I watched a Korean movie last night on Rotten Tomatoes called "Burning" (버닝) about a man who struggles with identity, family troubles, lack of economic resources, and being generally displaced within the Korean society. This main protagonist meets a girl who he grew up with but has no recollection of, who he falls in love with gradually. Pretty standard setup, right? Except it gets really dark and weird in a Haruki Murakami way (as MJ would say, in a BAD way), a rich Gatsby-like man shows up to start a relationship with a girl, and then it becomes sort of a mystery/stalker thriller towards the end. The movie was full of symbolism and literary tools that went way over my head after working a 12-hour shift at home on the July 4th holiday with fireworks booming all around our apartment (I've started to do a 180-degree shift on fireworks, btw), I'm fine with professionally conducted fireworks displays with music like at a baseball stadium or organized by a city, but private fireworks going off randomly and illegally just disturbs the peace. I'm just glad I don't own a dog that would go crazy once every year on July 4th). One profound passage, however, stood out when the female protagonist (I've been told I shouldn't use the word "female" towards people nowadays in the sensitivity-of-words movement, even though "Karen" seems to be thrown around quite liberally) describes going to Africa and understanding Little Hunger and a Great Hunger, with Little Hunger just being normal hunger satiated by consumption of food, but the Great Hunger being a yearning for the meaning of life, to make sense of it all and why we are all here.
I've always heard about this Great Hunger and it sounds very neat and a noble ideal to aspire to, but I'm not sure I would waste my time trying to find it. Sounds a lot like hoity-toity artistic pieces saying they are representing something but me just seeing a white line on a black background, with 2 circles in the corner or something. I feel like I have already discovered the meaning of life, satiated that hunger, is to be generally happy while surviving as best as one can, then if I have extra resources like wealth or time I'll try to give some to other people. That's pretty much the extent of what I can in terms of addressing the meaning of life. I think many of us would love to go through a thrilling intellectual exercise about the meaning of life and strive to achieve our ideals, but those don't pay the bills and don't necessarily make us happy, and there's no endpoint or goal in sight. It's a bit like people who set out to change the world: they come up with noble ideas and goals and ambitions and set out to achieve them, and their heart is in the right place, but then when actually executing them they find that their ideals and ambitions might be compromised, or that they conflict with other morals and ideals that seem equally righteous and it becomes a zero sum game of you can have one but not the other, so you end up going against another ideal. Or their ideals are corrupted by other people who use them as a force to achieve their goals, a bit like the Black Lives Matter movement that has turned one very noble ideal (enforce that black peoples' lives matter and should not be valued less than lives of others by the police and other groups) into a movement that condemns everyone who tries to say anything against them and denounces all critics as being racist.
More than just being political, though, I just think human beings are limited in what we can understand about the meaning of life. It's kind of like one of the messages n Burning (a movie that I skipped through despite its 95% Rotten Tomatoes score because I kind of figured its value was in its hoity-toity-ness) where we're born, we live, and die, but it's as if we never existed. There's very little we can do during that time other than just survive (most of us don't have financial resources and time to do much of anything) and before we realize it we've lived most of our lives without making much of an impact. But that goes for everyone; even great political leaders and army generals and iconic writers and artists; their impact is on display in museums and history books, but do they really make that much of an impact in the great scheme of things? Unfortunately, we're closer to animals or every other living creature in that respect: we're simply given life for a short period of time, we live it the best we can, and maybe it's actually a simulation and we go on to some form of life outside of the simulation afterwards. We're not gods or some almighty beings who can shift life somehow to satiate or Great Hunger. We just remain forever hungry, some more than others.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
한글 패치 (Korean Patch)
A "Korean patch" is someone who was not born and raised in Korea but knows Korean really well, almost like they put a patch on themselves that magically gave them Korean speaking powers. I wish they really did have a patch or a microchip to implant into my brain to learn Korean, but I'm trying my best to do so on my own, and with the help of a nifty website called "Talk to Me in Korean." If I ever created my own business I'd want it to be run like Talk to Me in Korean, with a state-of-the-art website that tracks one's progress and provides hundreds of lessons (some video, some audio), but also a Youtube channel that updates every day or so to stay in the mind of loyal subscribers. Most importantly, though, the creator of the website adheres to the rule that learning a language has to be fun, or else people lose motivation quickly and abandon ship halfway through, forfeiting all the progress they had made until then because language learning is like dieting, you need to stick with it every day and exercise every day to keep the brain in that mode. They also have cool explanations of words like Korean patch to have it stick out in one's mind, rather than the 15 different ways to say "to see" or "to stay."
