I was at the end of the road a year ago. I found it difficult to find things to live for. I spent more time sulking in my distorted memories than absorbing the beautiful things happening around me on a daily basis. When I first saw the reminder on my phone, I first thought that I wouldn’t find much content in this private blog since I only wrote in it for four months. I wrote most of it while drinking by myself on a first class airplane seat commuting back and forth to work. I’m sure it looked somewhat strange when the passenger next to me caught a glimpse of my bloodshot eyes.

Like Eden before it, I discounted the importance of my work. Rereading this collection of journal entries allowed me to see how I was able to climb out of a period where I was wasting so much time being my own worst enemy.

Sometimes to understand the present you have to understand the past.

Rereading this made me think about randomness again. I’ve written about 25,000 words describing my journey to rediscover Eden. Those words are nothing but a collection of alphanumeric characters and spaces. Reading it, though, instills such a powerful sense of personal meaning. In this world that’s so large and vast, isn’t it amazing that I can find things that matter to me in a very unique way? I’m starting to sound like Michelle, Professor Craig and Paul now. Not quite, I still have some of my
pessimistic tendencies. I just don’t think those tendencies are what I should focus on while I’m saying goodbye to this blog.

Yes this is the final entry. I began this blog trying to understand why I was so caught up with Kyla years after she exited my life. A few things happened here and there and I finally realized that I was repressing my desire to see Eden again. You may wonder what’s up with
Kyla? A few months ago she gave birth to her first child. That’s all I have to say on the matter. I won’t ever forget her but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever talk to her or see her again. Some things are best left untouched.

It was unfair of me to blame her for all of the issues that I was facing at the time. Like I said I won’t get into the specifics, but she really was great. I was too obsessed with other things to realize that. My therapist told me that I put unreal expectations on her. In my mind she was the one person behind all of Eden’s inspiration, even though she didn’t know it. She existed as an idea in my mind, not a person in this world. I never really tried to get to know who she was. Instead, I tried to force the image I had of her in my mind to her. It’s not a surprise that was met with a lot of resistance.

I also realize the Michelle story was left somewhat unresolved the last time that I wrote here. I was disappointed about how the whole thing happened but I’ve seen her from time to time.

I’ve actually seen Diego much more than Michelle these last six months. Remember how I said he tracked clan based behavior and social structures? We’ve been working on incorporating Eden into his research. He’s also been giving me some great ideas on how languages developed from an anthropological perspective. Those ideas have been incorporated into Eden. We’ve turned into quite the unexpected duo. One interaction that stands out from when we were drinking together is,

“Diego, I’ll cut your balls off if you repeat the following to Michelle,” I said.

“You got some dirt on her or something Jake?” said Diego.

“The night before I met you, I was eating dinner with Michelle in attempt to date her. It ended up being a night where all she did was talk about you. The more she talked about you, the more I started drinking heavily. Congrats buddy, she’s excellent,” I said.

We sat there just looking at each other for a while until Diego said “that’s something to drink to!” I know that was a very weird interaction, but rest assured we’ve been buddies ever since.

Michelle and I went on our yearly trip to the MFA last week to celebrate her birthday. We’ve been slowly seeing each other more often. While looking at some Chihuly pieces of work Michelle took out an envelope.

“Jake, I have something for you. It’s a wedding invitation,” she said.

“Congrats,” I said not shocked about the situation at all.

“I’m proud of you. There’s this ambition and focus that you’ve been exhibiting ever since you started working on Eden again. I knew you’d always come back,” she said.

That moment made me think that I was wrong about many things in life. One thing in particular was that “all relationships expire.” Who would have thought I would have been invited to her wedding? Truthfully, I’m happy for her. She’s incredibly happy. Are there moments in which I wonder what if I made a move on her beforehand? Actually, not anymore.

As for Eden?
Since I met with Professor Craig I have been working on it. I haven’t been developing algorithms for it per se. I still have my full time job at the consulting firm. So how have I been working on Eden? This one requires a little explanation.

Shortly after I met Professor Craig, I had to fly out to India to meet with Punjab to work on a client in Bombay. I spent two months there doing a strategic assessment. I got to know Punjab very well after hours and he told me about new cutting edge algorithms that data scientists were developing in the open source world. We began discussing about Eden and I gave Punjab a copy of the source code.

“Be careful with this stuff Punjab, it’s my life’s work. I don’t want it in the wrong hands,” I said.

“Don’t worry Jake, I’ll just take a look on how these algorithms work,” he said.

Punjab came back to me two days later and told me he didn’t sleep at all. He told me that Eden was occupying his spare time.

“What you have done here is somewhat amateur from a data scientist point of view, but I’ve never seen such unique algorithms. Your theories have implications in more than just the linguistic sense. Look at some of the Eden algorithms I used to solve some pure math problems, specifically in manifolds,” Punjab said.

Punjab spent the next two weeks trying to convince me to open source the entire project. What that means is to put the source code freely available online so other people can use it as they please. He also told me that there were computer scientists around the world that would love to contribute to the Eden project.

“It’s just my little contribution to the world Punjab,” I said.

“This is bigger than you, please consider it,” he said.

Punjab and I talked about how I had the experience to lead an open source project due to my years of consulting experience. He said that instead of writing the program myself, I could draw on the world’s talent to bring Eden to the next level. He said that I could then serve as a strategic director for the Eden Project. After much discussion I agreed to look into it.

After I flew out of Bombay, I met with Paul and Brandon in San Francisco for a couple of days before I went back to Boston. The purpose of the trip was to ask them how to open source Eden. They worked in Venture Capital, mainly dealing with technology companies, so I figured they could point me in the right direction. Little did I know they would take a personal interest in helping me figure this all out.

Long story short, with Professor Craig’s approval, we open sourced Eden. I opened it up for any linguist or computer scientist to contribute to the project. In the last six months Eden has become the Wikipedia of the history of language. You have to see it to believe it.

Professor Craig told me last week, “Jake... I’m just going to say, I knew you had it in you. You’ve come back better than ever. Who ever would have thought that what Eden needed was a project manager as opposed to a brilliant linguist to bring it to the next level. I’m proud of you.”

Professor Craig and I see each other a couple of times a month. He helps me write some linguistics papers based research I put together using Eden. That’s what I’ve been spending much of my free time doing. It’s fresh and exciting. What’s the most exciting thing is to see Eden growing without my direct input.

As for me? I still have a few issues. Those are best saved for later though. I meet with my therapist once a month to discuss them. Right now I just want to celebrate the last year of my life and end where I started.

My name is Jake and I’m a 27 year old management consultant. I’m interested in philology and manage the Eden Project.

These past six years have been a wild ride. Here’s to future.