Recording
________________________________________________
I'm no quack, I'm a crackerjack, better in the sack than Khalil Mack, I pack a knack for snapping back when I attack the track, I rack up accolades cuz I a-m change call me a quarterback, I'll hack a Mac with a fax machine and ask, how you like them Apples, Wozniak? I don't lack for tact, I manufacture truth like alternative facts, then cackle and watch em squirm, call me a pachyderm cuz I got thick skin, smooth operator like Hamiltonians, 3-star rating from Michelin, dirty flow like Flint Michigan, rally so fast call me Wimbledon, trophy case full cuz I only win, evangelize like I was born-again, first birth in the city of Bethlehem.
Got all the tricks, I’m unfair at bridge
More fans than David Miscavige
Greatness is in my heritage
I’m so cool you’ll need to spare a fridge
Ang-kor a ship like the Khmer exist
Even my superiors address me as mis-ter,
Transport you to Oz like a twis-ter,
Dorothy fell in love when I kissed her
I rap so fast I got blis-ters,
Controlled flow like transis-tors
Call it Kurds and Wei cuz I gassed Saddam Hussein’s Haram insane ass to a backwards age when a fascist reigned over the USA, a pander-in’ thief made commander-in-chief of a racist fief, a rancid nation, emancipation from this disenchanted Reich begins when I chant into the mic, I’ll take flight like a feisty shrike, ignite the minds of every tyke ‘till I’m two-tired like a bike. Psyche! I go all night, fight from dusk to light cuz I got no bounds like a bottle of Klein but still churn out jewels like a diamond mine.
So much green I’m like a patch of cabbage
Losin’ me more tragic than a miscarriage
Got so many rings I’m like a failed marriage
Just bein’ real, not tryna disparage
I’m a Flash Player, got a million versions
Nicknamed immortal, an army of Persians
Wrap your head 'round me like your brain’s a turban
Cuz I’m nothin’ to fuck with like a horde of virgins
I got more brands than laundry detergents
Enemies endangered like a school of sturgeons
Treat ‘em how my country treats enemy insurgents
Like the legacy of Japanese internments
I’m so bomb caused nuclear deterrence
Climate change is due to my emergence
My raps save lives like a team of surgeons
The Second Coming’s what they call my resurgence
It all points to me like a negative divergence
And I’m independent from my exes, like uniform convergence
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
On Justice
One of the most toxic ideas in American culture is the tacit association of justice with punishment. Of all the morally backwards, medieval institutions in our society, our continued physical, mental, and sexual torture of prisoners is one of the most heinous. Prisoners are some of the most marginalized, disenfranchised people in the US. According to a 2016 study, "research has consistently shown that prisoners have high rates of psychiatric disorders". To me, this statistic already suggests punishment is not the right course of action. People with poor mental health should not be subject to harm; they are the ones who need the most help.
Let's say we start giving criminals with mental health problems psychiatric help instead of incarcerating them. What about everyone else? Other good predictors of crime are maternal smoking during pregnancy/other prenatal traumas, childhood abuse, social isolation, and low socioeconomic status. None of these things are in a person's control, so they are also bad reasons for punishment. But they are all good reasons to rehabilitate and support people who commit crimes.
Let's say we stop punishing everyone who commits crimes due to the above factors, so all we have left are mentally healthy people who are criminals for bad reasons, like maybe they're really greedy or narcissistic or whatever. Even then, punishment would have little place in our justice system. Punishment is not good at deterring crime. Prisoners have over a 75% recidivism rate over a 5-year period. When you consider the incentive structures involved, it's really not hard to see why: The for-profit prison industrial complex has every motivation to keep growing its incarcerated populations, and no incentive to rehabilitate them. Yet it would be far better for society if all those greedy, narcissistic people were rehabilitated rather than incarcerated -- and if that's not possible, they should at least have to repair the harms they've caused.
Punishment as justice is philosophically broken. It's really weird that our typical punishment for a serious crime, a prison sentence, is not at all related to the crime itself, and totally strips the victim of all agency. Imagine if criminals saw the suffering they inflicted on their victims and had to actually address those harms instead of sitting in a room for some arbitrary timespan. Imagine if victims saw the reasons why criminals did what they did, rather than not being able to interact with them at all. How much more human potential could we tap? How much more compassionate and kind could we become? How much more togetherness and understanding could we foster?
Let's say someone harms you in some way. In one scenario, they go through a court process you have no control over and waste a few years of their life in prison. Let's say this experience teaches them a lesson and they never commit a crime again (even though this rarely happens). In the other scenario, they are forced to honestly confront the consequences of their actions. You show them how their behavior has impacted you, they take responsibility for it, and then they take meaningful steps to repair those harms. Not only is the second scenario better for the person who harmed you, it's better for you, because you actually had a voice in the process and the person responsible tried to make amends. This is restorative justice. It's far more fulfilling to see someone grow than to see them punished. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." How sweet that is.
Of course, saying all this is easy, but I'm not sure if I could do it in practice. I see an inspirational story of a woman who took the restorative justice route with her husband's murderer and wonder if I could be that strong. It's normal to wonder. After someone hurts you, it's natural to want them to suffer, to seek retribution, to take pleasure in their sorrow -- but this is not true strength. True strength is wanting the best for them. True enlightenment is wanting the person who hurt you to thrive, because people who are thriving are far less likely to commit crimes. There is a grain of truth in the idea of karma, because people who suffer are more likely to inflict suffering on others, while people who are happy are more likely to bring happiness to others. To paraphrase MLK, suffering anywhere is a threat to happiness everywhere.
Buddhism/Hinduism is just one example of our understanding of this truth. Christianity is another. I was talking with some Christian friends about the notion of justice in their religion. One of the great paradoxes in Christian doctrine is the simultaneity of God being perfectly merciful and perfectly just. I thought this was a major flaw in Christianity for a long time, but upon greater reflection, this is no paradox at all; in fact, there is great wisdom in this teaching. The true nature of justice is mercy, not revenge, or punishment, or deterrence. My best crime-prevention strategies are to improve education, social mobility, and sense of community. My ideal notion of justice is restorative, healing, concerned with the victim and the perpetrator in equal measure. This is the world I want to live in.
