I haven't been happy in a really long time. that's upsetting

I lost myself in the last month... I've been losing myself for the past 2 years.
My laziness and lack of discipline need to change. Desperately.

Trite: It's easy how easily you can destroy something, and how much energy it takes to rebuild a good habit you once had

Also, I found someone I really like at Duke, finally. I haven't felt this attracted to anyone in such a long time... I liked Jeanette a lot but it could never develop into something I'd comfortably call love. Feelings for Suzi were short-lived and an artifact from a long time ago. Conveniently, the girl I'm interested in is in a stable relationship, is considered the prettiest among Asian girls in my class, and I'm probably just a friend to her.

Unrequited love is so refreshing. It's one of the best sources of inspiration, and is such a strong motivator... At the same time, it's incredibly terrifying.

I also feel like Im getting stupider.

too much sleep + peer pressure + bad habits + lack of discipline = fail

:(

i remembered today how much i love home and hate durham. also, how much i miss my parents.
also, i want to study abroad somewhere exciting.

Came up with this in the shower after hearing Epik High's Rocksteady ("Casanova - Pass it over")

See that mic, pass it over
You're out of breath, passed out sober
Soon, even, you'll be passin over
Getting colder like crappy soda
Trying too hard like Casanova
Stop trying to take a crack at NoVA
Your lines got no clue, go ask your oppa
Need to find fillers like ASCII Clovers.
My lines kill you; they pass for soldiers
Theyll hurt so much you'll ask for dopa-
Begging me to tell you it's over.

"Happiness" would be so much easier to obtain if it weren't such an abstract concept. "Happiness" also encompasses so many different emotions. Contentness, mellowness, satisfaction, triumph... It's better to aim for specific emotions.

The need to be happy is a nagging insecurity. I don't want my life to be solely about finding happiness... because I don't even know what that means. However, there are states of mind I want to experience and be in before I die... like the state of mind while riding a overnight train in some European hills, looking out the window and thinking.

I have way too much unrealized potential. Not to sound haughty, but God - for a person of my aptitude I am too timid for my own good.

I will destroy anything in the way of my goals.

Had a dream I took down a Sith plot to destroy the world, Yoda died, I was a power ranger, Almost died from HIV infection, Shoplifted, Killed an alien, Got chased down by a fat shirtless policeman, Ran into a chipotle and killed the policeman, and then woke up.

This was a great summer.

1) NIH
First evidence that I can achieve something respectable based mainly on self-motivation, and not parental motivation or peer pressure. I've earned a lot of self-respect and pride in myself for being able to work as hard as I did, and producing meaningful results (that manuscript was damn good). I know in the grand scheme of things, I didn't work very hard. Still, this was an important first step.
Also, this qualifies as my first "real life" experience. I saw how much labwork (and paid work in general) SUCKS hahah

2) Increased ability to quit addictions
Did the following effectively: Avoid situations that would cue you to remember addictions; Make memory associations between addictive behaviors and pain; Be more rational before making decisions

3) Understand myself better
Realization of Introversion; (Re-)Realization of how much I worry; More in tune with my subconscious; Changing my INTP to a INTJ / ENTJ

4) Had a shitload of fun at a party, for once

5) Loved music
Artists: Mos Def / Blackstar, More KPOP (SNSD, GD, 2NE1), Nujabes, The Quiett, Deckstream
Songs: Astronomy, Definition, Thieves in the Night, Life is Good, Feather, Fire, Genie, Hello
Moments: rapping in the car (and almost getting into accidents), dancing alone at home

6) Watched brilliant movies
Charlie Kaufman movies: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine
Shawshank redemption
Lost in Translation
American Beauty
___

Mistakes:

1) Cheated on someone / the whole Suzi ordeal
And managed to rationalize it afterward... lovemaking is my achilles' heel. Thank god for not losing my virginity
Breaking up with Jeanette was unnecessary. We could have enjoyed another month. I could have avoided hurting her, damaging my friendship with Suzi, Jeanette's parents and friends hating me, and my reputation being damaged. An extremely expensive cost for one night of pleasure. I don't even want to view it in terms of guilt; considering purely rational factors it was just a stupid decision.

