2025 Random Thoughts

Coldplay

Jan 5, 2025

Love and pain are intertwined. We can tell someone we love them dearly; whether they choose to believe us or not depends on how they want to be loved. The definition of love can vary widely depending on one’s artistic inclinations. However, we can all agree that loving someone can be emotionally taxing, as it often leaves us feeling powerless. It's painful, making us realize our vitality. Unfortunately, some individuals struggle to cope with the emotional intensity of love, which can lead to anxiety and even paralysis, akin to the fight-or-flight response triggered by love’s impact on the nervous system. We often mistakenly perceive passionate love as intense as deep love, but as we age, we come to recognize that enduring love is characterized by compassion. In the realm of love, the defining factor of depth is not merely the peak of the curve, but rather the cumulative sum of the area beneath it. Compassionate love, when experienced in its entirety, provides a profoundly positive sum experience.

Love cannot exist without pain. Stories often portray love as a force that saves the world. However, love does not save us because it does not aim to fix individuals or the world itself. Instead, love serves as a reminder of the fragility of both our lives and the world around us. The reason love cannot save the world is that the way people desire to be loved varies significantly from person to person.

Despite our love for this country and this world, we find ourselves living in a divided society due to our differing opinions on how to love others and the world.

When we truly love someone, we acknowledge our profound sense of powerlessness. When they are experiencing mental distress, there is nothing we can do to alleviate their suffering. We recognize that they are the protagonists in their own stories, and it is not our role to fix them. It’s painful to watch them struggle. We know they are the ones that have to hold the basketball to have the winning shot; the only thing we provide is an assist.

Love, despite making us feel powerless, humbles us and gives us strength. It helps us accept the world’s uncertainty, as loving someone means we’re not in control. The only certainty is our love for them. In an uncertain world, the fight-or-flight response activates, but compassionate love activates the parasympathetic, teaching us calmness. The fight mode is always there, wanting to protect them, but we know we can’t protect them all the time. Because we learn to activate it in true life-threatening situations. We start to realize that most of the noise in this world they must learn to interpret themselves.

The temptation to numb their pain or our pain to feel for this world has always been the driving force of discoveries.

Medicine began with the attempt to numb physical pain. Poppy opium, used for medicinal purposes for centuries along the Mediterranean Sea, likely made people feel sleepy. The Sumerians isolated the active part of the poppy opium plant, the latex of the seed capsules, which spread worldwide. Priests used it to treat pain, either giving a small dosage to manage someone’s pain or a higher one to allow for a painless death.

It was not until approximately 1806 that Friedrich Sertürner isolated the alkaloid component of the opium plant and named it Morphine after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus. Sertürner was intrigued by the possibility of identifying a compound that rendered the poppy opium effectiveness in treating specific ailments. He published his findings asserting that the alkaloid was the active ingredient responsible for the plant’s therapeutic effects. Despite Sertürner’s groundbreaking discovery, his paper remained largely unnoticed for a decade. However, a French physician recognized the drug’s efficacy in alleviating pain and insomnia. The French physician wrote a paper about Morphine potency, facilitating its study and dissemination of knowledge about alkaloid chemistry for pharmaceutical uses.

Opium’s addictive nature had been known for centuries, yet it took tragic events for people to question its mechanisms of action. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics studies emerged, exploring how drugs interact with the human body, potential side effects, lethal dosages, and duration of action. We learned that to control pain, we start to lose control of our nervous system. Laws were enacted to promote drug transparency and distribution. History often erases these lessons, leading to the recent third wave of the opioid epidemic with more lethal synthetic opioids.

Pain can be emotionally and physically debilitating. Many individuals seek a means of numbing their discomfort. However, complete numbness can be detrimental to our well-being. The opioid epidemic serves as a cautionary tale, highlighting the dangers of excessive pain relief. As pain receptors, when functioning properly, they serve as an early warning system for potential bodily ailments. When pain is suppressed, individuals become unaware of underlying health issues. For instance, diabetic neuropathy, which can cause the loss of sensation in the feet, can lead to infections and, in severe cases, amputation of a foot or leg. Pain serves as a protective mechanism for the human body.

