Throughout high school and the first one-and-a-half years of undergraduate university, I was plagued by an undying mental debate between two life paths: one centered on science and astrophysics, and another wherein I pursue entrepreneurial goals, allowing me the comfort to spend my free time to develop additional, more down-to-earth hobbies.
Despite my passion for the cosmos, I desire equally as much to enjoy life to its fullest, and weighing the time and money demand, I chose the latter.
In doing so, I felt an odd sense that a version of myself had died, one wherein I would have dedicated my life to astrophysics, one wherein I worked in a neutrino observatory, studied galactic spin rates, or helped characterize the properties of dark matter, until my last dying breath. Perhaps a version of me would have ambitiously helped develop a theory of quantum gravity, or helped progress a paradigm shift in how we view the universe. Perhaps he won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
My passion developed as a result of my own curiosity and research. In my short stint, I engaged in an internship at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute (see here), and won a national writing competition (see here) about radioisotope power systems.
Mathematician Paul Erdős once said that when he said someone had 'died', he meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had 'left', the person had died.
I felt this way of myself upon making the difficult decision to abandon the field I felt so compelled to dedicate my life toward, and if I ever find success, I hope to fund education, research, and observatories to support others in my position.
In the meantime, I decided to leave this webpage as a dedication to that version of myself who may have thrived under different circumstances.
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