2) Worrying too much
___

Okay, time to pack and sleep.

Few things

1) i realized how much i studder / correct myself in the middle of speech. it makes me sound timid. bad habit that i should change, but it's probably related to my personality and how i dramatize small things. the best cure so far seems to be taking more time to explain what i want to say.

2) i worked a lot of overtime to get my nih presentation ready and looking nice. evidence that i can work my ass off, and produce impressive results, if needed. seems that my ability to suck up and get things done is also increasing. related: based on your temperaments, you will like or dislike certain things. this is unavoidable. but your subsequent thoughts play a strong role in amplifying or negating those feelings, and these thoughts you must control.

3) suzi's been ignoring me for like the past two weeks. annoying. i would likely do the same to her, but she's only here for another week or two.

4) epik high's remix album came out. some songs are very good. i seem to like songs that use piano and strings. i'm really curious to hear what an acoustic hip hop beat would sound like (including drums, but most drum sets don't hit as hard or as crisp as hip hop requires)

5) negative thought patterns seem to be a function of the amount of sleep i get.

6) it's possible to do things with an MD outside of going directly into practice. i was considering this because in order to get a decent position anywhere (without starting your own company), youll probably need at least a master's. so if you're gonna be studying anyway, you might as well get the best degree out there, MD. some PhD's ive talked to, along with my own observations, suggest that PhD degrees are worth less than MD degrees, both in research and corporate settings. but in any case, at least a year of residency is probably best.

7) cold sores. fuck.

8) reminder: smooth legs are a large large plus on a woman.

time to re-evaluate: am i happy? i don't think so. but there's no rush, i am learning.

Increasingly, I find it hard to develop rapport with people without it feeling forced or tedious. What worries me is that it's happening to people that I used to get along so well with. Now, I feel uninterested, unmotivated to make conversation, or too shy.

I'm not sure why it happens. Sometimes I would rather prefer to just sit in silence.

It's difficult for me to decide whether or not it's just a part of my personality I should accept, or if I should try to change.

When I'm spitting my game, I just spit in your brain, spinnin for fame while you're going insane

New list of favorite hiphop artists, in order of preference
Epik High
-- sentimental value, style of music (both oldschool and triphop), nexus / gateway to a lot of good underground, lyrics, personality
Mos Def
-- style, personality, ridiculous writing, multitalented, flow is pleasant, i need a token black rapper
Pe2ny
-- musical talent, jazz influences
The Quiett
-- multitalented, musical talent, flow

On Self-Control: It's MUCH easier to prevent yourself from doing something if you learn to ignore it, rather than willing yourself not to engage in it.

Hence, the ability to forget -- and linked, the ability to divert your attention for extended periods of time -- is a very, very valuable asset.
__

On Perception: In many cases, actual value is different than perceived value. However, people focus more attention on perceived value, by definition. This bias is an important one to point out, since it carries such a high cost.

On the other hand, actual values aren't very important to us, as humans. Ultimately, any utility we gain is in the form of what we feel or perceive, not what we actually gain.
An example: the G5 mouse I use has 9 buttons. The actual utility (the time I save by using these buttons) may in fact be marginal compared to the fact that I feel more productive using it.

The Relativity Trap
URL: http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/04/avoid-relativity-trap-how-thinking.php
It is easy to compare a $400 camera vs. a $500 camera. But is the marginal utility of those two cameras worth the marginal cost? Hard to say. One the one hand, that $100 could have bought us 2 more megapixels. But in terms of utility (the quality of your photos), how valuable are those 2MP compared to, say, 10 books on photography (that you bought for $10 each)?

One interesting comment on nominal value is the following. Ideas -- which are perceived to be free, and are usually given without charge -- often have the highest real values.
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Just freestyling / rough sketch, havent written in a while. Meant to be explorational / drifty
__

They call it a phase
A race of dazed emotion
Erased, amazed
Years of hormonal erosion

Sleepless nights and
Heartless fights;
They say: How cliche,
But it is. It's your everyday.

