This World and Me

In July 2015, I attended a three-week-long program in Chicago called the Civic Leadership Institute (CLI), hosted by Northwestern University. Toward's the end of the course, I had to write a letter to myself detailing what I had learned. The letter was crude and not proofread; I had actually asked my instructor if I could rewrite the entire letter, but time ran out, so I had to submit the "draft" letter. As a junior in high school, stressful times have come and gone, and my mind tends to reprioritize things, shove things out of the way, forget things. Right after I finished CLI, I wanted to write a blog post expressing everything that I had learned, but I could never find the time or the motivation to properly articulate it. The post was never written. The Civic Education Project, the organization that runs CLI, kept the letter – the one I had written for myself – and said they would actually mail it out to me sometime in the next year. That time has come. Yesterday – m...

"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." The source of this quote is not definitively known, but it is often attributed to Joseph Stalin. Regardless of who said it, I find it as powerful as it is provocative. We are all too frequently bombarded with endless, awful, mind-boggling statistics. But most of them don't really make us feel  – at least to a deep, personal level. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.24 million deaths resulted from automobile accidents and incidents in 2010 ( source ). According to the Ascend Aviation Consultancy Team, 828 deaths resulted from aviation accidents and incidents that same year. Ascend's director wrote that "2010 was a disappointing year from the point of view of both safety and insurance with the number of fatal accidents and passenger fatalities both up on recent years" ( source ). However, place those 828 deaths right next to the staggering 1,240,000 deaths f...

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. —Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail" , 1963

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Often misattributed to Albert Einstein, this quote first appeared in Laurence J. Peter's  Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time  (1977). I used to sign all my emails with this.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." —Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes , 1989

It started when I was 12. I was one third of the way through middle school, having just completed sixth grade. It was perhaps the last time I felt totally stress-free. College and high school felt eons away, and the childish play of elementary school had yet to wear off. The year was 2011, the same year my family bought its first "smart" mobile device: a 32 GB black Wi-Fi-only Apple iPad 2. Naturally, the decision to buy the device was lobbied mostly by me, and when the shiny new product made its way to my hands, I couldn't wait to try out the features that I had waited for in anticipation. The first app I opened was Photo Booth—the iPad 2 was the first of its kind to feature a camera. I was oblivious to most social issues of the world, and as a tween, I probably wouldn't have cared all that much anyway. School was out, vacation was here, life was good. The June of that same year, my family and I traveled to China to visit my extended family. The trip to China, let ...

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? — Edgar Allan Poe, " A Dream Within A Dream ", 1849

I am the type of person who takes things personally. If you have a grievance to air about me, I want to hear it right away, and I want to apologize for it as soon as possible, for if I don't, I would spend the rest of the day kicking myself over it. After finishing my calculus class for the day, I was energized to get on with the day (it was a Friday). In calculus, we had learned of definite integrals for the first time—my teacher has the rare ability to impart upon students the beauty of mathematics, at least to those who desire to appreciate it. Oftentimes, I leave class with a sense of genuine wonder. Calculus is my first period class, meaning it is the first class I attend—the first room I enter when beginning the school day. My school's bell schedule system is set up so that immediately following first period is homeroom. The purpose of homeroom is to provide for a brief, 5-minute span of the day where announcements and general information may be broadcast. Teachers co...

One winter, when I was in elementary school, my family and I were home, feeling warm and toasty despite the bitterness outside. In the mood for a flick, one of us had rented the 1993 comedy  Groundhog Day , starring Bill Murray. The main character is Phil Connors, a meteorologist assigned to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Connors hates the assignment (how can a lowly groundhog who also happens to be named Phil predict the weather any better than him?!), and to add salt to the wound, he gets the weather report wrong. Despite Connors' prediction of good weather, a massive blizzard hits, shutting down all travel to or from Punxsutawney. As Connors soon finds out, however, the weather is the least  of his worries. Connors wakes up the next morning... to Groundhog Day. Indeed, Mr. Connors has found himself in a time loop, a horrifying state of existence wherein the same day repeats itself over and over again, with no end in sight....

Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence. This is the definition of science adopted by British Science Council , an institution established in 2003 by Royal Charter. Merriam-Webster 's full definition isn't that much different: "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method." The  Academic Press Dictionary of Science & Technology defines it as "the systematic observation of natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to formulate laws and principles based on these facts." Each of these definitions of science characterizes science as a  systematic  approach to acquiring knowledge. It would be a travesty to find a definition of science that omits its key aspect: that science is—and always will be—inherently m...

