JUSTO JORGE PADRÓN. "Los círculos del infierno" ::: Reseña :::

Los círculos del infierno 
Justo Jorge Padrón 
Prólogo: Artur Lundkvist 
Colección: "Selecciones de Poesía Española' 
Editorial: Plaza & Janes, S.A. 
Barcelona, España, 1976 
ISBN 84-01-80943-6 
114 páginas










JUSTO JORGE PADRÓN. "Los círculos del infierno" ::: Reseña :::

Este magistral texto lírico, comienza a gestarse en 1973 cuando su autor no contaba
los treinta años de edad. Había publicado, hasta entonces. Los oscuros fuegos^ y Mar de la
noche''. En el verano de 1974, víctima de una fuerte crisis personal, el libro se va
consolidando en su estancia nórdica en las capitales de Suecia y Noruega. La labor de
creación finaliza en 1975. Es el apogeo de la Guerra Fría entre los Estados Unidos y la exUnión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas. Al caos vital se suma la amenazante situación
mundial de la época y ambos aspectos conforman las condiciones adecuadas para propiciar
Los círculos del infierno. Esta situación adquiere en la obra una juventud atemporal que se
expande a lo largo del tiempo en el espacio de la palabra; y sigue siendo actual porque la
expresión poética alcanza a reflejar con precisión, y poderosas visiones, el conflicto latente
del planeta por la amenaza de su destrucción junto a la de la especia humana. De ahí la
profunda actualidad de este libro que vino a significar la consagración literaria de Justo Jorge
Padrón y a otorgarle el pleno reconocimiento internacional a su labor creativa.

El poemario comenzó a elaborarse en Las Palmas y se clausuró en Estocolmo y Oslo;
principalmente en la capital sueca. Narra el propio poeta que en sus paseos cotidianos con
Artur Lundkvist no llegó a mostrarle estos poemas hasta su conclusión definitiva, a pesar del
interés que ya estaba despertando en el gran poeta y acadéinico sueco la idea general del
libro. Fue precisamente en una cena en el hogar del matrimonio Lundkvist, una vez
concluido, cuando le entregó el manuscrito al crítico nórdico. Padrón abandona la casa de
Artur Lundkvist y María Wine antes de la medianoche. A las siete de la mañana recibe una
llamada de Lundkvist en la que comenta que no ha podido dejar de leerlo durante toda la
noche y que debido a la honda impresión que le ha causado el libro le pr e propone a su autor ser
su primer traductor y prologuista.

' Artur Lundkvist, profundo conocedor de la lengua y literatura españolas, fue uno de
los mayores p)oetas nórdicos contemporáneos, el más prestigioso crítico literario internacional
y Presidente del Comité Nobel de la Academia sueca cuya opinión sirvió de referencia
indiscutible, durante muchos años, para la concesión del Premio Nobel a autores de nuestra
lengua. Miguel Ángel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Vicente Aleixandre, Gabriel García Márquez,
Camilo José Cela y Octavio Paz son los seis escritores que fueron galardonados durante su
gestión. El propio Lundkvist rechazó el preciado galardón por su inquebrantable integridad;
ya que opinaba que un sueco no debía recibir un premio mundial otorgado por Suecia.
En España, Enrique Badosa -poeta de la Generación del 50, director en Plaza & Janes
de las selecciones de poesía española y universal y de narrativa durante más de dos décadashabía pubhcado la antología de Padrón La nueva poesía sueca coniemporánec^. En una
escala barcelonesa del poeta canario, Badosa menciona este libro y le pregunta si ha seguido
escribiendo después del Premio Boscán; Justo Jorge Padrón cita Los círculos del infierno,
que ya estaba siendo traducido al sueco y prologado por Artur Lundkvist. Enrique Badosa,
con cierta curiosidad, solicitó ver el texto aun a sabiendas de que para publicarlo en la
colección que él coordinaba no había posibilidad a corto plazo. Pero acontece lo que
anteriormente había sucedido con el crítico y académico sueco: la contundente impresión de
su iectiira le hace publicarlo de iimiediato dejando a un lado los compromisos adquiridos para
ser así su primer editor en español.