Let's say we start giving criminals with mental health problems psychiatric help instead of incarcerating them. What about everyone else? Other good predictors of crime are maternal smoking during pregnancy/other prenatal traumas, childhood abuse, social isolation, and low socioeconomic status. None of these things are in a person's control, so they are also bad reasons for punishment. But they are all good reasons to rehabilitate and support people who commit crimes.
Let's say we stop punishing everyone who commits crimes due to the above factors, so all we have left are mentally healthy people who are criminals for bad reasons, like maybe they're really greedy or narcissistic or whatever. Even then, punishment would have little place in our justice system. Punishment is not good at deterring crime. Prisoners have over a 75% recidivism rate over a 5-year period. When you consider the incentive structures involved, it's really not hard to see why: The for-profit prison industrial complex has every motivation to keep growing its incarcerated populations, and no incentive to rehabilitate them. Yet it would be far better for society if all those greedy, narcissistic people were rehabilitated rather than incarcerated -- and if that's not possible, they should at least have to repair the harms they've caused.
Punishment as justice is philosophically broken. It's really weird that our typical punishment for a serious crime, a prison sentence, is not at all related to the crime itself, and totally strips the victim of all agency. Imagine if criminals saw the suffering they inflicted on their victims and had to actually address those harms instead of sitting in a room for some arbitrary timespan. Imagine if victims saw the reasons why criminals did what they did, rather than not being able to interact with them at all. How much more human potential could we tap? How much more compassionate and kind could we become? How much more togetherness and understanding could we foster?
Let's say someone harms you in some way. In one scenario, they go through a court process you have no control over and waste a few years of their life in prison. Let's say this experience teaches them a lesson and they never commit a crime again (even though this rarely happens). In the other scenario, they are forced to honestly confront the consequences of their actions. You show them how their behavior has impacted you, they take responsibility for it, and then they take meaningful steps to repair those harms. Not only is the second scenario better for the person who harmed you, it's better for you, because you actually had a voice in the process and the person responsible tried to make amends. This is restorative justice. It's far more fulfilling to see someone grow than to see them punished. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." How sweet that is.
Of course, saying all this is easy, but I'm not sure if I could do it in practice. I see an inspirational story of a woman who took the restorative justice route with her husband's murderer and wonder if I could be that strong. It's normal to wonder. After someone hurts you, it's natural to want them to suffer, to seek retribution, to take pleasure in their sorrow -- but this is not true strength. True strength is wanting the best for them. True enlightenment is wanting the person who hurt you to thrive, because people who are thriving are far less likely to commit crimes. There is a grain of truth in the idea of karma, because people who suffer are more likely to inflict suffering on others, while people who are happy are more likely to bring happiness to others. To paraphrase MLK, suffering anywhere is a threat to happiness everywhere.
Buddhism/Hinduism is just one example of our understanding of this truth. Christianity is another. I was talking with some Christian friends about the notion of justice in their religion. One of the great paradoxes in Christian doctrine is the simultaneity of God being perfectly merciful and perfectly just. I thought this was a major flaw in Christianity for a long time, but upon greater reflection, this is no paradox at all; in fact, there is great wisdom in this teaching. The true nature of justice is mercy, not revenge, or punishment, or deterrence. My best crime-prevention strategies are to improve education, social mobility, and sense of community. My ideal notion of justice is restorative, healing, concerned with the victim and the perpetrator in equal measure. This is the world I want to live in.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Blue Sky, Part Two
A long time ago, I wrote about the blueness of the sky. It was about the tragedy of moments where wonder goes unnoticed, and the importance of treasuring those moments. It was also about how blue the sky is. (It was actually mostly about that. It was a sweet post.) But adulthood is a series of bittersweetnesses, and time has come for bitterness.
The sky in Shanghai is always gray. In the absence of government regulation, big industry's unbounded growth has enshrouded the city under a permanent blanket of pollution. As I sat under that smog-choked canopy, thinking about how I missed the blueness of the sky, another, more grievous tragedy hit me: There might be people who are born in Shanghai and spend their whole lives there, and never even know the sky is blue. It hit me pretty hard.
In my previous post, I bemoaned how sad it was that there were people in this world with full access to the blueness of the sky who never appreciated it. I said it seemed "like a big deal to me, for some reason," that there would be people who never got to love something the same way I love it. In a sense, this was an arrogant, shallow indictment of something irrelevant to begin with. Who cares if someone doesn't enjoy something as I do? Who am I to complain about that? There are countless things people enjoy I don't fully appreciate, like horticulture, or sewing, or NASCAR, or marine biology. But the hypothetical Shanghai-dweller is different, because they never even got a chance to love this thing I love. Unbeknownst to them, they were denied the opportunity.
The horror of that epiphany hung with me until it was overshadowed by an even harsher, more painful one. It came from the testimony of a thirteen year old Pakistani boy who said before Congress, "I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray." To my ears, his words rang with the bitter jadedness of children who are forced to grow up too quickly. This is a person -- a child, no less -- who once loved something beautiful, but whose love was taken away from them by something ugly. I've written before about how the transcendent power of love can subsume strong hatreds. But this can also happen in the opposite direction. The reverse side also has a reverse side.
I'm not sure why I wrote this. It definitely wasn't to tell you to not take things for granted and treasure what you have -- that message is so cliche I nearly fell asleep typing it. It wasn't intended to be a thinly-veiled political message about environmentalism and anti-war sentiment either, because I don't like writing political opinions. So maybe I wrote it because I secretly crave that melancholy feeling that comes after expressing something sad. Maybe I wrote it because I wanted to show myself how adult I am, and I equate adulthood with cynicism and bitterness. Maybe I wrote it because I actually have become more cynical and bitter over time, and this is just who I am now. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter. The sky is still as blue as it ever was, and I still love it. But some people never will.
