And Now for Something Completely Different...

First of all, I would like to admit that I’m a little frightened of doing this. I don’t like doing things unless I’m sure they’re going to work, and I especially don’t like admitting that I want them to work unless I’m sure they will. That’s one of the reasons I usually don’t tell people about things until I’ve finished with them. But this, by its nature, I can’t do without other people. So this is me asking for help.

More clearly put, this is my announcement that over the past week, I’ve started both a website and a YouTube channel. The website is here, and the YouTube channel is here. I would of course appreciate it if you’d go check them out, subscribe, comment, like, recommend, and etc., but first let me explain what they are and why I started them.

Truth – living, active, truth that influences people’s lives – is the great passion of my life; I am wholly devoted to it. I believe that belief influences our actions, our attitudes, and our behaviors. I believe that right belief can give meaning, purpose, and vitality to life, and that wrong belief can sink you into a pit so deep, you can’t find a way out. I believe that truth is more than logic, it is living; it is not only right thinking, but right feeling; not only right judgment of the world, but right reaction to it. It’s hard to describe how I feel about this, but it is the center and driving force of my entire life, and it is inextricably caught up in He who claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life combined in one.

Nothing makes me more angry than the spread of willful ignorance – that is, people who don’t bother thinking out what they believe. They just believe whatever sounds nice to them, even if it’s completely nonsensical, and then they talk about it until other people start to believe this, too. I don’t just think these beliefs are wrong; I think they cause actual harm to people. And it makes me angry that there are so many misconceptions being perpetrated in society, that we can never get to the truth, the truth that we need to be truly human, because we can never have an honest conversation without its getting clouded in thousands of fallacies and rabbit trails.

It is not my nature to speak up about things the instant they annoy me, because I need to be sure that I’m in the right. My mother will tell you that even when I was little, whenever I entered a new environment, I would just sit and watch everything until I knew how it worked, and then I would suddenly jump in and be completely confident. I still operate this way.

For the past four and, to some extent, the past eight years, I have been sitting and watching: watching our culture, watching our institutions of higher learning, watching how people interact and think about the important questions of life, watching Texas and Massachusetts, Ireland and Israel. I have listened from the boxing gym of Boston to the bazaar of Jordan, from the faculty club of Harvard to the dive bar of New York. Harvard and I disagree on a great many things, but for the past four years I have sat in near-silence and I have listened, and I have thought, and I have waited. And now I am done waiting; something has awoken inside of me, and it is time to start speaking.

So this is where I’m starting. First, I have started a YouTube channel, in which I point out inconsistencies and inanities in the philosophy of movies and TV shows. I’m starting small at the moment; you won’t find much there yet. But I do this by second nature; I regularly startle people in restaurants by picking apart the lyrics of songs they hadn’t even noticed were playing. (Eg – “Say you’ll see me again, even if it’s just in your wildest dreams?!” If I just broke up with you, you keep your wild dreams away from me, thank you very much.)

To me, this nonsensicality in movies/TV shows/music/etc. represents a larger trend in the world, the idea of saying things that sound nice, even if they don’t make any sense, because we can’t be bothered to think seriously about the larger questions in life. So I am calling these movies’ bluff; they don’t know what they’re talking about (not to say that I don’t still really like some of them). Warning: I’m an extremely sarcastic person when I want to be.

Secondly, I am starting a website, centered around a second blog. This one isn’t about me; it’s about issues in society, things I think we’ve gotten backwards or upside-down, because we’ve forgotten to go back and check our premises, and so our deductions are wrong. The blog will include commentary on movies, generally linked to my YouTube videos, as well as thoughts on current events and where they’re really coming from – ie what is the debate over abortion really about? What are we disagreeing on, and can we resolve these differences? What assumptions are we making, and why? And it will include a little gratuitous philosophy; I am majoring in it, after all.