A finales de enero de 1976 ve la luz Los círculos del infierno . En la prensa española
más representativa aparecen encendidos elogios de esta publicación. Hay un auge de nuestro
poeta no sólo en Europa, sino en América. Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Sábato, Alvaro Mutis,
Eduardo Carranza y Mario Vargas Llosa, entre otros muchos autores, reconocen con el más
distinguido pronunciamiento la poesía de Justo Jorge Padrón.
Esta repercusión crítica comienza a gestar la nombradia del poeta en ámbitos
internacionales que ya comienza a ser invitado a los mejores festivales de E e Europa, América y
Asia, así como a las más prestigiosas universidades y centros culturales.
Justo Jorge Padrón se erige, por tanto, no sólo en uno de los más destacados
miembros de la denominada Generación del 70, sino en el poeta español de las generaciones
de la posguerra con mayor reconocimiento internacional.
Los círculos del infierno obtiene en 1977, por unanimidad, el lústrico Premio
Fastenrath de la Real Academia Española de la Lengua al mejor libro de poesía publicado
entre 1972-1977; hecho sin precedentes inmediatos, a excepción del que se otorgó el año
1928 a Federico García Lorca por Romancero Gitano. Premio Bienal de la Asociación de
Escritores suecos 1976-1977, al mejor libro de poesía extranjera traducido al sueco por Los
círculos del infierno. Fue un libro fundamental, en el conjunto de la obra padroniana, para
obtener el Premio Europa de Literatura (Yugoslavia, 1986) que entre otros distinguidos
fínalistas contó con Graham Greene, Mario Luzi, Andrei Voznezenski y Alain Bosquet; tal
vez este libro fue decisivo para que Padrón obtuviera, cuatro años más tarde, la Corona de
Oro del XXIX Festival de Struga (Macedonia, 1990), uno de los más importantes galardones
del ámbito internacional, que en lengua española sólo se había otorgado a Pablo Neruda y a
Rafael Alberti.

Ha obtenido, entre otros, los siguientes galardones internacionales: Medalla de Oro
de la Comisión Francesa de la Cultura de Bruselas (Bélgica, 1981), Premio Internacional de
la Academia Mundial de Arte y Cultura en San Francisco (Estados Unidos, 1981), Premio
Internacional de Literatura de Madras (La India, 1982), Palmas de Plata de la Academia
Internacional de Pontzen en  N ^ l e s (Italia, 1983), Medalla de Oro del Ministerio de
Educación de la República de China (1983), Premio "Zeus" a la cultura en Atenas (Grecia,
1985), Gran Premio Internacional de Literatura de Sofía (Bulgaria, 1988), Premio Orfeo
(Bulgaria, 1992), Premio Blaise Cendrars del Festival Internacional de Poesía de Suiza
(1994), Premio de la Academia Michel Madhusudan de Calcuta (La India, 1995), Premio
Internacional Nichita Stánescu (Rumania, 1996) y Premio Internacional de Trieste (Italia,
1999) por el conjunto de su obra poética.

En nuestro ámbito ha obtenido, entre otros, el Premio Boscán (1972), Medalla de
Honor Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer y Premio de la Asociación de Escritores y Artistas de España
al mejor libro del año por La visita del mar (1984), Premio del Gobierno Autonómico de
Canarias al mejor libro de Literatura del año en Canarias por Sólo muere la mano que te
escribe^ (1989), Premio "Félix Casanova de Ayala" por el libro inédito Trazos de un
paréntesis (Tenerife, 1991), Premio Provincia de Guadalajara por Manantial de las
presencias' (1993), Premio del Gobierno Autonómico de Canarias al mejor libro de
Literatura del año en Canarias por Resplandor del odio* (1994), Premio Internacional de
Poesía Ciudad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria por Rumor de la agonice (1995), Premio
Canarias de Literatura de 1997 y Premio Aula de Poesía de Barcelona por Escalofrío^"
(1998).

La revista 5/re/wei (Yugoslavia, 1988) editó un doble número monográfico (número
3-4), donde colaboran trece autores -poetas y ensayistas- internacionales, a Los círculos del
infierno; la Fundación Femando Rielo de Madrid publicó 200 textos críticos sobre la obra
poética de Justo Jorge Padrón (Sevilla, 1991), con recopilación y prólogo de Víctor
Ivanovici, que compila algunos de los más importantes trabajos sobre Los círculos del
infierno; Ivitsa Dzeparovski, director macedonio, realizó la película de vídeo-arte "Los
círculos del infierno de Justo Jorge Padrón", inspirada en el citado libro y emitida en 1990
por la televisión yugoslava y la revista Vindrosor Moield (Estocolmo, Suecia, 2000) de la
Fundación de la Academia Sueca "Artur Lundkvist" dedicó un número especial a la obra de
Padrón (número 8-9) con una introducción biográfica y ensayo de Johan Persson y poemas
traducidos por Artur Lundkvist, Mónica Eidenfeldt y Lasse Sdderberg.

