Chalhouf

Chalhouf: pronounced "hal(slightly glottal)-hoof" is our name for a quesadilla. I forgot exactly how it started, but early on in university, there was a discussion about words and how they were made. I have a short history of making up random words and speaking in strange grammars in high school and university as I have always found it interesting that words and grammar are so ingrained in our perception of reality even when they are just arbitrary sound. So I came up with a random word - chalhouf for quesadillas. From then on, Ben and I have always called quesadillas chalhoufs. This word had never been written before, and this is the first time I am trying to spell this word after a short consultation with Ben, so please excuse the possible misspelling.

Whoo! Avocados!

We were in a car with a Andre, a college friend visiting us from Santa Barbara where he is working toward getting a Ph. D. in physics. We were going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. He mentioned there is a avocado festival around Santa Barbara. I said "Man, I totally want to go to an avocado festival and be like 'whoo, avocados.'" while waving my arms in the air. Ben thought this was hilarious. He said "haha, I like how that's your idea of what you do at festivals." From then on, I always say "avocados" whenever someone says "whoo."

The Umbrella Strategy

The Umbrella Strategy: Quality, not quantity on utilitarian objects that do not matter in the long run.

The umbrella strategy is named after a discussion one day in University. It was raining outside, and I was with a friend. He had a $16 large, sturdy umbrella from the Cornell Store with the Cornell logo and colours. I had one of my 4 or 5 flimsy $1.99 umbrellas. Although smaller and very fragile, it kept me dry.

We noted that although my umbrella will break much sooner than my friend's, I can go through 8 umbrellas before he goes through one and still come out even or ahead. Since his umbrella was going to be destroyed in the long run anyway, there was no reason to get an expensive umbrella. It might be more comfortable and look nicer in the short run, in terms of the utilitarian use of the umbrella, I got the better deal.

I find that I apply this strategy to nearly everything in everyday life. I used the Umbrella Strategy with by bicycle, which just happened to be destroyed in an accident. I seem to be very utilitarian, which may or may not be a good thing. Who knows?

By the way, my friend Ben interprets the umbrella strategy as not worrying about something until something comes up, and buying the cheapest item that will solve the problem and treat is as disposable. For example, we got caught in the rain one day, so we buy the cheapest umbrella. If we remember, it can be reused in the future, but it was just as good if we used it once and forgot about it.

The Heroin Addict On the Bus

Last night, Friday October 10th, we decided to go to Katana-Ya near Union Square for some ramen as we have heard good things about it. Since I had a monthly Muni pass, we decided to take a bus instead of the BART. At the bus stop, while looking at the map, a Hispanic man started giving us directions, soon joined by a Caucasian man named Jeremy. Eventually, we decided to take the Muni 14 up to Fifth and Market and walk the rest of the way. We followed Jeremy on the bus as he seemed very helpful (even though he told us he was from Philadelphia and so he was not too familiar with the area).

On the bus, he pulled out some black canisters from his bag and started organizing it. I looked at the canisters, which had large warning letters on it. As I was glancing at his canisters, I heard him say "I'm a heroin addict." This led to a very long and heated conversation. The sketchiness of the Mission district and the old rickety trolley bus filled with graffiti didn't help us in trusting him, so Ben and I were very cautious with him but became more comfortable around him as we talked.

He told us that he had been clean for six years before relapsing. He had scars on his hand, probably from injections or IVs. He told us that he believed that if a person had a drug problem, it was his responsibility. He told us that he never stole from or robbed anyone, even during his worst times. I respected him very much for that. He then told us that although he did not steal from individuals or small independent shops, he did steal from corporations. He made it sound as such a natural, everyday activity to do.

This led to a discussion on New World Order which got him extremely excited. He wrote a note to us with some websites, names of books and movies we need to see, and names of people we should look up online. He even got off with us from the bus and walked with us as he said getting other people to hear him about this was more important than getting to where he was going to. We were quite nervous as we were afraid he was going to mug us, but he seemed very passionate about telling us about the New World Order.

At one point, he even told us to pull out our drivers licenses to take a look at it. He even offered to stand aside while we did it so we didn't have to worry about him snatching our wallets. He was going on a long spiel about how we were commodities owned by the government, and how even if we requested it, our names always appeared in all capital letters on drivers licenses. We thought this was pretty hilarious since we're pretty sure it's just a printing standard, but he seemed very passionate and we didn't want to offend him by laughing. We didn't take out our wallets since I always feel uncomfortable to show my wallet in public, but he seemed to understand. He also said he could not show us his license because his wallet had jut been stolen, but at one point he did pull out a wad of cash to show us some hidden conspiracies on the dollar bill.

Although we thought he was somewhat crazy, we were curious about what he said about the New World Order since I have heard this being mentioned before but never really looked into it. I assume New World Order is just another conspiracy theory, which I don't think holds any water after applying Occam's Razor, but hey, it will be interesting to see what they say. After all, some conspiracy theories might just be true. In any case, this is what drugs will do to someone, it will cloud their judgement. I thought this was too bad since Jeremy seemed like a genuinely nice guy interested in helping others and making sure he does not harm anyone else, even when it is so tempting due to his drug problem. I really hope he can cope and sincerely wish the best future for him. After walking us to Union Square, he departed, and exchanging good wishes, we saw him walk down a dark, relatively empty street, stop and started to organize his bag again.

What I found is that there are many good people in this world that somehow get influenced by drugs into a very depressing life. I have met other people who have been influenced by hard drugs before such as cocaine and heroin. What I have found is that although society paints them as scary, dangerous, and immoral people, I have found most of them are just like everyone else. But because of the drugs, their judgement become clouded and when they become desperate, it becomes easy to be convinced into doing crimes to get their fix. Because of this, I really respect what he said about not robbing individuals and independent stores. I find it very sad that drugs have such power over people and I can emphasize with these drug addicts. I wish there was a better way to help them. I really hope Jeremy's future improves and he can defeat his drug problem again. I did not get to ask him how he relapsed after six years of staying clean. But maybe I will see him again one day as I pass by that bus stop quite often.

