Advancement vs Tradition

"People ruled over others not because they were better people but because they had better guns...."  - Adichie

It seems like this year, we've been focusing a lot on how what we know can be changed by the 'winners', the last man standing, in both history as well as english class. Society and life in general revolves around the idea that the one who has most firepower will end up victorious. For example, in legal disputes, the winner of a case isn't necessarily the one who's correct. The winner is most often the person who can hire the better lawyer. In this example, the figurative firepower is money, because whoever spends the most ends up victorious. Also, like many others have said (and like we learned in history), the winner of the war is granted the ability to mold history to their liking. In these cases, literal firepower determines the winner (or sometimes political power), and the losing side is usually marginalized and neglected. The most obvious example of this (for all of us in America) is shown by the so-called "Indians" who were victims of Columbus' genocide and were even forced to discard their original cultures and identities.

Throughout the course of this year, I've come to realize just how lucky I am to be born into the "winning side". To avoid repeating the mistakes of our predecessors, I think that it is our responsibility to try to keep the "losing sides'" cultures and histories alive, even if they don't always portray a a picturesque image of Americans. Also, I think the descendants of the "losing side" also have an obligation to keep the memory of their ancestors alive, much like the way Grace (or Afamefuna) does in "The Headstrong Historian". While I'm all for advancement, every culture deserves a headstrong historian to keep old traditions from becoming forgotten forever.

Misconceptions of Music

Everyone who knows me knows that I love classical music (especially from the Romantic Era). Unfortunately, popular media often portrays "classical music" as an outdated genre for old, boring people who are rooted in stuffy traditions. I realize that everyone's music tastes are bound to be different, and Chopin doesn't have the hard-hitting bass drops or the catchy refrains of many popular songs nowadays, but I wish that people would listen with an open mind, instead of instantly condemning classical music as bland and only useful for whimsical commercials or movie scenes. I'm not saying that it's perfect and everyone should love it, but I think that people often decide whether or not they like something before they've even tried it. Other than the awe-inspiring finesse and the raw emotions that are conveyed through this genre, I won't elaborate more on why I love classical music (since different music affects different people in different ways). This isn't limited to classical music – it applies to all sorts of genres, or even to popular artists. For example, I have a bias against artists like Justin Bieber and One Direction because of what I've seen in popular media, even though I've never really listened to them. I can't hate on something I've never tried, even if I think I know that I won't like it. If people don't consume media with an open mind, we'll be susceptible to all sorts of single stories.

Here's another example of why judging too early is bad: I used to listen exclusively to classical music and jazz, because I had the preconceived notion that most other genres were trashy and dumb (yeah, I was cringey...). Once I decided to expand my musical taste by listening to everything people recommended to me, I realized that I had been missing out on quite a lot of great music. Of course there's still stuff I don't like, but as I listened to a wider variety of music, my taste became more fleshed out. I used to think that all metal music was ear-splitting and distasteful, but after looking into it a bit more, I found that there is actually a plethora of sub-genres under the label "metal". It turns out that I actually like some facets of just about all genres, even the ones I used to hate. I suppose I'm not really helping my case with this blog post, but it's mildly annoying when people assume that classical is the only genre I listen to.


This depiction of classical music irks me. Just because it was first created long before most other genres doesn't mean it's outdated. (side note: I'd love to have some musicians serenade me while driving, especially since 91.5 fm has ads and not very good sound quality)

Excessive Contemplation and Procrastination

I have a big problem with writing: I ponder and agonize for hours on end, but in the end I often end up writing nothing at all. Even though this problem of mine earned me a rather terrible grade on an in class essay this year, I still think I've greatly improved.

In elementary and middle school, I always had high marks in spelling and grammar because I have a keen eye for minute imperfections. On the other hand, my perfectionism would often create unrealistic expectations for myself. This ironically lowered the quality of my work, especially in elementary and middle school, since I would have to force myself to care less about my assignments so that I had something to turn in by the deadline. I also have a somewhat rebellious side and I typically don't like to follow formulas, as I sometimes feel like they are monotonous and inhibit creativity. In my freshman year, these bad characteristics of me manifested in my writing. I was constantly pessimistic and cynical and I neglected to turn in simple essays because I felt like they weren't nearly good enough (this was often true, because I barely converted any of my thoughts into writing – probably due to a lack of confidence).