We can’t escape emotional pain, which is how deeply we love someone. Numbing that pain denies love’s existence. Using drugs like Morphine, named after the God of Dreams and Sleep, Morpheus, risks us living in a dream-like state forever to avoid pain. But waking up is necessary to be alive. Life isn’t about escaping or numbing pain. We’re curious beings who use emotional pain to understand ourselves. As Erwin Schrödinger said, we’re all scientists trying to know ourselves.

Love does not possess the power to save the world; however, it does instill in us a glimmer of hope and that not all challenges require immediate resolution. We learn to embrace the natural unfolding of events, even when it entails discomfort. Love gives us hope for rebuilding for those we love when things fall apart. Our definitions of love and self change as we live longer and realize we’ve died a million times yet keep waking up. A slow death is clinging to a fixed identity, world, and others. To love the world and others, we will lose a piece of our past selves but gain the present moment and wonder of the future. Fire doesn’t kill us; it gives us life, likely the reason the myth of the rising Phoenix endures through so many civilizations. We’re all a ship of Theseus in many forms.

The question is not why we are alive, but rather how alive we truly are. How alive are you?

Under construction. Will be back to clean this page up. 😨

????

Why do you upload unfinished work?

Humans, relationships, and this world are messy. Everything is a work in progress. Despite our best efforts to minimize errors, imperfections remain. I have Q&A sections after some writings to give more context to some of the subjects. Things are messy because there’s always room for improvement. Everything is a process. What is ever truly finished when we are still learning?

Is there a reason for the title?

The two songs from Coldplay, “Fix You” and “The Scientist,” were circling my mind last year. I thought, as romantic as people think the song “Fix You” was, I totally disagree. We can’t go around waving a magic wand and eliminating the emotions others feel. The savior complex that so many of us have in this world is admirable. Most humans want to fix the world. The question is, which part of it is broken? Is it broken? And if it is broken, can it mend back like a broken bone? In contrast, “The Scientist” delves deeper into the emotional turmoil of heartbreak. Love is an intangible concept, and we often replay memories in our minds, attempting to comprehend the reasons behind our current state. This process can be likened to scientific experimentation, seeking answers to the pain we experience. However, there are no definitive answers. Eventually, we learn the heartbreak is the best thing that could have happened to us.

It is music?

Absolutely. I feel music is therapy. Think about Lil Wayne’s “How to Love?” The people who we believe have done bad things, they would say they did it out of love for us. That is how they love us. Is love justification? If it is, we are in trouble. What can’t be reasoned? It’s a beautiful song. Then you have the song from Kanye West’s “Ghost Town,” which is a song about pain, talking about Fentanyl. It is brilliant. The lyrics “I put my hand on the stove, to see if I still bleed.” That is the pain receptors of the nervous system.

Everything is connected somehow?

Yes. Humans are emotionally reactive, mirroring our nervous system. Everything we do is a response to a stimulus. With our human body, take for example air and the morning chill. We don’t think about breathing, but oxygen intake triggers a biochemical process that produces carbon dioxide. The brain senses carbon dioxide and contracts the diaphragm to breathe out. The morning chill causes shivering, a reaction to the cold. The sympathetic nervous system prioritizes vital organs by constricting blood vessels to the skin and redirecting blood flow. Muscle contraction generates heat, causing shivering. Trying to minimize heat loss at the same time.

We react to our environment. Every interaction, human experience, whether we believe it affects us or not, forms a connection. We learn kindness from strangers. Small acts of kindness reinforce the connection that humans are kind. Every interaction there is a reaction. As we get older, we learn that not every reaction needs to be spoken out loud. Speaking starts to be an argument about knowledge, not understanding. We realize everyone is slightly dumb because we believe our experience is the only true one. We can start at point A and make a deduction that leads us to Z, forgetting the 24 letters in between. This is similar to medicine in some ways because there’s still so much we don’t know. In acute conditions, anti- inflammatory or antibiotics cure a disease. In chronic conditions, rarely do they cure us, and we take lifelong drugs or when the condition flares back up. Surgery is more a cure than drugs for certain diseases. We make shortcut connections instead of creating true connections. In a world where everyone wants to be seen as smart, we all become dimwitted. It’s refreshing to see the flaws in our thinking because we are all slightly dumb. We’ve all zoomed in too close and lost the field of view, or zoomed out too much and lost sight of the topic.