Finally, I have published a short ebook – the Idrealist (yes, that is spelled correctly) which you can either buy on Smashwords, or receive for free by subscribing to my blog. This, more than anything else, is my response to the past four years of listening; I wrote it in less than a week, but it’s the product of months and years of thoughts finally coming together in a cohesive form. Harvard taught me a lot of things, but it taught me more by the things it left out than by anything else. So please pick up a copy!

And that concludes my little aside blog on my projects: website, YouTube, ebook. It makes me nervous to launch them, because I really don’t understand how internet dynamics work, and I’m rather afraid I’m going to fall on my face. But if I do, I’ll just dust myself off and get up again; it would hardly be the first time. In any case, I’d very much appreciate your help and support. I won’t be posting on Facebook every time I put something new on the blog or channel, because my Facebook wall would end up being a long list of notifications. But please subscribe to them so you’ll receive the notifications by email. And if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know! Thanks for taking the time to read all of this!

Selections

Alright, it looks like my blog style is going to have to switch a little bit. I’m not involved in that much at the moment, besides my independent projects, so I don’t have a bunch of activities to list off or classes to discuss (although those are going fine). Instead I guess I’ll talk more about the fewer things I am doing, starting with working out.

I’ve been putting off going to kickboxing lately, for a few reasons. First, it requires walking through the snow and sometimes rain, which is never pleasant. Second, it requires doing something I’m not terribly good at in public, which I avoid whenever possible. I know I need to push through it until I am good at it, and I will, but it makes me less dedicated than I should be. Never fear, though – I paid for these classes, and I will get my money’s worth one way or another. I did have a good session today. I get frustrated, because my muscle memory doesn’t learn nearly as fast as my academic memory, but then I get to kick stuff, and it feels better. I’m also lifting, although I didn’t realize how hard it would be to get up early without ROTC nearly every day to force me into it. I am utilizing the larger gym across the street from my dorm much more, though, which is nice. It has a lot more variety than the little gym in the basement.

I did go out a few times this week: I had ROTC Tuesday and Wednesday morning, for one. Tuesday started with PT: an ab circuit and then run/jog/sprint progressions. Freshman year I hated PT, but the more I get to know the people in the unit, and the better shape I get into, the more enjoyable it is. It ends up being just a nice workout with friends, for the most part, instead of a dreaded part of my morning, although cardio still isn’t my forte. After PT we had class, but I mostly spend class clarifying random points in the discussion, since I already know the concepts. We have class at BU now, which means I have to drive and park in the snow, but also means we have time to stop and get breakfast on the drive over. In lab on Wednesday we had a debate tournament. I’ve noticed that it’s always the freshman and sophomores who make it to the final round; the rest of us... well, I’m just going to stop there.

I’ve also been re-watching a bunch of Marvel Films and nitpicking their philosophy. It’s pretty easy with superhero movies, because people are always soliloquizing into the distance on grand topics, and the villains are always offering some sort of motivation that doesn’t make much sense. I’m okay with the villains that straight-up embrace the role: I want money (Hans Gruber) or I want power (Sauron) or I’m just plain evil (Palpatine) or I’m mad (Loki) or some combination of the above. And you have the occasional bad guy who actually seems to have a point (Magneto, Khan). But usually they have some other sort of motive that they can’t seem to figure out, that makes them the good guy. In any case, I think it’s fun. I do this a lot; I also tend to analyze song lyrics on the radio – which generally confuses people, because they weren’t listening to the radio, and then I make some out-of-the-blue sarcastic comment. But I digress.

Okay, I promise big news: we finally had Ship Selection for Surface Navy, so I know where I’ll be headed after graduation! I’ll go to a couple months of training, and then I’ll be headed to Mayport, Florida and the DDG-80: the USS Roosevelt. Ship Selection was a little strange; at the Naval Academy it’s a big ceremony, so they were trying to do somewhat the same thing for ROTC, but virtual ceremonies are always a little strange. We had the option to do Google Hangouts (audio and video) or just phone calls (audio only). All of us at the MIT unit chose phone calls. Firstly, it’s much easier to fake-scream like there are a lot of people in the room over the phone. Secondly, you don’t accidentally have conversations that ROTC Midshipmen and Instructors all over the country overhear. And thirdly, you don’t have to wear your uniform. What more could you want?