So far this year, I've really turned things around, despite my continual struggle with procrastination and sleeping late. I've participated in class discussions more in the first half-semester of this year than I did in my whole freshman year. Also, I'm actually completing my annotation assignments. Overall, I think that my writing style is loosening up a bit, so my thoughts flow more easily. Even if they're imperfect, it's much easier to whittle unfinished writing into a decent essay than to create the whole essay perfectly in one go.

Although I used to pride myself on my vocabulary, I've noticed that I often seem to suffer from lethologica, otherwise known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. I definitely have room to improve in all aspects of writing, especially efficiency.

Vicariously Living through Literature

I've read three out of the ten most challenged books of 2014: Persepolis, The Kite Runner, and Perks of Being a Wallflower. In all three of these books, I've noticed a very interesting similarity: They're all told in a sincere, intimate tone somewhat akin to a diary or a conversation. Admittedly, they all have some "inappropriate" aspects such as obscene language, violence, and rape. However, it is absurd to ban literature simply because it may upset certain people. I said in an earlier blog post that failure is an essential part of success. In the same way, knowledge of bad things is necessary for us to appreciate the good things in life. Many parents try to protect their children by raising them far away from any dangerous influences, but it very often backfires and results in one of two things: their child becomes overly dependent and doesn't know how to function without someone holding his or her hand, or their child becomes rebellious and indulges in said dangerous activities after his or her parents are gone.

Out of the three books, The Kite Runner was probably my favorite. I remember carrying it around the whole day and much like Luo, eating was less important to me than finishing the book. The story of the novel isn't pretty, but it forges a strong connection between reader and writer. When we read, we often live the characters' lives vicariously through the text on the page. Everyone knows of the saying, "Learn from your mistakes." By reading of the struggles of a diverse variety of people from different walks of life, we learn of how they deal with their problems and we learn to apply their situations to our own.

If books like these were banned, I would probably still read them if I knew I could get away with it. On the other hand, if they had been banned my whole life and I never had the joy of reading anything, I might not risk it. If I catch a glimpse outside of the cave, my curiosity would get the better of me and I would try hard to surreptitiously find books to read.
I remember reading somewhere that Fahrenheit 451 was banned in certain places. I find that hilariously ironic.

Is the Allegory of the Cave Outdated?

Although our world has certainly become more technologically advanced in the past few thousands of years, the "Allegory of the Cave" still applies. As a direct reference to Plato's famous allegory, the oft referenced movie "The Matrix" presents the same exact situation, but with an advanced simulation tailored for the peoples' minds as opposed to a parade of shadows across a wall.

The allegory can easily be extended to religion - what if God is actually controlling everything we see and do and free will is nothing but an idea? After all, it would be easier to create a simulation of a world than to create an actually palpable world, wouldn't it?

In my opinion, our exponentially advancing technology has made the allegory even more relevant to our lives today. With improvements in virtual reality, it has become less of a stretch to consider the possibility that our world is nothing but a mere projection of something, or someone's imagination. Although I say that the allegory is relevant, I prefer not to expend my brainpower on considering the reality of my existence. While it would certainly be interesting to absquatulate from the cave and see the "true world", I can't help but feel wary of it. After years with his eyes wide open, Cypher decided in the end that ignorance is bliss and ultimately decided to go right back into the cave. Even though I'm curious and I haven't opened my eyes completely yet, I figure that the real world will show itself to me if it's truly necessary, or maybe I'll find out after I've died.

Should Children be Sheltered from Loss?

Too much pressure on kids to perform well is, without a doubt, unhealthy (there are some youngsters who improve and thrive under pressure, but I think this can be attributed in part to effective parenting). However, does this pressure really stem from the fact that there is a winner and there is a loser? I do not believe so. While the increasingly popular trend to say "everyone's a winner" mitigates some of the negative aspects of excessively competitive sports, the real culprit of this issue lies in the culture of winning and losing. Losing does not mean you have failed because no matter how badly you did, you can always learn from your past experiences. I'm not saying that everyone's a winner, it's obvious that the person who lost is still the loser. However, loss can be an even more effective teacher than success, and as a society, we need to learn how to maximize the positive side of a failure. Parents often get way too invested in their kid's scoresheet, and fail to teach their children the more important result of games: experience. Some parents even go to extremes and show children the ugly side of competition, as this article by the Washington Times details. In the end, the lack of a scoresheet is harmful to the development of children because it negates failure, a core aspect of life that should be learned sooner rather than later.