Shortcuts, a human survival skill for quick information processing, becomes paralyzing in a world with abundant free information. There is a reason we study heuristics. AI in its current form has hallucinations because it likely has too many shortcut connections in their neural networks. Oversimplifying things like decision trees is not how our brain works. It might work in many fields that involves yes or no, and will work 80% of the time. When it fails 20% of the time, it fails epically.

We live in a fearful world, and meditation’s popularity stems from its effectiveness in managing the sympathetic nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system during amygdala hijacks. Social media, podcasters, and the news perpetuate fear, creating an environment akin to constant amygdala hijacks. We trade one form of propaganda for another. This world is made of stories. Truth lies in recognizing that everyone is slightly right at 25% but likely wrong at 75% due to incomplete connections. We try to make everything into a science, failing to see that every step of trying to understand this world, we could be wrong at a 75% chance; we have to readjust our hypothesis. A theory is not the truth; it is the accepted consensus.

Connections are important to reinforce learning, making too many shortcut connections invokes fear, because the fight or flight mode is meant for surviving in dangerous situations not to be manipulated by so called intellectuals to put us at war with each other. To put that mode on all the time, means we believe we are in WW3 all the time.

You say every interaction changes us, can you explain that more?


For instance, this writing contains numerous references to my family. Witnessing my youngest sister become a mother and witnessing the profound transformation she underwent was an incredibly moving experience. We attended a wedding in the fall of 2022, and her son was only 14 months old at the time. He also attended the wedding but was excused from the festivities early by our mother so that he could get to bed. It would be his first night without her. As the groom danced with his mother, they both shed tears, and my youngest sister began to cry as well. Her husband looked over her and smiled, “Are you thinking about our son?” My sister’s tears intensified, and she replied, “Yes.” It was an incredibly touching moment, as her husband’s smile conveyed his immense pride in her. His smile was like, “I am so proud to call this woman my wife and the mother of my children.” It is impossible to express the depth of my love for my sister when she was overcome with emotion. Her tears left an indelible mark on my heart, and I am forever captivated by her beautiful soul. Witnessing her son grow up and develop his own identity has stirred up a profound sense of emotion within her, reminding her of the day she will share a dance with him.

My nephew’s birth was not easy, as childbirth can be very dangerous. There was a brief moment that she said she felt our father’s presence protecting them, and when she told us that, we teared up. We are not what we know; we are all that we love. And when she said she felt our father’s presence, it made me think that all the good that happens to us the miracle and magic, we attribute to our father. He is protecting us still even when he is not physically here with us. The pain of losing our father also brought so much love.

How to love is the question. Our mother sometimes apologizes to us that she couldn’t be the typical parent. She couldn’t help us with our homework, help us with college tuition, take us on vacations. When we moved to Michigan, our parents worked 6-7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. We believe loving someone is giving them all this attention, all this financial help, but I told our mother that she gave us more than enough. She gave us the opportunity to be here. She and our father came home every night when they were done with work to lock the doors and keep us safe. They are consistent parents, and that is all we really needed. They gave us enough independence to grow on our own. The loss of my father has been hard on her. I did not realize how their love made each other stronger. Love does not save the world; it helps us become aware of our weaknesses and in turn makes us brave.

My sister, Emma’s Vietnamese name is Phung, which means Phoenix, and I thought our parents gave her a name that really fits her. She grew into her given name. My parents don’t talk about their pain often. They were the first generation in their community to come to America in the early 1980s. They are the original fighters, the original gangsters that paved the way for others in our community. They came with two pairs of clothes, working in a meat factory in Kansas to try to make it in America before starting their own small business.

Is bravery an inherent quality, or is it a consequence of our love and the desire to safeguard those we hold dear? It propels us towards the uncomfortable, testing our patience, tolerance, and capacity for forgiveness. When my youngest sister and her husband say, “patience means I wait,” as if it were a song during their potty training of their two-year-old son, it elicited a smile from me. It is cute, they would say, “patience means...” then the nephew would say, “I wait.” One can discern the chaotic from having little kids yet loving dynamics within my youngest sister’s family.

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Our Rights - MLK Day

Jan 20, 2025

“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens” -
Michelle Obama

We close our eyes to feel our environment and the world around us.

We’re reminded that we’re not defeated today. Defeat means believing those who voted differently from us didn’t believe in integrity, women, or civil rights. Deep down, we know they do.

