I am in Cambridge, UK right now, visiting the University in
order to attend a memorial lecture at Pembroke College tonight for a
high-school friend who died tragically young, but before that left his
indelible mark on the world of Theoretical Physics. This is the 7th
Annual Andrew Chamblin Memorial Lecture about the Higgs Boson and the Large
Hadron Collider. It is a brilliant tribute to the wily-haired Andy I knew in
Calculus class, who would drive us nuts humming the entire class as he was also
a musician, evinced by the annual Chamber Music Memorial at Oxford every year
for him, where he also blazed a trail.
Cambridge has been a peripheral part of my life since High
School as well, so it is interesting that because of Andrew, I have an “excuse”
to come over here each year if I am able to. I first really heard of Cambridge
from my eccentric and inimitable Junior Year English teacher, Mr. Gary Biggers,
who had also been my sisters Humanities and English teacher as well as leading
their school trip to Europe. Mr. Biggers came to Cambridge each year to
participate in a Summer School program at Gonville and Caius (pronounced like “keys”),
which is where my eldest sister eventually did her Masters in History, bringing
Cambridge to me in real-life having visited here because of her. Similar to my
sister, Andy went from Rice University to Oxford for his Masters and then Cambridge for his doctorate under none other than Stephen Hawking..., setting up
a strange parallel universe of sorts as I followed his career over the years,
as well as of course my sister’s, whose has been likewise as illustrious.
I recently re-read Jude
the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, a depressing novel if there ever was one.
Hardy is not known for his levity, to put it “lightly.” Jude is always on the
fringe of academics, despite teaching himself Latin and Greek, thinking one day
he would make it to Christchurch, a thinly veiled parallel Oxford University.
But, Jude is a common man, from common backgrounds, and people like him don’t
get to Christchurch, at best, they might work there, which is what he does for
a while, as a stone mason, helping erect the lofty Gothic spires to the skies,
making the Ivory Towers higher and more inaccessible for people like him.
And, like the common man, life gets in the way. And, Jude’s
fortunes go from bad to worse, to simply desperate.
Times have changed a bit since Hardy’s time, and the common
man does go to Cambridge and Oxford and they are no longer merely for
well-heeled British men to come up, and later to “come down” from the Ivory
Towers to lead a “normal life,” though once you come down from Ox-Bridge, you
are no longer normal. You belong in a different universe than the common man,
no matter how much modesty may hide that. That is not a judgment, but a fact.
However, as I say, times have changed here, and even since
the first time I visited some 25 years ago. It is a highly touristy town, and a
very international student body population. It seems “cleaner” and “brighter”
than I once remember, and there is a very gaudy covered arcade filled with
Starbucks, GAP, and whatnot. It is truly a bike town, so there is not much
traffic, and everyone seems to walk around with a “purpose.” I am always a bit
confused in such places, because I never seem to walk around with such a
purpose. I felt this way last time I was in London as well. I felt that
everyone had a place to go…whereas as usual, I am just wondering. Usually
feeling again like I am on the outside looking in. Although I have been
associated with a few very prestigious universities in some capacity, there
too, as one student said I was always in the shadows, despite how much
influence I may have had.
I am quite shy by nature, and perhaps this is why I feel the
need to write, because I have had ideas swimming in my head for decades, but
never found the right outlet. Ultimately, I believe that this medium is still
just a weigh station, a place for me to put out as many thoughts as possible,
without editing (as someone rather bluntly pointed out to me recently), but
just talking without getting interrupted or feel like I am boring someone or
manipulating a conversation as I have been wary of in the Past as it has
happened.
As such, though, because it is a private blog, and I don’t
really know whom is reading it, though I seem to have a small following in
Russia of late…, I am in some sense, still “in the shadows” feeling a bit
like Jude at times when I am in Cambridge. It is a very intimidating place,
especially when you are not from here, and I am really just here because I knew
someone who did make it on the inside and even has a bust in Pembroke College
next to Sir Isaac Newton. Otherwise, I don’t really have a reason to be here,
except as a tourist.
Walking along the Backs, seeing the cathedrals of learning,
it is hard not to be astonished by the enormity of the University, beginning
from its humble beginnings in the city with a Bridge over the River Cam, much
like its sister city, which began as a Ford for Oxen, and now, Ox-Bridge is
easily the most powerful intellectual twin city in the world. It makes me
wonder what my life might have been had I really pursued something like this
more, rather than opting for a more common route. Not sure. It does no good to
go down that route, for one will end up like Jude, but, it is hard not to when
you see so many people truly believing in being filled with “purpose.”