The sky in Shanghai is always gray. In the absence of government regulation, big industry's unbounded growth has enshrouded the city under a permanent blanket of pollution. As I sat under that smog-choked canopy, thinking about how I missed the blueness of the sky, another, more grievous tragedy hit me: There might be people who are born in Shanghai and spend their whole lives there, and never even know the sky is blue. It hit me pretty hard.
In my previous post, I bemoaned how sad it was that there were people in this world with full access to the blueness of the sky who never appreciated it. I said it seemed "like a big deal to me, for some reason," that there would be people who never got to love something the same way I love it. In a sense, this was an arrogant, shallow indictment of something irrelevant to begin with. Who cares if someone doesn't enjoy something as I do? Who am I to complain about that? There are countless things people enjoy I don't fully appreciate, like horticulture, or sewing, or NASCAR, or marine biology. But the hypothetical Shanghai-dweller is different, because they never even got a chance to love this thing I love. Unbeknownst to them, they were denied the opportunity.
The horror of that epiphany hung with me until it was overshadowed by an even harsher, more painful one. It came from the testimony of a thirteen year old Pakistani boy who said before Congress, "I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray." To my ears, his words rang with the bitter jadedness of children who are forced to grow up too quickly. This is a person -- a child, no less -- who once loved something beautiful, but whose love was taken away from them by something ugly. I've written before about how the transcendent power of love can subsume strong hatreds. But this can also happen in the opposite direction. The reverse side also has a reverse side.
I'm not sure why I wrote this. It definitely wasn't to tell you to not take things for granted and treasure what you have -- that message is so cliche I nearly fell asleep typing it. It wasn't intended to be a thinly-veiled political message about environmentalism and anti-war sentiment either, because I don't like writing political opinions. So maybe I wrote it because I secretly crave that melancholy feeling that comes after expressing something sad. Maybe I wrote it because I wanted to show myself how adult I am, and I equate adulthood with cynicism and bitterness. Maybe I wrote it because I actually have become more cynical and bitter over time, and this is just who I am now. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter. The sky is still as blue as it ever was, and I still love it. But some people never will.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Lyrics: Questionable Comparisons
Recording
I’m rococo and so swole
Caught a whale in a chokehold
From his tail to his blowhole
Gave him some ox-ycodone
Cuz I'm the merciful Wei,
From Taipei to Marseille
I'm parfait, el padre,
So obey my dictates
Or doomsday may soon stay
Bid your Mum-bai like Bombay
This entree like Swan Lake
A ballet, my work'll take flight
Like blue jays
Who says I'm cliche?
Check the replay, I'm gourmet
A bouquet, a mainstay
A buffet, so feast your eyes
As I commit vehicular ho-
micide with a Chevrolet on my birthday
And watch God stay
On my side cuz his name's Yah-Wei
For you life is a series of tradeoffs
I sat back, relaxed, and still got paid off
I made off with the cash like I was Madoff
While everyone was busy getting laid off
No one could em-ulate my stash like I was Adolf
Thought the stars were pure? You’re way off
Call it the Milky Wei cuz I make it when I jerk off
I’m so clutch might as well be a manual
Critique pure reason like Immanuel
So instructive you could call me a manual
Or just call me a man you-will soon see
Success is what defines my philosophy
Dissing myself would be hypocrisy
So divine my existence is apostasy
Could only get on my- level through larceny
And I'm nothin’ but net, like Magic Johnson’s team
Fast with the ball like it’s Rocket League
My EP considered arson of the first degree
I jive the hive mind by drive-by call me a queen
Un-real standards like co-vers of magazines
So self-made got paid by- IKEA’s team
One level up so call me the mezzanine
So much money ‘slike I was embezzling
Flow so sick they call in a quarantine
But Still so smooth like two jars of Vaseline
Light up the stage like it was doused in some kerosine
I got energy, like I'm triphosphate adenosine
Plenty to spare cuz I’m made outta creatine
Re-make a state like Pan-cho Villa’s been
Chop off heads like I was a guillotine
Time to wrap this rap up like a stupid pharaoh
Verses pierce your heart like Cupid’s arrow
I'm fierce but I play the part, I’m on the straight and narrow
But I slay the art, break the bones and suck the marrow
Sharp dressed man describes my apparel,
Jabberwock the talk like I was Lewis Carroll
Challenging me’s an act o’ mortal peril
I’m rococo and so swole
Caught a whale in a chokehold
From his tail to his blowhole
Gave him some ox-ycodone
Cuz I'm the merciful Wei,
From Taipei to Marseille
I'm parfait, el padre,
So obey my dictates
Or doomsday may soon stay
Bid your Mum-bai like Bombay
This entree like Swan Lake
A ballet, my work'll take flight
Like blue jays
Who says I'm cliche?
Check the replay, I'm gourmet
A bouquet, a mainstay
A buffet, so feast your eyes
As I commit vehicular ho-
micide with a Chevrolet on my birthday
And watch God stay
On my side cuz his name's Yah-Wei
For you life is a series of tradeoffs
I sat back, relaxed, and still got paid off
I made off with the cash like I was Madoff
While everyone was busy getting laid off
No one could em-ulate my stash like I was Adolf
Thought the stars were pure? You’re way off
Call it the Milky Wei cuz I make it when I jerk off
I’m so clutch might as well be a manual
Critique pure reason like Immanuel
So instructive you could call me a manual
Or just call me a man you-will soon see
Success is what defines my philosophy
Dissing myself would be hypocrisy
So divine my existence is apostasy
Could only get on my- level through larceny
And I'm nothin’ but net, like Magic Johnson’s team
Fast with the ball like it’s Rocket League
My EP considered arson of the first degree
I jive the hive mind by drive-by call me a queen
Un-real standards like co-vers of magazines
So self-made got paid by- IKEA’s team
One level up so call me the mezzanine
So much money ‘slike I was embezzling
Flow so sick they call in a quarantine
But Still so smooth like two jars of Vaseline
Light up the stage like it was doused in some kerosine
I got energy, like I'm triphosphate adenosine
Plenty to spare cuz I’m made outta creatine
Re-make a state like Pan-cho Villa’s been
Chop off heads like I was a guillotine
Time to wrap this rap up like a stupid pharaoh
Verses pierce your heart like Cupid’s arrow
I'm fierce but I play the part, I’m on the straight and narrow
But I slay the art, break the bones and suck the marrow
Sharp dressed man describes my apparel,
Jabberwock the talk like I was Lewis Carroll
Challenging me’s an act o’ mortal peril
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
The Story of My Name
Something people in the US talk about is the "immigrant experience". It's an experience I've had, but didn't think about much when I was young. I assimilated quickly, having moved to Colorado at the tender age of four. I've no accent, no misunderstanding of cultural norms. I've never personally experienced racism or discrimination. As of last summer, I abandoned my Chinese citizenship entirely.