They disregard these matters because they perceive them as non-existent. When we are born into these rights, how can we envision a different future? Today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we remember the arduous efforts of those who fought for our rights. Our rights were acquired, not inherited, despite their apparent presence from birth.

There were numerous obstacles to becoming a citizen of the United States, particularly for individuals who did not conform to certain physical standards.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 had a requirement wording of “free white persons,” any other race was barred from being a naturalized US Citizen. Even birthright had to be contested to ensure that individuals born in the United States are recognized as American citizens. When Wong Kim Ark was denied reentry to the United States due to his physical characteristics deviating from those of a typical American, he resolved the matter through legal proceedings. He fought for his right as an American, though his birthright, that America was the land of his birth, and the only home he knew. The landmark 1898 Supreme Court ruling granted birthright citizenship to Asian Americans.

Rights, while enshrined in law, are not absolute. They can be revoked, and their interpretation varies depending on the Supreme Court’s ruling. The Executive Branch is responsible for enforcing these rights. One of the most fundamental rights of a United States citizen is the right to vote, which serves as our collective voice. Despite the 1870 Amendment granting African Americans the right to vote, they were not fully empowered to exercise this right. Similarly, Asian Americans and individuals who did not conform to the prevailing racial standards faced similar barriers. Women’s right to vote did not become a reality until 1920, but even for minority women, the right to vote and express their voices remained a formidable challenge.

Imagine these strong females fighting for our rights during a time where they had no rights. Are we the brave ones? No. All we have to do today is talk the talk, and never have to walk the walk. Who fought for us? Women like Zitkála-Šá, Luisa Capetillo, Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Fannie Lou Hamer knew we had to have our voting rights to build a more compassionate world. They understood that minorities were suppressed from voting, as a requirement to vote was a literacy test. They knew many of those in their community couldn’t read in English for many reasons. One of which is access to an education. The second is the ones who came to America, worked service and manual labor jobs that took up most of their time. It is not that they did not want to be literate in English, it is that they did not have the opportunity nor access to it.

Voting suppression was real. It is the reason most minorities could not vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This law changed everything for us. Not just Black Americans, but every minority American who did not get to vote due to their lack of literacy. Lives lost going to the voting booth, only to have 64% of the population participating in the democratic process. This law was renewed for another 25 years in 2006. Only to have the 2013 Shelby v. Holder limit access to polling for communities who need it most.

We are not asking for equality; we are asking for a more kind world for others. We know government won’t help us, and we won’t ask for help. Today, we have strong women who are trying to build a more humane world. We can look at the females like Michelle Obama, Melinda French Gates, Amal Clooney, Mackenzie Scott, and Lauren Powell Jobs, who are promoting a more kind world for those who are born into an unkind world through their foundations.

We will remember that rights are just words. Actions speak louder than words, and these women, and others like them, are using their actions to send a message that we are here to stay. While people vote for personal gain, we, who have already lost so much, have nothing to gain besides seeing others flourish. We will keep the dreams of others alive. That the words of MLK will live on, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Even when MLK had everything to lose by supporting Thich Nhat Hanh, he spoke out to support the Vietnamese Buddhist monk. At the time, he was in good terms with President Johnson, and to speak out about the Vietnam War could endanger their relationship and the Civil Rights Movement. The man had everything to lose, and already had lost so much, and still he spoke up on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Birmingham, Alabama.

Let us remember those of the past who lived through so much to give us what we have today. Let us pray for those who are in pain today. Let us remember that laws are temporary; the rights we have today can be overturned. Our complacency that laws are permanent is one of our greatest weaknesses: we are no longer safe to assume that we will always have these rights when all three branches of government no longer have integrity. Let us have the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to know when to speak up and when to be silent. Let us live by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”

Our rights are not inherited in the same manner as genetic DNA, which determines our iris color. Instead, our rights are contingent upon the country of our birth. If we are fortunate enough to be born in the United States of America and consider it our home, we often take it for granted. Our rights were hard-fought for by those who came before us, and it is our responsibility to preserve and protect them, ensuring that they do not unravel to the point of irrevocable loss.

