Why Can't I be a Normal Person?

I did rather poorly on a test recently, and this probably wouldn’t have been a problem if I studied a little harder than I did. But my brain froze on me, and I choked. The prof will probably be handing them back tomorrow, but I’ve already got a sort of rough estimate as to what my grade will be when I get it back.

I did some grade calculations to see how I will need to make up for my hypothetical score. It’s kind of crazy how one 70 can screw everything up, no matter how many 90s you have. If I do get anywhere from 70-75, it’s pretty much going to be impossible to make up for it and come away with an A in the class, unless he is really nice and gives a final curve at the end. But still, I would have to be near perfect on everything else in the class.

But that’s just the back story. My point is, while it’s not a hard class, it’s not easy either. And a B is not a bad grade. But over the years, I’ve built my mind around the idea that only an A is good enough, and just the idea of getting a B in this class is stressing me out like crazy, when it shouldn’t. It doesn’t help that I’m borderline in my computer science class (getting a 90) and almost certainly getting a solid B in my Real Analysis class (I’m okay with this, cause that class is fricking hard). I try to imagine myself getting a solid 3.0 which is a heavy fall from last year’s 4.0/4.0/3.8 record, and the idea just freaks me out. Meanwhile, there are lots of other students who are perfectly happy with Bs and not telling themselves that they’re failures and stupid. I try to tell myself that I can’t reasonably maintain perfection for the rest of my college career without driving myself insane, but the subconscious mind has a way of being astoundingly thickheaded.

I don’t like living like this, believing that having straight As is the only way to be a successful person in life. I don’t like the sense of failure when it’s really not a failure. I don’t like the guilt and neurotic self-abasement. Why can’t I just be a normal person who realizes that getting As is hard freaking work and certainly not the status quo? Because the thing is, I’m not perfect. I’ll make mistakes along the way. I’ll have bad days. I’ll have lazy days and lapses in responsibility. Don’t we all? But I’m doing my utmost, and shouldn’t that be enough for me? It’s enough for my parents. They aren’t putting any sort of Asian-parent pressure on me; it’s all been me doing that to myself! Ever since high school, it’s always been me. They’ve been nothing but encouraging, especially when I’m in neurotic stress mode like right now. I’d be dead without them and their wisdom.

I really wish I could take imperfection like a man. I wish I could accept that you win some and lose some and that’s life. I tell myself this over and over, but when will I truly believe that, 100%? I am fully aware that I have A-student elitism, and god it’s so unhealthy for me. Maybe I’m obsessed with trying to be better than everyone else. I feel like everything is so off these days, what with the world constantly telling us that we have to be better. Everything has got to be better. The best this, the best that. The winners. Number 1. There’s got to be more than that. One day, I’ll learn to stop telling myself that winning is the only thing that matters.

I still have so much to learn, so much growing up to do. Better get to work, because despite my insecurities, the world doesn’t stop turning and time keeps moving forward. Ultimately, my optimism saves me, I think. I’ve learned to keep my eye on the bigger picture, keep a good perspective on life. So even though I’m down right now, I know I’ll figure something out. Just gotta keep plugging away.

Choices

On the face of it, I don't make much sense. At times, I feel as though I have several completely separate sides of me, warring with each other every day. I declare my desire to fly away from home to a new state and a new way of life, independent and free to grow and succeed. Yet another part of me longs for the comfort of my old way of life.

There is a coward in me. It wishes to stay the same, planting itself in the past and digging its claws with powerful inertia. I fear new things. I dance away from awkward meetings with potential new friends. I hide in my room like a hermit thinking the world is too much for me to handle.

There is an arrogance in me. It runs deep and argues with the coward. It scoffs at people and looks down on the masses who all think and feel and live not-so-different lives. It is condescending toward those from whom I might learn so much.

There is a liar in me. It tells me I can't do anything. It whispers that the world is moving and more confident than I. It says I'm not good enough for the increasingly elite world. Not smart enough, not clever enough, not creative enough.

These are the things that hold me back, but they are not the only things. For thrashing against the coward is the dragon that knows it has vast wings and longs to fly. Against the arrogance speaks wisdom that reminds me to not discount the words of my peers for there is never an end to learning and no limit to who can be my teacher. And against the liar, there is reason that looks upon me for who I am and where I stand among the rest of the world's people and tells me that if I have come as far as I have, I stand just as much of a chance.

