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@ -19,10 +19,24 @@ I understand that this presents an issue: casual surfers of this website, curiou
## Basic Traits
I have always thought that the defining characteristic of what makes Levi *Levi*, in so far as I or anyone have such a thing^[My chief concern throughout this document, as established in the introduction, is establishing a balance between reductivity and egotism. The broader conclusion I have come to? Human lives and persona cannot be mapped onto human language. Interesting!], is my **curiosity** and **creativity**. This is not a curiosity that manifests purely in the abstract. I am certainly interested in abstract things, rabbit holes, all-nighters composed of study, you name it - but I am equally curious in a more tangible sense, one that invokes the process of creation. Much of the substance of my life has been the result of various incarnations of this latter form of curiosity combined with a creativity whose origin I cannot explain. In a concise way, I could state it as follows: I generally feel a strong urge to produce and put my own spin on *anything* that I consume.
I have always thought that the defining characteristic of what makes Levi *Levi*, in so far as I or anyone have such a thing^[My chief concern throughout this document, as established in the introduction, is establishing a balance between reductivity and egotism. The broader conclusion I have come to? Human lives and persona cannot be mapped onto human language. Interesting!], is the combination of my **curiosity** and **creativity**. This is not a curiosity that manifests purely in the abstract. I am certainly interested in abstract things, rabbit holes, all-nighters composed of study, you name it - but I am equally curious in a more tangible sense, one that invokes the process of creation. Much of the substance of my life has been the result of various incarnations of this latter form of curiosity combined with a creativity whose origin I cannot explain. In a concise way, I could state it as follows: I generally feel a strong urge to produce and put my own spin on *anything* that I consume.
### Greatest Strength and Flaw
The realization of this curiosity/creativity complex yields what I find simultaneously as my greatest strength and my most detrimental flaw. I can be relentlessly ambitious and work persistently towards goals that others might dismiss as too far-sighted, impossible, etc. - but I also consistently bite off more than I can chew and overwork myself. I'm at least aware of the latter fact and try to counter it by introducing work that I enjoy, such as work on this website!
### Aphantasia
I have [**complete aphantasia**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia), which means that I cannot visualize anything in my mind. My mind works entirely off of linguistic and indescribable "visualizations." This has had a profound impact on my life. I did not realize that others could visualize actual images in their mind (I thought that when people spoke of this, they were being highly metaphorical and or poetic) until I was in high school.
I believe that my aphantasia is the reason that I am so affected by words (both in prose and poetry) and music as not only mere artistic forms but means of utmost expression. I do not think that I would find such necessity for creative expression through these means without my aphantasia, and as such, I prefer living with aphantasia to living the normal way.
### Favorites
[I GENERALLY DO NOT HAVE A FAVORITE X OR Y.]{.smallcaps} I take two primary issues with the notion of "favorite" as it is used in coloquial American English: first, that one's "favorite X" is often conflated, whether explicitly or implicitly by said one, with "the best X." For any instance where I *do* have have a favorite, I do *not* make any assertion that my favorite X is necessarily the best X out of all possible choices of X. Second, I believe that the action of selecting a favorite is inherently reductive and forces comparisons that are invalid. We are not computers, and we should not be organizing everything into tensors for comparison and floating point operations. Let us enjoy diversity and variance for what they are rather than try to reduce everything to a mere favorite!
#### The one exception
With this said, there is one major exception, and that is my favorite book: *The Brothers Karamazov*, by [Fyodor Dostoevsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky). I cannot understate the impact that this book had on my life, and it is thus my favorite; I carry it with me essentially at all times, and reread at least *some* section of it nearly every day.
## Education
### University
@ -41,6 +55,16 @@ I broadly adopt technologies that assist me in learning, and generally do so wit
---
## Computer Science and Mathematics
I fell in love with computation at a young age. I have been fascinated, inspired, and motivated by the beauty, elegance, and universality of the subject for as long as I can remember. In elementary school I was writing basic programs and text-based games. In high school, I tried to write programs to do my homework, albeit in Java. I recall successfully implementing a statistical suite from scratch with nothing but `java.util.Scanner`, and, later, failing to successfully write a program to do my tedious AP Calculus homework.
I fell in love with Artificial Intelligence during my first semester at Brown. My first computer science final project was to write an implementation of generalized Connect 4, including an AI player. The AI player was simple, and "AI" in this context refers to the grand scheme of the field, not the coloquial usage referring exclusively to large language models / generative models. After much hard work, when I finished the project, I decided to see if my creation could beat me in a game of Connect 4. (I had studied previously some strategies in Connect 4, in the hopes of consistently beating my high school friends, so I was fairly confident in my abilities being above-average.) Needless to say, my creation immediately defeated me decisively. The next morning this result was reproduced several more times. This absolutely amazed me, and provided me with an undying capitvation that has yet to be exhausted.
**Mathematics** and I have a more complicated history. I always loved mathematics in school, yet it was consistently the lowest grade on my report card. Where I really fell in love with mathematics was when I began to learn algebra and venture into the realm of the abstract. The idea of a function was captivating to me as an 8th grader. (It is still captivating to me to this day, somehow.) I entered Brown thinking that I preferred and intended to study physics, but quickly learned that the mathematics underneath the Physics was what I truly enjoyed. In my sophomore year, I "hopped down the street", so to speak^[Kassar House, home of Brown's department of mathematics, is just down the street (George Street, to be precise) from Barus & Holley, which *used* to be most notable as the home of the physics department.] and haven't looked back since.
