Tuesday Talk

 

May 4, 2010

Mark Mullan '10

To listen to Mark's Tuesday Talk - click the play button...   

The atomic mass of sulfur is 32.066 atomic mass units. There are 16 protons in its nucleus, will boil at approximately 717.8 Kelvin, and has an electronegativity of 2.58. Through repeated use, I have unintentionally stored these values, and many others, into my long-term memory bank. In fact, I can recite the atomic masses of the first twenty elements up to the second decimal place on a lucky day. This adds up to at least sixty numbers – all of which have no apparent order. However, the ability to associate the name of an element with a few of its numerical values comes as secondhand to me. The same phenomenon occurs when more useful numbers, such as bank, social security, or college application IDs, need to become engrained into my memory. These numbers all have one commonality. They are so short that they can be recited in just a few seconds. They simply do not have much depth, which is why I can hoard such a vast quantity of them into my head. However, I do struggle to memorize the first thirty digits of pi, twenty lines of a poem, or eighty bars of sheet music. I simply find it is easier to divvy up information among multiple names rather than affix the same amount of information to a single entity. Going in-depth about one topic is an arduous task for me to undertake. The same might be true for you if you would rather write multiple one-page papers on various topics, rather than write a single, five page research paper.

 

I love passing periods. It’s the time of the day in which I can exchange multiple overzealous handshakes, Bird-man unsuspecting victims, make witty comments in passing, and lose The Game. These greetings find some middle ground; they are more than superficial, but less than in-depth. Existing ephemerally in the middle ground truly does make me feel like a celebrity – and maybe this is why I am addicted to interacting with so many people in just five minutes. For me, and hopefully many others, it is exhilarating to see familiar faces in the midst of this mass migration. And as pathetic as it sounds, some of the most meaningful relationships I have built at Cate began with a “Hey, I don’t know you. Let’s high five,” exchange. But for some of the people I pass, this is the extent of our friendship. They are my office coworkers from two floors up, whose coffee breaks constitute a majority of the time we spend together. They are my grocery store clerks, whose checkout line I consciously pursue due to the positive interactions we have had in the past. We do not hang out on weekends or eat lunch in Carp together, but nonetheless, I cherish the few minutes of interaction that we have. These are the people who I know to the second decimal place. And for me, obtaining friendships that are two decimals deep has come just as naturally as has memorizing the atomic masses on the periodic table of elements.

 

Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine. Beyond this, each successive digit becomes harder to memorize and easier to forget. This makes sense because every subsequent number adds significantly less value than does its precursor. However, the exact opposite is true when concerning people. It seems as though every additional decimal place we find out about our peers contributes more to our knowledge of their character as a whole, almost tenfold as much than the digit that precedes it. Their quirky habits. When to approach them, when to avoid them. What will make them laugh the most, what will offend them. People should be proud, and rightfully so, if they know the first thirty digits of pi. However, they should take far more pride in extensively understanding a friend to their thirtieth digit. And unlike nondescript numbers, these people do not need to be constantly recited in order to become memorized. Everyone, but seniors especially, take a moment. Think of the people on this campus – in this room – whose thirtieth digit you have memorized. Who do you really know? And are you content with the extent to which you know others whom you pass on a daily basis?

 

Graduation is a ticking bomb, whose timer we seniors see every morning while groggily turning off our alarm clocks. Sometimes while in this half-dream, half-awake state, I pause to reminisce about the relationships I have built with people at Cate, and think about how they came both quickly and naturally. Freshman orientation day 2006, and the subsequent terror that was projected onto all of our faces, brought our class close enough together so that people practically wore their decimals on their sleeves for the world to see. I remember sitting in a circle with Jazmin Sherwood, who was dressed in ballet tights and sporting dyed black hair not much longer than mine was, and thinking, “God. I am going to hate this girl.” I remember approaching a young man running a comb through his ever-so-luscious afro. I held out my hand. “Hi, name’s Mark.” He followed suit, returning my eye contact with confidence. “Randy. Randy Person.” I remember getting absolutely dominated in the first cross country practice of the year by a little pipsqueak with the name of Mackenzie Walsh. Back then, the timer had over one-hundred-million seconds remaining; nine digits long, ticking. And as the end approaches, the way we spend the remainder of this precious number may be invaluable. Next year, many of us will be attending colleges in which attaining friendships that are two-, ten-, twenty-decimals deep will be far more challenging than what we have gotten accustomed to at Cate. We will not have the luxury of passing every student on campus and knowing his or her name. And greeting an unknown passerby will simply be considered enigmatic. As the timer runs out, molting its digits, I hope that I will be able to figure out more decimal places in all of you.