Well, let me know what you think of my new blog format; the paragraphs have certainly gotten longer, if nothing else. I went to kickboxing and got this up before nightfall – I’m going to call today a success!

It's been a little chilly around here.

 I did manage to drive this car.

 If you don't recognize this field, that's because it's not a field; it's Fresh Pond, iced over and snow-caked.

 There was a little space left for the ducks.

 Snow is pretty and romantic... ha!

Snow and Senioritis

I know, I know, late again. I’m sorry. Senioritis is hitting hard. I’m very good at managing a lot of work, but I’ve completely forgotten how to manage a lot of free time properly. I only really have two modes; I’m either going all-out and super-productive, or I’m doing whatever needs doing and then watching Netflix. Right now I’m in the second mode. This is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of the independent project I’m trying to finish keep being held up – you know how it is, just one thing after another – which means I can’t work on the things I really want to work on.

I have gotten back to working out, although we’ve had heavy snow over the last few days that led to a lot of cancellation with regard to kickboxing and gym closure. Before I left for break, I did something to my left rotator cuff, so I’ve been out of commission for a little while. It’s good to be back. I’m in that lovely stage where I’m comfortably sore (you know what I mean) from working muscles I haven’t worked in a while, without having gotten too out of shape.

We also started ROTC fully again this week, which led to a few adventures. On Monday we had our mock Physical Readiness Test. I was feeling a little under the weather (you feel nauseated, by the way, not nauseous. If you’re nauseas you cause people to feel nauseated.), so I didn’t do the run, but I still maxed the pushups and situps. In Naval Science we’re still doing ethical reasoning 101, so I’m a little bored/frustrated, but at least I’m the one who knows what’s going on for once. I also got to bring in my other major for a 15-minute presentation on the Middle East for ROTC Lab; it was a little crazy (4 years of classes in 15 minutes) but everyone seemed to like it.

Just getting to ROTC lab on Wednesday morning was quite an adventure. I stepped outside my dorm and immediately slipped on the ice. I didn’t fall, but it was a very risky walk to the rental car, which turned out to be entirely iced over (without a scraper in the trunk) and in an unsalted parking lot. Since Anderson and I had never really driven on ice before, we called an Uber. Except that when the Uber showed up, we needed to change the route on the GPS to get there in time, which meant giving the driver directions. And the driver only spoke Chinese – which, shout-out to Anderson, she could speak. So I now know the Mandarin for “yes, go straight!” We did finally arrive – on time, no less! This is why you leave early.

The weather has been crazy over the past few days. MIT cancelled classes on Thursday, although of course Harvard didn’t. Many of the professors did cancel class, though, since they couldn’t get here. Not that I had any classes on Thursday in the first place. I spent the day working on my thesis. I did manage to finish drafting it; now comes the much less enviable task of revising it until it makes sense. All the chapters were written separately over a period of a few months, without my having read them again in between, so fitting them together smoothly is somewhat of a challenge. I keep repeating myself, and sometimes I contradict myself, but we’ll get there eventually. Eventually meaning before next month, when it’s due.

So that’s about what’s going on here. I’m really enjoying my class on Augustine, and my seminary classes are going decently well. One more note – ship selection is next week, so by my next post, I should know where my first assignment will be for the Navy! I promise (barring unforeseen circumstances) I’ll have next week’s post up earlier than this week’s was, so stay tuned for that news. Until then!

Pictures: Very wintry

Somebody went out on the ice.

 This is probably the best indicator of how deep the snow was.

