Have a lot to write about, but haven't had much time

I haven't been able to do due diligence towards my blog in recent months, and I apologize (to myself and to anyone who reads this) for that. There's a lot I've wanted to write about, but haven't found time to do so.

I've been deeply mired in a lot of emotionally draining circumstances in the past few months, and I'd be lying if I said that things are going splendidly. My mom found (another?) tumor in her neck, though it's still benign. Meanwhile, in my dorm, the escalation of some tension has culminated in some hate crime against me again, and far more clear in intent than just some chewed up gum on my door handle.

One of the works of art on my door

I love me some good whiteboard vandalism.

Fortunately, a lot of the people I am close to have lent me a lot of emotional strength, whether they know it or not, either by directly being there for me or by being an inspiration because their experiences I use as a blueprint for resiliency and growth. This past weekend at SBS spring retreat alone, I've witnessed the human spirit wrestling with weight much heavier than that which I bear, and that allows me to continue forward. It allows me to fight hate not also with hate but with love:

Take that.

In reflecting on this recent stuff, I am reminded of something I learned in CS 124 last quarter during the unit on sentiment analysis. When it comes to affected experiences, they can actually be classified in one of five ways called Scherer's Typology of Affective States:

• Emotion: relatively brief episode of synchronized response to the evaluation of an external or internal event as being of major significance (e.g. angry, sad, joyful, fearful, ashamed, proud, elated, desperate)
• Mood: diffuse affect state, most pronounced as change in subjective feeling, of low intensity but relatively long duration, often without apparent cause (e.g. cheerful, gloomy, irritable, listless, depressed, buoyant)
• Interpersonal stances: affective stance taken towards another person in a specific interaction, coloring the interpersonal exchange in that situation (e.g. distant, cold, warm, supportive, contemptuous)
• Attitudes: relatively enduring, affectively colored beliefs, preferences, and predispositions towards objects or persons (e.g. liking, loving, hating, valuing, desiring)
• Personality traits: emotionally laden, stable personality dispositions and behavior tendencies (e.g. nervous, anxious, reckless, morose, hostile, envious, jealous)

I think the recent months have consisted of a lot of negative emotion, but my mood has stayed afloat through a few experiences that have assured me that the negative things are merely episodic, and that even in the midst of such episodes there are people who are there to catch me. That can't be said for everyone, and I'm lucky because it's a very, very good place to be.

Additionally, I have been doing a lot of thinking catalyzed by my psychiatry class. It's on Modern Relationships from a Couples and Family Therapy Perspective, and it's incredibly eye opening. Between that class, conversations I've had with N- and E-, and SBS spring retreat, I've had a lot to think about. Expect stuff on (aka note to self:) negativity threshold and the relationship tension escape velocity, equilibriation and re-equilibriation, relationship resonance, first-order and second-order change, n-dimensional behavioral cones, regret vs. guilt, dynamic vs. static conversations, and what drives my decision-making on personal matters to come.

Thanksgiving

I haven't had a chance to do much introspection recently between classes, SBS, RAing, and Gaieties, so a more comprehensive post will probably come after finals are over.

With that said, I have thanks to give!

I am thankful for my friends. For this past quarter, I've felt like I'm in my own world. I don't have the people who I feel closest to and who know me the best around me on a day-to-day basis the way I've had in the past, so I've been more alone than I would like. But despite this aloneness, I don't feel too lonely. There are people to catch me if I fall. I hope they also know that I am here to catch them as well, even if I'm not physically around them.

I am thankful for my family. I'm not in the business of convincing myself that my family is perfect, but in spite of all of the strife and all of the rifts between my family, I have people in my life who value (in some way, anyway) my being part of their family. If nothing else, it means there are always people from whom I can learn and grow from, even if I don't feel like I'll ever become emotionally close with them. And of course, my mom has been among my biggest supporters since forever ago, even from hundreds of miles away.

I am thankful for my health. Many of the goals I have would be unattainable or much more difficult if I weren't as physically healthy. Sure, I'm not the pinnacle of good health. Between eye infections and fevers and just the common colds, there are days, maybe a few weeks at worse, that just downright suck. But I'm lucky that the word I had to use there was "days" and not something longer.

I am thankful for the countless of unsung individuals in my life who I take for granted. There are a lot of nameless faces who somehow improve my life, from custodial and kitchen staff in the dorms and dining halls, to the emergency medical personnel I've been able to rely on during on-call crises, to the classmates in section who reached to help me pick up a pen I dropped without hesitation. It turns out there are a lot of people who want the best for you, just in very little, less visible ways. I need to remember that when I'm going through personal struggles.