As I've grown older, I've started thinking about what the immigrant experience means to me. At first, I didn't think it meant all that much, given the factors I described above. But upon deeper introspection, and with some help from others, I've started to recognize some interesting aspects of my personal story as an immigrant. One of the most significant ones is the story of my name.
I was born in a Chinese hospital with the given name 孙微量, "Sun Wei Liang" (surnames come first in Chinese). "Wei Liang" can mean "a little amount" or "small, but powerful", or some other variants. My father gave it to me because he wanted me to be humble, but hardworking. (If you know me, you'll know he got halfwei there.) In addition, my father is a little superstitious, so the number of strokes in each character meets specific numerical requirements for luck, which you can read about here. I don't understand the requirements too well, but I still think it's cool.
Being political dissidents and academics, my parents were not happy in China, so they decided to pursue a better life overseas. In August of 2000 (we still celebrate the anniversary each year), our family moved to the US. We did so with the help of a pastor living in Colorado Springs, CO. She was one of the very few Chinese people we knew in the states, and she generously provided us lodging and other resources while we got settled. I still remember watching Cartoon Network in her basement and liking it, even though I did not understand the wacky sound effects and psychedelic colors.
Because of our benefactor's hospitality and religious disposition, our entire family converted to Christianity. My father was the last to join; I remember being baptized with him at the same ceremony. He tells me I prayed for him to do it, though I don't remember doing so. It's funny how times change. Nowadays, I'm an atheist, and he prays for me.
As part of our religious conversion, I was given the Christian name "Samuel". Looking back, I hate how the name was forced upon me. I was a five year old with no idea how anything worked, and these people unilaterally decided my name wasn't white or Christian enough for them, so they had the arrogance to rename me. It feels gross and colonialist and racist to me now, though at the time I didn't think much of it. It reminds me of something Richard Dawkins pointed out in one of his books: The idea of a Republican or Democratic baby seems ridiculous to us -- and for good reason -- but we are somehow perfectly fine with the idea of a Muslim or Hindu baby, as though a baby could somehow possess religious beliefs. It's one of the weird ways religion maintains influence in our society.
Samuel didn't really catch on much among my American friends, for a bizarre reason: On the first day of kindergarten, one of my classmates (whose name was Randy, because of course it was) decided to read everyone's name off the attendance sheet to show off his reading skills. He read my name as "way-long". I was five years old and didn't speak English at the time, so I assumed he had pronounced it correctly. (He hadn't). It wouldn't be until much later that I would realize how little sense this made, but by that time, the name had stuck, and I would be called "way-long" right up until the end of high school. It's crazy how a random decision by my five year old classmate totally changed my name -- my name, the first thing people know about me, the first tool I use to interface with the world -- for thirteen years.
Crazier still, my Christian community was Chinese, while my school community was American, so I led a double-life where Chinese people knew me as "Samuel", while American people knew me as "way-long". The irony of this situation hit me sometime around late elementary/early middle school. It was around that same time when I realized how I didn't like the name "way-long" at all, and would actually much prefer it to be pronounced correctly, but I was too lazy and embarrassed and afraid to say anything, so I managed to convince myself I didn't care. Instead, I mounted pettier rebellions: If I had a substitute teacher, I'd sometimes tell them my name was pronounced "why-ling" or "wailing" or "wee-lung" and watch my classmates try to stifle laughter, because they knew my name was actually pronounced "way-long". It was funny! Please, you've got to believe me, it was funny.
After living as "way-long"/"Samuel" from the ages of five to eighteen, I finally graduated high school. It was an exciting time for me. I wanted to live on my own, to increase the pace of my education, to meet and love new people. But on top of all that, college represented an opportunity to reinvent myself, to finally reclaim an aspect of myself which I'd felt had been appropriated. It was a chance to change my name.
I decided I liked the sound of "Wei". It's short and simple and easy to remember, but it's not Christian- or white-sounding, either. I enjoyed how it was pronounced like the word "way", as in a method, or a style, or a path. It seemed fitting and significant, for reasons I can't explain. Later, I found out its homophone "güey" in Mexican Spanish is a generic slang term referring to a (typically male) person, like "dude" in English. I liked that, too; it made my name feel multifaceted, cosmopolitan. Wei still easily lent itself to puns, which I didn't like as much, but I decided I'd put up with it. I don't regret that decision, either. I have heard some bad Wei puns and some great ones, and I've also been responsible for some terrible ones. But I suppose it's better to have loved and lost than to have never made a pun to begin with.
Names are a curious cultural phenomenon. Most people spend their entire lives self-identifying with a set of syllables they had no say in. Most people are perfectly fine with this. I decided to do something different, and I'm glad I did. I'm proud of my self-given name. I like how it sounds. I like how it represents, for me, a reification of my personal identity, my Chinese heritage, and my self-determination. You know what they sei: Where there's a will, there's me.
As I've grown older, I've started thinking about what the immigrant experience means to me. At first, I didn't think it meant all that much, given the factors I described above. But upon deeper introspection, and with some help from others, I've started to recognize some interesting aspects of my personal story as an immigrant. One of the most significant ones is the story of my name.