Additionally, without failure, we can't know what true success is. If winning and losing are equivalent, what's the point of putting in more work to win? If I could win the Olympics just by "giving it my all", what's the point of improving? The reality is, improvements cannot be made without failure. There is a plethora of inspiring quotes about failure (with irrelevant background pictures) and as cliche as they may be, they are often very true.

Are we raising a generation of wimps by coddling and refusing to let them experience the pain of failure? In some ways, yes. If not wimps, we're raising a bunch of sniveling, snobby sore-losers. [Side note: I may sound especially critical because I don't have an iota of respect to spare for sore losers.] I remember reading an article some time ago (a month, perhaps?) about losing with grace, and after a quick minute of using Google, I found it here. Even though I enjoyed the article and think it offers many good points, I find it somewhat disconcerting that it was posted in "The Art of Manliness". Losing with dignity is a principle that applies to everyone and should be ingrained in children from a young age, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or class.

A Mild Face Lift for a Failure of an Essay

Here's the absolutely atrocious original intro paragraph from my in class essay:

- As we can see from Adichie's TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story", people are guilty of making preemptive assumption before knowing the whole story. Marjane Satrapi shows us that even the most open minded of individuals are guilty of this fallacy in her graphic novel The Complete Persepolis. One of the single stories presented in the novel is of the ex-leader of Iran, the Shah, as well as all the abhorrent deeds described in The Complete Persepolis. Throughout the novel, we only ever see the bad side of the Shah.

Here's a (hopefully) less atrocious version of the intro paragraph:

- In her graphic novel, The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's depiction of the Shah shows us that even the most open minded of individuals are guilty of stereotyping with a single story. From the very beginning of the book, Marjane introduces Iranian government as oppressive and stifling in the story "The Veil". Starting from the fourteenth page, the Shah is explicitly introduced as the power hungry leader of Iran to whom everyone directs their hate. She tells the readers of the Shah's unscrupulous ways in the stories: The Bicycle,  The Water Cell, and Persepolis. However, she doesn't say anything remotely positive about the ex-leader of Iran even once. The single story of the Shah is proof of the split between the leader and the people that can occur due to a story that's only partially told.

In my original in class essay, I noticed that I was somewhat at a loss of words concerning examples to use for my argument. Since I was distracted by my lackluster idea as well as the looming deadline, my writing was very stiff and formulaic, yet disorganized. In my opinion, it had the dryness of a middle school paper without the organization. In short, my essay was dreadful. One of the problems with my intro paragraph was the fact that it was missing a "road map", a user's manual going over the different examples to be used in the essay. I tried to make it more structured by finding a few relevant stories (chapters?) from the book. Also, I was overly concise, or should I say hasty, with the presentation of my reasoning. That was a more simple fix, I just added in some extra meat on those bones to make the introduction a little bit more palatable.

The moment I read the blog assignment for 24/9/15 (found here: http://rathskg.blogspot.com/),  I knew that I was going to be in for a rough ride. I'm very critical of writing, especially bad writing, and even more so if it's my own bad writing. Most of the time my writing isn't embarrassing enough to make me cringe too much, however, reading my essay was arduous. I can tell that I was not nearly prepared enough for the assignment, and I wasn't even fully convinced of the point I was arguing! Knowing myself (fairly well, I think), I would say that I am capable of crafting a quite convincing argument, provided that I care about what I am arguing about. If I were to rewrite the essay, I would spend more time finding an argument that I personally feel for, so that I can put more life and fluidity into my writing. From this experience, I think that I will strive to keep myself relaxed and keep myself from being too terse when explaining my thoughts. I often tend to omit things, whether from the fear of being too verbose or from plain laziness.