En el Peru, el profesor y poeta peruano César Toro Montalvo ha publicado el riguroso
estudio La cosmogonía del hombre contemporáneo. Introducción a Los círculos del infierno
de Justo Jorge Padrón (Editorial, Arte/Reda, Lima, Perú, 2001.

* * *

J. INAUDI: an Italian calculating prodigy

J. Inaudi: One of the most extaordinaire Calculateur of the modern time

This article was publishes by THE ILLUSTRATION
and POPULAR ASTRONOMY under the signature of CAMILLE FLAMMARION The eminent Astronomer
=======================================================
NOTE
on
JACQUES
I N A U D I
The most extraordinary Calculateur
of the modern time

---

This article was publishes by THE ILLUSTRATION
and THE POPULAR ASTRONOMY
under the signature of
CAMILLE FLAMMARION
the eminent Astronomer
=======================================================
Curiosity  Mathematics
The prodigy Computer INAUDI

---

I am delighted to give here my appraisal of Inaudi, as I have observed him for a long time in his marvellous feats of calculation, ever since he first aroused interest upon his arrival in Paris at the age of thirteen.

Inaudi is comparable with a musician who charms us without ever having learned music, and without knowing a single note. When he arrived in Paris, he could neither read nor write and did not know a single figure. He had been unable to make an addition with a pencil. However, he gave almost instantaneously the solution to the most complicated problem. He was asked, for example, how many minutes have elapsed since the birth of Jesus Christ, or what the population would be if the dead from the past ten centuries were resurrected, or the square root of a number of twelve digits, and he gave the response accurately and in two or three minutes - while amusing himself with another activity.

He could not yet extract cube roots, and it was in one of our sessions that he carried out the first test of them, and flawlessly so. The question had been asked by a mathematician of the Academy of Sciences. The very term was unknown to him, because he had confused it with "public root", and, for more than a year, he knew it by this expression alone.

His face was of a striking prominence. His head was malformed, resembling that of a child with meningitis, familiar from the Spanish postage stamps. The general shape of the head changed appreciably with age. His facial angle is normal and almost gives the Greek profile. But if the face is incomparably less bomb-??? than it was ten years ago, there remains on his skull a rather curious feature: at the top, along the line corresponding to the meeting on the two cerebral hemispheres, one sees, and feels to the touch, a rather deep furrow apparently separating the two hemispheres, and this area of the skull is covered only with a slight envelope very sensitive to the touch: the skull is not yet closed.

Inaudi's capacity for calculation is truly extraordinary. As I write these lines, he is in my office, and, in order to analyse his method, I have just proposed to him an unspecified problem. A clock is in front of me. I first require the multiplication of two numbers of three digits, viz., 869 by 427. I look at the seconds hand; at the sixth second, he answers: 371,063.  Here is the manner of his calculating; it is simple and natural, though contrary to our traditional practice, it begins with the left-hand side and ends with the units:

800 by	400 =	320.000
800 by	27 =	21.600
60 by	400 =	24.000
60 by	27 =	1.620
9 by	400 =	3.600
9 by	27 =	243
	Total :	371.063

It is clear that he proceeds by groupings. His method does not resemble our computation formulae and looks embarrassingly simple. He multiplies by only one figure at a time. Ultimately, he did six multiplications and the addition of their products, all in six seconds... actually slightly less, because, at about the fifth second, he said: "I now make the proof while restarting."

The most prodigious faculty here is the memory. The numbers given him are fixed in his thought. An hour, a month later, you ask him for them: he remembers without error. But other than for numbers, his memory is unremarkable.

I ask him the multiplication of two numbers of five digits each: 70,846 by 88,875, and I look at my watch. He is appreciably longer. After 55 seconds, he answers: 6,296,438,250.

And the detail of the operation?

Here it is. This example is even more striking. He proceeds by round numbers and adds:

80.000 by	50.000 =	4.000.000.000
80.000 by	20.000 =	1.600.000.000
8.000 by	50.000 =	400.000.000
8.000 by	20.000 =	160.000.000
900 by	50.000 =	45.000.000
900 by	20.000 =	18.000.000

He has therefore multiplied first 88,900 by 70,000, giving 6,223,000,000.  Now he must subtract the product of 25 and 70,000, i.e. 1,750,000. The result of this subtraction gives 6,221,250,000.