MJ has a classmate in her nursing program who wants to study Korean and had even learned Korean as a child, just didn't stick with it and didn't get over the hump of actually learning it. She just wants other people to teach her, as if there was some sort of magical patch a native Korean speaker can give to a learner. In fact, it's probably harder for a native speaker to teach a brand new speaker their own language, because native speakers just know it naturally, they didn't even need to learn the rules. I couldn't describe all the rules of English and its exceptions if I tried; it takes some real skill to dig into one's own language and learn all the nuances of it, and then also try to make it as fun as possible to a new speaker. Of course one can try to memorize all Korean words by rote memorization, in fact there's tons of books and videos that just give 2000 most common words, go ahead and memorize them, but it is NOT easy to sit down and just try to digest them all in one session, not when Facebook and Youtube (not to mention the Robinhood app when the Nasdaq and E-commerce stocks hit all-time highs this week in front of July 4th- the time-honored July 4th trade) for trying to memorize all the words. It's the videos and funny situations and actual usage and going through the situation of using it that makes us really learn a word. I remember first learning Japanese and having a hard time saying anything in front of my Japanese colleagues, but word by word I spit out some things that I was learning, and each time I said something new I was so nervous to use it that when I did use it, the native speaker actually understanding it made me get such an adrenaline high that it was like remembering the first time I played dodgeball all over again, or the first (and only time) I ran a marathon.
Which is the whole premise of Talk to Me in Korean. So many memories. But the website's name itself is a good reminder for practice: I need to talk to someone in Korean, and luckily I know someone really near and dear to me who I spend almost 24/7 in lockdown with, and whom I hope to share many memories (not just to retain new words I learn like Korean patch).
MJ has a classmate in her nursing program who wants to study Korean and had even learned Korean as a child, just didn't stick with it and didn't get over the hump of actually learning it. She just wants other people to teach her, as if there was some sort of magical patch a native Korean speaker can give to a learner. In fact, it's probably harder for a native speaker to teach a brand new speaker their own language, because native speakers just know it naturally, they didn't even need to learn the rules. I couldn't describe all the rules of English and its exceptions if I tried; it takes some real skill to dig into one's own language and learn all the nuances of it, and then also try to make it as fun as possible to a new speaker. Of course one can try to memorize all Korean words by rote memorization, in fact there's tons of books and videos that just give 2000 most common words, go ahead and memorize them, but it is NOT easy to sit down and just try to digest them all in one session, not when Facebook and Youtube (not to mention the Robinhood app when the Nasdaq and E-commerce stocks hit all-time highs this week in front of July 4th- the time-honored July 4th trade) for trying to memorize all the words. It's the videos and funny situations and actual usage and going through the situation of using it that makes us really learn a word. I remember first learning Japanese and having a hard time saying anything in front of my Japanese colleagues, but word by word I spit out some things that I was learning, and each time I said something new I was so nervous to use it that when I did use it, the native speaker actually understanding it made me get such an adrenaline high that it was like remembering the first time I played dodgeball all over again, or the first (and only time) I ran a marathon.
Which is the whole premise of Talk to Me in Korean. So many memories. But the website's name itself is a good reminder for practice: I need to talk to someone in Korean, and luckily I know someone really near and dear to me who I spend almost 24/7 in lockdown with, and whom I hope to share many memories (not just to retain new words I learn like Korean patch).
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Out of sight, out of mind (눈에서 멀어지면, 마음에서도 멀어진다)
This is a Korean idiom meaning "if it becomes distant from your eyes, it becomes distant from your heart." It's often said about couples having difficulties in a long-distance relationship because one's presence is important to feeling a connection. MJ and I experienced this while I worked in a different city, but we used Google FaceTime to bridge the gap. Luckily, MJ is nice enough to remember me even when she doesn't see me every day or even for long periods of times, whereas I am a smooth enough talker to convince her I am thinking about her every moment every day even when she's not with me, but it certainly rings true that long-distance relationships don't work long term. It's the same with Zoom conversations: they're real enough in seeing people's voices and hearing them speak, but cannot replace real conversations, if only just from not seeing physical cues suggesting when someone is done talking to know when to cut in...a very delicate science that easily leads to two or three or more people talking at the same time (might be resolved by the "raising hand" button that Zoom provides but I haven't seen be used).