 Jogging back from the gym tonight:

New York: A Brief Interlude

                Well, it looks like Fridays will usually be the day for blogging, but that was interrupted this week by a two-day trip to New York. My uncle died a couple of weeks ago, and my father came up to the Northeast to do the paperwork, so I came down to help, since I was already here. It was nice to be able to talk some; as I think I mentioned, my last week at home was a little crazy, so we didn’t really get the chance to chat then.

                School isn’t that eventful yet. ROTC has lots of events happening, but we don’t start classes until next week. In Christian Impact, we haven’t started LIFE Group yet, and I’ve passed on leadership of the Worship Team to the juniors who will be in charge of it for about the next year (until they have to graduate and pass it on again – that’s the inevitable hassle with undergraduate organizations; you never have the same group around two years running). I’ll still sing if they ask me, but that’s a lot of planning I don’t have to do.

                I did have a few classes. We started Naval Science class this week, even though we didn’t have the rest of ROTC activities. We’re studying the basics of moral philosophy (which I’m majoring in, among other things), so for once it’s the engineering majors who don’t know the concepts and vocabulary, while I’m semi-bored. It does lead to interesting discussions, though. I’m taking two seminary classes this semester, one on the Old Testament and one on the New Testament, both in Spanish, but since those are online, it’s just a lot of reading and writing papers. And finally, at Harvard, I’m taking a very enjoyable seminar class on Augustine to finish up my philosophy requirements for graduation. It’s just around the corner!

                But for the past couple of days, I’ve been adventuring in New York with my father. And by adventuring, I mean going from one public building to another trying to get paperwork filled out. You see, when you’re trying to administer an estate:

\\                   1)      In order to have control of the property, you have to be the administrator
                     2)      In order to be the administrator, you have to have searched for a will
                     3)      In order to search for a will, you have to have the key to get into the property
                     4)      In order to have the key to the property, you have to have control of the property

  

            As you can imagine, this was rather a hassle. It took a day-and-a-half, but we eventually got what we needed – shout-out to the helpful 84^th precinct NYPD officers. And once we did, we could meet with the lawyer and plan out the rest of the paperwork.

We met some interesting people along the way. My uncle worked at a bar, so we spent several hours in a dive bar chatting with the regulars (we had Sprite). And the warehouse where you needed to get the property key turned out to be where you pick up your stuff after getting out of jail, so we had some interesting conversations there. (This is also possibly the reason the warehouse staff seemed at times to be intentionally unhelpful.)

            We also spoke with some of my uncle’s friends and learned more than we’d ever known about his life in New York. On Friday evening, we headed back to the airport. I said goodbye to my dad at his terminal, then headed to my plane.

             But wait! The story isn’t over yet. First, they were re-doing the airport, so it took about half-an-hour to get from terminal B to terminal C. Then, when I made it through, I had to get through security. Never bring artificial sweetener through an airport security checkpoint; it took me nearly an hour. They took everything out of my bags, scanned them multiple times, X-rayed them all again, patted me down, called over two different supervisors, opened the still-sealed sweetener (my dad brought it from Texas; I couldn’t find it in Boston), ran chemical tests on it, and finally let me through ten minutes before my flight boarded. They were very professional and even pretty friendly, so another shout-out to the LaGuardia TSA people, but it was still rather a hassle. It’s also my excuse for not having this up sooner; I was going to write it while waiting for my plane, but I didn’t end up having time.

             So that’s been my week; it’s been quite an adventure. It’s been a long two days, but I’m now in an Uber on my way back to Harvard, and the driver is playing the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings, so I’m feeling kind of triumphant and heroic. And I still have the weekend ahead of me, even though I kind of feel like I’ve already had it. So things are looking up. Until next time, then!

Pictures:

Hot drinks with friends - always a good way to spend a winter afternoon!

 Fresh Pond in winter:

 Fresh Pond (the waves are lapping over onto the frozen section.)

 It did finally start snowing.

 On the way to New York:

We had some time between checking out of the hotel and going to the airport, and what better place to spend it than a bookstore?