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5 Things I’ve realized at the Halfway point of College

I just started my third year of college and, while I’m still unburdened and just mildly stressed, I think this is a swell time to reflect on my college experience thus far. Reading the first few bullets here, it looks like a rough time. It’s not all bad though!

My youth-and-inexperience bailout card is inching closer to its expiration date. In the grand scheme of things, I’m still green and clueless, but at Brown I’m an upperclassman now (bleh!) and it feels like much more is expected of me. It’s a different tone than what I’m used to; every decision I make now feels so much weightier than before. It’s more burdensome, yes, but some mental reframing makes this situation a bit less dreadful. Growing up, I’ve always craved more freedom and more self-efficacy to do the stuff that I want on my own terms. Now that I’m barreling towards the wild blue yonder of adulthood I’m finally getting what I ask for, I guess. Thanks, Life…

A high school friend told me that she was worried we were drifting apart. Though unpleasant to think about, the reality is that we have (and will continue to have) progressively fewer opportunities to lounge away afternoons with all of our old friends like we used to. While I was stressing about this, another friend reassured me that if we were true friends, we should have nothing to fear about drifting. Is that true? I gave that question a lot of thought this past summer, and I found that it helps to think of this whole situation in terms of a bridge-building metaphor. A huge proportion of friendships from youth are built on together-time and shared experience. I think of those as the foundations that sustain relationships when they’re new and also bear all the weight for the many unsteady ones too. Having less time to spend forces me to pull out some of those supports. Sadly, that leaves me surrounded by piles of dusty rubble, but the few good bridges left that are still standing look so damn majestic.

Practicality concerns make a vengeful comeback: Mr. You-Should-Be-More-Practical has always been a regular visitor of Gloria’s head and he would always attend the executive decision-making forums that take place up there. Up until recently, he’d sit discreetly in the corner taking notes or something. He would frown and narrow his eyes every time Gloria decides to take on a slew of random commitments on a whim or discovers a new way to procrastinate, but would otherwise keep his mouth shut. But somewhere between the end of sophomore year and now, some jerk handed him a megaphone and a soapbox. The way I see it, this semester’s opening forum went down in a crazy skit like this: Just as Mrs. Curiosity cleared her voice to start the opening remarks, Mr. Practical strode through the double doors like the cavalry, shoved her aside, flung away all the paper notes on the podium before climbing up on top of the podium(who does that?) and called out the fat elephant in the room: What is Gloria actually going to do after college? At first, every other attendee in Gloria’s head looked at him like he just let out the smelliest fart, and then they started exchanging nervous looks between each other. Before long, the quiet murmurs around the room erupted into full-on mayhem. I know I’m being dramatic, but the start of junior year has driven me into a new patch of existential turbulence. Difficult to deal with, as usual.

I’ve changed a lot in just two years, and I feel more motivated than ever to have it documented. I don’t feel like a different person than I was in freshman year, but mentally, I feel like a different species from the current First Years here on campus. I guess that means I really have changed a lot as a person over these two years — a lot more than I give myself credit for. Personal change is a sneaky and gradual thing. It’s like how you don’t notice yourself growing over the years, but see subtle signs of it when nostalgically browsing through old photographs. Reading my older blog posts this summer has actually reinforced my motivation to journal regularly. Journalling is like taking photographs of the mind, and it’s a delight to look back upon these records of my more formative years months and years later.

My executive control is improving noticeably. Self-awareness in me had always been a faculty that matured faster than my command of self-discipline. Finally (thank goodness), I am starting to see the distance between them close a little. Early on in college, I’d find myself painfully aware of my shortcomings but not yet able to overcome them. It would always lead to these frustrating feelings of stuck-ness, like sleep paralysis. For example, FOMO would regularly get the better of me in social instances, and I would find myself drawn to places and social situations I knew I wouldn’t enjoy. I also would have trouble mustering the motivation to exercise, to stop procrastinating, or to keep up with responsible self-maintenance. My primitive motivations aren’t less powerful than before, but I’ve improved at herding and reeling them in at will. Nothing makes me prouder than feeling like I’ve partially domesticated the giant unruly animal living in my own head.

That’s it for now. Good luck to me!

[thinkgloriathink]

When you can’t find the right words to describe somebody

As I was sitting at a coffee shop supposedly getting work done, an old memory from two summers ago strode into my distracted head. My close friend and I were in our little dorm at summer camp during the summer of 2016, both tucked into our separate beds with the lights out. We were staring at the same dark ceiling, chatting through the humid air hovering above us, about I don’t remember what. Eventually, our conversation tapered off. Thirty seconds of stillness went by and she broke the silence.

“How would you describe me as a person?”

Surprised by the question, I collected my thoughts for about a minute and then started rambling about how I knew her as a person, and then her strengths and weaknesses. I talked about what I valued in her as a friend. My words stumbled pathetically as I kept burrowing into the back of my head to think of more. There was so much, I don’t know, stuff there. I’ve never been asked before to tease out a single thread from that giant quilt of shared memories to say, in any coherent way, “This is you.” I eventually turned around the question, and asked her if she could describe me in as few words as possible. With a breathy sigh and an “Ok..” she started off with a monologue about what I meant to her but when she came to the part of describing me in words she got stuck. “I don’t know,” she said. “You’re a lot of things. It’s complicated.” It’s funny that both of us, best friends up to that point, who’ve survived high school together, weathered drama, grief, stress, and adolescent problems together, and have now been spending the last month in a foreign country traveling together, had so much trouble describing one another.

The people who know us the best often have the hardest time describing who we are. Maybe it’s not all that surprising: I remember reading a quote from a Waitbutwhy post that went “A word is simply an approximation of a thought — buckets that a whole category of similar-but-distinct thoughts can all be shoved into.”

Surely we come to know a lot about the people closest to us. But hand-picking just a few rectangular adjectives to accurately describe the contours of their character (which, after enough time, has been kneaded and sanded in our heads into wiggly forms that eventually come to look far from rectangular) is a surprisingly hard undertaking.

I don’t really know what this memory means, or if it’s even as deep as my sentimental mind is making it seem right now. But I think it’s important to, every once in a while, recognize the very few people in our lives who become more than just rectangles to us.

[thinkgloriathink]

On Perfectionism

Emerging from the dark prison that was my dorm room the day before my last final exam of the semester, I ran into a friend who was taking a study break. During our pleasant catch up chat about end-of-sophomore-year reflections and takeaways, she said something that stuck with me:

“There’s a fine line between beating yourself up, and pushing yourself hard to be better, and I don’t think I’ve found where that line is yet.”

It surprised me how relatable that was. It revived something that I’ve been pondering about for months: Is perfectionism something that we could overcome with enough clout and self-awareness? What’s my relationship with perfectionism? So here, in this moment of inspiration motivated by this memory and my steaming cup of tea, I want to unpack it a little.

First off, what is meant by perfectionism here? In particular, I mean the obsessive urge to optimize. For those familiar with Barry Schwartz’s book, Paradox of Choice, perfectionists are the “maximizers,” the type of people who persistently strive to make the best choices (while “satisficers” are able to settle with the good enough), at the expense of their overall happiness. Perfectionism of this kind leads to “better” choice outcomes but screams fragility and inflexibility. Many of us know all too well the painful, self-disparaging spiral that ensnares us when we fall shy of our expectations. It’s this self-critical downside of perfectionism that’s become a topic of way too much self-help content these days, and has now caught my attention, too.

So, I roughly fit the profile of your high achieving, perfectionistic, millennial-aged student. It goes without saying that arriving at where I am today took a whole lot of studying, and very little chill. I took my academic commitments very seriously and often beat myself up where I fell short. Then some articles about “excellent sheep” started to show up on my Facebook feed a few years back, which told me I was maximizing my life in the wrong way. Apparently, ceaseless striving for academic or material success is both misguided, unhealthy, and deeply unfulfilling, so this warranted a life pivot towards… being happy or something. Okay, I thought. I could be the enlightened college student who doesn’t get unduly stressed by grades and internships, and cultivates a healthy love of life since she’s above the little stuff. Surely enough, with time and effort since starting college, I did pretty well to reframe my situation this way. Now that I was able to take L’s with more grace, I started to think that I had cured my perfectionism.

Oh… silly you.

A lot has happened to me this past semester, and after all of its ups and downs, I realized that I didn’t “transcend” my perfectionism or anything like that — it just wore a different disguise. Sure, I don’t care as much anymore about maintaining a perfect GPA, but I care A LOT about being (and appearing to be) an emotionally healthy person and a good friend. When I upset someone or make some callous or careless decision I regret, it takes me FOREVER to stop dwelling on my guilt. Like everyone else, I screw up sometimes and I feel irrational feelings. But I think my preoccupation with trying to be that “enlightened college student” affords me a cruelly small margin of error. So there it goes — it took me a while to realize, but I’m still a perfectionist.