To be an American entails acknowledging our nation’s imperfections, forgiving past errors, valuing our history, and diligently preserving freedom and democracy. It is crucial to remember that this is a government of, by, and for the people. Once it ceases to prioritize the interests of the people, it ceases to be a nation.

To Read?

MLK and Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh writing about MLK

Q&A

It seems to some that this piece of writing is woke or feminist. Do you think it is?

Ironically, I composed this piece in response to the discontent expressed by individuals within my social circle regarding my optimism about the potential of corruptible human beings whom I did not support to act in the best interest of the populace when it matters most. Even if they do not act in the best interest of the populace, we, as the people, will eventually swing the pendulum back to the center. This has occurred repeatedly throughout history, although it is evident that with each presidency, the executive branch has gained increasing power. Unfortunately, with each presidency, there has been some abuse of power that persists into the next. This phenomenon can be likened to a snowball effect, and we are currently in the yellow to red zone, necessitating heightened vigilance. Our nation was founded with the aspiration of escaping from monarchy and establishing a system of governance with three distinct divisions for a reason. Regrettably, we have regressed to believing in dynasties and kingdoms 250 years later. Many individuals attempt to expedite change, and this is often evident when a single group successfully captures and influences all three branches of government, leading to hasty changes. While our intentions may be beneficial to the populace, it is crucial to ensure that these benefits extend to at least 80% of the population, as any deviation from this threshold could result in the pendulum swinging back to the other direction.

In today’s society, it appears that satisfying everyone’s demands has become increasingly challenging. If we choose to remain silent on a matter, hoping for the best, we are labeled as naive. Conversely, if we openly discuss the difficulties faced as a female in this world, we are labeled as feminists. Ironically, the term “feminist” carries numerous negative connotations, and it is perplexing how many individuals resort to using it as a means of insulting others.

My parents, who were married for over 40 years before my father’s passing, were deeply in love. My father met my mother in their village and approached her father to ask for her hand in marriage. Initially, she declined his proposal, but eventually, her father told her that she was no longer young and marriage was the path forward. Despite facing numerous hardships, they grew to love each other deeply.

Part of my mother carries a sense of sadness, which she shared with me during my middle school years. She expressed the belief that being born a female is a disadvantage in this world. She was born into a world where her brothers could attend school beyond her grade level, but she was told to drop out to assist the family with domestic work.

Marriage was not easy for my parents, especially considering their circumstances. We were a family of nine living in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom duplex when my father was a fisherman. My mother had to shoulder a significant burden to keep our family together, budgeting meticulously to ensure that we had sufficient funds for rent, food, and clothing.

There is a rationale behind her belief that being born female is punishment for past lives’ misdeeds. Typically, women exert more effort to maintain the household. In the latter two decades of their marriage, my father became the most devoted and supportive husband. Together, they established a business, and my mother flourished. Her exceptional skills and charisma made her beloved by the community, and she played a pivotal role in the business’s growth. After over two decades, they made the decision to close the business. My mother cherished her work and found fulfillment in it. To be born into a world where she lacked autonomy, to have the freedom to make choices, was a significant transformation for her. My father respected her strength, while she stood her ground with firm determination. They respected each other. My nurse sister was the first interracial marriage in our family, and at the time, interracial marriages were not as prevalent, and people in the community engaged in gossip. My father addressed the subject, lecturing people, emphasizing the beauty of his granddaughter. My mother was initially embarrassed by his boisterous behavior at a community party but remained silent until they returned home. She confided in my father that the community’s observations were valid; interracial couples faced challenges in maintaining close relationships due to language barriers, which could potentially lead to the loss of our Vietnamese heritage. My father remained silent throughout her speech. My sisters and I smiled, appreciating his willingness to speak up. While some may perceive him as uneducated and loud, to us, he was the embodiment of pride and love for our family. These insults did not faze him or us. Our parents recognized that a fulfilling marriage was of utmost importance over marrying someone of the same ethnicity, having witnessed the dissolution of numerous young marriages. My mother frequently emphasized that individuals often struggle to relinquish a portion of their ego; we can’t be right all the time. The extraordinary forgiveness my parents had to cultivate to sustain their marriage is immeasurable.