This blog will now also include notable experiences in life!

So I haven't update this blog very often, but since my goal for this is to have a good record of how I view life, I thought including some interesting and funny experiences in this blog might also be fun, so stay tuned, and hopefully I will update this a bit more often. Note that for travel experiences however, you should refer to my travel blog. That link should be on the sidebar to the right.

The Meaning of Life

Even since I graduated, I have been becoming increasing troubled by a question. I've become consumed to finding the answer to it. I think about it every time and I find it very difficult to be happy knowing that I do not have the answer to the question. The question is: "What is the meaning of life?"

It's a classic question asked by everyone. At first, this seem unanswerable. Then, as you think about it, answers start to appear. At first I was happy. I had an answer. But over time, more and more answers appeared. The more answers I have, the further I am from answering the question. Each subsequent answer seems as good as any of the previous answers. And thus I am becoming more and more confused and I start realizing how difficult - and simple - this question truly is.

The first answer to this question, and the one that is most supported by science - is based on evolution. I am not saying that this is the right answer. In fact, I think this is the worst answer. It is an answer that makes us lose hope and makes life a meaningless exercise of desperation that is the result of chance and the whims of the universe. But it is the most logical answer. Logic and science - being the only organized system in which correct predictions of the future can be made consistently - cannot be discounted. Because of its predictive behaviour, this is the only system we can currently rely on to give us answers to questions.

The simple answer based on science and evolution is: "To reproduce." "To reproduce" is really an oversimplification of the answer. If you follow the line of logic back even more, the answer becomes "The meaning of life is to be," or "The meaning of life is meaningless," or "There is no meaning to life." But of course, this is an answer that deserves an explanation since it can be interpreted in many different ways. Here is a summary of that explanation:

The meaning of life is to reproduce, since if we did not do so, there would be no life. We have the ability to reproduce because of evolution. But it is because we can reproduce that there is evolution. The combination of the two is due to the rules of this universe that allows for certain chemicals to combine, and certain molecules to act together to create a system that is able to reproduce and carry out evolution. Life developed over billions of years due to a coincidence in the rules of this universe. If we are the product of chance which has produced organisms that are intent on reproducing, then there really is no point to reproducing because everything is just a coincidence anyway. We only have the desire to reproduce and for the human race, and life in general, to continue because of a series of coincidences and the process of evolution - survival of the systems that can self-propagate the best. If this is the case, there is no meaning of life, and what we might attribute to be the meaning of life is actually meaningless, since it is only due to a series of coincidences that resulted in us thinking that the meaning of life is meaningful. So depending on how you see the situation, the meaning of life can be "meaningless" - since life is a product of coincidence anyway, "to be" - since that is the way the universe intends it to be, or "to reproduce" - since without reproduction, there would be no life.

Well, I'm sure that by now you either think that I make no sense at all, that I'm crazy, or some combination of the two. But think about it. It took me a while to understand this answer even a little bit. I'll probably elaborate on specific parts of this answer in more detail in the future, and of course, we'll move to some more up-beat answers to the question of what the meaning of life is!

The Power of Social Standards

As university is coming to a close to me, I'm starting to realize more and more how social standards have such power over someone's behaviour. It's amazing that when a common way of thinking has been established in a group of people, it is so difficult to deviate from that common way of thinking. This is especially true in larger groups.

It seems strange that people in groups can form consensus of a certain way of thinking. When someone influential is a part of the group (this can be personally influential people such as your parents), these groups can grow.

But what I find most interesting is how one's thoughts deviate when they do not have the input of significant number of others for a long time. In these cases, as I have been experiencing in the past few weeks due to end of the semester projects, you start developing your own view of the world that when you sit back and look at the larger picture, realize that everything is shifted out of balance. For example, I have been very narrowly focused on school, and I feel like I am in a trance, with the singular goal of finishing the semester well. Because of my focus, I can't think of anything else, and I can't even see an end to all of this work. I am also extremely stressed by it. But when you sit back and think about it, everything is just a social construct.

I find it interesting that when people settle on a set way of thinking, it is very difficult to break out of that cycle. This may just be an evolutionary leftover, since it is easier to follow in the footsteps of successful people than to bushwhack your own way to success. I think it is of the highest importance that people should regularly just sit back and think about what they are doing. What are the ideas that you take for granted? Where are these ideas from? What practical reasons do you think these ideas were formed from? How do these apply and/or not apply to our current lives? Things change fast in the modern world, so we all need to learn how to adapt both our bodies and our minds to these changes.

It is also interesting to note that people tend to shun others who think differently than they do. Many people, who are very used to the way they think and hang out only with others that think like them, are even less willing to accept other points of view and other ways of thinking. I get the feeling that these people can't see themselves thinking in a similar way to the people they shun and because of this, they develop ill feelings toward the people who think differently then they do. This also needs to change. People should try viewing the world from all perspectives. Of course, there are perspectives that may cause harm to others, but even they should be considered, although with some caution. Only by thinking like others can you understand what they truly feel and how to help everyone else.

The question that I have been asking is, if everything is a social construct, why should we tie our emotions and desires to what the rest of society wants? Why should we care about being rich? Wouldn't we just all be happier if we just decided we were satisfied with what we have? After all, according to many studies, some of the poorest countries are the happiest countries in the world.
Well, perhaps I should write about measures of success in my next post so this post doesn't ramble on for too long.