There still remains the multiplication of 88,875 by 846. Firstly:

80.000 by	800 =	64.000.000
80.000 by	56 =	3.680.000
8.000 by	800 =	6.400.000
8.000 by	46 =	368.000

And, while holding this result, he multiplies 875 by 846. This he does by first multiplying 900 by 846 and then subtracting 25 by 846. So first:

900 by	800 =	720.000
900 by	40 =	36.000
900 by	6 =	5.400

Then he subtracts 25 x 846 = 21,150. The stages can be summarized this:

	6.221.250.000
	74.448.000
	761.000
	6.296.459.000
Take off :	21.150
Total :	6.296.438.250

You can now understand why 55 seconds were necessary, even though the calculation involved only simple multiplications and additions of round numbers.  It appeared interesting to present this analysis to our readers, because it gives the key of the method. Its capacity may be summarized thus: marvelous aptitude for calculation, extraordinary speed, and extraordinary memory for numbers.  The root extractions and the other problems lead to the same psychological dissection.

The other day, at the Institute, Mr Darboux wrote the two numbers:

On the one hand,	4.123.547.238.445.523.831
and	1.248.126.138.234.129.310

on the other, and, after having stated the figures, requested that the calculator make the subtraction. Inaudi repeats the problem from memory, because he does not see the written figures behind him.

"Is that right?" said he.  One answers: "Yes."  A smile passes on his lips: "I have the proof", says he, blinking his eyes, and, immediately, announces the correct solution.

Mr. Darboux asks him another question: "What is the number whose cube and square sum to 3,600?". Less than two minutes later, Inaudi answers: "It is the number 15."

After some other tests, covering a plethora of figures, Jacques Inaudi announces to the Academy that he can speak and calculate at the same time and perform two calculations at once. The following test takes place. Mr Poincare proposes to the calculator the following problem: "4,801 divided by the square root of 6". Mr. Bertrand raises, at the same time, the following question: "What day of the week was on 11 March 1822?" Inaudi answers immediately: "11 March 1822 was a Monday. A person born this day would have lived for so many hours, minutes, seconds." (All these figures were recognized as exact.) The result of the operation proposed by Mr Poincare is the number 1,960.

A few days after, in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne, above Paris, several professors of high standing proposed to him the most complicated operations. He made, with incredible speed, multiplications and divisions covering numbers of 24 digits, extracted the square and cubic roots with 17 decimals.

With the calculations complete, he repeats all the numbers that had been written on the board (there were more than 400 figures and on which he had operated without them being visible to him, and that one hour later). The mnemonic capacities of Inaudi are exclusively turned towards the numeric operations and the algebraic problems. The young computer can barely read or write and is, moreover, not concerned with learning. But he is possessed by calculation. This amuses him a lot.

His method is self-explanatory, and it is the simplest of all methods. Nobody slightly accustomed to mathematics, if questioned, for example, on the square root of 147, does not see instantaneously in their thought the figure 3 as a remainder and the number 12 as a root, because everyone knows only 12 times 12 make 144. And nobody who, questioned on the cube root of 1,103, for example, does not see, with the same spontaneity, the number 103 as a remainder and the number 10 as a root, given that everyone knows that 10 multiply twice by it-same-same gives 1,000.

If one asks an astronomer how much there is of seconds in so many years, he sees immediateness in front of him numbers 864,000 and 365.25. Inaudi has had for a long time in memory all the numbers that return unceasingly in calculations. If you speak with a chemist of substances of carbon and of hydrogen, he sees in front of him a C² H⁴ immediately O⁶ or a C⁴ H⁴ O⁵, as well as the parallax of a star does not appear to the mind without being accompanied by the number 206,265. 

A music type-setter can see the rules of the counterpoint, or a painter the association of the colors. Ask for Inaudi the fourth or higher (???) root of a number: he will find the solution more quickly in his head than a lesser calculator using log tables.

The young computer has made major progress for ten years and can improve still further: His methods are improved continuously, and his keyboard becomes richer by new notes. He currently possesses a formidable knowledge of numbers, of operations performed previously, which serves him as a base, almost a springboard, to spring much further. One intended to say around him formerly: "He cannot survive... He will go mad..." Mistake, his constitution is robust and his head is hard. His life has not been an easy one, and his wisdom is uncommon for someone just forty years of age. His early upbringing was harsh. Born into a poor family in the mountains, he was accustomed more to being hit than being caressed. In his seventh year he tried his luck in the village with his dancing marmot. Sometimes a cold dinner was better than his previous misery. While on his travels, he counted the trees; by crossing the meadows, he saw the number of the poplars; while arriving above a village, he counted the houses, then windows, doors. He counted, counted, an obsession not without charms.