I was born in a Chinese hospital with the given name 孙微量, "Sun Wei Liang" (surnames come first in Chinese). "Wei Liang" can mean "a little amount" or "small, but powerful", or some other variants. My father gave it to me because he wanted me to be humble, but hardworking. (If you know me, you'll know he got halfwei there.) In addition, my father is a little superstitious, so the number of strokes in each character meets specific numerical requirements for luck, which you can read about here. I don't understand the requirements too well, but I still think it's cool.
Being political dissidents and academics, my parents were not happy in China, so they decided to pursue a better life overseas. In August of 2000 (we still celebrate the anniversary each year), our family moved to the US. We did so with the help of a pastor living in Colorado Springs, CO. She was one of the very few Chinese people we knew in the states, and she generously provided us lodging and other resources while we got settled. I still remember watching Cartoon Network in her basement and liking it, even though I did not understand the wacky sound effects and psychedelic colors.
Because of our benefactor's hospitality and religious disposition, our entire family converted to Christianity. My father was the last to join; I remember being baptized with him at the same ceremony. He tells me I prayed for him to do it, though I don't remember doing so. It's funny how times change. Nowadays, I'm an atheist, and he prays for me.
As part of our religious conversion, I was given the Christian name "Samuel". Looking back, I hate how the name was forced upon me. I was a five year old with no idea how anything worked, and these people unilaterally decided my name wasn't white or Christian enough for them, so they had the arrogance to rename me. It feels gross and colonialist and racist to me now, though at the time I didn't think much of it. It reminds me of something Richard Dawkins pointed out in one of his books: The idea of a Republican or Democratic baby seems ridiculous to us -- and for good reason -- but we are somehow perfectly fine with the idea of a Muslim or Hindu baby, as though a baby could somehow possess religious beliefs. It's one of the weird ways religion maintains influence in our society.
Samuel didn't really catch on much among my American friends, for a bizarre reason: On the first day of kindergarten, one of my classmates (whose name was Randy, because of course it was) decided to read everyone's name off the attendance sheet to show off his reading skills. He read my name as "way-long". I was five years old and didn't speak English at the time, so I assumed he had pronounced it correctly. (He hadn't). It wouldn't be until much later that I would realize how little sense this made, but by that time, the name had stuck, and I would be called "way-long" right up until the end of high school. It's crazy how a random decision by my five year old classmate totally changed my name -- my name, the first thing people know about me, the first tool I use to interface with the world -- for thirteen years.
Crazier still, my Christian community was Chinese, while my school community was American, so I led a double-life where Chinese people knew me as "Samuel", while American people knew me as "way-long". The irony of this situation hit me sometime around late elementary/early middle school. It was around that same time when I realized how I didn't like the name "way-long" at all, and would actually much prefer it to be pronounced correctly, but I was too lazy and embarrassed and afraid to say anything, so I managed to convince myself I didn't care. Instead, I mounted pettier rebellions: If I had a substitute teacher, I'd sometimes tell them my name was pronounced "why-ling" or "wailing" or "wee-lung" and watch my classmates try to stifle laughter, because they knew my name was actually pronounced "way-long". It was funny! Please, you've got to believe me, it was funny.
After living as "way-long"/"Samuel" from the ages of five to eighteen, I finally graduated high school. It was an exciting time for me. I wanted to live on my own, to increase the pace of my education, to meet and love new people. But on top of all that, college represented an opportunity to reinvent myself, to finally reclaim an aspect of myself which I'd felt had been appropriated. It was a chance to change my name.
I decided I liked the sound of "Wei". It's short and simple and easy to remember, but it's not Christian- or white-sounding, either. I enjoyed how it was pronounced like the word "way", as in a method, or a style, or a path. It seemed fitting and significant, for reasons I can't explain. Later, I found out its homophone "güey" in Mexican Spanish is a generic slang term referring to a (typically male) person, like "dude" in English. I liked that, too; it made my name feel multifaceted, cosmopolitan. Wei still easily lent itself to puns, which I didn't like as much, but I decided I'd put up with it. I don't regret that decision, either. I have heard some bad Wei puns and some great ones, and I've also been responsible for some terrible ones. But I suppose it's better to have loved and lost than to have never made a pun to begin with.
Names are a curious cultural phenomenon. Most people spend their entire lives self-identifying with a set of syllables they had no say in. Most people are perfectly fine with this. I decided to do something different, and I'm glad I did. I'm proud of my self-given name. I like how it sounds. I like how it represents, for me, a reification of my personal identity, my Chinese heritage, and my self-determination. You know what they sei: Where there's a will, there's me.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
On Getting Stuck
My philosophy professor has a stutter. He described his stutter in two words: "getting stuck". I found this to be a wonderfully simple and effective description of his condition -- and as I about it more, I started wondering why getting stuck is so bad. What is it about getting stuck that we as humans find annoying, or embarrassing, or intolerable? Is it our need to keep moving forward, making progress? Is it our thirst for variety, novelty, stimulation? Is it our goal-oriented society driving us to be "productive"?
In the case of stuttering, it was none of these things. Our brains, my professor explained, have a tendency to fill in words when we're listening to people. This tendency, normally imperceptible, became immediately, glaringly obvious whenever my professor got stuck. It was the linguistic version of Google autofill, and it naturally led to a second, more actionable tendency: The urge to complete an unfinished word for him. This, our professor warned, was the exact wrong thing to do. If we chose to race him to the end of a word, he would most certainly lose, and that would only make the stuttering worse -- because stuttering, as he explained, is a social disorder. Most people who stutter will not get stuck when talking to a dog or a baby, because it's the specific act of trying to communicate an idea to someone else that triggers getting stuck. In a sense, stuttering is the human difficulty of self-expression made manifest and visceral. It's a difficulty we've all experienced.
I noticed myself doing a lot of autofilling throughout the class. Most times, I autofilled the word correctly. These were the cases when I personally experienced the reason stuttering is considered an impediment. Whenever I successfully predicted the word he was going to say, I felt my time had been somehow wasted. But then I started wondering: Why was it a waste of time to wait for someone who had gotten stuck?