From all this, I realized one thing: I don’t think I can truly ever slice out perfectionism from my personality. By some weird law of conservation, I’ll always be holding myself up to some unrealistic standards in my life, whatever they may be. That sounds depressing, you might think. Well, just because I’ll always be somewhat of a maximizer doesn’t mean I’ll forever be cursed with the maladaptive, neurotic, and self-loathing part. I’d like to think it’s possible to set high expectations for yourself AND be forgiving of yourself when you don’t meet them (buzzword alert: self-compassion). Now that’s emotional maturity!

I’m being lighthearted at the moment, but really though: if we were only half as patient and accepting of ourselves as we are to our close friends, we’d be in so much better mental shape.

I’m going to work on befriending myself and my perfectionism, which is here to stay, I guess.

[thinkgloriathink]

Semester 3 Reflections

This will actually be more like a personal check-in/ annual letter, rather than a post about living the “College Experience”. During my freshman year, a huge chunk of my personal development revolved around my adjustment process. I thought a lot about campus culture and social navigation, and took liberties to explore my philosophical side. As I sit down to write this post about my second year at Brown so far, it’s clear to me that, for the last three months, I’ve turned my lens of attention inwards this time. So there.

Lesson learned: Stop being so easily intimidated by people — there’s usually no reason to be. By a lot of standards, I should have the smarts and clout to be a fully competent adult by now. Though I know it’s true, I can’t help but find myself yielding to other, perhaps more accomplished, or simply older, adults. Fancy titles and prestige are things I’ve never questioned before, but a few experiences this semester made me wonder if conceding to authority for free was doing me a disservice. I should probably trust myself more than I do now, that I’d be able to hold my own when it comes to work or grownup business. There’s nothing insolent about being able to look at someone in the eye. No one’s invincible, no one actually has all the shit in their life sorted out, and no one without huge veiny muscles and weapons should be that intimidating, I think.

I’ve become a little more skeptical about sensational things, and I’m trying to eat more knowledge vegetables. I’m not gonna lie: TED talks have rocked my world since middle school (Susan Cain’s talk about the power of introverts was the first one I’ve ever watched). Those, and books by neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran had me weak in the knees with wonder back then. Each 17 minute sound bite, each espresso shot of science I’d find on the news, made me hungry for more ideas and musings about the future. Today, I still get giddy after watching that stuff. But a TED interview with Linus Torvalds I watched in November made me question things. “I am not a visionary. I do not have a five-year plan, I don’t have a moon shot. I’m an engineer. I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, “I want to go there,” but I’m looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in.” Here’s a guy who made cool stuff happen, and let the results do most of the talking for him. That’s pretty admirable, I think.

Family troubles and bodily injury really puncture the bubble of invincibility you feel as a college student, since you are used to seeing nothing else but a future full of potential and limitless exploration. Before this semester, I don’t think I’ve properly appreciated how precious and fragile my current lifestyle is. This past semester, I had a few brief encounters with worrying family news, a knee injury, and some sobering realities here and there that yanked the rug of contentedness right from under my feet, when I least expected it. This was a stern reminder to me to not take the rest of my awesomely sheltered and warm (albeit short-lived) years at Brown for granted :)

It was pretty upsetting to see certain people complain about being jaded and being existentially bored all the time. All of that made me want to hug my hobbies closer to me and always make time for a little good-old fun in my life. There’s something magical about doing the things that excite you and gazing at the world with fresh-eyed wonder that I don’t want to lose when I get older.

I realized that I filter my words a lot when I speak to people. It makes me wonder if that makes me less authentic, or compromise my self-respect?

Not a lot of things make me angry, but I’ve discovered one that does get me pretty fired up: idleness. I don’t judge people for the ways they choose to live out their lives. After all, I acknowledge that everybody’s different, and the world needs people who do life differently. But I do take issue with people who are patently dissatisfied with what they’re doing in life, have full agency and ability to take action and change things for the better, but choose to continue on living dysfunctionally and in denial. I hope I’m not the only one who feels this way…

It feels so good to be self-assured about where I am socially. I have a close group of friends who I care about and who care about me, and it makes me feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. This definitely was not the case last year. I’ve also realized how important it is to surround myself with people who make me a better person. It surprises me sometimes how large of an influence one’s close friends have on one’s personal development. Borrowing a very appropriate quote from a friend: “Your friends are a reflection of yourself.”

It takes work to stay curious and inspired. Last year, personal growth felt effortless to me, as I was constantly buffeted by new environments and new people, with Gloria-needs-to-grow-up experiences being constantly shoved down my throat whether I wanted them to or not. The stimulus overloading has since cooled, but sometimes I miss the richness of that crazy time. Going forward, it looks like it will take a little more effort on my part to keep the virtuous momentum going.

[thinkgloriathink]

8 Memorable Quotes: Semester 3 Reflections

This post is pretty long overdue, but here is a compilation of some of the most important quotes I’ve jotted down in the last couple months since September. Overall, I’d say that this semester was full of introspection, so let’s consider the theme of this post to be about self-improvement. There’s lots of it.

1). Flags would ideally always be either red or green, but sometimes a flag might be yellow, or even holographic, appearing green to some participants and yellow or red to others. Sometimes there are also multiple flags that conflict with each other.” — Vitalik Buterin.

This little snippet was captured from Vitalik’s blog, where he discusses the game theoretic effects of signaling on blockchain governance. The quote highlights how startlingly complicated it can be for a decentralized population of actors to coordinate, interpret, and execute a collective movement, even if the movement entails something as simple as heeding a “Let’s Go!” signal. His signal flag analogy was super cool — I found it to be a good metaphor for those situations where everybody’s looking at the same complex issue, but seeing it in wholly different ways, and from every different angle of interpretation.

2). “It was not that age automatically conferred wisdom. On the contrary, he thought the old were more given to vanities and imperfections than the young. /…/ Old age provides an opportunity to recognize ones fallibility in a way youth usually finds difficult. Seeing one’s decline written on body and mind, one accepts that one is limited and human. By understanding that age does not make one wise, one attains a kind of wisdom after all. Learning to live, in the end, is learning to live with imperfection in this way, and even to embrace it. Our being is cemented with sickly qualities. Whoever should remove the seeds of these qualities from man would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life.” — Sarah Bakewell

I always thought that wisdom isn’t something that simply sprouts out of people’s heads as they get older, like gray hair. Instead of seeing one’s level of wisdom as a function of age, I see it as a function of introspection, conscious effort, and active experience. Time, I think, lets a person steadily expand the upper bound of wisdom that they can potentially achieve, but it doesn’t promise self improvement for those who remain idle and live thoughtlessly. It was a pleasant surprise, then, that I came across this excerpt in Sarah Bakewell’s book about Montaigne. Finger snaps and vigorous head nods in agreement to this!

3). “His skepticism makes him celebrate imperfection, the very thing Pascal as much as Descartes wanted to escape but never could. To Montaigne, it would be obvious why such escape would be impossible. No one can rise above humanity! However high we ascend, we take that humanity with us.” — Sarah Bakewell, on Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne has got to be one of our age’s most likable, relatable, irreverent thinkers. I’d like to think of him as one of the first bloggers of our time, given by how he offers his audience such a candid and playfully honest view into his life. He was also, apparently, a huge pain in the butt of the more mathematically-minded idealists of his time. As Montaigne would’ve believed, humans just aren’t about perfection, and any bold attempt to exalt them as something more than the fumbling and contradictory apes they are would be an exercise of some serious self-delusion. Somehow, I find this emoji right here to be apt: :P

4). “I am not a visionary. I do not have a five-year plan, I don’t have a moon shot. I’m an engineer. I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, “I want to go there,” but I’m looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in.” — Linus Torvalds’ TED interview

Now, this quote has marked a pretty important point of development for me this semester. I’ve become a little more skeptical about sensational things, and I’m trying to eat more (metaphorical) knowledge vegetables. I’m not gonna lie: TED talks have rocked my world since middle school (Susan Cain’s talk about the power of introverts was the first one I’ve ever watched). Those, and books by pop science writers had me weak in the knees with wonder, having artfully weaved together science with storytelling. Each 17 minute sound bite, each espresso shot of information I’d hear on a podcast made me hungry for more ideas and earth-shattering insights. A couple months ago, it dawned on me that a large part of actually doing the science that made for such smashing good TED talks was pretty unsexy work, and I realized that I often had a pretty hollow understanding about the stuff I often raved about, at best. I figured that if I were to do anything really useful with my career, it’d start with me being mentally prepared to see the beauty of things while crawling in the weeds.

5). “Apparently, the fact that a strong majority of people has some preference does not mean that their opinion is informed. As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding. “ — Steve Sloman

Scary, isn’t it?

6). “Freedom saddles us with the burden of having to know what we want.” — Esther Perel

Speaks for itself, I think. Esther Perel is a relationship expert, and she did say this in the context of finding a romantic partner, but this quote rings true for so many other things. I’ve added this on to the list of all the other goals I want to strive for this year: understanding myself better, so that I have a better grasp of what I want.

