Elephant

The dwarf spoke, "All truth is crooked."

Every time I ask the question, "What is true?" I inevitably end with the same answer: nothing. Aside from obvious physical truths, I can never seem to find objectivity in anything. In politics, in creation, in purpose, I always stop before this great, unbreachable wall, feeling that if only I could scale it, or break it, or peep through a crack in it, everything would be resolved.

Some simply ignore the elephant in the room. Others defer to the judgment of higher powers. I guess I do neither, finding little certainty or comfort, anxiously keeping my eyes on the elephant as I continue on past it. But it follows me for the most part, only leaving me when the room grows too hot or too dark. Yet as I've moved forward, we've grown closer, and I've realized that the elephant isn't a problem unless I make it to be one; it's just there, and there's really nothing I can do about it.

So does it really matter what happens to Schrodinger's cat? Does it really matter if there's anything behind the big wall obstructing truth?

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Choices

In Notes from The Underground, Dostoevsky satirizes an ideal "crystal palace" and the consequences of having such a utopia. In this crystal palace, where every problem has been remedied and only peace exists, individuals would begin to defy the norm simply to exert free will.

Well, lately I've been feeling like one of those individuals. With college admissions coming up soon, I know I'll have very little choice in deciding which one I attend, as the decision will be coming from my parents. They will want me to fulfill their idea of the "crystal palace"-what they think is best for me. And just like the "crystal palace," which is ideal in the eyes of many, a lot of people would be happy to be in my situation. However, I find myself discontent, wanting to disrupt the order of the crystal palace if only to have the power of choice. I find myself not necessarily acting in my best interest, but instead acting to show that I have some semblance of free will.

Reason

I've always tried to figure out everything with reason, and in a way, I've become a lot like Meursault from The Stranger. Meursault is an anomic character, unaccustomed to societal morals and values, who feels indifferent towards everything. Likewise, I often find myself not having an opinion on things, just letting things pass through me. One thing that really resonated with me, though not until today, when I was looking through old photos, was Meursault's reaction to his mother's death. Like Meursault, when my grandfather died two years ago, I didn't cry. In fact, just like Meursault, I only endured a fleeting sensation of grief, and then guilt, at his death. My need for objectivity, for rationality, for reason created a sense of absurd indifference in me. It wasn't that I consciously suppressed my emotions, it was just that I didn't feel like I had any. It wasn't until today, when I looked through photos of my grandparents, that I really felt sad.

Robert Solomon summarizes Nietzche in saying, "Unless we seek meaning from a different source, science is only going to promote nihilism, the sense that our world lacks value." I think I've tried to live on reason alone, which has led me to a sense of nihilism. Reason has led me down my path. Reason has led me to value honesty the most and to pursue "truth." Reason has led me to stop believing in a higher power. Reason has led me down the path to where I am, and I don't really know where I am now.

Age

This weekend was both my mom's and dad's birthday. For some reason, my mom didn't accompany my dad and I to dinner on her birthday-my family is just a bit strange I guess. We talked a lot about his life, and I asked a lot of questions about what he wanted to do in the future. After the conversation, I realized that at my age, its easy to believe in existentialist ideas but hard to live those ideas.

At this age, it's hard to have a purpose when we all are so focused on the future. It's difficult to truly live out a lifestyle that engages "Man's true purpose" when everyone is trying to get into college to get a job to get money. I feel so focused on what's happening to me now and what might lie in my future to really live in a philosophical way. Looking at my dad, who's already past the unforeseen future of his life, I can see how being older brings an entirely different perspective on life.

I guess this simple talk and subtle realization made me see a lot. Lately, I've been trying so hard to look at life through the truest lens I could find, which for me has taken the form of not being fixated on any lens at all. However, I think that it's impossible to not take stock in any lens, and therefore its inevitable that I contradict myself in the future.

But then again, maybe this is all just some transient lens I am seeing through.

asserting absolutes never works

We are all trying to connect the dots,
Trying to make something out of nothing,
Trying to compose, to invent, to create,
Trying to figure out the laws of life,
But that line we draw in the sky is man's
and not the sky's.

Blank Slate

We depend on our sight so much that when we travel into the darkness, we lose our sense of reality. In this blindness, it's as if we've closed our eyes and woken up in a dream-that is, without limitations. As we travel into the darkness, others are blind to our actions and we are blind to our own. As demonstrated by Kurtz, when we lose sight of ourselves for too long, we are capable of anything.