In telling us how to respond to his stutter, our professor asked simply for our patience. The best case for his stutter, he told us, was dead air. Silence. So whenever he got stuck, we simply sat and waited. At first, the waiting exposed an uncomfortable impatience in me. I did not like spending precious half-seconds of lecture time in silence. Looking back, this was an entitled Wei to think. I was a mere student, after all, and to think my time was somehow being wasted in the presence of a guy who'd spent years and years of his life reading philosophical literature and publishing papers in respected journals was simply wrong. My time was not being wasted; I was just being impatient.
After a while, I realized my impatience wasn't even the worst of it. See, I didn't manage to autofill my professor's words correctly every time. At some moments, I anticipated one word, but my professor said something entirely different. These moments were humbling. They reminded me of the following quote by the Dalai Lama:
"When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But when you listen, you may learn something new."
My failed autofills betrayed a subconscious arrogance I held. I automatically assumed I knew what my professor was going to say before he'd even said it, and I was proven wrong in an immediate and direct way. By shining such a bright spotlight on my bad assumption, my professor's speech patterns have caused me to reconsider my approach toward conversation -- not just with him, but with people in general. I became more conscientious of the bad expectations and assumptions I'd been unknowingly smuggling into all of my conversations. I realized I needed to approach conversations with a more open, humble mind. To be still and listen.
As a consequence of my failed autofills, I became more interested in what my professor was saying. I set an intention to stop autofilling and listen with an open mind. While I wasn't successful every time, this intention still gave me a greater enjoyment and engagement with his lecture. I hung on to his words with eager anticipation. It was a more mindful, present state of listening, a state was far superior to my default setting.
There are many things in life we find annoying, or boring, or inconvenient. It's the most natural thing in the world to let them annoy us, bore us, and inconvenience us. I'm lucky my professor's stutter did not do any of these things to me. Instead, his stutter taught me valuable lessons in listening, patience, and mindfulness, and these lessons revealed an even deeper, more universal truth: Anything can teach us. On the road of self-improvement, nothing is an obstacle.
In the case of stuttering, it was none of these things. Our brains, my professor explained, have a tendency to fill in words when we're listening to people. This tendency, normally imperceptible, became immediately, glaringly obvious whenever my professor got stuck. It was the linguistic version of Google autofill, and it naturally led to a second, more actionable tendency: The urge to complete an unfinished word for him. This, our professor warned, was the exact wrong thing to do. If we chose to race him to the end of a word, he would most certainly lose, and that would only make the stuttering worse -- because stuttering, as he explained, is a social disorder. Most people who stutter will not get stuck when talking to a dog or a baby, because it's the specific act of trying to communicate an idea to someone else that triggers getting stuck. In a sense, stuttering is the human difficulty of self-expression made manifest and visceral. It's a difficulty we've all experienced.
I noticed myself doing a lot of autofilling throughout the class. Most times, I autofilled the word correctly. These were the cases when I personally experienced the reason stuttering is considered an impediment. Whenever I successfully predicted the word he was going to say, I felt my time had been somehow wasted. But then I started wondering: Why was it a waste of time to wait for someone who had gotten stuck?
In telling us how to respond to his stutter, our professor asked simply for our patience. The best case for his stutter, he told us, was dead air. Silence. So whenever he got stuck, we simply sat and waited. At first, the waiting exposed an uncomfortable impatience in me. I did not like spending precious half-seconds of lecture time in silence. Looking back, this was an entitled Wei to think. I was a mere student, after all, and to think my time was somehow being wasted in the presence of a guy who'd spent years and years of his life reading philosophical literature and publishing papers in respected journals was simply wrong. My time was not being wasted; I was just being impatient.
After a while, I realized my impatience wasn't even the worst of it. See, I didn't manage to autofill my professor's words correctly every time. At some moments, I anticipated one word, but my professor said something entirely different. These moments were humbling. They reminded me of the following quote by the Dalai Lama:
"When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But when you listen, you may learn something new."
My failed autofills betrayed a subconscious arrogance I held. I automatically assumed I knew what my professor was going to say before he'd even said it, and I was proven wrong in an immediate and direct way. By shining such a bright spotlight on my bad assumption, my professor's speech patterns have caused me to reconsider my approach toward conversation -- not just with him, but with people in general. I became more conscientious of the bad expectations and assumptions I'd been unknowingly smuggling into all of my conversations. I realized I needed to approach conversations with a more open, humble mind. To be still and listen.
As a consequence of my failed autofills, I became more interested in what my professor was saying. I set an intention to stop autofilling and listen with an open mind. While I wasn't successful every time, this intention still gave me a greater enjoyment and engagement with his lecture. I hung on to his words with eager anticipation. It was a more mindful, present state of listening, a state was far superior to my default setting.
There are many things in life we find annoying, or boring, or inconvenient. It's the most natural thing in the world to let them annoy us, bore us, and inconvenience us. I'm lucky my professor's stutter did not do any of these things to me. Instead, his stutter taught me valuable lessons in listening, patience, and mindfulness, and these lessons revealed an even deeper, more universal truth: Anything can teach us. On the road of self-improvement, nothing is an obstacle.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Basketball, Part 2
Part One
There are certain transformative moments in life when you realize, for the first time, the shallowness of your previous understanding of a particular word. Though the moment passes, your understanding and appreciation for this word is forever deepened.
I vividly recall a moment -- an otherwise perfectly mundane, forgettable moment, standing at a bus stop, idly conversing with a friend -- when I looked up at the sky and, for the first time, saw how blue it was. In that moment, I felt my life break into two distinct periods. There was the pre-sky period, during which I had had an incomplete picture of what "blue" meant, and there was the post-sky period, during which I had finally completed that picture. For some reason, in that moment, the unbelievable, extraordinary blueness of the sky sank deep into my mind, and every other blue looked less blue by comparison. It was so memorable that I wrote about it.