7). “ When we imbue our partner with godly attributes, and we expect him or her to uplift us from the mundane to the sublime, we create, as Johnson puts it, an unholy model of two holy loves, that cannot help but disappoint.” Not only do we have endless demands, but on top of it all, we want to be happy! That was once reserved for the afterlife! We’ve brought heaven down to the earth, within reach of all, and now happiness is no longer just a pursuit, but a mandate.” — Esther Perel in The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

This excerpt was pretty illustrative, to me, that feeling entitled to happiness can create quite a few problems in our lives. More and more, we’re engineering the things around ourselves to deliver exactly what we want, and satisfy our ever-taller orders of demands, because we can, and we deservehappiness. Perel brought up a pretty poignant fact that these heightening expectations don’t do us any favors when we’re searching for life partners, who will be inevitably human and imperfect, as humans are.

8). “You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it’s impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it. It was a brilliant idea. You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing./…/ I am what I am, and if they expected me to be good, and they’re offering me some money for it, it’s their hard luck.” — Richard Feynman

Here, Richard Feynman was describing his experience of being caught at the center of an aggressive bidding war between Cornell University and Caltech, which both tried to win him over with ever more handsome and prestigious offers of professorship. As accomplished as he was, he felt that he couldn’t live up to other people’s inflated and absurdly idealized opinions of him. There was something deeply comforting and empowering about this quote. It marked the point where Feynman flipped the script, and realized that it wasn’t his responsibility to uphold other people’s illusions about him. I’ve always struggled with my subconscious urge to keep up a good performance for the people who think highly of me. I never see myself as a person who has ever obsessed over my reputation or public image, yet I would too often notice myself trying way too hard to appear like some calm and collected presence who always has something smart to say. I think this comes out of my desire to please people, and a reluctance to reveal the sides of myself that don’t really fit into a conveniently unblemished box. But that’s exhausting. And unnecessary. I’m not really sure what to do about this, but I’ll try something from now on.

[thinkgloriathink]

Tips for talking to a friend going through dark times

I’ve always been pretty sensitive to the things people glibly say in conversation, and it kind of sucks when an unintentional fib cracks open a gulf of misunderstanding between two friends. There were several times in the past year where I found myself trying to navigate some sensitive situations, namely doing what it means to “be there” for a friend going through hard times. Even though I know I’m not the one to solve their problems, during times like those, I still feel a strong sense of responsibility and a desire to help, even if it means that I just volunteer my shoulder to someone for two hours. You could technically cry on any surface you please, at everyone’s convenience, really, but at least my human shoulder would be warmer than a wooden shelf or something.

Let me try to analyze the things I do or say that make it easier for the people I’m talking to feel heard. I’m no trained professional, but I’ve had friends before. These tips, which are meant to be considered when a friend is going through really dark times (grief, depression, etc.), seemed to have worked fairly well for me in the past:

Banish the should’s in the conversation. When talking about how they feel, acknowledge that whatever they feel is legitimate. Whether those emotions really should be less dramatic, or should be handled a different way, or should be more socially appropriate is irrelevant at this time.

Don’t say that you know exactly how they feel. Because you probably don’t. And this conversation is meant to be about them, not you. I noticed that people tend to treat conversation as orchestrated volleying matches, where each expression of sympathy or compassion becomes a springboard for launching into discussion about one’s own problems. I know we’re all interested in ourselves, but that isn’t very helpful.

If you’re trying to deliver an apology for something you did that made them upset, acknowledge and apologize about the pain that you’ve caused them, not how much you regret your own actions. Again, it’s not all about you, but about them.

If you seek to give advice or propose a solution, frame it about yourself. As a friend, not a therapist, you’re not there to prescribe a solution or tell them how they should behave or suggest that you understand their situation better than themselves. Nevertheless, you might still have suggestions to offer… something I think you should frame sensitively as something you (would) have done for yourself in a similar situation. This is a good opportunity to briefly share with them about a similar struggle you might have faced in the past and how you may have pulled through it. Don’t think of yourself as the benevolent hero who will save your friend from despair (read: self-centered), but rather be the supportive shoulder that your friend needs to help (him/her)self.

[thinkgloriathink]

Revisiting an old journal entry from a thought-provoking hiking trip

Before cracking open my Microeconomics textbook drearily for the nth time this week in preparation for my 2nd midterm on Wednesday, something unexplained came over me, and I found my hand reaching for my journal instead. Leafing through and re-living some of those old moments in memory, I came across the series of entries I had written while I was on the BOLT trip, the five-day backpacking trip in the New Hampshirean White Mountains that I took with 8 other Brown students a week before the start of sophomore year. Having already fallen into that rabbit hole, I guess I’ll share the entry that struck me with the biggest wave of nostalgia. I scribbled this down while shivering on a tree-stump barely two months ago, yet I still wish I could reassure that Gloria from two months ago that everything will be okay, and that I’m really happy to read about myself being so happy.

8/31/2017 — THURSDAY — BOLT TRIP Day 4

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve made it alive this far.

- This is the longest I’ve ever been:

- Unplugged from technology

- Not showered

- Cooking my own meals

- Living with strangers

- Being outdoors(period.)

- Not fretting a ton about weird existential questions (aka being present)

Needless to say, I’ve broken through a lot of “firsts” with this trip. A part of me, deep down, fears that sophomore year would just become a re-run of freshman year but with none of the magic and novelty. A part of me fears that the main narrative in my head would shift from “wow, I’m in college!” to “OMG, grades, internships, concentrations, soul-selling, jadedness, etc…”. Though I can’t promise to myself that these things won’t happen, I can say that my BOLT experience has helped me recalibrate and splash some proverbial cold water in my face.

BOLT does such a cool thing of pulling students out of the comforting presence of our smartphones and social media, and slamming us together by putting us through trials and unexpected hardship. This promotes good old summer-camp-in-elementary-school-style friendships, where it doesn’t matter so much where you’re from, but where you are now. This might be one of the few rare opportunities left that we’ll get to be very close with and understand intimately people who are vastly different from us in background, personality, culture, outlook, etc. Because, if you think about it, the connections we choose to make in the future will always be tied to something, be it the same job, professional circle, or same neighborhood. Also, the friendships and connection we will make in the future will ultimately be restrained by our prejudices, or our existing assumptions of compatibility. I think BOLT is allowing us to enjoy one last hurrah of the simpler times, where we can all just be, and not have to be so calculating.

Another thing BOLT reminds me of is something mentioned in “On Friendship” by Alexander Nehamas. Genuine friendship is one of those unusual things, unlike instrumental friendships, where you’re not constantly searching for the best. If someone asks me why I love my best friend, it’s not because she is the single most intelligent, or accomplished, or charismatic person I know. It’s because it’s me, and because it’s her. BOLT emphasizes forming friendships not to build the fastest or most athletic team, but to have groups of individuals that can work alongside each other, imperfections and all, getting by with the tools that they have. There’s something that feels really pure about it that I can’t exactly put my finger on.

Ah. On an unrelated note: I think it’s interesting how, right now, I’m the most physically filthy and disheveled I have ever been, but my mind feels clearer than it has been in a very, very long time.

[thinkgloriathink]

Why I think metacognition is important

Today, my roommate said something to me along the lines of:

“ I’ve been feeling quite grumpy and irritable for the past several hours, though, besides sleep deprivation, nothing really bad has actually happened to me. Noticing the fact that I’m irrationally angry at nothing makes me angry that I’m angry.”

To this, I said:

“You know, if it makes you feel better, I think that being able to comment about your emotions meta-cognitively like that is a pretty good sign of emotional intelligence. It’s not a common thing that people can hold their emotions at an arms length and talk about them so analytically.”

To which she argued:

“But how does that do me any good? Noticing that I’m upset about something doesn’t actually solve anything, nor does it make me feel less upset. Knowing about my emotions doesn’t let me control them.”

In response to this, I came up with a spontaneous but pretty nice analogy, which I’d like to remember for future reference. I’m pretty proud of myself, actually. Haha.

Controlling your emotions is like controlling your breathing.

Most of the time, your breathing runs on autopilot when you’re not paying attention. Sometimes, it can overwhelm you if you’re not careful, like if you’re hyperventilating because of stress. But consciously acknowledging your emotions is like being conscious of your breathing, in that self-awareness will afford you some limited (yet very valuable) control. You’ll never have total conscious control of how you feel at any given moment — you wouldn’t want that, anyway — but being able to say to yourself on a bad day something as simple as “ The way I’m feeling right now sucks but I know it’ll pass,” can be huge. Self-awareness can give you the footing you need make your situation better, even if only slightly. So I think metacognition is pretty important.

[thinkgloriathink]

Don’t take your health for granted

So I recently suffered a minor knee injury, which made walking quite painful for me. It was a pretty trivial sprain, though, so with ample rest, the doctor told me I should expect to be fully recovered in a week. 7-days after that appointment, feeling free and confident, I made the unwise decision of going to swim practice, which basically obliterated all the healing progress I had made. Now here I am, sitting again with an icepack on my knee, angry at myself for being dumb and angry at my body for being so stubbornly broken.

