alec-the-meh

[alec-the-meh]

Introduction

Hi, my name is [redacted] and I'm an alcoholic

I'm joking (mostly). The point of this blog is somewhere in between confessional booth and information pamphlet. I intend on doing some navel-gazing about my traumas that I'm too polite to do with friends (I say this, and indeed one shouldn't like to complain, but really I mean "too closed-off") and too stuffy to do in therapy (see previous comment). Recently my life has fallen apart in creative and unexpected ways and I have the asinine idea that this will help me process it, or at least, that my musings will help others. I've taken inspiration from a friend of mine who's done something similar, and she reports good outcomes.

I use the pen name Alexander. This account will remain mostly anonymised except for situationally relevant details. One of the broadly relevant ones is that I am a professor of mathematics in a centrally-located university in a large American city. It's also a city I spent a large amount of my childhood in due to various business trips with my parents, though I am not American by birth. My first faculty/staff appointment came when I was a teenager. I was precocious. This is where many of my problems began.

I also like poetry. I'm gay. To quote a friend of mine's wife, I'm "violently gay" and "we all knew this". I like fashion (go figure), music of all sorts, fine art, and haute cuisine. Those are the main things.

If you want to read more about parental abuse, substance abuse, chronic depression, suicidal ideation and action, disordered eating, loneliness, and emotional instability, you've actually come to the wrong place: I won't say much about these things directly; or at least, don't plan to. I find it indelicate I suppose. I'd rather do something constructive like talk about how to get on with life in the wake of these things, so hopefully I get to record some useful meditations.

A remark on the name of this blog is the following. A deviation is a rare event: something observed which is far from average or difficult to explain probabilistically. In large deviations theory the most probable event in a set of possible events is the least unlikely one, which sounds like a tautology, but happens to be useful. A slogan one often sees is "improbable events happen in the most probable improbable way", or variations thereof. With some artistic licence we could say the simplest explanation of an unlikely event is the best one. My work deals with probability theory and large deviations theory is something I think about a lot. I find a lot of poetry in the concept. The specific form of the blog's name is a reference to St Anselm's definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". I enjoy a good biblical metaphor. I find the mysticism of the whole thing compelling.

Mind how you go,

Alec