Also works when going on a diet- as long as greasy and fattening foods are not available on-hand, I can resist and make do with the bare necessity of foods, as I have during this pandemic. MJ and I currently live in an isolated area without many fast-food restaurants nearby for late-night snacks or fast-food dining (the closest location is a McDonald's a half-mile away, past a detention center, railroad, track, and numerous intersections that make it less than ideal), and we're not Uber Eats delivery people, so essentially it's like Survivor where we're on our own island only living off the resources available on that island: rice, veggies, vegan foods, a low amount of cereals (not much cholcolate). It really is just distancing ourselves from all temptations. If we do get something yummy once in a while, MJ will claim that the delicious food (insert cookie, dessert, tasty snack, etc. here) is "looking at her" and want to eat it, and like leaving a fox in a henhouse, all the food is gone the next time I check.
Different eras of my life (and living in different cities) seem so real and ever-present when I'm living through them and that it's always been like that, but once I move away into a new lifestyle I almost completely forget about the old lifestyle and feel the only way I ever live is the new way, and old memories are just a past life, almost like they never existed until I look back at some pictures and get reminded of certain events. So many new stimulus happened in New York City, for example, like running down the coast of the East River, eating at Chinatown in Queens, taking the subway with millions of others to work in the morning, going to a show on Broadway, and when I go back and hear the rumbling of the subways, the smell of the pollution and street vendor hot dogs, the view of the city from the Empire State building, the feeling of millions of people doing millions of activities all at the same time , I'll probably remember that lifestyle, but nowadays those things in my heart have been replaced by the sights of a lonely highway outside our window, the sound of our air purification system going off, the smell of body odor emanating from the laundry, and the feeling of being stuck inside during quarantine and nothing going on except my dull and simple life indoors. New York City and the life we used to know is out of sight, and out of mind.
Also works when going on a diet- as long as greasy and fattening foods are not available on-hand, I can resist and make do with the bare necessity of foods, as I have during this pandemic. MJ and I currently live in an isolated area without many fast-food restaurants nearby for late-night snacks or fast-food dining (the closest location is a McDonald's a half-mile away, past a detention center, railroad, track, and numerous intersections that make it less than ideal), and we're not Uber Eats delivery people, so essentially it's like Survivor where we're on our own island only living off the resources available on that island: rice, veggies, vegan foods, a low amount of cereals (not much cholcolate). It really is just distancing ourselves from all temptations. If we do get something yummy once in a while, MJ will claim that the delicious food (insert cookie, dessert, tasty snack, etc. here) is "looking at her" and want to eat it, and like leaving a fox in a henhouse, all the food is gone the next time I check.
Different eras of my life (and living in different cities) seem so real and ever-present when I'm living through them and that it's always been like that, but once I move away into a new lifestyle I almost completely forget about the old lifestyle and feel the only way I ever live is the new way, and old memories are just a past life, almost like they never existed until I look back at some pictures and get reminded of certain events. So many new stimulus happened in New York City, for example, like running down the coast of the East River, eating at Chinatown in Queens, taking the subway with millions of others to work in the morning, going to a show on Broadway, and when I go back and hear the rumbling of the subways, the smell of the pollution and street vendor hot dogs, the view of the city from the Empire State building, the feeling of millions of people doing millions of activities all at the same time , I'll probably remember that lifestyle, but nowadays those things in my heart have been replaced by the sights of a lonely highway outside our window, the sound of our air purification system going off, the smell of body odor emanating from the laundry, and the feeling of being stuck inside during quarantine and nothing going on except my dull and simple life indoors. New York City and the life we used to know is out of sight, and out of mind.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Han (한, 恨)
In every new language I learn, I find new concepts that are described by that culture alone, untranslatable into other languages because there's no matching concept. In Japanese there was "wabisabi," meaning imperfect work that shows off the beauty of life's imperfections, as well as "nekojita," cat's tongue, which means someone who's sensitive to spicy foods (no term I can think of in English except "wimp"), and in Korean there are several terms like these. "Nunchi" is used quite often for people to catch the eye of others and understand what should be done without stating it, an implicit understanding.
Han, on the other hand, means a sort of shared suffering, a resentment or sadness that's shared by a group of people, prevalent enough that it becomes a sort of solidarity, a beauty in the shared suffering. It often is associated with feeling of resentment Koreans have towards Japanese occupation, to being invaded by other countries and other groups of people, and now they share it in the reality that the country is divided into 2 halves, and it's still unclear when if ever the country will be united. "Han" was even used as the title to an episode of the West Wing and used by President Bartlett, so it was pretty prevalent, so it's surprising I didn't encounter it in my now 3+ years of studying Korean.