You call them Sedation,
Nation of consecration.
They call you Youth,
Undeveloped, sly, uncouth.

The unease inside of me --
They call that society.
But it's a fright to me cause
Growing up
Is getting used to cold truth,
I call that anal
And I want it all loose. (LOL at this line... so inappropriate but it fits well)
__

Too bad I refuse to have feelings for Suzi (am I in denial?)

THIS IS SO CORNY...
But her name kind of rhymes so here it is anyway

Suzi, what you are to me, you ought to see:
Art to me, An Odyssey;
Odd-i-ly, a sea apart, but still a part
Of the heart, an artery.
And together we just ought to be

19 years old, damn.
Comparing my current self with what I hoped I would be, in many ways I've failed myself. But, it's pretty pointless to dwell on that.

Thankfully I can say that I am happier now than I was a year ago. More on this later.

Pretty decent day. I worked for most of it, and -- I hate NIH. Basic science research gives me an overwhelming feeling of triviality and meaninglessness. Just 23 more days to go...
Had dinner at Sweetwater with parents. Filet Mignon. Was decent, to be fair; less than ideal, but I shouldn't complain. I'm lucky to even eat steak.

I watched American Beauty last night. Brilliant movie... a classic. Yes, it's main message is cliche: "Live life to grasp the beauty of day to day experience". Even trite, this is still relevant and useful advice. In a way, the message it sends is a call to rebellion, nonetheless a hopeless (romantic?) rebellion against a society that, for the most part, chooses to entrap itself in groupthink, materialism, hypocrisy, and insecurity.

I also watched Donnie Darko the night before. Less artfully done, but nonetheless intriguing and captivating. Overall, though, it seems gimmicky compared to the multi-Oscar winner, American Beauty

To "live", according to American Beauty, is to appreciate beauty. The pointless and tragic death of the main character, Lester, is offset - even validated - by the fact that he has appreciated beauty and escaped the mindlessness that, according to American Beauty, is ubiquitous in our society.

A favorite quote from the movie:
Ricky: I got that homeless woman on videotape.
Jane: Why would you film that?
Ricky: Because it was amazing. When you see something like that, it’s like God is looking right at you. Just for a second. And if you’re careful you can look right back.
Jane: And what do you see?
Ricky: Beauty.

I've had images, memories, moments like these in my life, and I hold them in high regard.
Driving alone in a pastel purple and red sunset, Fallen Blossoms -- Epik High blasting, a perfect 67F with wind tickling my extended arm...
Contemplating in pure darkness in my room, except for a few street lanterns lit outside...
Rapping, headbopping, drumming (against the steering wheel), beatboxing while stuck in traffic, everyone around me (probably) staring...
Sitting outside with Suzi, sipping ice cold corona, in silence, looking up at a night sky speckled with a dash of starlight... without a clue what was to happen... HAHA oh boy.
I can say without hesitation that these moments collectively have made my life richer and happier. It is so simple and straightforward of a feeling that such an explanation is almost unnecessary, and borders on pretentiousness.

I envy even a dying person who can look back and reminisce at a life full of such instants. In that way, I am envious of artists.

An update on my goals for this summer

-- Internet Startups
One of the things I intended to do with this summer was develop ideas for and explore internet startups / entrepreneurship.
From a purely technical viewpoint, this goal isnt too big of a challenge. PHP is similar enough to Java, just some syntactical things to remember but otherwise not really a problem. MySQL I havent started learning. The HTML I had under my belt previously so it's easy to refresh. CSS isn't bad cause I just copy open source CSS templates. I already have a basic website going and was planning to play around with it, until I made the following realization.
There's really no point in me learning all the programming side, unless I intend to somehow use it in the future. That wasn't my intention. I wanted some entrepreneural experience, but this alone isn't necessarily useful.
But there's a pretty big barrier to that -- i.e. a huge time commitment and the fact that I need partners. Furthermore, entrepreneurship really isn't that lucrative, nor is it easy. Researching a bit into the field, it seems VC (venture capital firms) 's earn a LOT (~50%) of the profit that startups get. Furthermore, only 6 out of one MILLION startups make it even to IPO. Another statistic: 90% of internet startups fail within 120 days. On top of THAT, most founders / co-founders get only ~$6M... To get seriously into internet entrepreneurship is a huge risk and requires a lot of passion. I kind of doubt I have that.