We are all just blank slates shaped and molded by our environment that can be influenced to do anything. We can find ourselves justifying radical ideas and soon after committing atrocities if our environment allows us to. The Crusades and the Holocaust are evidence of this. Rarely can/do people stand up to the influence of their environment.

Instinct and Logic

It seems that instinct often precedes logic. People justify their actions with reason and evidence only after their inclination has told them what to choose. In many instances, this inclination is set up by avarice. For example, in Heart of Darkness, the colonizers first followed their greed, then justified it by claiming superiority and the White Man's Burden. Similarly today, in politics, in ideals, and in religion, people follow their hearts and direct their minds to follow suit. This oftentimes allows for self-serving and inherently selfish actions, which one develops logical reasons to explain it only after the decision has been made. The greatest, most ingenious gear in the clockwork of this procedure, however, is that many don't realize the existence of this. This hand, nudging us along, telling us what to do, is invisible to the naked eye. One must look through a microscope and examine what it may be that really drives these decisions. Is it really always logic, or is it more often human nature?

Control and understanding of oneself comes when one at least toys with the possibility that his logic is only trailing in the wake of an invisible hand.

Exploring Truth

As I drove down the street in Burlingame after a day at the Pinnacles national monument, I felt a change. Suddenly the excitement of adventure and exploration vanished, and I slipped back into routine. The numbness towards stress, school, and the world quickly dissolved like waking up from a dream. And just like a dream, earlier in the day I had lost consciousness of the world; in a self-centered way, nothing else besides the moment had occurred to me.

I have always felt caught in between two worlds, and it's these kinds of moments that really take me away from one and put me in the other. It's these kinds of moments that I fear because I fear clarity. I don't want to know how everything is or how it should be or what truth is or isn't. I don't think truth exists. I enjoy being lost and confused, but only because it empowers me to explore and find a way out. Truth is an interesting concept because once you think you have it, there's nothing left to explore.

I believe that there's no corner that shouldn't be explored.




But then again, if someone enjoys knowing, then so be it. To each his own.

Not second semester senior year or the new year

Sometimes I wonder if people have truly changed over time. Technology, knowledge, government, lifespans, and the standard of living have improved, but, like the clothes we wear, they are superficial and do not define who we are. Most people would say that humans are defined by their emotions, which have not eroded despite the shifting tides of the world. Back then, even back before homo sapien sapiens, evidence shows signs of compassion, love, and altruism. Now, there are still genocides started out of fear and hate. Mankind hasn't really changed over the years; we've simply prolonged our existence.

Additionally, I believe every individual has maintained the same goal: to be content with themselves. That could mean biting the apple to satiate one's curiosity, filling one's house with material goods, or helping others in need. It's a destination with infinite paths to it, but it's ultimately self-centered. We are selfishly pursuing our own goal of happiness even in our selflessness. As time passes we all still reach for this goal.



Anyway, my point is we haven't really changed.

Like Puzzle Pieces...

I realize that my blogs are often ambiguous. The subject is usually less centered on a particular event and more focused on an idea. Also, they are frequently convoluted and even esoteric, but that is because writing is an outlet of the mind, and my thoughts themselves are convoluted and esoteric.

I see English class as a class of thinking, not of writing. Sentences and words are simply a medium through which we conduct our thoughts. Consequently, I find it difficult to articulate my ideas not because of a lack of writing skills, but rather a lack of thinking clarity. There are so many ways to look at the world, and no two views, like puzzle pieces, perfectly align. I have created lenses influenced by books, people, and experience, and these lenses come together to form a contorted, spiraled, inverted, jagged point of view. As a result, I do my best to avoid firmly asserting any generalizations about life, knowing that I am likely to change my stance in the future.

As my perspective broadens, my lens twists and turns even more. I am searching for a way of living my life that makes sense to me, but maybe not having a rigid lens is the only thing that makes sense to me. On some level, I hope I never find the strength, wisdom, or ignorance to assert the true nature of life.

But then again, maybe this is all just some transient lens I am seeing through.

11/28

At first, I was shocked. My jaw dropped, and I was appalled-even disgusted. Siddartha's self-starvation, self-mutilation, and self-torture made me cringe in horror. However, this horror left as quickly as it had been incurred, and I realized he was simply carrying out his life in a away that made sense to him. Although I reflexively feared his actions, I saw there was only something to respect. He does what every sane individual in their life does (as insane as his actions may seem); he strives to achieve fulfillment. His spiritual journey may seem unorthodox through our cultural lens, but it does not make it wrong. In fact, his willingness to endure physical pain only strengthens my respect for him.