I feel like black Americans are suffering from this shared identity of han, especially nowadays in the wake of many black lives lost due to police brutality. I've come out against "abolishing the police" and strong Twitter and Facebook attacks on others on social media, but that doesn't change the fact that I understand black people's pain every time a black person is shown on the news having been killed by a police officer, or someone from another race. There is a collective pain felt by black people, that they've killed one of us, that hurting and killing one of the group is like killing all of us. That is a very strong idea, and I admire black people's solidarity and standing together in the face of seemingly overwhelming adversity, that they feel pride in their shared circumstance, even if is sad and hateful.
Although black Americans have very strong han, I feel most minorities have han in some way or another. We've all suffered through some injustices and discrimination. (Not to minimize the difficulties black Americans have had, I think most would agree that historically they've suffered the most). I remember the first time I was in Boys and Girls Club of America in inner city Chicago and other kids pulled their eyes flat to mimic me as an Asian person, and at that moment I understood what discrimination was. I still experience it as an adult, being called "Yao Ming" on the basketball court or "I didn't know you knew how to do that" when tipping the dealer at a Las Vegas blackjack table. Each time something overtly or even subtly racist happens against me as an Asian person, I seethe in quiet anger and get the feeling of han, like I'm representing all Chinese Americans in the world and have to defend the honor of an entire race, and at the same time knowing that other Chinese Americans out there must be feeling the same.
And it's not even just about race; I feel like han could apply to any situations where you're the minority or the victim of some power play, being made to feel small. When I was on the chess team in high school I felt a strong han for all chess nerds out there, a kind of solidified humiliation of being the nerds and the bottoms of the social hierachy at my high school. (Hint: I was on a lot of minorities/ low totem pole activities). Math team, orchestra, etc., etc. But just like the word han, there's a little bit of hope that can arise from being targeted as the minority, to feel closer as the outcasts and use that as a chip on the collective shoulder and fight back knowing you have this shared identity. That's what I would encourage black Americans do in today's world, have hope and stay strong; they certainly have a unifying slogan down already: Black Lives Matter.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Han, on the other hand, means a sort of shared suffering, a resentment or sadness that's shared by a group of people, prevalent enough that it becomes a sort of solidarity, a beauty in the shared suffering. It often is associated with feeling of resentment Koreans have towards Japanese occupation, to being invaded by other countries and other groups of people, and now they share it in the reality that the country is divided into 2 halves, and it's still unclear when if ever the country will be united. "Han" was even used as the title to an episode of the West Wing and used by President Bartlett, so it was pretty prevalent, so it's surprising I didn't encounter it in my now 3+ years of studying Korean.
I feel like black Americans are suffering from this shared identity of han, especially nowadays in the wake of many black lives lost due to police brutality. I've come out against "abolishing the police" and strong Twitter and Facebook attacks on others on social media, but that doesn't change the fact that I understand black people's pain every time a black person is shown on the news having been killed by a police officer, or someone from another race. There is a collective pain felt by black people, that they've killed one of us, that hurting and killing one of the group is like killing all of us. That is a very strong idea, and I admire black people's solidarity and standing together in the face of seemingly overwhelming adversity, that they feel pride in their shared circumstance, even if is sad and hateful.
Although black Americans have very strong han, I feel most minorities have han in some way or another. We've all suffered through some injustices and discrimination. (Not to minimize the difficulties black Americans have had, I think most would agree that historically they've suffered the most). I remember the first time I was in Boys and Girls Club of America in inner city Chicago and other kids pulled their eyes flat to mimic me as an Asian person, and at that moment I understood what discrimination was. I still experience it as an adult, being called "Yao Ming" on the basketball court or "I didn't know you knew how to do that" when tipping the dealer at a Las Vegas blackjack table. Each time something overtly or even subtly racist happens against me as an Asian person, I seethe in quiet anger and get the feeling of han, like I'm representing all Chinese Americans in the world and have to defend the honor of an entire race, and at the same time knowing that other Chinese Americans out there must be feeling the same.