One day, while he was in Beziers, he saw a merchant, who, at his table, was calculating what he had sold. With a wry smile, the marmot carrier challenged the merchant: "Would you like me to make your calculation?" General astonishment! Everybody gathered around the table: "You know, boy, if you are making fun of me, then you should cover your ears!... but if you succeed, I will give you ten under.... "You sold so much, so much and so much. That makes so much." Less of a minute, the turn was done. The ten coins from the merchant fell into the young person's hand and never had the young chap taken so much pleasure from counting.

It was the first step. He went from cafe to cafe, of city downtown, as far as Paris and as far as the other capitals, outshining his predecessor Henri Mondeux.  

Can this extraordinary capacity be exploited by the sciences? Apparently not. One day, ten years ago, I received a letter from his father asking me to take Jacques at my service and to direct him towards the conquests of astronomy. It had been an error, whichever way one looked at it. In science, one cannot make use of his methods, of his adapted formulae, which are tailored to mental calculation. Regarding his financial position, he now has, as a result of the curiosity his ability has aroused, a salary, which is over three times that of the Director of the Paris Observatory.

Human calculators

Master

A propo del aniversario del nacimiento de S. Devi, aca un recuento de calculadoras humanas.  Gente estudiada de cabo a rabo, muchas sin educacion superior formal, pero para los que la ciencia no tiene explicacion a su habilidad innata.

Por favor sigueme pasando esas revistas locas de la SCM

Un abrazo!

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mental calculators 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_calculator

Ramanujan

PODCAST: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00cl73s

Jacques Inaudi (October 15, 1867 – November 10, 1950) was an Italian calculating prodigy with no formal education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Inaudi

Shakuntala Devi (Kannada: ಶಕುಂತಲ ದೇವಿ November 4, 1929 – April 21, 2013), popularly known as the "Human Computer", was a child prodigy and mental calculator.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Her talents earned her a place in the 1982 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records.^[1][2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakuntala_Devi

Revista Divulgacion Astrofisica

http://www.sinewton.org/numeros/numeros/72/Volumen_72.pdf

++++++++++++++++++++++++

R.I.P Lou Reed (Brooklyn NY, Mar 2nd 1942 - Southampton NY, Oct 27th 2013)

LOU REED Pics 1942-2013

Zeitgeist: Pope horns

«Algo, que ciertamente no se nombra / con la palabra azar rige estas cosas»

«Something that surely cannot be called / Mere chance must rule these things»

Los muertos (Jose Maria Eguren)

Los nevados muertos,
bajo triste cielo,
van por la avenida
doliente que nunca termina.

Van con mustias formas
entre las auras silenciosas,
y de la muerte dan el frío
a sauces y lirios.

Lentos brillan blancos
por el camino desolado.
y añoran las fiestas del día
y los amores de la vida.

Al caminar los muertos una
esperanza buscan:
y miran sólo la guadaña,
la triste sombra ensimismada.

En yerma noche de las brumas
y en el penar y la pavura,
van los lejanos caminantes
por la avenida interminable.

Jose Maria Eguren
(Lima, Julio 1874 – Abril 1942) 

Drew Houston's Commencement speech @ MIT

'I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting.'

June 7, 2013

Below is the prepared text of the Commencement address by Drew Houston '05, the CEO of Dropbox, for MIT's 147th Commencement held June 7, 2013.

Thank you Chairman Reed, and congratulations to all of you in the class of 2013.

I'm so happy to be back at MIT, and it's an honor to be here with you today. I still wear my Brass Rat, and turning this ring around on graduation day is still one of the proudest moments of my life.

There are a lot of reasons why this is a special day, but the reason I'm so excited for all of you is that today is the first day of your life where you no longer need to check boxes.

For your first couple decades, success in life has meant jumping through one hoop after another: get these test scores, get into this college. Take these classes, get this degree. Get into this prestigious institution so you can get into the next prestigious institution. All of that ends today.

The hard thing about planning your life is you have no idea where you're going, but you want to get there as soon as possible. Maybe you'll start a company, or cure cancer, or write the great American novel. Or who knows? Maybe things will go horribly wrong. I had no idea.

Being up here in robes and speaking to all of you today wasn't exactly part of my plan seven years ago. In fact, I've never really had a grand plan — and what I realize now is that it's probably impossible to have one after graduation, if ever.