Weekly Blog 11/15

It's funny how few people take the advice to "live out your senior year to the fullest" until it feels like there's so little time and it's too late. It's hard though, seeing as how we are always watching the road ahead or the bumps in the road. When I'm not envisioning college and my future, I find myself focused on homework, tests, or being sick (i.e. the bumps in the road). Only sometimes do I take a moment to look around and see where I am. I really have taken for granted my life and all I have. Lately-meaning the past years-I have been fixed to this lens where everywhere I look there are only mirrors. In everything I look at, I see myself. Although not always at the fore, I have been watching to see how I fit into every picture. I think I'm starting to leave this view though, and the scenery on the side of the road is becoming clearer.

"Would you write on a deserted island?"

This week I was watching A Beautiful Mind when I was hooked by the line "Conviction is a luxury of those on the sidelines." I struggled with the line like a baited fish and could not stop thinking about it. Just as Hamlet struggles to exact the revenge he promised he would, I struggle to live by the beliefs I have always held onto.

As I climb the mountain, tremors shake the earth and I find myself falling. I grab at whatever I can, desperate to find something concrete that I can hold onto and believe in. The rocks loosen from my grip and the ledges offer only temporary support before the weight of my own self shatters it and pulls me down. I close my eyes, disoriented from this state of freefall, confused by up and down and the sky and the earth-the things I have always known. Finally I stop and open my eyes, and I'm holding onto something familiar. I'm back where I started, before the path became corrupted by jagged and obtrusive obstructions, and I was only dreaming. No scars, no broken bones, no pain. Under my daring and adventure is fear; it was hollow courage-nothing but bravado. I continue on right, marching to the beat of the drum. I only daydream of turning left and scaling the rough terrain.

Society's Net

Just as Mark Twain asserted that a person is only a product of society through Huckleberry Finn, Shakespeare does the same with Ophelia. Shakespeare's treatment of her can be described in a few words; she is a woman. As a woman in that society, she is simply a tool to be used by the men. For example, her father commands, "Ophelia, walk you here," and she quietly acquiesces, content with following a man's orders mindlessly because that's all she knows. Polonius uses her in whatever way he can to please the king and thereby ensure his own survival. Her culture traps her with a net from which she cannot escape the customs of society.

However, she is not alone. We are all products of society, and we are all bound by society. For example, even though most (but hopefully all) people now see the subjugation of Africans as highly immoral, if someone was born in the 19th century south, it would be unlikely to see him break from the norm and fight slavery. Just like Huckleberry, most would be confused about what action to take. Free will only allows one to navigate under the net; rarely does one break free from it.

Denmark's a prison

As I was reading Act II, I was struck by how archetypal Hamlet is in terms of adolescent emotion. He exhibits many of the same teenage angst type feelings that modern teens do. For example, he gloomily tells his friends, "Denmark's a prison." He goes on to complain about how it is so confining and how it is the worst place in the world. With a Shakespearean translator, Hamlet would sound just like many modern teens. This shows that as time changes, human emotion, and even human nature, does not. Human nature remains static throughout changes in language, culture, and knowledge. We are inseparably attached to our basic nature just as we are attached to our arms and legs. For this reason, I often find myself believing that things such as murder and war are not a result of society's influence, but rather an inevitable consequence of being human.

Gandhi and Hitler

This week, I ended my essay on law asking the reader, "Is pursuing one's individual moral or religious law justified if it comes at the expense of others?" I spent most of my essay looking at sources that said that religious law was supreme, and at the end I brought up this question. However, although I intended the question to be for the reader, I was also asking myself the same question. Sometimes I think that "you should do what is right," but "right" is only a subjective notion. People rarely agree on what is true or right. Furthermore, even if one believes that it is absolutely right to do something, it can easily come at the cost of hurting others. As Mary Stange said, terrorists do what they think is right, just as Gandhi, Hitler, and Martin Luther King Jr. did, too.

Ants

As I sat outside desperately trying to think of what to write, hoping the quiet midday suburban atmosphere could stimulate some ideas, I was distracted by a single dominating thought: ants. The ants fascinated me. I watched they scuttled across the rough dirt terrain, on a journey to a destination unknown to me. I contemplated terrorizing them with my imaginary rifle known as my index finger. My finger's shadow overtook them as i steadied my weapon. The targets were centered in my crosshairs, and the barrel was loaded. All was in place, and I was about to pull the trigger, but then I hesitated. I pulled back, and struck by an epiphany, I thought about how much we are like ants.