And it's not even just about race; I feel like han could apply to any situations where you're the minority or the victim of some power play, being made to feel small. When I was on the chess team in high school I felt a strong han for all chess nerds out there, a kind of solidified humiliation of being the nerds and the bottoms of the social hierachy at my high school. (Hint: I was on a lot of minorities/ low totem pole activities). Math team, orchestra, etc., etc. But just like the word han, there's a little bit of hope that can arise from being targeted as the minority, to feel closer as the outcasts and use that as a chip on the collective shoulder and fight back knowing you have this shared identity. That's what I would encourage black Americans do in today's world, have hope and stay strong; they certainly have a unifying slogan down already: Black Lives Matter.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Distraction (흐트러뜨리다, 分散注意, 気晴らし)
If I had to name one thing I am troubled by today's society, it's that we're so distracted all the time. I find that in a given day, I am very seldom focusing on just one thing and one thing only. I'm always trying to multitask and get a lot of things done at one time, even though I know that the more productive option is to focus on just one thing, do it well, and then move on to another. Even while working, I'm listening to music, and checking the stock market, which separates my mind from what it's focusing on at that exact moment. There's just too much stimulus in our lives, convenience of information and access to everything with the iPhone that paradoxically creates more barriers to actually getting anything done.
I wish I could press "reset" on attention span and go back to a baby, just having a completely clean slate with no preconceptions, no random thoughts running through my head, no commercials, no regrets, no anxieties (I guess that's why some people use recreational drugs). The opportunity to do a partial reset is to wake up each morning, when my brain has cleared itself enough that I can focus on one thing for quite a long time as my brain is just "warming back up" and hasn't had a taste of anything else yet. I have to exercise extreme discipline not to look at facebook, news, messages, Youtube videos, etc., sports scores and statistics (not a problem during the pandemic) because that bogs down my whole day. After I feel like I've done about 3-4 hours of solid work or learned something substantial, I finally allow myself to check some other things, and then there's no stopping the brain from getting cluttered and succumbing to distraction after that.
I think of distractions like junk food, or processed food, for the brain. Just like the human body, the brain should only be processing healthy greens, a balanced diet that helps the brain grow and doesn't poison it or cause negative reactions, or cause it slow down, clog the brain arteries, but that's what the news is: most news articles, especially the ones shared on Facebook and social media without people actually having read the article, has been filtered down through various sources to highlight the points that give people the biggest reaction, or the news has been selected in a certain way by the algorithms to give the reader what it thinks the reader wants. Gossip, things that make people feel emotion, anger, they're all like processed foods: they look tasty and we want to eat them, and the more we eat the more we want to eat, but they're ultimately bad for us and cause long term damage to the brain and the way we think.
To combat these distractions, I always tell myself to turn off my phone or laptop for a whole day; give my mind a break. I never make it past a few hours. It turns out, very few things are as addicting as a cell phone in one's hand. I always lecture MJ and my sister about not using their phone all the time and getting distracted, but I should probably follow my own advice. One of the only things that had my 100% attention was dodgeball, and now I don't have that. This has been a really long pandemic (it feels like) and we're still a little shy of 3 months since we started. We need distractions like sports and entertainment and things that make us happy, but I'm not sure that's even enough anymore.
I wish I could press "reset" on attention span and go back to a baby, just having a completely clean slate with no preconceptions, no random thoughts running through my head, no commercials, no regrets, no anxieties (I guess that's why some people use recreational drugs). The opportunity to do a partial reset is to wake up each morning, when my brain has cleared itself enough that I can focus on one thing for quite a long time as my brain is just "warming back up" and hasn't had a taste of anything else yet. I have to exercise extreme discipline not to look at facebook, news, messages, Youtube videos, etc., sports scores and statistics (not a problem during the pandemic) because that bogs down my whole day. After I feel like I've done about 3-4 hours of solid work or learned something substantial, I finally allow myself to check some other things, and then there's no stopping the brain from getting cluttered and succumbing to distraction after that.
I think of distractions like junk food, or processed food, for the brain. Just like the human body, the brain should only be processing healthy greens, a balanced diet that helps the brain grow and doesn't poison it or cause negative reactions, or cause it slow down, clog the brain arteries, but that's what the news is: most news articles, especially the ones shared on Facebook and social media without people actually having read the article, has been filtered down through various sources to highlight the points that give people the biggest reaction, or the news has been selected in a certain way by the algorithms to give the reader what it thinks the reader wants. Gossip, things that make people feel emotion, anger, they're all like processed foods: they look tasty and we want to eat them, and the more we eat the more we want to eat, but they're ultimately bad for us and cause long term damage to the brain and the way we think.
To combat these distractions, I always tell myself to turn off my phone or laptop for a whole day; give my mind a break. I never make it past a few hours. It turns out, very few things are as addicting as a cell phone in one's hand. I always lecture MJ and my sister about not using their phone all the time and getting distracted, but I should probably follow my own advice. One of the only things that had my 100% attention was dodgeball, and now I don't have that. This has been a really long pandemic (it feels like) and we're still a little shy of 3 months since we started. We need distractions like sports and entertainment and things that make us happy, but I'm not sure that's even enough anymore.