I've thought a lot about what's different about the life you're beginning today. I've thought about what I would do if I had to start all over again. What got you here was basically being smart and working hard. But nobody tells you that after today, the recipe for success changes. So what I want to do is give you a little cheat sheet, the one I would have loved to have had on my graduation day.

If you were to look at my cheat sheet, there wouldn't be a lot on it. There would be a tennis ball, a circle, and the number 30,000. I know this doesn't make any sense right now, but bear with me.

I started my first company in a Chili's when I was 21. My cofounder, Andrew Crick, and I had never done this before. We were wondering if you needed to wear a suit to City Hall, or if you needed to make a company seal for stamping important documents. It turns out you can just go online and fill out a form and be done in about two minutes. It was a little anti-climactic, but we were in business. Over onion strings we decided that our company was going to make a new kind of online course for the SAT. Most kids back then were still using these old-school 800-page books, and the other online prep courses weren't very good. We called it Accolade, an SAT vocab word meaning an award of distinction. Well, actually, we called it "The Accolade Group, LLC" which we thought sounded a lot more impressive.

I stopped at Staples on the way home to pick up some card stock. Clearly, the most important order of business was to Photoshop a logo and print out some business cards that said "Founder" on them. The next order of business was to hand them out at conferences, and tell girls "why yes, I do have a company." It was awesome.

But the best part was learning all kinds of new things. I lived in my fraternity house every summer, and up on the fifth floor there's a ladder that goes up to the roof. I had this green nylon folding chair that I'd drag up there along with armfuls of business books I bought off Amazon and I'd spend every weekend reading about marketing, sales, management and all these other things I knew nothing about. I wasn't planning to get my MBA on the roof of Phi Delta Theta, but that's what happened.

A couple years later, things started going downhill. I felt like I had to paddle harder and harder to make progress, and at some point I just snapped and couldn't deal with any more math questions about parallel lines or the train leaving Memphis at 3:45. I figured something was wrong with me. I felt guilty for being so unproductive. Starting a company had been my dream, and, well, maybe I didn't have what it takes after all.

So I took a little break. Of course, if you're in course 6, sometimes "taking a break" means writing a poker bot. For those of you who don't know what a poker bot is, what happens when you play poker online is first, you sit for hours and click buttons, and then you lose all your money. A poker bot means you can have your computer lose all your money for you.

But it was a fascinating challenge. I was possessed. I would think about it in the shower. I would think about it in the middle of the night. It was like a switch went on — suddenly I was a machine.

In the middle of all this, my mom and dad wanted all of us to come up to New Hampshire to spend a family weekend together. But I really wanted to keep working on my poker bot. So I pull up in my Accord and open the trunk, and next I'm dragging all my computer stuff and all these wires into our little cottage. The dining room table wasn't big enough so I started moving all the pots and pans off the stove to make room for all my monitors. This time it was my mom who thought something was wrong with me. She was convinced I was going to jail.

I was going to say work on what you love, but that's not really it. It's so easy to convince yourself that you love what you're doing — who wants to admit that they don't? When I think about it, the happiest and most successful people I know don't just love what they do, they're obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them. They remind me of a dog chasing a tennis ball: their eyes go a little crazy, the leash snaps and they go bounding off, plowing through whatever gets in the way. I have some other friends who also work hard and get paid well in their jobs, but they complain as if they were shackled to a desk.

The problem is a lot of people don’t find their tennis ball right away. Don't get me wrong — I love a good standardized test as much as the next guy, but being king of SAT prep wasn’t going to be mine. What scares me is that both the poker bot and Dropbox started out as distractions. That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little voice knows best.

It took me a while to get it, but the hardest-working people don't work hard because they're disciplined. They work hard because working on an exciting problem is fun. So after today, it's not about pushing yourself; it's about finding your tennis ball, the thing that pulls you. It might take a while, but until you find it, keep listening for that little voice.

Let's go back to the summer after my graduation, the summer you're about to have. One of my fraternity brothers, Adam Smith, and his friend Matt Brezina were starting a company and we decided it would be fun for all of us to work together out of one apartment.

It was the perfect summer — well, almost perfect. The air conditioner was broken so we were all coding in our boxers. Adam and Matt were working around the clock, but as time went on they kept getting pulled away by potential investors who would share their secrets and take them on helicopter rides. I was a little jealous — I had been working on my company for a couple years and Adam had only been at it for a couple months. Where were my helicopter rides?