While I was brooding about this today, I remembered something my Dad had once said to me. It was from some casual conversation we had months ago about aging, illness, and the importance of self care. Roughly translated and heavily paraphrased, he said something like this:

When you’re a young adult, you pride yourself on your self-reliance. You discover that you have the power to change things in the world and your life for the better. You learn to believe, deep down, that you can always depend on yourself to do things right, especially when you can’t always count on others. I tell you — you’d really surprise yourself by how much you accomplish. But when you get hurt or ill, your own body betrays you, and your pains will hold you back. Being ill will have you face the uncomfortable idea that you can’t always trust yourself like that anymore. Don’t sacrifice your agency and your potential by taking your health for granted. Take care of yourself.

Needless to say, I definitely don’t take my good health and mobile joints for granted anymore. I want my knee back.

[thinkgloriathink]

Unpacking my summer’s readings

So I’ve finally gotten to munch through a hefty chunk of my reading list this summer break, which to this day is still outpacing my ability to keep up. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy to report that the couple books I did manage to finish were full of gems and precious little nuggets of insight. The list goes as follows (in chronological order of completion, more or less)

The Accidental Universe by Alan Lightman

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Behave by Robert Sapolsky

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Barking up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker

Give and Take by Adam Grant

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

3, 2, 1… Unpack!

1.

The Accidental Universe

by Alan Lightman

“In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons, it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn’t there. Or ignore what is. We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality. We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.”

— Alan Lightman

I’ve got to say, Lightman has a way with his words. In this essay, he weaves together descriptions about our vast and chaotic universe that just ooze with inspiring, tear-jerking beauty. His one segment about humankind’s yearning for permanence in this universe, that is notoriously unkind to that very notion, is so poignantly crafted that it’s worth a couple rereads. As a physicist, Lightman took his sweet time describing the universe at the enormous, cosmic level. At parts, he reached levels of abstraction where you were being fire-hosed with talk about thermodynamic laws, God(s), probability, miracles, and all other things that straddle divinity and science. This was great food for thought, for sure, but all this universe talk seemed to me like a bad recipe for nihilism. Human existence, in the grand scheme of things, really is woefully insignificant, especially if you’re zoomed out all the way in god-land like that. So I guess this book wasn’t the best at making me feel as though my mundane struggles, wants, and life ambitions had any real meaning or importance (which do, I protest!). Did this book fill me with wonder and intellectual bliss? Yep! Did this book kindle the fire in me to grease up my elbows and roll up my sleeves and make a difference in this world of humans? Sadly, no.

2.

Antifragile

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Somehow, it is only when you don’t care about your reputation that you tend to have a good one.”

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Hohoho what a refreshing read this was! How should I describe this book… a bold treatise that exposes everything wrong with the world’s approach to risk and randomness through the lens of an anti-intellectual scholar? Taleb has no tolerance for bullshit, is irreverently skeptical, and is ruthlessly blunt about his dislike for pretentious armchair intellectuals and “fragilista” professionals. What impresses me the most about AntiFragile is that it is one of those few reads that actually have a real influence on my actions and thought processes. His arguments about randomness and risk (maximize optionality, gauge fragility instead of trying to predict the future, embrace variability over fragile stability, etc.) have pretty concrete applications if you really internalize what he says. No other book motivates me as much as this one to explore my opportunities widely and boldly. He never explicitly says this in the book, but the sentiment I really took away was: Carpe Diem! (Oh, and also a little bit of ‘Fuck You’)

This is not to say that I instantly agreed with everything he said. In fact, I admit that I found quite a few of his concepts to be difficult pills to swallow, at first. For instance, he argues that we can tame the randomness in our lives by having optionality, as it can help us bound our losses and unbound our gains. Basically, you’ll always have the upper hand if you diversify your options, enter situations while maintaining multiple exit strategies and backup plans, and generally refuse all eggs-in-one-basket commitments (because that’s what fragile suckers do). I admit, my initial reaction to this was of mild disgust. Here’s a snippet from a sour journal entry I wrote, which I quote: “Taleb wrote an entire book about how not to be a sucker. Instead, he teaches you how to be something else: an asshole!” In slightly less emotional terms, what I meant here was that this flighty strategy would work great for self-preservation, but seems damagingly reckless to the big things in life that do inevitably require vulnerability and self-sacrifice, like close relationships. I think Taleb provides fantastic practical advice for how to withstand and thrive from turbulent challenges, but he would be missing the mark if he pushes self-preservation as the highest priority for living a good life. These insights, that have served him well as a former trader on Wall Street, just might not produce the same smashing successes when applied everywhere in life, I reckon. So while he has certainly demonstrated the wide applicability of his ideas, I yearn a bit for a more conscientious exploration of its limits.

3.

Behave

by Robert Sapolsky

“You don’t have to choose between being scientific, and being compassionate.”

— Robert Sapolsky

Ok this book takes the cake as my #1 favorite book of this summer. It also deserves another superlative: #1 Most philosophically provocative book.

Here were my first thoughts:

Robert Sapolsky?! The Sapolsky guy who did that brilliant talk at Stanford that inspired my starry-eyed self from middle school? YEA OH YEA IT’S HIM

Oh dear. Very big book.

If you were to go to Mars and could take only one social science book with you on your journey, bring this behemoth. A book with the ambitious goal of exploring all the best and worst parts of humanity, Sapolsky has meticulously combed through and weaved together a comprehensive quilt of all the landmark studies and events that have shaped science’s understanding of human nature to date. He patches together the motivations and meanings of our actions by blending ideas from a spectrum of disciplines including evolutionary biology, biochemistry, genetics, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, philosophy, game theory, law, and economics . Something I admire a lot about this book is the amount of nuance and humility Sapolsky has when explaining human behavior. No matter what arrogant “experts” confidently assert about their fields, one can’t adequately account for all the subtleties of human nature by relying on any singular model. I guess that sounds like common sense, but I think the inquisitive softness that I have come to appreciate in Sapolsky’s writing isn’t something very common at all.

That being said, I do have to say this book had a slow start for me. Sapolsky probably intended for his narrative to be as accessible to the general public as possible, so he took his liberties in the early chapters to explain the fundamental biology and neurochemistry concepts underlying his book. Not to say that this stuff isn’t interesting, but it was a little dry. Anyone who has taken a formal psychology class before or is a seasoned reader of social science books probably isn’t a stranger to many of the famous experiments he discusses in detail. Not to worry, though. The pace eventually picks up, landing its best kernels of wisdom and greatness toward the end. And seriously… it is worth the journey. I finished chapters 15-17 feeling like a champion, having experienced feelings towards humanity that swept across my whole spectrum of emotions (a book can do that?). I’ll do you the courtesy of not spoiling any of it ;)

So why do I find this book to be the “most philosophically provocative?” ‘Behave’ obviously invites a lot of introspection about human nature, but I think the doozy in this book lies in the recurring dialogue about free will vs. determinism. I know — bear with me — this debate has probably been beaten to death within academic circles for a century. But Sapolsky brought a new sense of urgency to the question by noting the relentless advancements of scientific and technological discovery we’ve been seeing in recent years. Sapolsky himself sits in the deterministic camp of ideology (gasp!), and goes into pretty grave detail about what this implies. If what he says is true, that humankind is already headed in the direction of realizing there is no free will, our current legal system and humanistic societal mores will be needing some serious revisions. But hey — the hopeful future he paints, where we will have shed our primitive beliefs in “evil” agents and learn to harmonize science with compassion sounds pretty swell to me. *shrugs*

(Bonus quote, because I loved this book so much)

“Solving those nuts and bolts issues may be a way of ending the war, But peace is not the mere absence of war; making true peace requires acknowledging and respecting the sacred values of them. /…/ In rational choice models of decision making, something as intangible as an apology could not stand in the way of peace, yet they do. Because in recognizing the enemy’s sacred symbols, you are de facto recognizing their humanity, their capacity for pride, unity, and connection to their past, and most of all, their capacity for experiencing pain.”

— Robert Sapolsky, Chapter 15

4.

Homo Deus

by Yuval Noah Harari

“This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. Accordingly, the central religious revolution of modernity was not losing faith in God, but rather gaining faith in humanity.”

— Yuval Noah Harari, Chapter 9

Ok, I admit: After Sapolsky’s grand finish in “Behave”, diving straight into a second let’s-walk-you-through-all-of-human-history book without a proper palette cleanser wasn’t the most tasteful choice. But let’s leave that behind us, shall we? What “Homo Deus” has in common with “Behave” was an iffy beginning, though for a different reason. Harari starts the book off by painting some crazy speculations about humanity’s future and excitedly exploring the moral quandaries that come along with them: we unlock immortality, “hack” away society’s current afflictions, and/or upgrade ourselves to be living gods (hence the dramatic title). To be honest, all of that optimistic sci-fi talk started to annoy me, and I came close to abandoning the book; if there was anything I learned from Nassim Taleb, it was to protect my eyes from the cancerous garbage spewed by haughty experts who think they can predict the future. Thankfully, Harari was aware of this, as he was quick to qualify himself, before he began his thorough survey of man’s historical timeline, starting from square one. That was where the real fun began.