I have many fears and insecurities, many flaws, many facets. I am a sarcastic critic and a cynic who looks at things as they are. I am kind and courteous, thinking of others when it isn't even required. I can be scathing in one moment, then timid the next. Yet it is all me. People are complicated and that makes them interesting. They are not just one thing. They are noble, yet cruel, clever, yet so utterly stupid. Maybe there is fear, arrogance, and anxiety in me, but these are not the only things. They are merely opportunities to choose who I am and what I let myself be.

I have learned bravery through defying crippling anxiety and humility through being brought down in the midst of arrogance. The comfortable do not become stronger and the flawless do not grow. We are all contradictions and massive ones. We tell fascinating, complicated stories that are as nuanced as classic literature. My life will be a continuous struggle between each part of me, but it is that struggle that makes us so unbelievably, beautifully human. We are what we choose to be.

On Happiness

Happiness is pain. Well, alright, not exactly. Happiness begets pain: always. Happiness is in the comfort, the security, the moment, the stasis, and the world is changing. The world is changing, and we must, therefore, also change, leaving the moment behind.

Two years ago, my Economics teacher asked me if I had any material desires, and I looked him straight in the eye and said, "No." He looked quite astonished, and I doubt he believed me or at least thought I was deluded. I remain convinced, however, that I was the closest to the happiest, most satisfied person in the world at the time. I still believe I answered correctly and truthfully. After all, I was precisely that happy.

One year later, I had finished a year of college and was overjoyed to return home for the summer. I waited for what seemed like forever to be back, and I relished that summer. Now it is autumn, and I am back in school. I was reflecting on one particularly sad night about the nature of change and how even the most perfect moments of our lives will never stay with us. I came to realize how great a risk being happy--truly happy--really is.

We invest our souls in happiness, and when the time comes for that happiness to dissipate and move on with the turning of the world, a part of our souls is lost, only to be found in a memory, a mere ghost of the moment. And thus we feel pain, and a great, extraordinary, terrifying pain it is. Time flies, we grow up, people die, and we cannot go back in time no matter how hard we wish.

I think some people can't abide this agony of losing a deep part of themselves to the cruelties of time, so they opt for the life of empty pleasures. They invest in nothing, and therefore lose nothing, but neither do they gain anything. Happiness requires great sacrifice and courage. We give hearts up again and again to something we always know we will lose, yet we do! Why? Because it is worth it! Love and safety and acceptance and peace and joy are all worth it.

We move forward with the world, whether we want to or not. We are slaves to change, but that is not the end of the story. Though it seems change has a way of slaying our greatest joys, change also created them. Happiness has meaning because it can be lost. A life is beautiful because it can be destroyed, because it does not last forever.

I lost my heart before. I will lose it again. Parts of me have died and more will follow. I have no regrets. Happiness is pain. And oh, what a beautiful pain it is.

Old Children's Books

What I want is a search engine that allows you to type in a bunch of vague plot points from a book in your childhood that you can only barely remember and find out what it is.

There are some books that my mom loved as a child which were also read to me and we've been trying very hard to remember the names of a few of them but can't. I'm writing this blog post in hopes of possibly being helpful to other people trying to find old books one day when I actually get my crap together too. Maybe I'll make a totally new blog just to compile synopses of old books. For now, these are the books I'm looking for.

FOUND THEMMMM.

A Little Old Man by Unknown author 1(I don't remember this and I'm too lazy to google)

About a sea captain with a ton of cats on his ship. This is all my mom can remember.

Unknown book 2 by Unknown author 2

About a rowdy boy who makes all kinds of trouble. Known for "hootin and hollerin" up a storm. He loved Grandma's griddle cakes so much and she asked him for eggs. He went to the chickens and shouted so loud that the brown chickens turned white and white chickens brown and some other chickens turned polka dot because they were so scared, I think. He then tried to steal an egg from an eagle's nest at some point. He wrestled with a honey bear and dragging home a donkey. He fell in a well at some point and it took grandma, the honey bear, and the donkey to pull him out. Then the animals and the boy whose freaking name I can't remember all eat grandma's griddle cakes with strawberry jam so that they have red mustaches or some crap like that.

I was gonna edit them, but I realized I can't remember the 2nd title because it's really long or the authors either but we found them so life is good yeah.