-- Social Skills Improvement
Ive been listening to audiotape of Carnegies Winning Friends & Influencing People. If you ignore the stigma of "wtf reading a book about winning friends?", It's a really good book. This is my 2nd time through it, but it's still very valuable to refresh. Of course, to transfer those principles to daily interactions is the harder part, but that's something I intend to work on.
I still have periods of incredible shyness. I am trying to simply accept that.
One of the things I've improved on, though, is not carrying myself with as much arrogance.

-- Career Research
Overall, I'm still exploring for careers. I understand more on what I want to do with my pre-med track, although I'm still struggling whether or not I ultimately want to do medicine.

One piece of advice that I've acquired which has been pretty useful is as follows: Don't do medicine for the people, Don't do medicine for the money, but do medicine because you love the feeling of being pro at saving lives. No, not saving lives in and of itself, although that is a huge plus. But just being good at surgery or whatever specialty, and having a whole division or whatever count on you to be good at what you do. This, to me, makes a lot of sense. Yes, I do want good pay and I do want to help people -- but ultimately there are much better careers (which I may or may not explore) for either helping people (firefighting, pastor) or making money (iBanking). More on the money thing: w/ Obama's healthcare shit and the fact that doctor salaries aren't even catching up with inflation, by the time I get out of residency, medicine will be upper-middle payscale and not even upper payscale. Anyway, unless I work in an ER or do EMS (which I'm considering), I won't have experience doing what doctors do til medschool. Hm, I should look into ER shadowing / EMS.

There was a period this summer where I was really interested in Radiology. Which I still am, actually. It fits really well with BME (imaging technologies like CAT scans), it fits my personality (i.e. not too much patient interaction -- which, by the way, sucks from what I hear. even the nice nice doctors end up hating a lot of patients; imagine years of whining!), the pay is nice ($300K), residency isnt forever (5 years, which is still long but w/e). The work style isn't too good (50 hour workweeks and stressful). Other specialties of interest include Dermatology (easy money, part time workability), Anesthesiology (decent workweek, good pay). Interventional pain med is from what I hear lucrative but I don't know much about it. In any case I don't want to decide specialty at this point, as Im sure I'll change my mind. Plus even more important is that I want to find a speciality I'm proficient and passionate at. This will take time. Of course, all of these specialties are hard to get into (think top 10% of med school class. Compound that with the difficulty of getting into med school in the first place, and even my 4.0 GPA might not seem like much.)

I know for SURE I don't want to do basic science research. That shit is grueling labor, you get no credit (the PI does), your work might end up insignificant, and you have to be way too detailed oriented. Thank god I did NIH and crossed that off my list of possible careers. Speaking of NIH, deep down I absolutely hate it (too menial, too bureaucratic, too insignificant). But I suck it up, so at least it's manageable.

-- Weight Gain
I haven't applied the Stronglifts 5x5. I plan to when I get back to Duke and can manage my diet better and not have to drive 40 minutes to have access to legit gym equipment. I'm probably procrastinating. I've been working out in my own gym for the past 1.5 months, eating a target of 2500-3000 cals a day (but I've been lax on that recently), but I still plateau at 130 lbs.

-- Distributed Cognition (DC)
DC assumes that you will always forget what you don't write down. Therefore, write down everything. Fortunately this is possible with my texting phone, and I have been keeping track of probably over 50 ideas, and nameless to-do tidbits and other thoughts within the past 2 months on the phone. I got this idea roughly 4-5 months ago and have applied it ~3 months of the 5. Read Getting Things Done (GTD) to see how DC is applied to to-do management.

