The lost porter tradition at Massey College

Massey College, at the University of Toronto, is an important example of Canadian efforts to emulate the ‘OxBridge’ educational and college system at Oxford and Cambridge. I was pleased to join Massey as a junior fellow when I began my PhD in 2012, and found the college to be an indispensable social hub amid U of T’s general coldness. I was a resident during term time over three years but, for the rest of my PhD, still visited routinely to read, have lunch, or just see who was around. It used to be that any time I was passing the college I could drop in for a few minutes and have about a 1/3 chance of having a really interesting conversation, often with a stranger.

As with everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic locked down Massey College to residents only, staring nervously at each other through plastic dividers. Unfortunately, and as with many other pandemic disruptions, some important changes have carried through to the present. It used to be that at most times someone would care to go, such as evenings and weekend days, there would always be someone on duty in the porter’s lodge at Massey College. The gate would be open, and they would greet anyone who happened to turn up. Now the college is controlled by keyfobs and security cameras. Except for during business hours, there is usually nobody in the porter’s lodge. Instead of a gateway to a social community, the front gate is an impassable cage of metal that admits only key-bearing residents. Consequently the college is darker, emptier, and of less use.

I feel this has had an immense cost for the community, and a cost deeply linked to Massey’s purpose. Like Oxford and Cambridge colleges, it brings people together across scholarly domains. This helps them build relationships not excessively bound up in the competitiveness of those in the same field. It also fosters interdisciplinary collaboration. But, for such cross-community enrichment to take place, there needs to be a norm of community participation in college life, ideally extending beyond the set-piece events which the porter’s lodge will now be staffed for.

It often seems that the profoundest effect of the pandemic was to push people into smaller social circles. Friends who used to be at a particular event 10% or 20% of the time are now there never. Events that brought in 50 people bring in 20 or don’t happen at all. It’s like people had their pool of social energy diminished, and so chose to divvy it out among fewer people. In that context, the loss of accessible third spaces like Massey College outside of business hours is deeply felt. The closed gate in your face feels less like a pragmatic money-saving choice and more as a manifestation of a world where we have de-prioritized community.

Writing for readers or editors

I am fallible and see no reason to hide my minor flaws if they are part of my personality — no more than I feel the need to wear a wig when I have my picture taken or borrow someone else’s nose when I show my face. Almost all the book editors who read the draft recommended changes at the sentence level, to make my style better, and in the structure of the text, in the organization of chapters. I ignored almost all of them and found out that none of the readers thought them necessary. As a matter of fact, I find that injecting the personality of the author, imperfections included, enlivens the text. Does the book industry suffer from the classical expert problem, with the build-up of rules of thumb that do not have empirical validity? More than 100,000 readers later, I am discovering that books are not written for book editors.

Taleb, Nicholas Nassim. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. Random House, 2001. Audiobook, “Preface: Taking Knowledge Less Seriously”, 24:05

Specialized work in precision glass-cracking

I have heard that historians particularly appreciate when people put actual prices as a reference in their diaries, providing that little quantitative insight into the past. In that spirit, I found a July 2026 breakdown of a laser crystal printing business by Bathsheba Grossman, a sculptor and 3D designer who I have always found fascinating and who I am lucky enough to have bought some small pieces from, as well as both given and received others as gifts:

Would you like to be the cube designer? It’s a reliable gig and a fascinating window on the scientific community. It’s complex, high-touch, long-haul, and as it stands not terribly lucrative: a living in most places but not tech money. Getting started could be pretty quick for the right person, getting good takes interest and experience.

This is the 25th year of CrystalProteins, thousands of projects, mainly proteins but also all sorts of other science. It’s mostly just me. I don’t do any marketing, the product speaks for itself and I’ve never wanted to scale past what one person can do. It’s design only, I work in partnership with laser glass manufacturer Precision Crystal. In the last 10 years, average net per year was $57K.

What’s needed? General literacy and love for science. Solid coding, the level where if you need to whip something up in a new language you do it by sense of smell. 3D design. Knowledge or willingness to learn about structural biology and its imaging techniques. A beefy (by household standards) desktop computer. A Rhinoceros license. The tenacity of the cockroach. Desire to belong in the ancient and noble (but not quite artistic) tradition of scientific illustration.

You can pick up the biology, if you’ve got a bit of a knack you can pick up the 3D side. You can’t learn to code for this project. AI does not have reliable knowledge about this very specialized field.

It’s a customer service gig. There’s a lot of emailing with scientists and their administrative colleagues, and one must be courteous, straightforward, respectful of their time and needs. They’re great customers! They truly love the product and are generally happy to work with me, and I’ve never once been stiffed on payment. However when it’s time to write an awkward email or pick up the phone, you’re doing it.

As it stands it’s a part-time job, but not compatible with a 9-to-5 because it’s bursty. Perhaps it could grow. I’ve never felt a limit to demand, only to my willingness to do more. Someone with domain knowledge in molecular biology, or professional programming chops, or (especially) ability to manage a multi-person business, might take this much farther than I have.

I know from friends who are authors and musicians how hard it is to make a living from anything artistic, so it’s intriguing to learn a bit more about this kind of business from an expert who is stepping away from it.

My most notable Bathsheba pieces are the Hemoglobin molecule I gave Amanda; the DNA polymerase cube which Myshka bought me; and the Tetrabox puzzle sculpture I bought in 2018. I also have some jewelery-sized pieces printed in metal.

Square one

Emotionally, I feel like I have been put in a metal barrel and rolled down a hill.

I feel like my identity, thoughts, and emotions have all become untrustworthy, leaving me no guidance on what feelings to trust or what to do. I feel very literally like I have lost my mind; I don’t know which fragments are the healthy seed crystals to begin reconstituting an identity from and which are toxic waste that need to be expelled or wrapped in an unreactive layer to advance that rebuilding process.

I feel like just being so distressed is costing me my only hope at a future, but there is also no way out of these omni-crises without expressing these feelings somehow.

[Edit: 1:09pm] I am not and have not at any point in this crisis been suicidal. No actions based on the assumption that I am or could be are justified. I emphatically do not want any strangers checking on my welfare, and any such imposition would only worsen matters.

From Waiting for Godot

VLADIMIR: Do you remember the Gospels?

ESTRAGON: I remember the maps of the Holy Land. Coloured they were. Very pretty. The Dead Sea was pale blue. The very look of it made me thirsty. That’s where we’ll go, I used to say, that’s where we’ll go for our honeymoon. We’ll swim. We’ll be happy.

VLADIMIR: You should have been a poet.

ESTRAGON: I was. (Gesture towards his rags.) Isn’t that obvious?

Silence.

Active Hope

Any situation we face can develop in a range of different ways — some much better, others much worse. Active Hope involves identifying the outcomes we hope for and then playing a role in moving toward them. We don’t wait until we are sure of success. We don’t limit our choices to the outcomes that seem likely. Instead, we focus on what we truly, deeply long for, and then proceed to take determined steps in that direction.

…

Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or express. Rather than weighing our chances and proceeding only when we feel hopeful, we focus on our intention and let it be or guide.

Macy, Joanna and Chris Johnstone. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power, Revised Edition. New World Library, 2022. p. 37, 5 (italics in original)