Infinite Space

Just jotting down a few thoughts and stuff before I forget most of them.

"The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it. It's the way the atoms are put together. The cosmos are within us; we're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
-Carl Sagan

I think the key mistake made regarding Christianity, both by those who oppose it and by Christians themselves is that God teaches us constraint, rather than freedom.

I also think it's funny how Richard Dawkins is such an outspoken atheist, yet he has said such beautiful and spiritual things with regards to the universe. I think it's funny how many of us believe that science and religion cannot mix, even though often times, the two say the exact same thing.

"We are all connected; To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Who is to say that a scientist cannot also be a poet? That a poet cannot also be a scientist? How easily they become one and the same.

This is my brain. All the time.

I have a random question.
Say we looked at a magnified a droplet of water so that it seemed to be a huge blob of water. Say there existed a person little enough to stand on this droplet of water. This person should be much smaller than the droplet. Say this little person got on a diving board and jumped from a height such that his or her dive penetrated the surface tension and he or she plunged into the water droplet.
The surface tension should hold the water droplet together after the person dives in. Will the little person be able to escape the water droplet once he or she is inside? Or will he or she not have enough strength to break the surface tension that holds the water together and subsequently drown inside the droplet?
Juuuust curious.
This is one of the sorts of things I think about all the time. Welcome to my brain.

Useless Theory #1

Here is the debut of Useless Theory Hour. I am calling it "hour" because it sounds more catchy than "blog" or "journal." This is when I take a concept, problem or idea and tell you how I think it works or how to solve it USING ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC OR EVEN LOGICAL PROOF. And that is why these are useless theories. But I hope they are fun theories.

The theory I am going to talk about today is the theory of thought-space. I have coined thought-space to describe the physical dimension or realm in which our thoughts exist. We perceive the world in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. But modern physics tells us that there exists the possibility for other dimensions. Imagine trying to wrap your mind around having another dimension of space and having your math teacher instruct you to draw a graph of a 4 coordinate system! Most people I know would rather not even think about number lines. How on earth can we imagine extra dimensions if we only understand the world in three? And so I thought about thought.

What are thoughts anyway? Do they simply exist in our heads? Are they just pulses of electricity turned into language? Do thoughts have mass? If they only exist in our heads, where does intuition come from? What about two people who always seem to say the same thing at the same time? You could say that intuition and coincidence simply come from our innate ability to interpret nonverbal language of others. But that's boring! If there is any subject that has no weird unanswered questions, I'd say we're probably wrong about most of the stuff we think we know about it. The universe is too big and too weird and the human experience too complicated and crazy for us to give a boring answer to a weird question.

So now here is a weird question: what if thoughts occupy their own dimension, and just as lines on a 2-D curve can intersect, so can thoughts. To ruin your life and put things in the language of math for a little bit, I could even go so far as to say that thoughts are vectors. Think about it! Thoughts exist and some are more dominant than others so you could say they have a magnitude. But what about when we are trying to think of something and we know we're getting close? What about when we're trying to relate concepts but they simply don't match up? Do you think it's possible that thoughts can have a direction too? It's kind of a neat thought to me. But back to thoughts existing on their own dimensional plane. Since thoughts are centered around people in particular--and perhaps animals but that's beside the point--it makes sense that more thoughts will concentrate in areas with more people.

So now I come to the question: why do some people get mentally exhausted when they're surrounded by too many people? Could Sherlock from the BBC drama actually get annoyed at the "sound" of someone thinking in his personal space? Could you? I remember in philosophy class, I would always walk out with a headache. It felt like there was so much pressure on my head that dissipated almost the instant I walked out of class. During the discussions, I felt like I couldn't think because my mind was feeling crowded by the presence of other people. Every so often I would jokingly rant to my friends, "They crowd my thought-space!" To give another example, I have trouble sleeping when I know there is someone else awake in the room, which is why I am almost always the last person to fall asleep. Can it be that their thoughts are disrupting mine? What about when people seem to know exactly what the other is thinking? Maybe, these are caused by intersections of the "thought-lines" in the "thought-space."

I think that is enough about thought for now. This is how I pass the time anyway--make up ridiculous theories of everything. This is also why I think life is cool. There are so many crazy questions to think about, I don't know why people are always so bored.