What stood out to me about this book was not its recounting of specific historical events in detail, but rather its insightful high-level analyses of human progress. I LOVE it. Somehow, Harari was able to capture the zeitgeist (pardon the fancy word) of every great human era, into one flowing narrative.

Here’s one example so you know what I mean. Harari remarks at one point that “modernity is a deal,” in which we have traded meaning for power. Long ago, when humans were pretty powerless against nature and celestial deities were the go-to answer for all the big questions about the universe, people didn’t struggle with existential crises. But in the modern age, where science and technology equip people with more power to direct their lives than ever before, meaninglessness and existential unease strikes like the plague. Cool, right? “Homo Deus” is FULL of insights like this. It’s incredible.

5.

Barking up the Wrong Tree

by Eric Barker

“We often confuse fate and destiny for meaning the same thing. But UCLA professor Howard Suber clarifies the distinction: fate is that thing we cannot avoid; it comes for us despite how we try to run from it. Destiny, on the other hand, is that thing we must chase — what we must bring to fruition. It’s what we strive toward and make true. When bad things happen, the idea of fate makes us feel better. Whereas /…/ success doesn’t come from shrugging off the bad as unchangeable and saying things are already meant to be. It’s the result of chasing the good and writing our own future. Less fate, more destiny.” — Eric Barker

Of all the books listed, this one was definitely the breeziest and perhaps the most enjoyable book to read. It is a fast and lightweight read, with an addicting quality to it that reminds me of online blogs (like Medium!). Addicting, you might ask? Yeah — the chapter titles are written like Buzzfeed article headings ( I mean this endearingly) , just beckoning for you to continue. For example, here’s one: “Do Nice Guys Finish Last?” … Need I say more?

I don’t have much else to say about this book besides how easily digestible and pleasurable it is to read. But don’t get the wrong idea — It’s full of hearty insights, and I love how Barker can explore some very deeply philosophical questions in plain speak, without dishing out empty, glib answers. It’s an espresso shot of no-frills discourse and practical wisdom about our common misconceptions about success. Who doesn’t like to ponder about how to live a successful and meaningful life? What is success, anyway? Bring it with you on your next plane ride or listen to its audiobook version during some thoughtful walks. 10/10 would recommend.

6.

Give and Take

by Adam Grant

“Givers don’t burn out when they devote too much time and energy to giving. They burn out when they’re working with people in need but are unable to help effectively.”

— Adam Grant

Nice guys don’t finish last. There, I said it. Adam Grant says so too. And then he wrote an entire book about it.

This book has the lively cadence that reminds me a lot of Malcom Gladwell’s books. Solid, real-world examples and anecdotes make Grant’s book lucid and persuasive. Reading ‘Give and Take’ gave me the fuzzies at parts, because who doesn’t want to feel that all is right with the world, where happy endings occur to people who give generously? But, of course, anyone who hasn’t been living blissfully under a rock their whole lives knows that this isn’t always the case. The kicker in this book is not that he praises saintly and self-sacrificing behavior (which, he does admit, can turn people into burnt-out doormats), but the way he distinguishes selfless and “other-ish” giving. Effectively, he discusses what styles of giving are actually sustainable and win-win in the long run, while giving practical advice about how not to be a burnt-out doormat. Valuable stuff to read, especially if you self-identify as a giver and want to feel validated. Grant reminds us that we (impersonal ‘we’) can help others and help ourselves too, if the cards are played right. I think I give this book a 7.5/10… solid book with clear arguments, but nothing about it made me leap out of my chair.

7.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

by Richard Hofstadter

“ The professional man lives off ideas, not for them. He’s a mental technician”

— Richard Hofstadter

I’ve got to say that this book was most unlike the others I’ve read. If you’re a U.S. history buff, you’d really enjoy this book, which deep-dives into the ebbing and flowing tides of American anti-intellectualism since its origins in the Great Awakening of the 1700’s, all the way to the present day.

( Heads up: This next bit is more of a rant than a book review.) The most mind-blowing thing I learned was really how deeply ingrained anti-intellectualism is in American culture. Peering into the darker parts of the U.S.’s recent history (remember McCarthyism?), the book highlights that intellectuals in this country have long been stamped with disparaging stigmas of being untrustworthy, morally decadent, effeminate, and, get this, un-American. Maybe it’s because I was raised in a different culture, but those sentiments just seemed bizarre to me as I was reading about them, and it took me a long time to understand. Personally, I’ve always revered the well-educated for their critical reasoning skills and genteel dignity, and could never wrap my head around why respectable Americans would routinely seem to be captivated, instead, by crass populist figures. How did “hardworking and charming Christian with simple and practical-minded values” become popularly known as the traits of the “quintessential” American man? This book walked me through the ins and outs of anti-intellectualism, which has become so integral in this country’s narrative. Here’s a thought: have you wondered why the U.S. isn’t known for having beautiful relics or extravagant monuments of classical art and culture, like many Western European countries are? Maybe it’s because the U.S. was built by founders who wanted nothing to do with all that . The first settlers had fled from such countries, and have abandoned centuries of history and tradition and culture, to live a simpler and more pious life. From this, you could probably imagine how anti-intellectualism begins to fit into the picture of American history. These roots run deep.

As much as I don’t want to bring up the 2016 election and subsequent events, this book, though it was published in 1963, is pretty darn relevant to all the craziness that we’re facing today ( is it a little disturbing that things haven’t changed that much in a half-century?) Last year’s presidential election was insane; it tore open old scars, and revealed an ideological rift between Americans that at times is so hostile that it seems impossible to get both sides to understand each other. I won’t say that this book magically made me “understand” all of the unrest between the left and right, or convinced me that anti-intellectualism is a great thing (still disagree…). But it definitely got me thinking about how swampy and complex this makes American history.

All that being said, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life was a fascinating but pretty challenging read. I’m no U.S. History enthusiast, and I certainly won’t be able to remember all the names, dates, and events that were mentioned, but it was enough to get me thinking about America’s past, the evolution of its values, and the perspectives of the “American people” of whom people like to refer.

8.

Thinking Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

“ Experts who acknowledge the full extent of their ignorance may expect to be replaced by more confident competitors, who are better able to gain the trust of clients. An unbiased appreciation of uncertainty is a cornerstone of rationality — but it is not what people and organizations want. Extreme uncertainty is paralyzing under dangerous circumstances, and the admission that one is merely guessing is especially unacceptable when the stakes are high. Acting on pretended knowledge is often the preferred solution.”

— Daniel Kahneman, Chapter 24

When shopping on Amazon for this book, I’ve honestly read nothing but praise. Kahneman and Tversky’s work have had an earth-shattering influence in the social sciences and economics for the past few decades, and it goes without saying that this book is a staple for anyone remotely interested in behavioral economics. All I can really think of to say is to read this book carefully, and have a pen on hand to annotate. This book is DENSE with counterintuitive insights about human psychology, which will make any reader start to think twice about the reliability (or unreliability, rather) of his/her judgment. Very cool, all the way through.

…

Unpacking: Done

So, there’s that: my compendium of book commentaries of the summer. I am ALWAYS looking for more thought provoking things to read, so please (x3) feel welcome to send me book/article/blog recommendations. Thoughtful discussions always appreciated :)

[thinkgloriathink]

Why I stopped doing Pre-med (my lengthy and candid explanation)

If you know me personally, you might be surprised to hear that I’m not doing pre-med anymore. In fact, this massive pivot happened so quickly and dramatically that I, too, am trying to figure out how my seemingly robust pledge to pursuing a career in medicine toppled like a tower of toothpicks the literal instant I entered college. Surely enough, I dove head first into some intensely angsty rumination sessions to wrangle apart this ugly mystery, and I scraped together a semi-coherent analysis of how this happened to me. Here’s the best explanation I can come up with:

Any good scientist knows that to properly appraise the strength of a scientific theory, you shouldn’t just be scouring for examples to confirm it, but rather scouring for cases to disconfirm it. Looking back into my past, I’ve discovered that I did a whole lot of confirming, and very little disconfirming. All my life, since showing an early propensity for biology, the life sciences, then medicine, I’ve gotten puff after puff of ego boosting encouragements. At a dinner party, people are always asking you what you want to be when you grow up. I’d say medicine, people would nod their heads with recognition, no further questions asked. As a result, I’ve lived my whole life full of self-assurance without self-examination, enjoying the cushiness of people’s approval. Once I established that I was going to be a doctor, everything I saw and all the ways I behaved seemed to fall into place, conveniently fitting the narrative. I’m not squeamish around blood? Pure doctor material! I’m skilled at memorizing anatomy terms? You’re on the right track, Dr. Feng! Soon, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, where I’d purposely act in ways that would be in character, because future-doctor-Gloria was my identity. When I started having my first doubts about pre-med during the first few months of college, I surprised myself by how flimsy I became when I was confronted by the question: Why do you want to be a doctor? Up until then, I've been going at it with 110% confidence because I liked it, and my liking it made sense to other people. Chemistry class sucked, but I was able to make it through the semester because I told myself that it’s all part of the process. “I want to be a doctor” became a mantra that I’d remind myself time and time again through times of intense stress, but the more I said it, the more unfounded it felt. I reached a point in the year where I would tell myself repeatedly that I was in it for the long haul, but feeling less confident every time I said it. God forbid, if someone asked me “Why?” during those anxious times, I would’ve imploded under the weight of all my existential angst because I literally felt as though I had no good answer. “I want to help people.” Nothing felt more fabricated to me than that weak ass reason, which alone is hardly a justification unique to a career in medicine.