-- Music
Discovered so far: Samurai Champloo soundtrack (trip-hop), Nujabes (trip-hop), The Quiett (hip-hop).
Samurai Champloo Soundtrack: a good balance between trip-hop and hip-hop. The beats standard trip-hop uses are not hard-hitting enough for my tastes... luckily Samurai Champloo uses really hard/heavy beats. It's mostly intended for chill-out / ambience. I guess you could use it as a beat (i.e. for rapping) but most of it is too much downtempo.
Nujabes: is on a lot of the Samurai Champloo soundtrack. He's got the right style -- classical (piano, strings) or ambient sound with heavy beats, but he's not musically talented. No song structure, and very little variation. It also feels artificial, you can hear the signs of electronic production. If you use his music mainly as beats though I guess it's okay, since beats aren't meant to have much musical structure anyway.
The Quiett: flow is amazing, haha. he also produces, and occassionally produces a VERY nice beat. But in general I dont like him.

-- Jeanette
To be straightforward: our relationship is imba, and we acknowledge that. we're def breaking up before summer ends. but until then we're just chilling, and making the most out of a relationship that ultimately won't work. i could say it's an undesirable situation, but that's life, and i think i'm handling it well.

Here's a quick update

NIH
-- demanding, time consuming, sometimes boring
-- the hours & commute suck
-- the people are quite friendly
-- interesting stuff
-- requires more initiative than i'm used to

EH concert / Boston trip
-- see fb

What I want to do this summer
-- work on people skills (this sounds so lame) (details not worked out yet)
-- get a better grasp of what i want to do in the future
-- plan for starting a club next year
-- -- main short-term focus already decided but not fleshed out
-- -- learn PHP
-- strengthen self control
-- lessen perfectionist tendencies

Ugh

About bullet 2) of the previous, here is elaboration, so my radicalism doesn't seem to come out of nowhere:
_________________________________
Why make the switch to internet education in the first place?

1) The internet allows for an education system based on meritocracy instead of plutocracy, nepotism, etc.
-- This will lead to Bullet point 3 and 4.
-- Education applied on a mass scale will encourage more competition among teachers, education boards, since the market size effectively increases.

2) The internet decreases the potency of propaganda.
-- Internet decreases the arbitrage of information; that is, the internet makes it hard to withhold important information
-- Likewise, politicalization of education is more difficult with the internet.

3) The internet will make education greatly more efficient.
-- Mass education would trivialize failing public school systems
-- Increase (yes, increase) individual attention to students, since there is no longer the need to apply the same learning technique to all students. In other words, it will be possible to customize teaching for each student.
-- Decrease transportation costs, decrease maintenance cost of schools, reduce the number of redundant teachers
-- Increase the effective funding for education, since it doesn't have to be spread across school districts, states, etc.
-- The smart and stupid can be separated so they don't have to compare with each other. This will lead to less discouragement (stupid kids) and more humility (smart kids), which both encourage students to try harder.
-- There are a lot more, lol...

4) Cirricula will be less arbitrarily decided.
-- Cirricula will be drawn from a wider variety of fields
-- Significantly more discussion can go into forming cirricula; cirricula will be significantly more evolved.
-- Cirricula will not be a functtion of funding

5) Bullet 4 will eventually lead us to focus more on learning life skills.
-- The increased discussion about cirricula will eventually lead to people agreeing to what extent morality can be taught in school
-- A complete set of morals obviously cannot be taught; however, some specific aspects of morality can make their way into the cirricula. For example, take the ability of self-control and avoiding temptation. It goes without saying that people will never agree on what counts as sin; however, the basic psychological principles (e.g. distraction, not exposing yourself to temptation in the first place, etc.) aren't controversial at all and are valuable to teach on a mass scale.
-- Examples of "life skills": Emotional management, Avoiding and Treating Addictions, Short vs. Long term benefits, etc.

6) Bullet 4 will also lead to: The structure of education will change; it will focus more on development of relevant personal infrastructure rather than specific, forgettable pieces of knowledge.
-- Currently, the education system is in part a mechanism to weed out stupid people
-- The structure of education right now is somewhat arbitrary. Many of the courses we have to go through are irrelvant to our future careers.
-- One reason why a lot of people suck at school is because they haven't developed the very core basic principles. Almost any academic problem can be broken up into a mastery of problem solving (math/physics/chem), memorization (chem/bio/history), analytical skill (humanities, social sciences, chem), and reading/writing (humanities, social sicence). Develop these at an early age and I doubt we'll see kids failing to read in 6th grade... who I have had to teach, and it's horrendous.
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Why would the above bullets have anything to do with revolution?