Things only got worse. August rolled around and Adam gave me the bad news: they were moving out. Not only was my supply of Hot Pockets cut off, but they were off to Silicon Valley, where the real action was happening, and I wasn't.

Every now and then I'd give Adam a call and hear how things were going. Things were always pretty good. "We met with Vinod this afternoon," he would tell me. Vinod Khosla is the billionaire investor and cofounder of Sun Microsystems. Then Adam dropped the bomb. "He's going to give us five million dollars."

I was thrilled for him, but it was a shock for me. Here was my faithful beer pong partner and my little brother in the fraternity, two years younger than me. I was out of excuses. He was off to the Super Bowl and I wasn't even getting drafted. He had no idea at the time, but Adam had given me just the kick I needed. It was time for a change.

They say that you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Think about that for a minute: who would be in your circle of 5? I have some good news: MIT is one of the best places in the world to start building that circle. If I hadn't come here, I wouldn't have met Adam, I wouldn't have met my amazing cofounder, Arash, and there would be no Dropbox.

One thing I've learned is surrounding yourself with inspiring people is now just as important as being talented or working hard. Can you imagine if Michael Jordan hadn’t been in the NBA, if his circle of 5 had been a bunch of guys in Italy? Your circle pushes you to be better, just as Adam pushed me.

And now your circle will grow to include your coworkers and everyone around you. Where you live matters: there’s only one MIT. And there's only one Hollywood and only one Silicon Valley. This isn't a coincidence: for whatever you're doing, there's usually only one place where the top people go. You should go there. Don’t settle for anywhere else. Meeting my heroes and learning from them gave me a huge advantage. Your heroes are part of your circle too — follow them. If the real action is happening somewhere else, move.

The last trap you might fall into after school is "getting ready." Don't get me wrong: learning is your top priority, but now the fastest way to learn is by doing. If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying and planning and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever been "ready." I remember the day our first investors said yes and asked us where to send the money. For a 24 year old, this is Christmas — and opening your present is hitting refresh over and over on bankofamerica.com and watching your company's checking account go from 60 dollars to 1.2 million dollars. At first I was ecstatic — that number has two commas in it! I took a screenshot — but then I was sick to my stomach. Someday these guys are going to want this back. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

You already know this feeling: at MIT we call it "drinking from the firehose." It’s about as fun as it sounds, and all of us have the internal bleeding to prove it. But we’ve also learned it's good for you. Today, one valve shuts off. Now you need to go out and find another firehose.

Dropbox has been mine. As you might expect, building this company has been the most exciting, interesting and fulfilling experience of my life. What I haven't really shared is that it's also been the most humiliating, frustrating and painful experience too, and I can't even count the number of things that have gone wrong.

Fortunately, it doesn't matter. No one has a 5.0 in real life. In fact, when you finish school, the whole notion of a GPA just goes away. When you're in school, every little mistake is a permanent crack in your windshield. But in the real world, if you're not swerving around and hitting the guard rails every now and then, you're not going fast enough. Your biggest risk isn't failing, it's getting too comfortable.

Bill Gates's first company made software for traffic lights. Steve Jobs's first company made plastic whistles that let you make free phone calls. Both failed, but it's hard to imagine they were too upset about it. That's my favorite thing that changes today. You no longer carry around a number indicating the sum of all your mistakes. From now on, failure doesn't matter: you only have to be right once.

I used to worry about all kinds of things, but I can remember the moment when I calmed down. I had just moved to San Francisco, and one night I couldn't sleep so I was on my laptop. I read something online that said "There are 30,000 days in your life." At first I didn't think much of it, but on a whim I tabbed over to the calculator. I type in 24 times 365 and — oh my God, I'm almost 9,000 days down. What the hell have I been doing?

(By the way: you guys are 8,000 days down.)

So that’s how 30,000 ended up on the cheat sheet. That night, I realized there are no warmups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Every day we're writing a few more words of a story. And when you die, it's not like "here lies Drew, he came in 174th place." So from then on, I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting. I wanted my story to be an adventure — and that's made all the difference.

My grandmother is here today, and next week we'll be celebrating her 95th birthday. We talk more on the phone now that I’ve moved out to California. But one thing that's stuck with me is she always ends our phone calls with one word: "Excelsior," which means "ever upward."

And today on your commencement, your first day of life in the real world, that's what I wish for you. Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward. Thank you.