Here are the few pivotal moments and thought trains that poked holes in my confidence for being a doctor. Note: these are explanations, not justifications. If you’re reading this and are still on the track to doctorhood, I will root for you like the aggressive soccer mom you never had. All I ask is that you check in with yourself every once in a while, honestly, so that you know for sure your life is heading in the direction you -- and only you-- truly want.

I tried and failed to get accepted into any of the combined medical programs I’ve applied to last year. Of course, considering the incredibly low acceptance rates to these prestigious programs, the odds were not in my favor, and it’d be foolish to expect acceptances to roll in easily. But this did plant the first seed of doubt in the back of my head that all these admissions officers who turned me down were seeing something in me that I might not have been aware of at the time. I felt as though I’ve poured my heart and soul into the “Why Medicine?” essays, writing with as much candor as I thought was possible. When you’ve laid out all your cards like that and you still get the thumbs down, it’s hard not to think that, just maybe, I’m not as equipped or compatible to be a doctor as I had thought. Maybe this was some kind of sign. This was a fleeting thought that didn’t initially shake my resolve at the time, but it reemerged with a different effect on me once my doubt train started to pick up speed this past year.

All my friends were getting their asses kicked by their computer science classes, but the challenge seemed to make them like it even more. Meanwhile, I was getting my ass beat by my pre-med classes, but my motivation seemed to be way more fragile. I was performing, for the first time, average in my class. While this sounds pretty unremarkable and expected at an elite institution where you’re no longer the big fish in your tiny little pond, it was a major source of frustration and disappointment for me. The fact that this rank-consciousness mattered so much to me, and the fact that so much enjoyment in the subject seemed to evaporate once I realized that I wasn’t the highest performer anymore indicated that I might’ve only enjoyed my pre-med classes in high school because I was good at them. I sat down in my virology class one day after having one of these revelations, looking at the powerpoint slides with almost a different pair of eyes. I have to memorize all the types of RNA and DNA polymerases and the different ways they could stack together DNA crumbs to build a new strand? Why and how is this knowledge important to me? Oh yeah, I need to shove this down my brain so I can regurgitate it onto a sheet of paper next week for a grade. I don’t actually find any of this interesting. What am I even doing here? Something I found even more curious is the fact that I've survived my statistics class second semester, which I thought beat me to a pulp at least as bad as chemistry did, but I liked it even more because of it. In fact, that class even managed to restore in me a modicum of confidence in math, an area I was sure I was going to avoid like the plague in college. In fact, I'm really glad that I took it, as I actually feel like I've learned something valuable and enriching if not directly applicable to my life. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Neuro and Chem.

I was totally getting high off of the youthful optimism and individualistic spirit of Carpe Diem of the college students around me. After being immersed in all these big-picture-thinking communities at school, or reading 21st century lifestyle design books like the 4-hour workweek or Nassim Taleb’s books, all I could think about was seizing the day and making the most out of the present. I lost some faith in the idea of super-delayed gratification— the idea of enduring a dreary and soul-sucking life now so that you can live a happier and more comfortable future down the line. When I was down in my depths of existential gloom, all I felt I had going for me was the good faith that the future me— Doctor me— would enjoy my life, even though the current me did not. But what a waste of your livelihood would it be, I'd think, to spend the most important decades of your life jumping through hoops while stressed and broke, when you can technically engineer your life such that you can work hard, ride its ups and downs, AND enjoy its fruits now. After all, your life is really just a massive sum of today’s. If you keep living for brighter tomorrows, you’d go through life squandering all the today’s, which are actually all we’ve got, and all we’ll ever get.

I remember just hanging up from a video call with my sister while I was sitting on a couch in the lobby of the Sciences Library, when I entertained this train of thought. I had just won a Hackathon at MIT by randomly deciding to take a leap of faith and flex my creative muscle, and had one of the most novel and eye-opening experiences of my life. I came into touch with (cw: intense self-flattery) the fact that I was an adaptable person with many talents, a person with a creative eye, a knack for playful intellectual thought, a slightly unconventional character, with visions and ambitions that seem a little larger than life sometimes. All of these parts of myself, which I didn’t think fit the qualities of the prototypical pre-med student, felt more to me like diversions and hindrances than assets… which made me sad. Somehow, I thought the competitive straitjacket of pre-medicine and the highly standardized structure of pre-professional training was forcing me into a mold that missed so much of what I liked about myself. Sure, I knew I had characteristics that would make me a good doctor--that hasn't changed about me. But at the time, when I felt like college was just starting to set me off on my personal renaissance, sticking doggedly to the competitive-as-hell premed plan that I no longer felt super passionate about felt pretty damn stifling.

I've begun to realize recently that I actually might also enjoy doing other things besides medicine (whaaaat?). Before college, I'd always choose classes or study the things that aligned with the pre-med path. When selecting my courses for Columbia SHP, for example, I'd only choose to enroll in physiology or biology classes. I had the choice to take other things at the time, but my a priori assumptions were that I simply won’t like what isn’t pre-med related, so I didn’t try them. Before second semester I shrugged and said “what the heck” and enrolled in an economics class, and I also said “what the heck” for applying to work at Kinvolved; my expectations for both were initially quite low, as I was secretly hoping that these would dispel my what-if questions from first semester, as an obvious distaste for them would reassure me that medicine was the way to go. Lo and behold, I was taken off guard by how much I actually enjoyed these experiences. All my life, I’ve never had to make any hard choices between medicine and other appealing alternatives, because I've never given myself one. In essence, closing doors on the other things was a lot easier back when I didn’t have a clue about what was behind those doors. Pre-med has been all I knew, and everything I thought I liked, until college showed me otherwise.

Lastly, the difficulty of my pre-med classes did (and still does) intimidate me. This reason does fall secondary to the first five I’ve just stated, as, I think, if I were really 100% set on being a doctor, I’d be resourceful enough to find ways to tolerate the workload. But having to shoulder a very taxing course load throughout my first semester, while feeling isolated and unsure the entire time, even in the presence of the hundreds of other pre-med students, was not a great feeling. I guess I blame this unsavory experience (and I forgive myself, of course) on the rocky adjustment period of first semester freshman year, and my underestimation of the importance of forming supportive study groups. Can this problem be remedied easily in the future with a little initiative? Of course. But did this nevertheless paint my first semester experience with an extra shiny layer of demotivation and disillusionment, and propel my I-don’t-wanna-do-medical-school-anymore spiral? You betcha.

[thinkgloriathink]

Systems Science is the bomb dot com

There’s something beautiful about those eerily perfect systems you always find in nature, or in math, or in cleverly designed man-made arrangements. You know… those win-win systems that magically align all their parts and incentives in a seamless positive-feedback loop… and just work. This might explain why I was so floored after learning about the carbon cycle, the underpinnings of Satoshi Nakamoto’s peer-to-peer electronic cash idea, and Adam Smith’s conception of capitalism (I know… this one’s not actually perfect at all). These rare systems figured out how to run on renewable fuel, as if some stroke of engineering genius had elevated these crazily complex Rube Goldberg machines into supremely powerful, entropy-reversing organisms. Like, golly, it’s systems like these that will run our world one day, and you know you’ve struck the jackpot as an influencer or entrepreneur when you’ve created one (“IT’S ALIVE!!!!” — Victor Frankenstein). I’ve started reading Godel Escher Bach, and I can’t help but think of Hofstadter’s admiration for infinite loops and self-reference, which he thinks pave the way to turning intricate systems into something more… more meta. It has sort of struck me that he too, probably thinks systems science is the bomb dot com. Man, it is so darn fascinating… enough to make a brown-suited, briefcase-holding lad like him dance with joy… and me too.

[thinkgloriathink]

Making deliberate choices: How this makes life more enjoyable

One of my more recent goals is to spend more time doing what I want and permitting less time for just… coasting. It’s easy to feel lukewarm about things: I’m not sure what I want for dinner today, or I don’t know how to keep myself busy during the summer months. More often than not, this leads to a whole lot of dull “meh’s”, flickering phone screens, and no real action at all. I hear this from people too much: I’m not passionate enough about anything to take action on it. Nothing seems exciting enough to be worth the effort to leave the couch and bag of potato chips behind. Perhaps the trick isn’t to wait indefinitely for some cosmic calling to roar by strongly enough kick you into action, but to get up using your own two feet. Gloria’s courageous goal: I’m putting an end to sleepwalking through my life, by starting to figure out what I want, and actually acting on it. This probably means doing away with the hours of mindless scrubbing through social media or passive consumption of trashy TV. Note — I’m not trying to cut cheap entertainment from my life… because I love that stuff. I’m trying to cut “passive” living. Eric Barker puts things pretty elegantly:

“ Without a plan, we do what’s passive and easy, not what’s really fulfilling.” — Eric Barker, in Barking up the Wrong Tree

It’s not that we don’t ever need leisure in our day, but that leisure should be a conscious choice. I hope that with a little bit of willpower, I’d be able to make the tougher but necessary decisions to chase what will really make me excited about life. What all this leads me to conclude is that deliberateness and the feeling of control is pretty important for self-satisfaction. I’d like to say that we really do have the ability to take control of the wheel and steer our lives in better directions, but only if we seize it.

