“No man becomes this or that by wishing to be it, however earnestly.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer  

I wished to be a mathematician or a physicist. This was when I was 16 years old. I have since become a physicist. Of sorts. Not famous or important, but an average Joe scientist who conducts research in physics for a living. I suspect that, nonetheless, Schopenhauer was right. I feel that I am a physicist in letter, but not in spirit. I am assured that this is the "impostor syndrome" commonly found in young academics who believe that, unlike their gifted colleagues, they are bluffing their way through the system. I do not believe it to be the case with me. While others are only fake impostors, I am the real deal. Of course, this feeling could be part of the syndrome itself, or perhaps it is a syndrome in its own right. In any case, I will paraphrase Schopenhauer to reflect the reality of how I feel: “A man becomes but a pale imitation of this or that by wishing to be it.”

I also wanted to become a writer. This was when I was twelve, but also when I was sixteen, and when I was twenty and then twenty-five. Now that I am  thirty-five, I no longer wish to be a writer. But I wish to write. Perhaps it increases my chances of becoming, or being, a writer. In any case, it averts the possibility of an impostor syndrome, for I do not claim to be a writer in the first place.

I do not have a coherent story to tell. But at times I am gripped by the feeling that I have some things to say that are worth saying. When I say them to myself, they sound perfect. It is no fun. When I say them to others, they sound incomprehensible or pretentious or both. So I am writing them down, in the hope that a sympathetic reader will find them, and that the written word will survive longer than the echoes in an empty room.

There are only two more things I have to say by way of introduction. First of all, I claim no originality or accuracy for what I say. I doubt that anything new is really ever said at all. Only the way one says it is new. As for accuracy, it is a concept that I can barely fathom as a physicist, let alone as a (pseudo-) writer. Secondly, my outlook is fundamentally that of a pessimist. I do not  do things because I expect rewards to be the common or natural outcomes of efforts, but because I know that one gets lucky occasionally, and because the passage of time is its own reward.