Regardless of race, we as females understand the song “Superwoman” by Karyn White. In this world, we know as females we are taken for granted. In elections, there are tradeoffs. To get a policy or law passed, how many men would dismiss women’s rights? We can’t call it out without being called a feminist in an insulting manner. For civilizations, men knew their women would stand by them because we love our men. We love the song by Carole King, sung by Aretha Franklin, “A Natural Woman.” Two things can be true: we can love our men and also be strong women. That is what my parents have taught me.

I do not identify as a feminist because I believe the term is frequently misused. While I am concerned about women’s rights, I believe that when a word is overdefined due to a broader definition of the world, its intended purpose is lost, leading to unnecessary debates about trivial matters of behavior. We begin to make every situation excessively uncomfortable. How can we engage in meaningful conversations if we create an overly uncomfortable environment? Define how everyone should act? Again, we are not zeros and ones. We are not a set of instructions, and when we try to make people an instruction book on how to be human, that is where political correctness annoys many humans. The only rule to being human is to be kind. In every situation, every human could have been more kind.

Despite the widespread assertion of support for freedom of speech, there appears to be a growing fear among individuals to express their opinions due to the taboo nature of discussing women’s rights and civil rights issues. We cannot discuss these matters without being labelled as a feminist or woke. These terms, which were intended to serve as reminders of the struggles faced by others, have paradoxically become more derogatory. Eight years ago, those who didn’t understand racial issues in this country were called bigots. Half the country were bigots, now half the country is woke. We call anyone who speaks up about civil rights woke. Woke is somehow synonymous with political correctness. The origins of the widespread hatred for a single word remain perplexing to me. The origins of words are lost due to the strictness and unforgiving nature of those who profess to defend them, but they end up distorting words that are now incomprehensible.

As human beings, we share common experiences regardless of our race or gender. The root causes of problems are not solely attributable to these factors; rather, they often stem from our own unhappiness and a tendency to seek escape from our personal issues. It is as if we desire global destruction and perceive it as occurring due to our own emotional turmoil. Despite possessing nuclear weapons for nearly eighty years, we continue to survive. This should instill hope, yet it doesn’t. Perhaps it is time for us to introspect and consider whose perspective we are adopting in our lives.

Our survival can be attributed to the self-preservation instincts of an individual who desires to avoid a nuclear war, or perhaps it is due to a profound sense of compassion that drives them to love humanity. It is plausible that both factors contribute to our existence. While kindness may require a certain level of self- awareness, an ego is necessary for self-preservation. To survive, we need a combination of the two. However, excessive ego can lead to insecurities that can result in unkindness. It is essential to recognize that learning involves letting go of our ego, as we can gain valuable insights from individuals of all backgrounds.

That was lengthy. It could’ve been more kind.

Yes, it could’ve been kinder. I’m a monster.

What do you mean by zeros and ones?

It appears that we have made the decision to reduce individuals into mere components of zeros and ones, denying them the opportunity to hold multiple beliefs simultaneously. Do people harbor animosity towards immigrants solely because they advocate for more stringent immigration regulations? It is unlikely in most cases. Similarly, women who support women’s rights would likely refrain from obtaining an abortion, but they would still advocate for women to have the autonomy to make such decisions. Humans are not mere bits of data. First impressions, a mechanism by which our minds accumulate as much data as feasible for survival, hinder genuine understanding of individuals. Some individuals within the realm of intelligence would refer to this phenomenon as unconscious bias. This process entails categorizing and organizing individuals into distinct mental structures, akin to constructing graphs and tables.

One notable example is when we encounter a school textbook that presents a comparative table outlining the distinguishing characteristics between Democrats and Republicans. We are informed that individuals who circle more issues that align with their left-wing views are considered Democrats, while those who circulate more issues that align with their right-wing views are considered Republicans. However, despite our advanced age and supposed wisdom, we continue to adhere to this same table. Instead of explicitly labeling individuals as Democrats or Republicans, we now resort to labeling those who hold certain beliefs as “woke” or “bigoted.” Leftist or rightist.

The defining characteristic of this world is its ambiguity. If we are merely a collection of instructions, represented solely by zeros and ones, our demise is imminent due to the advent of artificial intelligence. We recognize that we are more than a set of instructions. If our jobs can be reduced to a set of instructions, we are replaceable. We understand that what distinguishes us as humans is not our ability to follow a set of instructions, but rather our cooperation to accomplish tasks together. While we compete to survive, this competition has taught us that cooperation is essential for survival. To cooperate as humans, we learn that kindness is the purest and most basic form of communication when we lack alternative means of expression. Someone can always sense when we are going the extra mile for them, even if we do not speak the same language.