Happy birthday Mark Zuckerberg

LinkedIn: Happy-birthday-mark-zuckerberg
1. Type @[4:0] in a Facebook comment, and Mark Zuckerberg's name will appear.
2. You can't block Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook. Go to http://www.facebook.com/zuck and try for yourself.
3. As a teenager Mark was an aethist.
4. Mark's father Edward Zuckerberg enrolled Mark in a graduate computer course at a nearby college. When his father accompanied Mark to the college at the first class, the instructor looked at Edward and said, pointing to Mark, "You can't bring him to the classroom with you." Edward informed the instructor that his son Mark was the student.
5. Mark and his sisters loved to play pranks. Once, Mark and his sister Randi pulled a prank on New Year's Eve of 1999 that was memorable for Mark Zuckerberg. During that time, everyone was upset about Y2K, which was the theory that a bug in a computer data programming would ruin many of the computerised systems of the world when the year turned to 2000. Mark knew that that his parents were apprehensive about Y2K, so he, with his sister, waited until exactly midnight and then shut down the power in their house so as to make his parents think the fears about Y2K had actually come true.
6. Mark, along with his classmate, at Phillips Exeter Academy wrote a music program called Synapse. The program used artificial intelligence to analyse a user's music listenting habits and used that information to recommend other music.
7. The program got a lot of favourable reviews that both AOL and Microsoft showed interest in buying it for around $1 million. Also, they wanted to hire Mark to develop it, but he would have to drop out of school, so he refused.
8. He joined a Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. At a party one Friday night, Mark met Priscilla Chan, a Chinese American from Boston. They would later begin dating. Priscilla Chan later expressed her first impressions of Zuckerberg : "He was this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there."
9. To be able to communicate with his girlfriend Priscilla Chan's family members, Zuckerberg started to learn Chinese in 2010.
10. At the beginning of the sophomore year, Mark developed Course Match, the program that enabled students/users to decide what college courses they wanted to opt for based on what other students at their school were choosing.
11. He also invented Facemash, a program that was created with the purpose of finding out who was the most attractive person on campus. However, this was more like the pranks he used to play as a child.
12. The domain name Facemash.com, the predecessor to Facebook that Zuckerberg built in 2003, was sold in 2010 for $30201.
13. In 2009 Mark Zuckerberg wore a tie for the entire year as a symbol of how serious and important the year was following the recession that began in 2008.
14. In 2011, Zuckerberg turned vegetarian and said he would only eat meat of animals that he killed himself.
15. Zuckerberg's first car was a Subaru Forester SUV.
16. Mark Zuckerberg is also on Twitter as @finkd where he has over 150,000 followers but has posted only 19 tweets in the last three and a half years.
17. Blue is Mark Zuckerberg's favourite colour, as evident from Facebook's design.
18. By the time he turned 13, he had already created a basic computer network for his family dubbed "Zucknet," which allowed the computers in the family and his father's dental offfice to send messages to each other by pinging.
19. Zuckerberg has also created a few computer games. Once, he developed a computer version of the game Monopoly based on his middle school and a version of the game Risk based on the Roman empire.
20. Zuckerberg's pet dog Beast is a Puli, a type of Hungarian Sheepdog.
21. Zuckerberg placed a big whiteboard in the hallway of his dormitory suite. Mark would use it to brainstorm with symbols and codes for software. In the words of one of his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz: "He really loved that whiteboard. He awlays wanted to draw out his ideas, even when that didn't necessarily make them clearer."
22. Mark Zuckerberg's interest in programming developed when his parents gifted him the book C++ for Dummies.
23. Mark Zuckerberg has about 50 patents in his name. The first of which was issued in November 2004 for the technology behind the Synapse Media Player.
24. The number of people on who have Mark Zuckerberg on their Google+ circles is a fraction of the number of users who have subscribed to his status updates on Facebook.
25. His favourite musicians include Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, Shakira and Rihanna.
26. His favourite quotations: "Fortune favours the bold," by Virgil, Aeneid X.284; "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up," by Pablo Picasso; "Make things as simple as possible but no simpler," by Albert Einstein.
27. There are conflicting viewpoints about Zuckerberg's years at Harvard University. The movie The Social Network portrays him as both a genius and as someone who was always socially handicapped, and desperate to find a way into the social elite at Harward. However, Zuckerberg rebuffs those claims saying he never wanted to be part of the social clubs at Harvard and never used his computer skills to impress women around him.
28. Mark's interest in computer programming was quite visible at the very early age. By the time he was in middle school, he was already using computers and writing software for them.
29. Eduardo Saverin, one of the four co-founders of Facebook had provided the $1000 seed capital to start Facebook.