Now that the first year of my European escapade has ended, I think that it's high time to explain to my friends and family what exactly am I doing with my life, occupation-wise. Whenever I tell others that I am studying 'Engineering and Policy Analysis' as my second master degree, two common reactions arise, both with an indulgent smile in their eyes: policy analysis? you mean you study management? Or, why are you getting another master degree??
As the name of this blog is... Connections, I cannot help but relating my choice of enrolling in EPA to other aspects of my life, the ruling determinant being the pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
Back in 2007, when I was 19, fresh-faced and starry-eyed, roaming the campus of McGill University, I shopped for courses in search of a purpose to anchor myself to. I was studying chemical engineering, which, as its name might have suggested, is a body of knowledge of tools, of methodology (how to make things, many things, much more, in a more efficient way); it does not come with a bounded area of interest, as physics or chemistry might have had. Fatefully, or incidentally - to me the two are one and the same - I fell for the idea of 'energy': it was an integral yet invisible part of our reality, verified by empirical science (Truth); it was a resource that propelled nations and people (potential for Goodness); it was mesmerizingly close to the ancient Chinese principle of 气/Qi, the mysterious force that guided and connected everything in the universe (Beauty). For the remainder of my undergraduate degree, I pursued electives in the area, yet felt deeply unfulfilled. The approaches that were taught to me by my esteemed professors were focused on energy as Truth: how to quantify it, how to convert it between different forms, and how to improve the procedures that Men have developed to harness it. All via impartial, painstaking calculations. I yearned to learn about energy as a source for the Good and the Beautiful.
In the fall of 2011, I started my master degree at University of Waterloo under the supervision of Prof. Ali Elkamel and Prof. Michael Fowler. Prof. Elkamel's holistic research portfolio that steps into operations research interested me, and Prof. Fowler supplied the much needed dose of reality with his non-nonsense attitude in research and in life. In the following two years, I became exposed to the history of energy, the long journey for humanity to evolve ever-more-sophisticated methods to use energy, fulfilling and developing new needs. The flowing stream of past coincidences and plans yielded the world as it is, which is to act as the foundation for the world to be. It was in this phase that I have started to develop an eye for the evaluation of the ever-elusive "Goodness". My own research project, the modelling of an underground hydrogen storage reservoir, to be used for large-scale energy storage, led me to more questions than I began with: In households and nations, who are the ones making decisions concerning how we use energy? how is our use of energy interacting with our other needs? Is there a working definition for "good" use of energy?
By the end of these two year, I was fully aware that the world of science and technology no longer contained the perspectives that I was searching for. Something different is needed. I am not looking to reject what I know already, the scientific method and solid training as an inventor of tools, an engineer. I needed a new approach that included science yet transcended it, and thus I came upon EPA. Engineering and more. In the first lecture of the foundational course, Prof. Alexander de Haan told the class that in EPA, we helped others to solve problems. But engineers and scientists also solved problems! Yes, he said, but we also help the problem-owners to define their problem. The awareness that different world views exist, that a constant coming-together of perspectives is needed to move collectively ahead, is the most important lessons from EPA. So far, I am happy with the tentative statement that there is no absolute good (nor can there ever be), not for the use of energy or anything definite, but it is possible to build solutions that are self-vigilant and flexible, which self-correct when unintended damage ensue. That, and much more, became imperfect but working directives for many of my day-to-day thoughts and decisions.
So in my work, in what I aspire to make my career, I continue to explore energy as Truth and potential for Good. What about Beauty? Yes, what about beauty. The Beauty of energy is in everything living and ephemeral. It is the dull light trickling down sober Dutch brick façades on a brisk morning. It is the violent gold in a river, whose peace became suddenly shattered by a plunge at high noon. It is the warmth of a familiar embrace that we take refuge in on a dreary evening. In telling my story, in drawing parallels between chaotic elements of one's life, in shaping one's path in accordance to what one believes to be True and potentially Good, I find Beauty. By saying everything I can and respecting the silence of that which cannot be said, I live in Beauty.