I admit that I’m being slightly presumptuous and optimistic with my words; taking full responsibility for all the happenings in our lives probably isn’t a good idea. For example, people don’t choose misfortune or illness. Sometimes, our lives suck because of some broken system we live in or because we got shortchanged by the cruelty of “real life”. BUT, I don’t think that doing something about the feelings of lethargy and stuck-ness we encounter in life is beyond our purview. I don’t think I’ll be forced to a life of stalling and sleepwalking if I don’t let it happen.

[thinkgloriathink]

9 Memorable Thoughts and Reflections about my College Studenthood: Freshman Year Recap (Part 3 of 3)

Well... that was fast. I think now would be an appropriate time for me to put into words a lot of the things that I’ve learned and pondered about during my first year of college. I wonder if anybody finds these thoughts relatable? 

F.O.M.O (Fear of Missing Out) shouldn’t be reason enough to do things. FOMO’s a familiar feeling: the dreadful ache that makes boredom and loneliness that much more agonizing, and tempts me to do things I’d rather not do. Naturally, FOMO was that uninvited guest that occasionally crept up on me on those Friday and Saturday nights where I chose to stay in my dorm. Though I always enjoyed chilling in the room for tea and conversation with my roommate, the rollicking commotion outside our window during those nights weren’t always easy to ignore. I’d get passing thoughts that made me wonder if I was doing this “college experience” thing right, and if I really understood the meaning of fun, since our usual evenings of comfortable silences and chats about the simple pleasures in life didn’t seem as thrilling as whatever those people outside would be shrieking and laughing about. FOMO also happened with big campus-wide events, including a massively-hyped speech on campus by David Cameron, and the famed Spring Weekend. On both occasions, I admit that I got FOMO’ed into buying tickets. It was like seeing a mosh pit of people fighting over some items on Black Friday, and me deciding to thrust myself into that pile of bodies to grab one for myself, without even pausing to see what those items really are. Though both experiences turned out to be pretty pleasant in the end, it didn’t sit well with me realizing that I’ve just mindlessly made the time and money commitments to do something just out of a blind urge to leap onto a bandwagon. Coming out of this, I’ve vowed not to let FOMO get the better of me in my future decision making. I’ve decided that of all the reasons and motivations I have for doing things in the future, FOMO could make an appearance on the T-chart, but I won’t give it any standalone legitimacy or place it above my own real wants. Easier said than done, but I think this’ll serve me well and give me a stronger sense of agency.

Getting into the habit of challenging old rules is good for the most part. I should still call my parents though. Growing up, I listened pretty compliantly to all the “should’s” in my life. I should obey my teachers, I should be a dutiful daughter, I should do X Y and Z to achieve success in life. Partly from the influence of my philosophy professor and my peers at school, I’ve started to chip away at my respect for a lot of the holy should’s imposed on me from before. For one, I’ve realized that hunkering down and studying my way to the top using brute force and self-discipline like I’ve been told to do before might not be the only way to get by in college. Along with questioning all my academic should’s, I started wondering about the should’s tied to familial responsibility. My philosophy professor is the most pro-individual advocate I’ve ever met, and she seems to be of the persuasion that there really aren’t robust moral justifications underlying a lot of traditions and social contracts. She points out the phoniness of actions like saying “I love you” to people you don’t actually love or want to love, or being forced to construct friendships solely out of politeness or obligation. Suddenly, I found it a lot more difficult to justify my routine but sometimes bland keep-in-touch conversations with family members. Of all the many positive ways college has encouraged me to challenge my should’s, the family duty thing is something I’m still feeling conflicted about. Though I probably can’t come up with a rigorous proof of why calling my parents or grandparents every week to talk about the weather is an obligatory moral good, I see the importance of keeping such things going, as I get the sense that there’s a responsibility I have that’s bigger than myself and my personal wants. Maybe it’s not the content of these conversations that are important, but rather the gesture that counts.

College life makes the highs higher and the lows lower. College does a weird thing of amplifying my life experiences. When I’m having fun with friends and sharing good times, I’ve experienced joys that I don’t think I’ve had at home. Nothing smells like youth and freedom like throwing rules out the window every once in a while, staying up late, and (gasp) skipping classes for better adventures like getting bubble tea. I admit, though, that I’ve also experienced some of my lowest moments here as well. I take it as a sign that college is the place for me to learn how to get all my shit together, or at least in the places where it counts.

College isn’t like real life. The same kinds of things that would gain you brownie points at school (nerdy talents, a zealous mind for philosophical discussions, an optimistic and carefree outlook about my own future) wouldn’t raise many eyebrows (in the good way, at least) from people outside the university. Also, the “real world” is so large that I think I understand now why it can be so difficult to make new friends after college. I didn’t really become aware of how deeply engrossed I was in the college bubble until I returned home in NJ. I remember standing in line at Costco one afternoon, seeing more disgruntled and bored middle-aged people and noisy little kids than I’ve encountered all year while I was in school. I got the sense that everybody out here was too busy with his/her own life to care about the affairs of whoever was standing nearby. At Brown, every new person you incidentally encounter already has something in common with you, be it a shared class, or similar daily schedule, or (at the very least) a shared Brown-student identity. At Brown, standing next to somebody was good enough of a reason to say hi. At Costco, I was standing in a crowded warehouse filled with more people than I could count, but I was feeling alone as ever. How dispiriting!

Routine makes time go faster. Being present and being deliberate at school is a skill that I still need to hone. When the novelty of a new experience wears away, and monotony and routine take over, time seems to roll by at frightening speeds (Before Einstein crawls out of his grave to waggle his finger bone at me, I’ll qualify that I’m talking about something completely conjectural and non-scientific). When cool stuff is happening, my time perception slows so I can savor the experience. I felt as though my rocky adjustment period in September seemed to last forever, but two finger-snaps later, I’m looking back on it all as a misty-eyed sophomore. I wonder how that happened. It seems that the best way to slow the accelerating time treadmill is to first notice that it exists in the first place. I really like college, and sometimes I fear that it’ll pass me by if I get too complacent. These four years are too valuable to me (so much so, in fact, that it’ll be 4% more valuable next Fall!), to be squandered like a roll of toilet paper when I get too caught up in the relentless grind of problem sets and exams. For the future, I’m going to try to make a point of trying new things, meeting new people, smelling the flowers more, tasting my food more, and appreciating the loveliness of people’s company more. None of this actually dilates or contracts time (hoho I am way out of my depth with these references to physics), but it really makes it more meaningful.

I’ve began to wonder when the world stops treating you like a precious investment and begins to expect you to be paying out. Education is all about incubating young people, showering them with knowledge and resources and money so that they can develop into productive citizens. A love for learning is such a great virtue for young people, because it shows their potential. But when does your hungry (and sometimes haphazard) pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement start to shift in people’s eyes from a laudable virtue to a somewhat selfish extracurricular activity? When is it time to stop stroking our chins over the same deep mysteries in life, and look to what we are actually able to do with all this laborious thinking? Being at Brown, I’ve rarely bogged myself down with pre-professional anxieties, as the atmosphere did a great job at making me feel good about learning for the sake of learning. Where is aggressive book-reading and aimless pontificating and whimsical soul-searching more encouraged than at an elite University? I wondered at points if I was starting to lose touch with reality. To some extent, I think I have. I’ll be counting on this summer break working in NYC to bring me back to my senses a little.

I’m trying to be openly wrong more often. I’ve always been pretty reticent about voicing my thoughts or opinions for fear of being challenged. For some reason, I never put something out in the open unless I am certain that I will be able to defend myself, or convince others that I’m correct. Jesus— could I be any more wrong? If attaining the most correct truth is my goal, waving my unpolished ideas out in the wind will be the fastest way for me to locate and fix its problems. I think I’ve begun to learn the importance of this after getting to know my philosophy professor, who is delighted when she is proven wrong about things. Her mental framework of logic is terrifyingly sturdy, all thanks to the forty-years-worth of counterarguments that have been slung at her from all directions.

Should I accept this opportunity to _______, even though I’m not sure if I’m qualified or prepared enough? I’m trying to say yes as often as I can. The outcome usually doesn’t turn out as bad as my thoughts like to conjure it up to be. I’ve now gotten a lot better at biting the bullet and just “going for it”, though overcoming apprehensions about new things will always be an ongoing struggle for me. The one experience I love to cite when it comes to this is the Hackathon I attended back in November. I still consider it one of the best impulse decisions I’ve ever made.

