A couple of months before I left England and came to Croatia, I had one-thousand visiting cards made with only the key bits of information about my whereabouts: my permanent electronic-mail address, ranko.bon@alum.mit.edu, a gift from the MIT Alumni Association, and my World Wide Web address, www.residua.org. This was printed in bold maroon lettering on gray card. Anyone familiar with MIT would immediately recognize the Institute’s colors. Luckily for me, few people are in the know, and this little bit of closet nostalgia goes unnoticed. And nostalgia it is. The day my electronic mail started working in Motovun, I sent a message to the MIT Alumni Association with a request to reroute my mail to my new Croatian Telecom address. This morning I tested the connection by sending a message to the MIT address. When it swiftly came back to me, showing that the link was working well, I felt so very happy that I could not but notice that my feelings about the Institute were a tad stronger than I had ever imagined. It is time to come out: I miss MIT!

Addendum I (May 15, 2015)

I had just retired from the University of Reading when this was penned. By comparison, the Institute towered to the sky in my recollection. As years go by, though, my academic career is petering into insignificance in my mind. I do not miss any of it, MIT included. Even though it was a joy to be surrounded by clever people, I am ever less sure that cleverness of the kind available at the Institute, or anywhere else in academia, is of great value to the world. In fact, I am ever more sure that it is precisely the opposite. It is wisdom that is of great value, and it can be found among uneducated peasants as often as among the leading engineers or scientists. For better or worse, wisdom is not taught at school or anywhere else. Even the best universities around the globe, such as Harvard and MIT of my youth, cannot boast of teaching wisdom. Which is why I am so comfortable in my retirement pretty far from academic institutions of any kind. Once again, it is time to come out: wisdom is not within an easy reach, and never will be, but at least it is not way out of it, as it used to be during much of my academic career.

Addendum II (May 27, 2025)

To my surprise, I ran out of my visiting cards a short while ago. In twenty-two years, they vanished as if by magic. To make sure that this would not happen again before I bite the dust, I had one-thousand of them made one more time. And they are reasonably good copies of the old cards. Having received the lot earlier today, I am overjoyed. Wherever I go around Motovun, I give the new cards to everyone I know. Although some of them are confused by my exuberant spirits, they all take the cards with smiles on their faces. The two stark addresses are in plain light time and again. As the day is nearing its end, though, the only thing that crosses my mind is how long will the World Wide Web be around. Will my cards be of use for about a decade or so? Or will the world as we know it be in shambles by then? One way or another, I am convinced that the new cards will serve me till the very end. And I cannot but keep smiling to myself as I am preparing to go to bed. “One-thousand visiting cards,” I keep mumbling under my breath, “one thousand visiting cards…” Time and again, this number makes me smile from ear to ear. It strikes me as a magical number, as well.