I am thankful for coming out of difficult times still with the capacity for love and trust and optimism. I don't think I'm wearing rose-colored glasses the same way I was in the past in that I don't try to coerce my perception of any given moment into something splendid. However, I am comfortable facing the reality that things might not be going well and still believe that they can and will get better, particularly if I do something about it. That's something I hope I don't ever lose, because I've seen what not having that looks like. There are people I know personally who, in the aftermath of particularly frustrating or upsetting experiences, adopt a mindset characterized by insatiable cynicism and general jadedness. It's downright paralyzing, and not how I want to live.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

On Consensus Trance, Essence, and Mislove

This post is just going to be really raw thoughts, haven't had the time to really think about it between staffing, classes, and SBS audition season. There's been a lot on my mind, but I'm kind of delirious, so I'll defer some of it to a later post. Who knows, I might wake up and realize nothing here makes sense.

This quarter, I'm taking a class called Valuescience, and it's been incredible. In particular, one of the readings explored something the author called "consensus trance" and its interplay with "essence." Basically, consensus trance is the form of brainwashing that is more commonly known as enculturation. From a young age, we are conditioned into a particular set of norms by our parents and the rest of the society that surrounds us alike, and most people grow up taking cultural habits for granted when, in reality, there is a huge element of relativity behind most cultural norms. Essence, on the other hand, is the set of values, beliefs, and temperaments inherent to our individual genetic code. To illustrate these distinctions as it pertains to my life, I've drawn up this Venn diagram.

Circle ADEG: Chinese/Taiwanese culture, as exposed to/relevant to me
Circle BDFG: American culture, as exposed to/relevant to me.
Circle CEFG: My essence
Universal region (A-H): All possible values and beliefs in the world

So, some oversimplified examples of things that fall into each region
A: Buddhism, use of physical force for discipline, lack of value in arts or humanities
B: Party culture, masculinity stemming from physical aptitude, "American dream" and individualism
C: Hopeless romanticism, harmony and altruism over economic self-interest
D: Recognition of engineering, medicine, law, etc. as valuable career areas
E: Speaking Chinese, emphasis on academic achievement
F: Recognition of humanities and arts as valuable career areas
G: Compassion, respect towards parents, care for family
H: Cannibalism, belief in Allah

In an ideal world of perfect cultural sensitivity and understanding, all cultures would completely overlap such that regions A, B, E, F are empty for any two cultures (complete circles). There might still be universally agreed upon wrongs (i.e. region H, e.g. unprovoked murder), but anything that one culture deems valuable every other culture would accept (i.e. region D and G is all-encompassing besides H) Within this ideal world, your essence would be a subset of that all-encompassing region (i.e. region C is empty).

Obviously, the world is not ideal. The challenge, therefore, is to find a culture or subculture that has the greatest overlap with your essence, and then move to and live in that culture. Doing so is contingent upon having an understanding of what your essence is, and that is remarkably difficult because of the consensus trance. It is hard to distinguish between what is of your essence, and what has merely been instilled in you and taught to you as valuable.

I think that is the answer to what it means to be emotionally mature, a question I struggled with in my previous post. Being emotionally mature entails consciously knowing what your essence is, and escaping the consensus trance that society sets you up to fall into (and to no fault of society and without malicious intent, because consensus trance is something that propagates through generations). Similarly, building effective relationships with other people is contingent upon understanding their essence, and being able to divorce the influences of their essence and their enculturation when thinking about their behavior and empathizing. And while I don't think it is ever possible to fully get clarity on any one person's essence, including your own, I do believe some people are closer than others.

Unfortunately, in many ways--as a friend or RA, as a once lover, as a son--I am realizing I am perpetually fighting the consensus trance. Mislove occurs when one individual tries to enculturate (used loosely, could be something as innocuous and unintentional as a microexpression frown of disapproval or a slight change in tone of voice) someone else without fully understanding their essence because of prejudices established by the consensus trance. Usually, this happens without bad intention; the individual was only acting on what he or she had in turn been enculturated as "right" or "good." I am guilty of having misloved E-, N-, A-, both of my parents, and I'm sure many others that don't come to mind immediately. Similarly, I've been on the receiving end of mislove as well. It's inevitable.

Some people will never develop a deep enough understanding of their own essence and, more importantly, others' essence to build the relationship that "could have been." The tragedy of this entire thing is that there are potential relationships (between almost lovers, between family members, between nations) that would be downright magical if both sides understood each other's essences, but it never gets to that point, and so that potential relationship never reaches fruition. You can only ever work on escaping the consensus trance and improving your own understanding of your essence and their essence, put that understanding in the open and hope, pray that the other side reaches the same understanding. Sometimes they don't, and what could have been never becomes what is.