Ants live in communities together, depend on each other for survival, and work together to achieve common goals. They perform acts for one another that could best be described as altruistic. Ants are also incredibly intelligent. They never fail to find their way back home despite my finger wiping out the scent trail they follow. Also, they probably do not realize that they are just a small piece in the puzzle of the world.

After watching them for a while, I had my eyes set on this one ant set apart by a distinctive bright red slash against his abyssal black abdomen. I started thinking about how much I do not want to be an ant. Despite their phenomenal performance as a community, I could not find a trace of substantial individuality even with my ant. They all conformed to a single path, both physically and mentally. As a society, they shared the same goals and the same pathways to that goal. Although I almost changed my opinion upon finding him wandering alone, he quickly regained his sense of direction and headed towards the others. I empathized with him (yes, an ant) as I often feel bound to a prescribed path as well. Just as the ant, i feared that the consequences of being an individual would be getting lost, being alone, and having to survive.

Suddenly, I felt invigorated by the idea of freedom. I cradled my red-tattooed ant into the palm of my hand, ran to the other side of my yard, and then carefully let it down on top of a rock. I felt empowered, almost even obligated, to do something about my constriction after watching the jailed existence of the ants, so I set him free. Hopefully he would feel the same.

The Middle

I scanned the surrounding area. I looked left and right, up and down, and that's when I saw it. Suddenly, my excitement deflated like a loose balloon, and I was left with a flat, lifeless feeling weighing down on me. Somewhere along the way, I had made a mistake. The error devastated me; two 9s in the same box, and I felt that my efforts to complete the Sudoku puzzle were now fruitless.

I was frustrated. I felt that all that time I had spent trying to solve it was all for nothing. I had trekked and climbed and struggled, yet in the end I never reached the peak. I fell. Simple as that. However, something weird happened. The sudden flood of disappointment I felt after knowing I failed was only knee-high. Above that, I felt...happy.

Why? Because of the journey. It was about the excitement and the fun in simply doing it. Every time I accomplished something, I was overcome by a rush of happiness. It isn't about reaching the destination, but rather the the journey to get there. In the end we all fall from the mountain, we all die. We choose how magnificent or meaningless our falls are through the paths we take. What matters is the journey of our existence, not just the end of it.

Freedom at an unexpected time

I'm driving down the highway, and I can't help but observe other cars. Their crisp red tail lights enchant me as they glow against the early night sky. We are like a flight of fireflies traveling together for safety and for comfort. The thought of emptiness and isolation makes me feel vulnerable. For now, we tread the same path, navigating the curves of the wide road together.

But it can't always be this way. We see an exit approaching and some of us veer right, getting ready for the departure. A gut wrenching feeling twists my emotions and I no longer feel as I did before-safe and comfortable. Nonetheless, the rest of us continue straight ahead despite our loss.

We grieve for their departure, but continue on. After a long silence, I have adjusted to my lasting companions. I feel safe in our harmony of humming and whistling as we travel together.
But another exit approaches, and complacency leaves as quickly as it came. Another faction leans right and diverges. This loss feels greater than the first. Our numbers are gradually thinning down, and there is nothing that can be done.

And now another exit approaches. And another and another. I watch the last cars drive off, and suddenly I'm all alone. It is quiet now; there are no more hums and whistles, just silence and the soft buzz of the motor. I am disheartened by the loss of my flight, but in this loss I feel something strangely new. I can breathe freely now, but I never noticed before. It is like some burden weighing down on my chest has been lifted and for the first time I can truly breathe.

Human Imagination

To suggest that fate exists is to believe that there is something greater acting upon us that we cannot control, and that is simply something I don't believe. I understand that there are a lot of things we can't control, but why are those things attributed to "fate"? I agree that we can only control a certain degree of our lives, but what we can't control is simply what it is; it's just what we can't do anything about, not fate.

The concept of fate implies that each person is destined for something greater than simply existence, and that I don't believe. I believe that we exist and that we can find meaning within our existences, but there is no force such as fate that acts upon our lives. To say that we have fates is to say that we are superior to everything around us. Having fates makes us greater than the microorganisms and apes from who we evolved and more important than the rocks and plants which we share molecules and elements with. Who is to say that they don't have fates? Who destined us to be something greater, but not others?

Well, we did.