I had a similar experience with the word "flight". As a student of physics, I had a vague understanding of the equations governing lift, gravity, fluid density; I was already amazed at the incredible pace of human flight (from Wright Brother paper skeletons on a beach to landing on the moon within a single human lifetime); I had even been on planes before. But one time, taking off from LaGuardia, I truly felt what it meant to fly, lighter than air, head in the clouds, gravity's bane, borne aloft on thin aluminum wings, piercing that exquisite blue sky. I wrote about that too.
These moments are often accompanied by pure, intense emotion, and have indelibly changed the way I perceive the world, as well as how I act within it. They are major underpinnings of my character, my personality, my very being. Tonight, I experienced one of them. The word was mercy.
I grew up in an abusive household, and I'm starting to realize how I've never really experienced mercy before. What I experienced was more like a sequence of brief reprieves, staccato calms-before-the-storm during which I tried desperately to keep my head down, doing my best to delay the inevitable hurricane-to-come -- and come it would, with no hint of compassion within its howling winds, no trace of mercy in the coldness.
Then again, mercy was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was revenge. I didn't want to be free of suffering; I wanted to act, to punish, to inflict suffering on someone else, to show them what I was made of, to bring my ill-conceived notion of justice into the world, a notion of justice that had nothing but contempt for the word mercy. I'm reminded of a quote from James Baldwin's seminal civil rights publication, The Fire Next Time:
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
But hate is not an antidote to pain; it is an amplifier. My lashing out caused me nothing but suffering. To make matters even more confusing, the person I lashed out at responded with nothing but love. It was one of the biggest emotional shifts I've ever experienced -- so big, in fact, that it gave me a better appreciation for what the word love means. I've written about this before -- but even though the experience left me with a better grasp on love, I still had no grasp whatsoever on mercy. That changed tonight, as we got mercy-ruled out of an intramural basketball game.
From the first minute of the game, it was clear our opponents belonged in a different league to the people we played last week, who themselves already belonged in a different league from us. I want to make it clear that the league my team signed up for was the lowest-skilled, least-competitive league possible, ideally suited for people still learning the basics of that mysterious "hand-eye coordination" skill people seem weirdly jazzed about. The opposing team, by contrast, were routinely firing off behind-the-back no-look passes, slamming home effortlessly-coordinated alley-oops, swishing perfect-follow-through three-pointers under pressure, finding nothing but net.
When we were down 0-20, I started to wonder if we were ever going to score. When we finally do, I clap. It's a wretched, miserable clap, a clap that rings hollow with pathetic enthusiasm and woeful futility. It's the most our team celebrates for the entire game -- slaughter, if you prefer more accurate terminology.
My teammates start talking about how the other team are assholes because they are trying too hard, making fun of us, laughing at us. I don't agree with this assessment; if anything, I find our opponents to be surprisingly respectful and understanding. They are doing nothing but trying their best -- if anything, it would be more disrespectful to not try as hard, because it would ruin the spirit of competition. And I would interpret their laughter (which I never even personally witnessed) as an uncontrollable reaction to the obvious disparities being displayed on the court. It's hard not to laugh at the ridiculous, the extreme. It's even harder not to laugh at the extremely ridiculous, which are some of the candidate words I would use to describe this basketball game.
But losing poisons everything. It's almost impossible to keep a positive attitude when you're getting totally annihilated on the court, so it's natural to interpret the opponent's actions as more aggressive and disrespectful while not considering how bored and disappointed they might feel playing a non-game. It's just as natural to get quieter, to try less hard, to adopt a loser's mindset. And the cycle continues.
Our team's morale is in the gutter well before halftime. This lack of spirit is expressed in our silences, our "oh well" glances, our "whatever" eyerolls, but is most painfully manifest in my increasingly sad claps on the rare occasion our Star Player scores. The other team starts feeling bad for us, so they start trying less hard, which in turn makes me feel even worse. They are just standing there, halfheartedly waving their arms around, not even trying to block. The refs give us a totally bullshit foul call that results in one point from a free throw. Their pity nets us a double-digit score.
Then again, pity was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was to win. I didn't want to be tossed some scraps under the table; I wanted to act, to practice, to get good, to punish everyone for their pity, to show them what I was made of, to enact grim revenge on them for their clearly well-intentioned actions. I had nothing but contempt for their pity, and nothing but frustration for myself, because I didn't have anything near what it would have taken to achieve these goals. I'm reminded of a Mike Tyson quote:
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
To me, that quote says that all the adversity I've experienced -- abuse, weakness, getting blown the fuck out at an intramural basketball game -- matters far less than how I choose to react to that adversity. I didn't react particularly well in this situation. I found it impossible to stay motivated, to not become demoralized -- and these reactions manifested on the court, as I started pressuring opponents less, walking instead of running, looking too often at the clock, wondering when it would be over, when we would finally lose.
I consider myself an optimist. I consider myself a competitor. I consider myself a person who tries hard to do things he's committed to doing. As the game went on, I considered myself to be less of these things, and more like someone treading water, clinging to the driftwood of these once-proud aspects of my identity, trying not to drown in my own mediocrity. Less than ten minutes into the second half, it finally happens: we are down by 50 points, which is when the mercy rule kicks in and the game ends -- not with a bang, but with a whimper.
It was in this moment that I finally understood the meaning of "mercy". Mercy, at its core, is about liberation. It is a compassionate liberation of a person's dignity from the all-encompassing quagmire of hopelessness. The healing process must start here to be effective. Agency is the beating heart of the restorative process, and mercy is its carrier. Mercy is not noble or pretty; it is pragmatic. It is not the knight in shining armor, come to slay the dragon. It is the browning, punctured life preserver thrown out to the drowning person who is clinging to driftwood, treading water.
There are certain transformative moments in life when you realize, for the first time, the shallowness of your previous understanding of a particular word. Though the moment passes, your understanding and appreciation for this word is forever deepened.
