i am an investment banker (?)


i have pretty strong doubts that this is something that i'd want to do after college, but i'm thankful for the opportunity now. it's hard to feel like i've done more than make money--and i don't know that i've even done that yet--at the end of the day.

i do still believe in the possibility of, broadly defined, achieving social goods through business (profit) interests, but i can't say that i've brought about much justice in the world via my work* here thus far. my hope is that that's because i'm so junior in the firm and can't see or don't have the influence to see what good is really coming about, not because justice and profit are always and everywhere opposed. though perhaps they are? at the very least, i hope that i'm learning things applicable to other jobs/places/ideas that i get more excited about.

*[for the mathy amongst you, my main job thus far has been to design a "fixed income structured product" that predicts the price movements of different bonds based on past data. if you can do this well, you can buy when the price is low and sell when the price is high. if the prices are volatile enough that your gains cover your transaction costs, you can make a lot of money. and by product, i mean a set of models that become formulas in one lovely spreadsheet.] fun!

I wish I were clever and insightful.

And perhaps I will be soon, once I'm used to this blogging phenomenon and, not to mention, when I'm struck by real insight / cleverness. . . Until then, an update + pictures on the details of my VERY GLAMOROUS lifestyle.

To be expanded upon soon, but this quote captures a lot of the way that I've been feeling lately.

"Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness andjoy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadnessthat pervades all the moments of our life. It seems that there is nosuch thing as clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happymoments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In everysuccess, there is a fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is atear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship,distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge ofsurrounding darkness. Joy and sadness are as close to each other asthe splendid colored leaves of a New England fall to the soberness ofthe barren trees. When you touch the hand of a returning friend, youalready know that he will have to leave you again. When you are movedby the quiet vastness of the sun-covered ocean, you miss the friendwho cannot see the same. Joy and sadness are born at the same time,both arising from such deep places in your heart that you can't findwords to capture your complex emotions. But this intimate experiencein which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point usbeyond the limits of our existences. It can do so by making us lookforward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled withperfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us."- Henri Nouwen

When you take pictures holding the camera at arm's length, it's hard to tell that you're in a national park. But maybe you can see what we really look like?

I hoped for a second that this picture might look like I was starting a revolution. A revolution towards something -- perhaps a new breed of communalism, as most of the people in this picture are wearing clothes that belong to someone else in the picture. But then it struck me: for revolutionaries, these guys look extraordinarily happy. And friendly . . . oops.

Walker is only slightly more revolutionary looking than Connie.  


This is from a ways back, but I wanted to include it because Walker was behind the camera on the beginning-of-the-revolution picture above. With my family and Pittsburgh friends, I will miss these guys most as I'm away. I wonder if you doesn't take leaving a place to realize what's actually there. I'd like to think of the best communities as functioning beyond a physical place or space - exactly because the community is strong can it send someone (me?) out and receive him back again. Will write more . . .