I have long said to friends that one does not "do mathematics," but rather "mathematics does you," and this encapsulates how I feel about mathematics better than anything else I can think of at the moment. Mathematics is endlessly creative and has, to me, unlimited intrigue. I vividly remember learning about the [Sylow Theorems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylow_theorems) in my 3rd semester abstract algebra course - my first math upper level - and feeling a sense of absolute wonder and beauty at the proof, yes, but moreso at the grandeur of human genius - that *we* were able to derive this result, and so many subsequent ones, and that I had the power to understand it just the same!^[Which was perhaps *not* evident based off my score for the final exam of that course, but I digress.]
## Music
Music is core to who I am. I have played trumpet, my primary instrument, for the majority of my life. I also play piano, horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, and a bit of drums. More important to me than playing, however, is composition. I feel that my compositions are fundamentally a part of me, an extension of the person that I am.
@ -56,12 +80,26 @@ COMPOSITION [IS]{.smallcaps} PERHAPS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE THE PRACTICE [OF MY
:::
Music composition is thus **chiefly distinct** from other forms of creative activity for me. Music is the most rewarding for me, and the medium by which I feel I have the most expression potential and the most capacity to express.^[These are two different things for me. By **expression potential**, I mean the range of sentiments and ideas that music can, in the abstract / in principle, express. This **expression potential** is thus innately provided to me by mere virtue of my partaking in the act of writing music. By **capacity to express**, I am referring to my own personal ability as a composer to successfully express *that which I intend to* rather than the full range of what music itself might be able to encapsulate.] When I hear a composition that I have finished it surmounts me and effortlessly transports me into an immersive state; I am returned to the deep feelings and profound^[Not necessarily in grandeur, but in personal depth.] ideas that I tried to capture through my project. On the contrary, music also torments me. I am something of a perfectionist with my compositions and get frustrated when they do not pan out the way I intend. I scrap many projects that I perceive as insufficient, and when ideas are not flowing, I suffer for it. Luckily, since composition is such a core constituent of who I am, I have found a consistency in my undergraduate years, and the ideas have generally flowed without significant pause since 2023. I can only hope for my own sake that this trend continues far into the future.
Music composition is thus **chiefly distinct** from other forms of creative activity for me. Music is the most rewarding for me, invoking the most passion, and it is the medium by which I feel I have the most expression potential and the most capacity to express.^[These are two different things for me. By **expression potential**, I mean the range of sentiments and ideas that music can, in the abstract / in principle, express. This **expression potential** is thus innately provided to me by mere virtue of my partaking in the act of writing music. By **capacity to express**, I am referring to my own personal ability as a composer to successfully express *that which I intend to* rather than the full range of what music itself might be able to encapsulate.] When I hear a composition that I have finished it surmounts me and effortlessly transports me into an immersive state; I am returned to the deep feelings and profound^[Not necessarily in grandeur, but in personal depth.] ideas that I tried to capture through my project. On the contrary, music also torments me. I am something of a perfectionist with my compositions and get frustrated when they do not pan out the way I intend. I scrap many projects that I perceive as insufficient, and when ideas are not flowing, I suffer for it. Luckily, since composition is such a core constituent of who I am, I have found a consistency in my undergraduate years, and the ideas have generally flowed without significant pause since 2023. I can only hope for my own sake that this trend continues far into the future.
::: {.score-fragment score-name="Violin Sonata - I (2026)" score-caption="A short excerpt from the first movement of my Flute Sonata, composed in January 2026."}
![](scores/fl.svg)
:::
---
## Interests
I have many interests.
I have many interests, and while they can be *temporarily* all-consuming, I try not to let any singular interest of mine define me.^[In the past I allowed myself to be more "defined" by my passions, at least in my self-image. (I can't control how *you* define me, but I can control how *I* define me, after all, and *that* is to me the most important definition.) These days I believe that if such an all-encompassing definition is necessary it must be built from a higher level of abstraction than any singular interest - rather, what are the specific qualities that are brought to any interest? It is not the fact that I do many things but the manners in which and reasons for which I do them that should be the basis of the definition. *Exiting Modernity* talks at great length along these lines.] (The distinction I am making between "interest" and "passion" should be apparent here.) Some of my interests are chiefly **sporadic**; every once in a a while (a while might be a month, a year, etc.), I find myself immersed in and unable to escape the interest for a week or two. Other interests are more constant in my life. My foremost interest is perhaps a metainterest - I'm interested in increasing the variance within my life's experiences, and thus interests that are iterative and provide me the opportunity to do previously unknown things and expand my horizons are generally the most potent to me.
### Foreign Languages
I am extremely interested in **Foreign Language**, and most fortunate to be a native speaker of English, given that I grew up in the United States. This awards me the privilege of having access to a wealth of materials in my mother tongue for learning just about anything, including just about any language. The study of languages other than English is an absolute constant in my life; it has been for years and will persist for many more! I will mention a few important ones here.
#### Spanish
#### Chinese
#### Danish
#### German