Closed-minded Communities

In every community, there's a good side and a bad side. Some communities have a more apparent bad side and some communities have a more apparent good side, but every community has pros and cons of some sort. I know for a fact that religious communities can form especially strong bonds but I also know for a fact that they can form unfathomable rifts. The collective passion of a people can be strong enough to bring a variety of personalities together but can also be strong enough to split like minded people apart. Some communities derived from religions have closed minded teachings and produce closed minded people as a result. Since the members of a community often don't venture out of their comfort zones, communities can often create misconceptions. 

A classic example of this is the Christianity vs Atheism debate that has always been an issue, especially online. The most common argument against Christians is that they are unwilling to accept scientific facts and logic. I have to say that this is a very valid assertion, I have noticed many hard headed pious people. However, this is certainly not the only aspect of Christianity. I know several devout followers who have recognized the multi-faceted nature of religion and philosophy and have carefully weighed truths against myths. Atheists seem to have the misconception that Christians are all dim-witted sheep because of what they've heard from other nonbelievers. Christians are also guilty of hating on Atheists based on common views found in church. This isn't just an issue with religion, however. Close-mindedness in communities can be found just about anywhere.

Take sports for example. I have no interest in watching sports (not even tennis) but even I can see how important they are to human relations. Different communities of people gather regularly to root for one team or another, sometimes getting so involved that they start fights and quarrel over the superiority of their preferred team. I've basically only talked about the bad side of communities in this post, since everyone already should know of the good side of communities, I won't bother rambling on.

Acquaintance -----> Close Friend

About a year ago, my trip to Taiwan with my family coincided with a friend's. After making some quick arrangements online, we met up in Taichung, the city of my cousins' home, and spent some time having philosophical conversations and building up new rapport. This picture was taken when we decided to explore the city - we happened to spot an abandoned building in the middle of the bustling city close by the Taichung Train Station (side note: sharing fast food sushi from a random kiosk is wonderful).

This picture is important to me not just because of its subject, but also the richly detailed memory that it conjures upon viewing. I can still taste my scrumptious sashimi salmon bowl... After our adventures of urban exploration this summer, Daniel became one of my closest friends, second to my sister.
(Below are a few more photos from the abandoned building)

About Me

My name is Ian Huang. I pride myself especially on my introspection, I have a plethora of hobbies and I listen to music ardently. I grew up listening to my sister practicing violin and as a result, I grew to be extremely fond of "classical music", especially from the Romantic Period. Nocturnes by Chopin never cease to relax me and I always marvel at the advanced techniques involved in Paganini's pieces, but recently I've expanded my music taste. Depending on my mood, I enjoy listening to a wide variety of music including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Ratatat, among many others. I don't only listen to music, however, I have also been learning to play violin. I'm not good enough for me to be happy with it because I can never find the time to practice, but I absolutely adore listening to great violinists such as Jascha Heifetz.

My Meyers-Briggs personality type is INTP, known to be the most logical, but the least socially adept of all the types. This is only a stereotype, but it of course contains some truth - I highly value logic (being a Thinker) and I am aloof among people I am not well acquainted with (as an Introvert). Being an iNtuitive (vs Sensing) type, I love theoretical ideas and a stream of random thoughts is constantly flowing through my mind.

When I was younger, I spent all my time creating a multitude of Lego creations from scratch. I developed a love for designing and creating things and although I haven't created anything as big as my duct tape boat from a couple years ago, I still spend a lot of time on tinkering. I like to take scrap material I find and make whatever comes to mind. An example of this is the avian paper sculpture I made about a year ago from scraps I had sitting around. My hobbies aren't just limited to tinkering and art, of course. I enjoy almost all athletics, especially biking and playing tennis.

This is from when I was twelve. The boat is PVC and duct tape (pool noodle for a backrest)

My taste in books, movies, and music has always been strongly influenced by my sister. As I grew older, I began to deviate from my sister with the media I consumed, she doesn't listen to nearly as much music as I do, but she plays violin much more often. However, I'll always have a spot in my heart for some things from my childhood, such as watching Studio Ghibli films and discussing the characters of the Ender's Game series with my sister. I still consider her my best friend and we get along so well that people sometimes think we're twins (even though she is actually seven years older than I).

My personal favorite Ghibli movie is probably Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle.

This is a design and art website that I often frequent: Colossal

Here's an article detailing the INTP: INTP