Holding the belief that assisting others in constructing a more compassionate world is unjust is a manifestation of jealousy, a zero-sum game mindset that posits that when we provide assistance to one individual, we inevitably diminish the resources of another. Who would desire to be selected for their abilities or believe that they are bestowed upon them due to the sentiments of pity? Kindness is a cooperative act that fosters a positive-sum environment, whereas greed operates as a zero-sum game, akin to gambling. This is where we should quote Beyoncé, who asks, “What’s worse looking jealous or crazy?” She answered the question for us: jealousy anyone can smell a mile away.

Can you explain more about tradeoffs?

In the realm of politics, a reciprocal exchange is inherent, as political campaigns engage in this principle by promising specific outcomes in exchange for votes. Consider the Bitcoin and AI communities, for instance. To secure legislation that aligns with their causes, they risk exposing their communities to potential scams. In this era of rampant scammers, safeguarding Bitcoin from regulation has resulted in the proliferation of unregulated cryptocurrencies, some of which have been known to engage in rug pulls. Tragically, there have been reports of individuals succumbing to suicide due to financial distress caused by cryptocurrency scams. Notably, suicide rates in the United States surpass homicide rates. While we strive to ensure America’s safety, individuals resort to self-harm when they lose all their savings. We don’t consider the second or third order effects of forced changes. We see the gains of today, but fail to see the losses of tomorrow. It is a tradeoff people make: change what we can today, worry about tomorrow when it comes, which is sensible. Every action elicits an equal and opposite reaction. Is there an optimal choice? I am uncertain. I believe there is not, and I do not entertain the notion of “what ifs.” If we act appropriately, whether too cautiously or too recklessly, we will eventually arrive at the correct course of action. We can be overly cautious and then reckless, finding the right balance. Captain America said, “We don’t trade lives.” But he’s lying. We trade lives in this world.

That is dark

It is dark. The lives that were lost due to the Vietnam War from all sides gave my parents the opportunity to legally come to America as refugees with my two older siblings. Consequently, I was born in this land, a testament to the profound impact of that conflict. There was darkness that gave light to my family. As the firstborn in my family here, I was shaped by this experience, fostering a deep appreciation for the world around me. Individuals are currently perishing in the Mediterranean Sea in pursuit of improved living conditions in Europe, while others undertake perilous journeys across borders in search of a better life in America. I know the second and third order effects of Vietnam being colonized by France gave my family the opportunity to be here. While there may be a lingering sense of guilt associated with this fact, it is crucial to recognize that suffering is not synonymous with it. Suffering arises when we perpetuate a cycle of pain, unable to break free due to our inability to confront and address the underlying causes. To truly comprehend the light, we must embrace the darkness. To navigate the gray areas without compromising our moral compass or faith in humanity, we must acknowledge and address the complexities of our existence. We are not one thing, because there is no one way to live. I love it when individuals love many things in this world because we are not what we know; we are all that we love. Don’t tell me what you know, tell me what you love. If we inquire about what we love about this world as individuals, we discover that we love the same things: we reverence a deity, irrespective of its denomination; we cherish our familial bonds; we are captivated by the dawn’s arrival; we are enchanted by the sunset; and we find solace in the realm of music.

I do not require individuals to remind me of my Asian heritage, my female gender, or the fact that my parents are immigrants, implying that I should harbor animosity or disdain towards others due to perceived infringements on my rights. Each encounter with a stranger in the broader society serves as a reminder that I am the gray of this world. I do not need a reminder or validation regarding how Asian I should be. “Oh, you important? You the moral to the story, you endorsing?”- Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “All the Stars.”

Anthing else?

Although I may not frequently discuss these matters publicly, it does not imply that I am indifferent to them. These are letters I wrote to my pen pal. I prefer to engage in private and introspective thought. I find solace in closing my eyes and allowing my mind to wander. Life encompasses more than constantly contemplating the possibility of World War III.

Jan 21, 2025- Response to this specific writing
Nov 8, 2024, After the Fall 2024 Election
Nov 10, 2024
Nov 13, 2024

What I am reading:

Galileo's Pendulum