Sunday, June 7, 2020
MLK in the Woods
Today I went jogging in the woods, with no one else around, just the trees around me, the birds chirping, the squirrels jumping from bush to bush, and the sound of nature, far away from the protests in the large cities and the Black Lives Matter movement, but on the road were written in chalk something that spoke louder than any yells and cries at the protests: quotes by the great Martin Luther King Jr. Someone had very obviously written these quotes in the recent past in light of the protests going on around the world, but I thought it was powerful in writing inspiring messages of non-violence but persistent devotion to changing broken parts of the system, and one of those ways is to inspire more people through writing up messages not just on social message where it's sure to be seen but scrolled over quickly along with thousands of other inputs, but also infuse it into daily life as I'm running. The words in chalk were written 4 at a time every 20 feet or so, allowing a runner with an average pace like myself to read the book as if reading a book. Pretty much perfectly situated.
1.) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -MLK
What a great quote, Just because crime and hatred and evil happen somewhere I can't see it or hear it or feel it, doesn't mean it just goes away or never happened, and just because I haven't yet been the victim of anything extremely heinous or damaging (parking tickets don't count!) doesn't mean it won't happen to me eventually, which is why I need to help ensure a world that plays fair and provides justice as much as I can.
2.) Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" -MLK
The great thing about MLK was that he spoke basic truths and fundamental ways of living life, but those messages are still powerful because they engage the human spirit and make people want to believe in them, without channeling anger or jealousy or competition against the right or some sort of revenge, unlike many demagogues and politicians nowadays, a reminder of what real leadership would be like, without me having to suspect that he had some ulterior motive. Often times I ask myself this question, and the answer is, "not much." Other than a few donations here and there, monetary and blood-related. It's like catching in dodgeball and dependent on everyone buying in: If I think that other people will do it for me, I am more likely to do it for others, and it's a chain reaction of everyone doing for others and paying it forward.
3.) The time is always right to do what is right.
Always be asking myself what is right.
4.) I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Obviously I'm picking just a select few quotes from a large sample and neglecting some that may be inciting violence and aggression ("a riot is the language of the unheard,"in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence or our friends,") but I'd like to focus on King's plea to his followers to do as he did and love instead of hate, to deal with the great amount of hate and evil that was levied at him and turn it into love. That is one of the most difficult things to do in life, for anyone who has felt being wronged by others or discrimination or any act of injustice. Goes to prove how powerful he was, not just for himself but for others. The kind of leader we could really use today.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day only comes once a year, but it's often needed in times of great negativity and the worst of the times in the country....like right now.
1.) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -MLK
What a great quote, Just because crime and hatred and evil happen somewhere I can't see it or hear it or feel it, doesn't mean it just goes away or never happened, and just because I haven't yet been the victim of anything extremely heinous or damaging (parking tickets don't count!) doesn't mean it won't happen to me eventually, which is why I need to help ensure a world that plays fair and provides justice as much as I can.
2.) Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" -MLK
The great thing about MLK was that he spoke basic truths and fundamental ways of living life, but those messages are still powerful because they engage the human spirit and make people want to believe in them, without channeling anger or jealousy or competition against the right or some sort of revenge, unlike many demagogues and politicians nowadays, a reminder of what real leadership would be like, without me having to suspect that he had some ulterior motive. Often times I ask myself this question, and the answer is, "not much." Other than a few donations here and there, monetary and blood-related. It's like catching in dodgeball and dependent on everyone buying in: If I think that other people will do it for me, I am more likely to do it for others, and it's a chain reaction of everyone doing for others and paying it forward.
3.) The time is always right to do what is right.
Always be asking myself what is right.
4.) I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Obviously I'm picking just a select few quotes from a large sample and neglecting some that may be inciting violence and aggression ("a riot is the language of the unheard,"in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence or our friends,") but I'd like to focus on King's plea to his followers to do as he did and love instead of hate, to deal with the great amount of hate and evil that was levied at him and turn it into love. That is one of the most difficult things to do in life, for anyone who has felt being wronged by others or discrimination or any act of injustice. Goes to prove how powerful he was, not just for himself but for others. The kind of leader we could really use today.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day only comes once a year, but it's often needed in times of great negativity and the worst of the times in the country....like right now.