Post-finals slump is a thing? For some reason, I’ve always found the immense relief of finishing a tough final or midterm disappointingly short lived. After the initial euphoria I feel from being freed from long hours at the library and crying over my open textbook, I always get filled with this cavernous feeling of emptiness. As someone who is always aching to be productive or busy, the ennui I get from having nothing to do or look forward to is almost as agonizing as having too much to do. I realized that this post-finals slump thing might’ve been a sign that I was relying too much on external achievements for my sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. I won’t have “nothing” to do if I decided to take things into my own hands and start my own pet project, or set some ongoing long term goals that took me beyond academics, so I can always have a reason to get up in the morning. And so that’s why I made this blog.

[thinkgloriathink]

10 Memorable Quotes: Freshman Year Recap (Part 2 of 3)

QUOTES: Every time I’m at some artsy cafe, it’s not hard to notice people jostling around their tables with their smartphones to capture the best angle of their food, their beautifully-lit faces, or both. Now that record-keeping is about as effortless as holding up a metal rectangle close to one’s face and tapping RECORD with a stubby thumb, it's become quite the ritual for lots of people like me. Though my medium of choice isn’t artsy photography, I do confess: I have a thing for writing down juicy quotes and insights that I come across in books and blogs. Though I find it satisfying enough to leave a breadcrumb trail of insight nuggets for my private enjoyment, I bet it’ll be way more satisfying if I share them with the rest of the world. So, in the spirit of my jolly end-of-school-year recap, I’ve curated a list of my 10 favorite quotes from the various things I’ve bookmarked this year, from the exploding fire hydrant of knowledge I call the internet... and books... and cool people.

“...When searching for real truth, favor experimentation over storytelling (data over anecdote), favor experience over history (which can be cherry-picked), and favor clinical knowledge over grand theories. Figure out what you know and what’s a guess, and become humble about your understanding of the past.This recognition and respect of the power of our minds to invent and love stories can help us reduce our misunderstanding of the world.” — Farnam Street Blog on the Narrative fallacy

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." —CS Lewis

“What you would be mistaken about, you're already mistaken about. Owning up to it doesn't make you any more mistaken. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. You're already "wrong" in the sense that your anticipations aren't perfectly aligned with reality. /.../ If you want more power over the world, you need to focus your uncertainty - and this only reliably makes you righter if you repeatedly test your beliefs. Which means sometimes being wrong, and noticing. (And then, of course, changing your mind.) Being wrong is how you learn - by testing hypotheses.” —Post on Lesswrong.com

“If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.” —Moran Cerf

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” — Soren Kierkegaard

“Here’s a fascinating fact about us: Contradictions bother us, at least when we’re forced to confront them, which is just another way of saying that we are susceptible to reason. And if you look at the history of moral progress, you can trace a direct pathway from reasoned arguments to changes in the way that we actually feel. Time and again, a thinker would lay out an argument as to why some practice was indefensible, irrational, inconsistent with values already held. Their essay would go viral, get translated into many languages, get debated at pubs and coffee houses and salons, and at dinner parties, and influence leaders, legislators, popular opinion. Eventually, their conclusions get absorbed into the common sense of decency, erasing the tracks of the original argument that had gotten us there. Few of us today feel any need to put forth a rigorous philosophical argument as to why slavery is wrong or public hangings or beating children. By now, these things just feel wrong. But just those arguments had to be made, and they were, in centuries past.” — Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on moral progress

“An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment-- thereby, breaking the relationships that probably were their best hope for such fulfillment. Seneca was right: no one can live happily who has regard to himself alone, and transforms everything into a question of his own utility.John Dunn was right: No man, woman, or child is an island.” — Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

“I am particularly fond of “stupid” questions. A stupid question asks about things so fundamental that everyone assumes the answer is obvious. But when the question is taken seriously, it often turns out to be profound: the obvious often is not obvious at all. What we assume to be obvious is simply the way things have always been done, but now that it is questioned, we don’t actually know the reasons. Quite often the solution to problems is discovered through stupid questions, through questioning the obvious.” — The Design of Everyday Things (p. 227)

“Free speech is a pragmatic mean to a moral end.” — Felica Nimue Ackerman, making her case about what makes free speech a morally good thing. (she’s my philosophy professor!)

“While we always tell ourselves that out-of-box thinking is best, we take for granted how important that box really is to us. “ A problem solving set helps you narrow your options, which in turn eases the search for a solution. Thus, in solving the nine-dot problem, you didn’t waste any time wondering whether you should try drawing the lines while holding the pencil between your toes, or whether the problem was hard because you were sitting down while working on it, instead of standing up. These are foolish ideas, so you brushed past them. But what identifies as foolish?” — my CLPS 0200 Human Cognition textbook (pg 494)

[thinkgloriathink]

6 Memorable Songs: Freshman Year Recap (Part 1 of 3):

MUSIC: Neuroscientists say that smell is the one kind of perception that is tied most closely to our memory or emotions, because of the way our olfactory bulbs are snugly situated by the amygdala and are aggressively tickling it all the time. I’d like to argue that music has the power to trigger flashbulb memories that are just as salient. Below is a list of songs that have entered my life this school year, and the corresponding memory that is now permanently associated with it in my brain network… for better or for worse.

Bruno Mars- Runaway Baby: 1st semester (2016) finals week. I listened to this on repeat a few too many times during reading period. The irresistibly energetic beat was the one thing that helped my motivation tread afloat just long enough to make it past my Chemistry exam.

Matt Corby- Monday: This was the official anthem of my 1st semester at Brown. Something about the way voices keep layering onto each other like concentric rings feels oddly zen but supremely satisfying. The gospel-like feel of the song, and the thickness of the harmonies makes me feel like I’m a part of some great happy family or something

Glass Animals- Hazey: I’m listening to this song, with the volume up an extra two notches in my headphones, on the chilly way back to my dorm. Immersing myself in this song always puts me in this weird trance; Glass Animals has this uncanny way of using wonky beats and hissy voices to make you question your own sobriety. I actually only remember this song for one line: “You take my photo, I fake my breaking smile… I’m fucking loco.” It’s not that this line explores a deeper part of my psychology that I do not yet understand, but it’s just the most comprehensible lyric of the entire song, and it’s pretty hard to play this segment out loud around people without eliciting some sort of “… the fuck?” reaction.

HONNE- Good Together: This song just makes me love my friends. I downloaded this after returning from winter break, and the song never fails to make me feel like everything will be okay

Alfa Mist- Keep On: STATISTICS MIDTERM #2! Agh. It’s unfortunate that this brilliant work of contemporary jazz has to be chained to the soreness of my agony while I prepared for the atrocious exam. Ah… that’s what happens when you play this on repeat a few too many times during such trying times

AlunaGeorge- Not Above Love: All of my Spring Weekend, wrapped nicely with a bow on top. It’s got the perfect blend of catty and sassy that was fitting for these two famed nights of debauchery on the Brown University campus. *shudders*

[thinkgloriathink]

The rare case where numbers do explain themselves

I’m pretty wary of letting facts and figures, alone without context, interpret themselves. Whenever a person presents me with an impressive statistic about an issue I don’t understand very well, I feel pretty weird about responding back with an affirmative value judgment, even though the person is usually expecting one. (When somebody tells me about the astounding jolt in the price of stocks for today, or the White House’s latest multi-million dollar expenditure, I’d say flatly and kind of sarcastically,” Wow! That sure is a big (or tiny) number!”) Say you decide to report to me that the unemployment rate in the United states is at roughly 5%. Depending on the tone and the way you present the fact, you could be using it to push for basically any political or ideological persuasion you choose. “5% of the population?” you might say, “That’s 16 MILLION victims of an unfair system, in distress, unable to provide for their families. And for your information, 16 million is a really big number.” Or, instead, you could pull up all the long-term trends of unemployment in the US since the 1920′s, and say, “Wow! It hasn’t been as low as 5% in decades, and at this current rate of improvement, it seems to be outpacing the societal progress we’re seeing in a lot of other fronts.” Both narratives dress the same statistics in different clothes, and try to sway people in very different directions, and sway their favor for many different policies. 

But lately, the subject of discussion in the more recent economics lectures I’ve attended this semester is about income inequality. Slide after slide of different ways to show our country’s distribution of wealth...whoa. Coming into class, I was worried that this was going to be a pretty politicized lecture and that the overhanging cloud of everybody’s (reliably left-leaning) opinions would obscure the multi-faceted truth about what’s happening in the economy. But yo. Seeing the abysmally low portion of income allocated to the lowest quartiles of the US, I find it pretty tough to find reasons to justify another side to this data, to justify that this current state we’re in is acceptable. I think in uncommon cases like this, for me, the numbers sorta do explain themselves, and graphs I see are pretty darn compelling. The inequality of wealth situation is sucky, and it should change. Is this me, falling prey to the same bias and careless thinking I was trying to avoid in the first paragraph? Perhaps. But still. THE NUMBERS SAY IT ALL!!!