Ivan Cherevko | Иван Черевко | 伊万切列夫科

•6. The Art of Never Finishing.

By: Ivan Cherevko

22-08-2010

There are quite a few books I would love to read. Out of them, there is this chunk that I would love to, but I can’t, for they have never been written.

You see, most authors don’t like to observe their art, and my humble self also abhors going into contact with anything I’ve created — I just never like it enough. Yet, sometimes on my computer I find pieces of writing by my own pen I genuinely enjoy — but I never went beyond few pages.

4 A4 pages, more or less a limit of what I can write in one sitting, is the most common size of my started “novels” and “novellas” — exposition, and then just puff. Why? Laziness? Lack of talent? Lack of time? Oh my dears, this would easily produce a dozen unfinished, or more appropriately to say, unstarted products — I’m pretty sure I have close to a hundred.

It takes an art to fail at delivering an actual product to do this. An art of never finishing.

Am I proud of it? Should I be? I don’t know. What I know, though, is that you shouldn’t respect people who laugh at product and honor an idea. Ideas are worthless. I have a hundred, you have a hundred. Making a product is great. Making a product out of a shitty idea is greater still. How often do you catch yourself appraising a success of some company or individual, thinking, “damn, I could have that idea as well!” or even “damn, I had this idea!”? I do this all the time.

How often do you do “damn, I could have run Apple [Google, Microsoft, Exxon, Goldman Sachs] so much better!”? I almost never do.

The art of never finishing is important if you’re a professional do-nothing scumbag. For the rest of us, it’s a burden we work to weed out.

•5. I am an Environmental Scientist, not an Environmentalist!

By: Ivan Cherevko

11-07-2010

Business, Environment, Waste Management

I got my Bachelor’s and Specialist’s (a Soviet-style degree; one-year degree above the bachelor, usually in engineering and related fields) in Environmental Science. Contrary to what many think, it wasn’t a random or spurious choice — while that’s not apparent or not know to most people who know me, I’ve been doing those or that researches in envsci (mostly, municipal solid waste handling research) for the last eleven years.

Comrades who know that I do environmental science work, unerringly think that I should be some kind of a valiant green knight, tree-hugger extraordinaire, an eco-activist with a flawlessly green past record.

Well, I’m sorry, I apologize. I am an environmental scientist, not an environmentalist!

A mixture of the ideology and the science, a witch potion of ecoactivism, a movement first of all lifestyle and political, and environmental science, a holistic earth science akin to meteorology or oceanology, is a vile poison to my cognitively-sensitive mind.

Having an “approved” agenda is a norm in many social sciences (liberal capitalism in economics; Western-styled democracy-based approach in history; etc.) — yet in no other field a deviation from the norm is so unusual. It seems that people only become env scientists to feed their ecoactivist spirit, which is odd — after all, you don’t see vegetarians studying nutrition science just because it’s an “obvious” choice for a vegetarian.

I don’t drive a hybrid car, and I don’t particularly watch my electricity consumption. I don’t think my (or society’s) conscious actions are going to change anything, in my research I focus on ways to subvert primary human emotions (greed, laziness, etc.) for more efficient municipal solid waste handling, not preaching an agenda.

It’s just funny just how fringe this worldview is in environmental science.

•4. Your Child, a Scientist

By: Ivan Cherevko

24-05-2010

Family, Home, Parenting

Do you have a little kid or a couple? That’s great, because you have a scientist living in your house.

Do you know a scientist? Like a real one, a pro, probably working at some university doing serious, mind-boggling research? That’s great, because you know one more (or couple) more kids than you thought you have.

It’s logical if you think of it — because tasting different kinds of crayons to see whether they taste different is doing actual, practical science. Being curious about why people’s hair turns grey is scientific interest; wondering why some men go gray and why some go bald is even a higher level of scientific curiosity.

Up until certain age, all kids possess this intricate ability to work real science most grown-ups have lost (I can assert than even most real scientists lost this ability; and had to regain it back, painfully, when older). Girls tend to lose this gist faster, due to societal pressures of over-the-top consumerism and Western values of “girl things” and “boy things” to do. Disassembling gadgets, trinketing with bugs or examining weird twigs are invariably boy things to do.

Infinite curiosity, the feeling of obligation to understand how things work, almost infinite capacity to absorb new, desire to have a hands-on experience with important things and issues — this is pretty much every, every three-year old. It’s hard to kill the talent of an adult scientist; we all know stories how they keep up with their research despite all odds. Yet, very little is needed to kill your kid researcher — do you remember being harsh to your kid for asking a question you couldn’t quite manage to answer? Scolded your kid for mingling with something on the ground because it’s dirty, and, ergo, dangerous? Denied a toy your kid actually wants in exchange for nothing (not the worst case) or some shiny gizmo that’s utterly pointless yet you will think will keep them occupied (worst case)? No?

Well, I do. I watch you on the streets, in the commute, in toy shops and kid stores, and I see you, mothers and fathers, doing these things every day, all the time. Screw you.