I vividly recall a moment -- an otherwise perfectly mundane, forgettable moment, standing at a bus stop, idly conversing with a friend -- when I looked up at the sky and, for the first time, saw how blue it was. In that moment, I felt my life break into two distinct periods. There was the pre-sky period, during which I had had an incomplete picture of what "blue" meant, and there was the post-sky period, during which I had finally completed that picture. For some reason, in that moment, the unbelievable, extraordinary blueness of the sky sank deep into my mind, and every other blue looked less blue by comparison. It was so memorable that I wrote about it.
I had a similar experience with the word "flight". As a student of physics, I had a vague understanding of the equations governing lift, gravity, fluid density; I was already amazed at the incredible pace of human flight (from Wright Brother paper skeletons on a beach to landing on the moon within a single human lifetime); I had even been on planes before. But one time, taking off from LaGuardia, I truly felt what it meant to fly, lighter than air, head in the clouds, gravity's bane, borne aloft on thin aluminum wings, piercing that exquisite blue sky. I wrote about that too.
These moments are often accompanied by pure, intense emotion, and have indelibly changed the way I perceive the world, as well as how I act within it. They are major underpinnings of my character, my personality, my very being. Tonight, I experienced one of them. The word was mercy.
I grew up in an abusive household, and I'm starting to realize how I've never really experienced mercy before. What I experienced was more like a sequence of brief reprieves, staccato calms-before-the-storm during which I tried desperately to keep my head down, doing my best to delay the inevitable hurricane-to-come -- and come it would, with no hint of compassion within its howling winds, no trace of mercy in the coldness.
Then again, mercy was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was revenge. I didn't want to be free of suffering; I wanted to act, to punish, to inflict suffering on someone else, to show them what I was made of, to bring my ill-conceived notion of justice into the world, a notion of justice that had nothing but contempt for the word mercy. I'm reminded of a quote from James Baldwin's seminal civil rights publication, The Fire Next Time:
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
But hate is not an antidote to pain; it is an amplifier. My lashing out caused me nothing but suffering. To make matters even more confusing, the person I lashed out at responded with nothing but love. It was one of the biggest emotional shifts I've ever experienced -- so big, in fact, that it gave me a better appreciation for what the word love means. I've written about this before -- but even though the experience left me with a better grasp on love, I still had no grasp whatsoever on mercy. That changed tonight, as we got mercy-ruled out of an intramural basketball game.
From the first minute of the game, it was clear our opponents belonged in a different league to the people we played last week, who themselves already belonged in a different league from us. I want to make it clear that the league my team signed up for was the lowest-skilled, least-competitive league possible, ideally suited for people still learning the basics of that mysterious "hand-eye coordination" skill people seem weirdly jazzed about. The opposing team, by contrast, were routinely firing off behind-the-back no-look passes, slamming home effortlessly-coordinated alley-oops, swishing perfect-follow-through three-pointers under pressure, finding nothing but net.
When we were down 0-20, I started to wonder if we were ever going to score. When we finally do, I clap. It's a wretched, miserable clap, a clap that rings hollow with pathetic enthusiasm and woeful futility. It's the most our team celebrates for the entire game -- slaughter, if you prefer more accurate terminology.
My teammates start talking about how the other team are assholes because they are trying too hard, making fun of us, laughing at us. I don't agree with this assessment; if anything, I find our opponents to be surprisingly respectful and understanding. They are doing nothing but trying their best -- if anything, it would be more disrespectful to not try as hard, because it would ruin the spirit of competition. And I would interpret their laughter (which I never even personally witnessed) as an uncontrollable reaction to the obvious disparities being displayed on the court. It's hard not to laugh at the ridiculous, the extreme. It's even harder not to laugh at the extremely ridiculous, which are some of the candidate words I would use to describe this basketball game.
But losing poisons everything. It's almost impossible to keep a positive attitude when you're getting totally annihilated on the court, so it's natural to interpret the opponent's actions as more aggressive and disrespectful while not considering how bored and disappointed they might feel playing a non-game. It's just as natural to get quieter, to try less hard, to adopt a loser's mindset. And the cycle continues.
Our team's morale is in the gutter well before halftime. This lack of spirit is expressed in our silences, our "oh well" glances, our "whatever" eyerolls, but is most painfully manifest in my increasingly sad claps on the rare occasion our Star Player scores. The other team starts feeling bad for us, so they start trying less hard, which in turn makes me feel even worse. They are just standing there, halfheartedly waving their arms around, not even trying to block. The refs give us a totally bullshit foul call that results in one point from a free throw. Their pity nets us a double-digit score.
Then again, pity was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was to win. I didn't want to be tossed some scraps under the table; I wanted to act, to practice, to get good, to punish everyone for their pity, to show them what I was made of, to enact grim revenge on them for their clearly well-intentioned actions. I had nothing but contempt for their pity, and nothing but frustration for myself, because I didn't have anything near what it would have taken to achieve these goals. I'm reminded of a Mike Tyson quote:
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
To me, that quote says that all the adversity I've experienced -- abuse, weakness, getting blown the fuck out at an intramural basketball game -- matters far less than how I choose to react to that adversity. I didn't react particularly well in this situation. I found it impossible to stay motivated, to not become demoralized -- and these reactions manifested on the court, as I started pressuring opponents less, walking instead of running, looking too often at the clock, wondering when it would be over, when we would finally lose.
I consider myself an optimist. I consider myself a competitor. I consider myself a person who tries hard to do things he's committed to doing. As the game went on, I considered myself to be less of these things, and more like someone treading water, clinging to the driftwood of these once-proud aspects of my identity, trying not to drown in my own mediocrity. Less than ten minutes into the second half, it finally happens: we are down by 50 points, which is when the mercy rule kicks in and the game ends -- not with a bang, but with a whimper.
It was in this moment that I finally understood the meaning of "mercy". Mercy, at its core, is about liberation. It is a compassionate liberation of a person's dignity from the all-encompassing quagmire of hopelessness. The healing process must start here to be effective. Agency is the beating heart of the restorative process, and mercy is its carrier. Mercy is not noble or pretty; it is pragmatic. It is not the knight in shining armor, come to slay the dragon. It is the browning, punctured life preserver thrown out to the drowning person who is clinging to driftwood, treading water.
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