Welcome 2022

So far, what's new with your new year? If one is like most people, things are just pretty much the same. Even so, let us not go overboard with cynicism and sarcasm culture that one sees quite a lot nowadays and look down on those who celebrate new year or write down new year resolutions. Be kind especially in these trying times. In any case, it is always good to be conscious of efforts trying to improve oneself, be this at the new year or for that matter at any other selected times (usually comes with certain meaning or understanding).

Talking about sarcasm, I remembered reading a social media post talking about the movie "Don't Look Up" and about education as overcoming stupidity instead of improving intelligence. I tend to see both stupidity and intelligence come in various shapes and sizes in a way that I normally prefer to think more on concrete ideas. Nevertheless, I do take the idea of overcoming stupidity as important. In fact, I use this as my drive to push for (hard) theoretical sciences. One does not learn much when one sticks to easy things; one needs to push for more difficult things to learn better (and hence not considered foolish when discussing matters at a technical level). This is particularly critical these days when ego gets the better of us and one falls into the pits of 'bodoh sombong' (arrogantly stupid).

In pursuing theoretical sciences, I normally devise four levels of attaining informationn and knowledge (and they are by no means, fixed with specific boundaries) for me to organise thoughts:

• Awareness: This level allows one to know what (areas) that one does not know. For me, I have the tendency to scout for topics that I wish I can learn but do not really have the time to pursue them. I do this by looking at the arXiv and note down interesting papers in Equatorial Frequencies. Most of these go unread, of course.
• General Knowledge: Of the things that I wish I could learn (from above), I normally identify certain specific areas (usually related to my own research) that I would try to make sure that I know what are their main ideas/gist and techniques underlying these areas. One may not know the details but can quickly approach them if needed. This is perhaps the level I expect generalists should have.
• Working Knowledge: These should be on the research areas that one is working on where technical details matter. One may not be considered as expert in the area but is sufficiently knowledgeable about it. This is also the level I expect master students can achieve.
• Mastery and Wisdom in Specific Knowledge: Here, one expects that details of specific areas are known to the individual with the ability to see connections between diverse topics, and sniff new research directions. PhD candidates should aspire to achieve this level. To be called an expert, the individual should have already attained this level. With my students, I often add our need to be reference point of the subject matter, not only to our local community of scientists but also the international community. The latter is the real test for most of us academics.

Having said all these, I consider these as signposts for me making my own personal judgements of where one is; others might want to consider things differently. One should be extra careful to expert self-proclamation; often such recognition is given by others in the (international) scientific community. As such, that is why I always felt that we still have a long way to go. I hope some will find these thoughts useful on this day of the New Year.