President Obama touched
on one of the themes of this blog last week at the DNC,
and I could not pass up the opportunity to talk about it here.
“She knows she’s made mistakes, just like
I have; just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what
happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described – not
the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone ‘who is actually
in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…[but] who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement.’”
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| John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt (image source) at Glacier Point in Yosemite in 1903. After spending three days in the wilderness with John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt was convinced to expand Yosemite National Park. |
President Obama’s quote of Teddy Roosevelt
(the 26th president of the United States who I admire for putting conservation in the limelight) came from a speech titled “Citizenship In a Republic”
Roosevelt gave at the Sorbonne on April 23rd, 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not
the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in
the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no
effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the
deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in
a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat.”
For me, right now, this quote hums to my
bones and fingernails. I think I react so strongly to this message because I know how
much effort it takes to be aware of my fear; and to not let mistakes and
perceived failures deride my thoughts, behavior, and decisions. Learn from
them, yes – berate myself for them, no. It inspires me to sidestep my ego, push
myself into the arena, and maintain the strength to stay there. Some days I would rather retreat to a cabin in the woods. But resiliency
abounds and cannot be ignored; inspiring, seemingly ego-less individuals that
move from one arena to the next with grace and humility. There are many
examples I could highlight here but there is one story in particular that I
think about often. Yitang (Tom) Zhang is a mathematician that made headlines for solving a very difficult problem in
number theory while working as a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire.
Zhang graduated from Purdue University with a Ph.D. in
mathematics in 1991 but was unable to get a tenure-track position. After eight
years of making ends meet doing odd jobs, he was given a temporary position
teaching calculus at the University of New Hampshire. In academia, these
positions are difficult because they offer no permanence or stability, are
often seen as ‘less than’, and can be difficult on the ego. But Zhang kept
himself in the arena, whether he meant to or not, and received many awards for
his break through in number theory, including a MacArthur Fellowship
in 2014. In previously published profiles (Unheralded Mathematician Bridges the Prime Gap and The Pursuit of Beauty)
Zhang describes himself as shy and is quoted as saying “[m]y life is not always
easy.” And it has not been free of
mistakes either. In 2007 he posted a paper to an online archive (arxiv.org, a
Web site that hosts papers before they are published) that was wrong, which he left up so he could
eventually fix it. But one quote in
Quanta Magazine stood out to me:
“Zhang said he feels no
resentment about the relative obscurity of his career thus far. ‘My mind is
very peaceful. I don’t care so much about the money, or the honor,” he said. “I
like to be very quiet and keep working by myself.’”
Zhang continues his work at UC
Santa Barbara where he was offered a full professorship in 2015. I would love to hear who keeps you in the arena - please let me know.
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| UCSB Campus (Storke Tower) |
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