Saturday, June 6, 2020
SNS (Facebook) 페이스 북, フェイスブック, 脸书
Perhaps I'm just getting sour grapes from having sold my FB stock at $175 a month ago while it's now a $230 stock, but recently I've thought about giving up on Facebook. I've been with Facebook since its inception and my start in college (which coincided pretty closely) and I've been a loyal user ever since, if not a very active one (I don't try to add friends, I post occasionally). The relationship has been generally smooth through the years with some occasional bumps, like when I stopped using it when I was using up too much data from loading up Facebook every time, and just recently last year with the data leaks through Cambridge Analytica, resulting in Marc Zuckerburg being dragged into Congressional hearings and a big reputation hit for the company. Yet, I still use it and many still utilize it as their main platform to reach out to others.
This last week and a half have been monumental, a historic time for activism in America. And it's justified: the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others are just the latest in police brutality against black people, as well as a pervasive system that has black people feeling like the deck is stacked against them. I think many people like myself know that racism exists in the world and that African Americans are victims of prejudice, but it's difficult to do anything productive as I have treated black people the way I'd like to be treated, but is there a little bit of underlying racism even in my thought process? It's possible, and it's worth evaluating myself as well as discussing it with people who still don't understand.As the Black Lives Matter movement has gained steam the last week and a half, Facebook has seen a flurry of activity due to the viral spread of the anti-racism messages. While I sympathize with the movement's objectives and the anger and passion driving the movement, I haven't bought in entirely to the idea that "silence is violence," or that if I don't post something on Facebook that means I'm part of the enemy. That sentiment leads to a lot of groupthink and posting by people who are pressured into it through peer pressure, which shouldn't be what fuels a movement.
Great things about Facebook:
1.) allows me to keep track of people I haven't seen in a long time.
2.) Happy things like weddings, dog pictures, marathons, concerts, and general merriment makes me feel warm and fuzzy about the world when I need it.
3.) People from various countries post messages in their native language like Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, (and often have an English translation next to it) that helps me learn the language as well as read their insightful posts. Also makes me appreciate their commitment, because writing in 2 languages is tough and time-consuming, and I can tell they're not just using Google Translate.
4.) Helps me to keep track of events that I need to go to.......which recently, has been none. I feel pretty lonely, actually.
5.) Allows me to message people I don't have any other way of contacting.
6.) I post in a group called "Wolfpack Stocks" that allows me to get others' take on the market (right or wrong) and allows me to post my predictions/ analysis of the market (right or wrong) and pretend to be my own Jim Cramer for a little bit.
7.) If you post something, you get likes and comments, and that can boost your ego just a tad that you actually matter in this world, that someone is actually paying attention to what you say.
Not-so-Great-things about Facebook
1.) It's addicting- whenever my mind needs a break, I'm tempted to hit the blue "f" button on my phone; classic token economy of getting new "hits" every time you refresh. The most recent, new-and-improved version of Facebook with various algorithms capturing what you want at all times really has your mind on a
2.) Only a certain amount of people u
3.) It facilitates cyberbulling- This is not exclusive to Facebook as it's happening on Youtube, Reddit, and other social media as far as I can tell, but people have become more aggressive and nastier, especially during a pandemic/ social activism times. Just 2 days ago a member of a large "family" group shared a video on her own page from Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who said that George Floyd would not be her hero and martyr. Another member of the group commented on her page criticizing the post, and the original poster deleted it, but the screenshots ended up in the family group where everyone could see it, which was the equivalent of dropping a bomb on the whole community. More than 300 comments piled up in the span of a few hours, criticizing the post and calling the original poster, who had posted it on her own page, a variety of different names and denouncing her in general as a person. While I thought the sharing of a Candace Owens video was somewhat untimely and done with the knowledge that it would probably anger a lot of people in the group, especially on Facebook, I thought it reflected a bully mentality to gain up on one person online, especially for just sharing her own viewpoint. I may not like what someone says, but I'll defend her right to say it. (paraphrasing Voltaire) This mob mentality has become pretty common on Facebook, especially in certain circles where everyone thinks in the same echo chamber.
4.) It's now become a political platform. I personally don't go on Facebook to read everybody's political ideas about everything, and especially not to hear people lecture others on where they are wrong, or tell me that I'm a bad person because I don't feel a certain way.
5.) And finally, "silence" on Facebook doesn't necessarily mean I don't agree, or am not doing things outside of Facebook, just not posting it. Some conservatives call it "virtue signaling," which doesn't give enough credit to the people who post who have genuine ideas and feel strongly about them, which I applaud, but asking everyone to write something in support of the cause "or else you're against us" just forces people to choose a side and pit people farther and farther away from each other. I also might not be on Facebook as much as others, or feel like posting political thoughts on Facebook. And what happened to this idea of "listening" first and understanding? Facebook seems to give the most weight to those who express their ideas the strongest and most often, further pushing people to the extreme in their opinions and leaving those towards the middle trying to understand both sides.......silent and speechless.