I was never suggesting a physical coup-like revolution in the first place. The revolution i was referring to was simply the fact that many things will radically change. Nonetheless, any radical change will face fervent opposition, which eventually may lead to violence.

One key to this revolution is the introduction of substantive history & understanding of government (TJ did this very well) into the cirricula, instead of memorization of useless facts. Understanding history & government are one of the most vital ways to ward off bad government.

And no, the switch to internet will not suddenly erase all innate destructive human nature. It is only the first step towards changing society as a whole.
_________________________________
What would the implemented system look like?

This I have not fully thought into detail. Furthermore, we still lack some of the necessary technology and infrastructure to implement internet education effectively

-- Things we need:
=== cheap and effective ink-to-digital writing, although windows 7 is working on this
=== cheap computers and internet access (though this is not really a problem nowadays)
=== high enough bandwith to support streaming high def video and sound (though this is also not much of a problem)
=== a mainstream teacher-to-student interaction platform

1) Freewill vs Determinism (inspired by Wikipedia & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VxQuPBX1_U&feature=related)

My position is fundamentally compatibilist. That is, free will and determinism can coexist.

One can assume with great certainty that fundamental laws govern the universe. Imagine an entity that understands all of these fundamental laws, even the undiscovered ones. Furthermore, it is aware of every piece of information (all initial conditions, as it were) in the universe. Since this entity understands the entirety of the universe, it should be able to make fair predictions about how certain things will behave. Although obviously this entity is fictional, it still serves as an asymptote / epitome that we can, eventually, approximate. This entity is traditionally called "Laplace's Demon", and lies at the core of determinism.

However, recent discoveries in physics, namely quantum mechanics, show that the universe is probabilistic. The universe operates more like a cloud than it does a clock. That is, it is impossible to know of something with complete certainty (think Heisenberg uncertainty principle). These discoveries have essentially disproven the existence of a possible Laplace's Demon. In fact, there is actually a proof of why Laplace's Demon can't exist, involving some kind of set theory.

However, on a day-to-day basis we do not regularly perceive quantum behavior. Yes, there are devices that utilize quantum behavior, but nonetheless the laws of physics, physics, biology, etc. are easily observed. For practicality's sake, and on the human scale, we can assume the universe to be clockwork and Laplace's Demon to exist. Yes, I do realize this is a logical leap.

How then, does free will come into the picture? If determinism exists, doesn't it necessarily negate free will? If some hypothetical being can predict our every move, then how can we make a free choice? If one defines free will to be the ability to make totally free, independent choices, then yes, determinism contradicts traditional free will. However, what I think of as free will is not this traditional definition.

There have been neuropsychological studies about how the brain makes a decision. To put it shortly, the study found that decisions are made first at a subconscious level and then perceived. We make the decision first, and then realize we made the decision. Another study showed that free will can be percevied even in when the actual choice made was forced. Free will is the conscious realization - the awareness - of a decision. I define free will as the perception that we have traditional free will (total freedom). Necessarily, this awareness must exist, because we on a regular basis can experience it. Yes, our choices aren't totally "free"; nonetheless, one is still responsible for them, can be blamed or praised for them, because we are under the illusion that our choices are free.

2) Society and Education (inspired by Waking Life)

Clips:




If we don't destroy ourselves before this happens, I believe we are bound for a societal revolution. With the development of the internet comes the potential for mass education. W education comes the potential for people to gain substantive knowledge, and to escape our animalistic dehumanizing instincts. We will for once have a chance to overcome the evolutionary and mental disparity between the upper class and the masses (mentioned in clip 1). The details here are obviously complicated and not worked out... but a dream is a dream. Armed with knowledge and legitimate mental and emotional capability, we begin to fight the naturally counterproductive behavior of humanity (Clip 3); only then can we evolve from the classist, domination-obsessive side of human nature (Clip 2).

You make think these views are naive... I think you are jaded.