We may look at various objects in our lives and easily identify a purpose most people accept they serve—a reason for why the objects were created, why the objects exist. Most of us would agree that the purpose of a lamp would be to provide light for us to see better, or that the purpose of a car is to make it easier to travel to a distant location. The purpose of teeth, most would agree, is to chew on food to make it easier to digest. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood through our cardiovascular system so that our cells can receive oxygen. Some of these things are human inventions; they were assembled by humans specifically to serve a purpose. A piece of paper was created by humans out of wood from a tree. A human took the pulp of wood and processed it into a piece of paper which you, as the consumer, now have in front of you. You might use it to draw a sketch, write an essay, or fly a paper airplane. The possibilities are limited only by huma...

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man. — Albert Einstein,  "The World As I See It" , 1931

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: " And this, too, shall pass away. " How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! " And this, too, shall pass away. " And yet let us hope it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away. — Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in Milwaukee , 1859

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. — Neil Gaiman , The Sandman , 1992 Maybe one day, I'll show you mine.

There is a fairly well-known concept called the " butterfly effect ". It's the idea that a small, seemingly minor change in the initial conditions of a system can ultimately result in a large, very major change later on. The general example is that if a random butterfly--in the perfect moment--flaps its wings, it could cause a chain of events which influences the time and path of a hurricane several weeks later. The mathematical study of this concept is in a realm known as " chaos theory ". I believe it was in ninth grade when my English class read one of Ray Bradbury's most ingenious and influential short stories, "A Sound of Thunder". The story is set in the year 2055, when it is said that time travel has been invented and perfected by humanity. The main character, Eckels, spends a great deal of money (namely $10,000) to go on a hunting expedition, but with an unusual twist: they want to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex . As they travel backwards throu...

" Tous les changements, même les plus souhaités ont leur mélancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-mêmes; il faut mourir à une vie pour entrer dans une autre ." "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -- Anatole France , "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard", 1881

Imagine you are on a game show. The host offers three doors: Door A, Door B, and Door C. Behind one of the doors is a brand new car, and behind the other two, goats. The goal, obviously, is to pick the door with the car. The host of the show knows which door contains the car, and likewise, which two doors contain the goats. Say you select Door B. The host, knowing what’s behind the door you selected, opens a different door, Door C, and behind it is a goat. With the knowledge that Door C is a goat, the host offers you two options: stay on Door B and see what’s behind it, or switch doors and see what’s behind Door A. The question, then, is as follows: does switching to Door A with the knowledge that behind Door C is a goat: increase your chances of winning the car, or decrease your chances of winning the car, or make no difference to your chances of winning the car? The Answer If you answered (3), that it makes no difference if you switch, you’re not alone; a lot of people ...

In the past, I've written about what music means for me , but I haven't yet touched upon the actual kinds  of music I  personally like. I get asked fairly often while meeting new people, "What kind of music do you like?" I can usually answer with a one-sentence summary. If you asked me right now, I would probably say, "oh yeah I've recently started getting into some electronic dance music, and my favorite artist is Owl City." What? Owl City? Why do you like Owl City? Well, if you really want to understand my tastes, it would take a lot longer than a one-sentence summary--perhaps even more than what I can contain in the size of a blog post. But I'll try. In order to truly understand my musical tastes, I have to explain how music came into my life, and what my relationship with music is. I started my journey into music naïvely. Keep in mind that my parents immigrated to the United States from China just a few years before I was born. So, growing up i...

Joy , beautiful spark of Gods, daughter of Elysium, we enter, burning with fervor, heavenly, your sanctuary! Your magic brings together what custom has sternly divided. All men shall become brothers, wherever your gentle wings hover. Wow. I don't know where even to begin in my testimony that the foregoing lyrics are among the most iconic in all of music. It was originally a poem written by eighteenth century German poet Friedrich Schiller; however, it was made famous by Ludwig van Beethoven, who set its German lyrics to music, and mind you, it is instantly recognizable the world over. Even to those who have never had a taste for classical music. It is the official anthem of the European Union, and it is an ode. An Ode to Joy. Freude, schöner Götterfunken, tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber binden wieder was die Mode streng geteilt; alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. If aliens from another world visi...