This last week and a half have been monumental, a historic time for activism in America. And it's justified: the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others are just the latest in police brutality against black people, as well as a pervasive system that has black people feeling like the deck is stacked against them. I think many people like myself know that racism exists in the world and that African Americans are victims of prejudice, but it's difficult to do anything productive as I have treated black people the way I'd like to be treated, but is there a little bit of underlying racism even in my thought process? It's possible, and it's worth evaluating myself as well as discussing it with people who still don't understand.As the Black Lives Matter movement has gained steam the last week and a half, Facebook has seen a flurry of activity due to the viral spread of the anti-racism messages. While I sympathize with the movement's objectives and the anger and passion driving the movement, I haven't bought in entirely to the idea that "silence is violence," or that if I don't post something on Facebook that means I'm part of the enemy. That sentiment leads to a lot of groupthink and posting by people who are pressured into it through peer pressure, which shouldn't be what fuels a movement.
Great things about Facebook:
1.) allows me to keep track of people I haven't seen in a long time.
2.) Happy things like weddings, dog pictures, marathons, concerts, and general merriment makes me feel warm and fuzzy about the world when I need it.
3.) People from various countries post messages in their native language like Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, (and often have an English translation next to it) that helps me learn the language as well as read their insightful posts. Also makes me appreciate their commitment, because writing in 2 languages is tough and time-consuming, and I can tell they're not just using Google Translate.
4.) Helps me to keep track of events that I need to go to.......which recently, has been none. I feel pretty lonely, actually.
5.) Allows me to message people I don't have any other way of contacting.
6.) I post in a group called "Wolfpack Stocks" that allows me to get others' take on the market (right or wrong) and allows me to post my predictions/ analysis of the market (right or wrong) and pretend to be my own Jim Cramer for a little bit.
7.) If you post something, you get likes and comments, and that can boost your ego just a tad that you actually matter in this world, that someone is actually paying attention to what you say.
Not-so-Great-things about Facebook
1.) It's addicting- whenever my mind needs a break, I'm tempted to hit the blue "f" button on my phone; classic token economy of getting new "hits" every time you refresh. The most recent, new-and-improved version of Facebook with various algorithms capturing what you want at all times really has your mind on a
2.) Only a certain amount of people u
3.) It facilitates cyberbulling- This is not exclusive to Facebook as it's happening on Youtube, Reddit, and other social media as far as I can tell, but people have become more aggressive and nastier, especially during a pandemic/ social activism times. Just 2 days ago a member of a large "family" group shared a video on her own page from Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who said that George Floyd would not be her hero and martyr. Another member of the group commented on her page criticizing the post, and the original poster deleted it, but the screenshots ended up in the family group where everyone could see it, which was the equivalent of dropping a bomb on the whole community. More than 300 comments piled up in the span of a few hours, criticizing the post and calling the original poster, who had posted it on her own page, a variety of different names and denouncing her in general as a person. While I thought the sharing of a Candace Owens video was somewhat untimely and done with the knowledge that it would probably anger a lot of people in the group, especially on Facebook, I thought it reflected a bully mentality to gain up on one person online, especially for just sharing her own viewpoint. I may not like what someone says, but I'll defend her right to say it. (paraphrasing Voltaire) This mob mentality has become pretty common on Facebook, especially in certain circles where everyone thinks in the same echo chamber.
4.) It's now become a political platform. I personally don't go on Facebook to read everybody's political ideas about everything, and especially not to hear people lecture others on where they are wrong, or tell me that I'm a bad person because I don't feel a certain way.
5.) And finally, "silence" on Facebook doesn't necessarily mean I don't agree, or am not doing things outside of Facebook, just not posting it. Some conservatives call it "virtue signaling," which doesn't give enough credit to the people who post who have genuine ideas and feel strongly about them, which I applaud, but asking everyone to write something in support of the cause "or else you're against us" just forces people to choose a side and pit people farther and farther away from each other. I also might not be on Facebook as much as others, or feel like posting political thoughts on Facebook. And what happened to this idea of "listening" first and understanding? Facebook seems to give the most weight to those who express their ideas the strongest and most often, further pushing people to the extreme in their opinions and leaving those towards the middle trying to understand both sides.......silent and speechless.
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