I beg all parents that read me or can potentially read me — whatever you do, don’t let this spark fade, don’t let it with all your might. If you kid is average, this spark is the most important gift she has; if your kid is special, though, this is the most important gift he might have.

Your child is a scientist — and you are supposed to treat scientists with respect.

•3. Wikipedia and Me

By: Ivan Cherevko

14-05-2010

Computers, Groupware, Software

My first recollection of Wikipedia dates back to April 2004, when it was hardly a mainstream phenomenon; our local university forum had a message posted celebrating Ukrainian Wikipedia‘s 1000th article. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I’ve ever heard of it, yet, I distinctly remember having quite a clear idea of what it was back then.

Whether it was true or not, by the end of 2004 I started contributing heavily to Wikipedia, first Ukrainian for a few articles, then English. I didn’t care to maintain any kind of personal “brand” or whatnot; I was creating accounts in bulk, for every field I was contributing to, every whim and novelty I had.

The thrill wasn’t in contributing to what soon would be the world’s largest source of knowledge; the thrill wasn’t in being appreciated by “peers” or whoever; it wasn’t in making a difference.

The thrills was in the unique among online societies (I haven’t found any others like this to this day) level of rigor and bureaucracy. The articles and actual content are only a tip of the iceberg — the rest in the layers and layers of rules, organizations, committees, votes, councils, laws and policies that make Wikipedia run. I swam like a shark in it. My grip in Wikipedia law was stronger than most real-world lawyers’ in the real-world law.

In late 2005, nearing Ukrainian parliamentary elections, I used that grip for the monetary gain — I approached most of the smaller-scale parties offering them the services of Wikipedia reputation management; surprisingly, a few agreed, kickstarting what later turned out to be my semi-career in Internet marketing.

I was cleaning up articles, using sockpuppets, outwitting and outbureaucrating my opponents; in the end, I was so disgusted with all that I stopped contributing to Wikipedia at all.

Obviously, I use it daily as a reference source; from time to time, I do a stray edit here and there to prove a point or on a whim; yet, after that, I never got back to living and breathing Wikipedia.

•2. The Story of My Writing

By: Ivan Cherevko

10-05-2010

Arts, Literature

In Russian, my native tongue, just like in many other languages including English, there are two distinct kinds of handwriting — cursive and block lettering. Unlike English, though, cursive handwriting (designed as to be faster and easier to write using hardly usable dip pens of times begone) is something school drills you with 24/7, and you could be disciplined pretty harshly for handing in your assignments in block even in high school. When I was growing up (and I mean age of two-three years), I didn’t know about the cursive lettering. I haven’t ever seen it — all information I acquired was from books, newspapers, and TV, obviously they all were printed, and used block lettering. Since I’ve been learning to write by the books, I wrote block.

For all intents and purposes, cursive didn’t exist in my world. Cue the disappointment when I got to school at age of five and had to learn writing in cursive. Out of all school chores, this was actually some kind of new knowledge — useless one, but new knowledge still. Then, I left that school, had a year-long break before moving on to the next one… and gleefully embraced block lettering back in my life.

Why am I even writing about this?

Well, I wanted to tell how I started to write, and in my early years the idea of writing creatively was absolutely bound with the need to actually write the creations down — I didn’t have a typewriter yet then (yes, I actually had a period of using a typewriter), and got my first computer only years later.

My first ever piece of creative writing was a “poem” written in second grade as a school assignment to write a poem about Kiev, city where I live. It was sucky to no end, but I still can recite it freely — “Каштановый город / Зеленью сият / Растенья он хранит / И жизнь вдохновляет / На новые причуды / Чтобы не было скучноты” (for Slavic-challenged: “A chestnut city (a common poetic name for Kiev) shines with the greenness, protects the plants and inspires the life to the new quirks, to avoid a bore”).

It barely rhymed, it barely made any sense, but I was proud of my little achievement.

Half a year and three grades later, I started my foreign literature class, with thirty creative writing assignments — most short stories, some fairy tales, some constrained writing, all on some specific topics related to the books I was to read — to do in order to get a passing mark for the class.

My parents were horrified, and I think still can’t recover from the shock they had.

I was just very sad I had to write it all down, in cursive lettering, and I probably wouldn’t have if not for my mom’s constant nudging, and sitting down with me collaborating.

Those thirty assignments, by my literature professor, Ms. Elena Kostyuk, not only left me with sore fingers and ears burning from the heat of the tablelamp, but also were something that jumpstarted my path to being a hobbyist poet/writer. That was when I was seven.

About what I wrote, and how I wrote, later, in •6. The Art of Never Finishing.

•1. Long Time No See

By: Ivan Cherevko

09-05-2010

— Ivan Cherevko

•6. The Art of Never Finishing.

•5. I am an Environmental Scientist, not an Environmentalist!

•4. Your Child, a Scientist

•3. Wikipedia and Me

•2. The Story of My Writing

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