Monomorphic

2019 comes to a close, and with it the 2010s. Below are a few thoughts on these periods of time.

The most significant book I’ve read in 2019 is probably Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. The German title, literally “Elements and Origins of Totalitarian Rule” more closely reflects the contents of this monograph. Arendt explores antisemitism, imperialism and totalitarianism to form a grand analysis of totalitarian forms of government, which she considers to be genuinely new and unprecedented. Those who make it through the somewhat slow early chapters will be richly rewarded. It’s a very timely book – although written in the 1950’s, most of the ideas feel like they could be from last week. Elements of totalitarian rule are absolutely something we should worry about.

Another notable book from this year has been Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record. Aside from the obvious political dynamite, I found myself relating to a lot of the experiences he had growing up. Perhaps this is a generational story. In the late 90s, the Internet suddenly became relatively mainstream and for a short while, it was a very special place, seemingly full of utopian promise and all kinds of possibilities and exploration. For many born in the mid-80s this coincided with our teenage years.

I’ve lived in Japan throughout the 2010s, the final part of the Heisei (平成) era. In 2019 this era came to a close and we are now officially in Reiwa (令和). I can’t easily summarise the 2010s. Both my personal life and Japan seem to have undergone great change during this time, and sometimes it’s hard to separate one from the other. The Fukushima incident in 2011 was perhaps a watershed moment that Japan is still grappling with. Although the future of nuclear power has not yet been resolved, the country’s response to such a tense incident has in many ways been admirable, and the famous Japanese virtue (sometimes a double-edge sword) of stability certainly came through. The surrounding world is also changing, and Japan, though still a relatively separate culture, is becoming considerably more open and mixed as a society, perhaps out of necessity. Tourism and labour imports have both increased significantly. This raises interesting questions about what kind of society Japan might be in 10 – 20 years.

During the decade I have had diverse personal and professional experiences. I lived in Tokyo, Osaka, then Tokyo again. I was able to complete a PhD thesis. I visited many countries for the first time, and became interested in bioinformatics (mainly as a field in which to apply fundamental computer science and software engineering). I took up several new hobbies, obtained permanent residency in Japan, and was able to improve my Japanese to the point of reading novels, although I’m still not quite where I’d like to be with the language. I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy and general literature and tried to systematically develop a worldview (fragments of which sometimes appear on this blog). Not everything I tried to do worked out the way I expected, but the learning has felt very valuable, and I do feel much wiser and more capable about my approach to many things. I expect to be sincerely expressing the same sentiment in the year 2029, though.

One technical focus this year was improving my Spark (and Scala) skills and developing an algorithm for De Bruijn graph compaction (similar to what Bcalm does). I was pleased with the efficient research process I was able to achieve, probably my best ever on this kind of project. In terms of my professional path, the overall trend for me seems to be towards smaller firms and greater independence. (Although I remain with Lifematics, I will now also be available for consulting and contracting opportunities in bioinformatics as well as general software development. If you are reading this and think you would like to work with me, do get in touch.)

Thus ends a politically very strange decade, from a global perspective, and we enter the brave new world of the 2020s. Will it be a time of “orderly peace”, as the name 令和 suggests?