I started a conversation with someone about Terri Schiavo. I thought we’d agree on the position. I was ready to say “Yeah. Totally, I couldn’t agree with you any more!” But when I started the conversation, I got a surprise. She has the exact opposite opinion from me.

But before all this, my opinion was split down the middle. This issue is not black and white; it is definitely in a grey area. I couldn’t decide on one way or the other convincingly because I had good reasons for both sides. But I was slightly leaning on one side more than the other. I’m on the side of keeping her alive on the life support.

I remember the time in grade 11, I wrote an essay on this topic. At that time, my position was that assisted suicide is morally right. At then, I didn’t realize that life is infinitely precious. Some may think that if we don’t make a purpose out of our life, life isn’t as infinitely beautiful as they say it is, and the person in vegetated state can no longer make a purpose out of her life, and therefore her life isn’t worth the 150 million dollars to keep her feed tube inserted. But if she can give someone else a reason to wake up in the morning, then there is a purpose to her life. Whether her life is a natural life or a life on artificial support, one can’t escape the infiniteness of life.

But I also understand why one would choose the side of natural death over artificial life. Prolonging her death for 15 years is cruel even if she can’t feel it. It’s not the cost that’s important. At one point or another, people must die. Our lives are beautiful because we are mortals. Cheating death is cheating life.

Out of this debate, I learned something bigger than this issue. My debate opponent was ridiculing those people protesting to re-insert the feed tube. That’s when I felt the uneasiness. I would have done the same thing when I was in grade 11, but now that my position has changed, I realized how wrong it is to ridicule people who have different opinion than mine. I used to think that my positions are informed, and the majority of the people hold popular yet uninformed positions, thus my position is right and their positions are wrong. I used to think because I’m right, I have the responsibility to pie a politician in the face. Was I ever that naive? Voltaire once said, “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.” I thought it was just a famous quote, but now I know what it really means.

 
Philosophy

I used to think philosophy is good. It’s what educated people do. They ask questions instead of taking things as face value. I used to think philosophy is always for the better. It’s something that can enlighten me and allow me to learn more and see more.

I recently saw a movie called I Heart Huckabees. “Don’t ever stop asking questions!” is a quote from that movie where a man who never stopped asking questions and trying to get to the truth, but that has gotten him detached from the world and he became insane from the view point of the rest of the world.

Now I learned that philosophy couldn’t be the solution all the time. Sometimes less is more. I still believe in the good of engaging our mind but do it in moderation and know when to stop.

 
My most beloved online chat partner utterly shocked me today. I’ve known her for last four months and I was very fond of her clever ways of talking. Today, she revealed to me that she’s interested in pursuing an affair with her cousin. I’ve also learned that she’s fond of marijuana. I thought I’d never live to see the day. I’m having goose bumps all over my arms and back of my neck.

Ever since I’ve known her, I thought she was the kind of person I would like to meet; we used to synchronize on almost everything. We used to have eye opening conversations about politics, arts, world affairs and such. I remember we having most lively discussion of merits of same-sex marriage and legalizing medical marijuana. My oh my, I should have taken a hint at then. I’ve never given a thought that she’s fond of marijuana for herself. I thought she was just defending her position in the debate, and defending the people who need medical marijuana. As a young healthy woman, I naturally assumed she’s not puffing marijuana as a medical supplement, let alone for pleasure.

This is devastating. How can I ever know for certain about anyone? How can be sure the next person I meet is saner than her? I feel blessed that I didn’t actually meet her face to face. Times like this, I just want to completely deprive of myself from socializing with anyone.

 
No Less Noble

I used to cherish my experience of running my own dot-com company when I was seventeen. But ultimately, I didn’t succeed, and I had to close down the business. Recently, I heard on a radio that some accomplished singer’s teenage son has made a rock band. However, no one outside the immediate circle of friends knows that they’ve made a band. Since not many people know about the existence of the band, they probably won’t be selling much of records. If they don’t start making it big, they probably have to abandon the band. That doesn’t seem too different from what I did. Both are made of nothing more than boastful teenage invincibility with no realistic strategies, just the thought of making it big. I had a misconception that entrepreneurs in tuxedos are nobler than messy haired musicians. But I come to realize that it’s impossible to categorize the nobleness of one’s talent.

 
Is Happiness somewhere close to home?

There’s one girl I know from school. I always told myself I’m not interested in her because the only reason why she’s interested in me is because she can copy my answers for assignments and labs. I used to know another girl who I used to be really close with. She was in same class as me, and of course, I always had all the answers to the assignments. Just days after the final exam, she wouldn’t even look my way even if I say hello to her when I see her in the hallway. From that point on, I promised to myself that never even show a slightest interest in a girl who tries to leech off my assignments.

Coming back to the present; Now the final exams been over for more than months, and I don’t have any class with this new girl I know anymore. I ran in to her other day in the hallway. I smiled, and she smiled back at me. She asked how I was, and I asked her the same. We chatted for a bit before we dispersed. This feeling is strange. Why would she still be so nice to me, even though we don’t have any classes together? Could I be wrong about her all along, that she’s really interested in me? Or maybe she’s just securing the future possibility that we might have a class together later. After all, we still got two more years until we graduate.

The thought of she might really like me struck me as a complete surprise. Even stranger is that my face light up every time I ran into her in the hallway. Just exchanging few quick words with her could uplift my spiritual health. I always believed the girl of my dreams is somewhere far off in the strangely unfamiliar elusive land I’ve vaguely heard about. Maybe she’s closer to home, right here in the school I go to. But I don’t want to get my hopes up; after all, I’m not the only guy she goes to say hi. Perhaps I’m right about her, and this feeling is just an illusion played by my desperate heart.

 
In mist of all the free time that I now enjoy, I find a distinct sense of longing for the hectic school life. When my life was plunged in the school life of busy, staying up late for five consecutive nights, burning my brain over five different disciplines, I was in desperate need to take a break, a nice long break. When that break finally hugs me with open arms, I want to go back.

Perhaps it’s the cry of loneliness that I can’t resist from hearing as the sun sets every evening. When I was in school, there were people. I met people everyday. Now I’m alone. The silence is so loud that it’s deafening my ears. Maybe it’s the social contact that I’m longing for. But even when I was in school, I never really had a true friend. I had friends, but I don’t even know their last names. My desire to smell the sweet scent of emotional attachment for someone grows as I sit here and type these words.

Or perhaps the reason I find the hectic school life attractive lies somewhere else. Maybe I want to dull my senses from feeling emotional attachment. When I have two assignments due in two days and a presentation due in end of the week, an appointment with a professor at 3 o’clock, and a quiz on every Thursday, I don’t have time to think about myself, no time to project myself on a piece of blank paper and draw an outline of what I want from my life. School provides as a drug to dull my emotional senses and forget what I want.

Maybe I’m thinking too much. Or maybe there’s a flaw in my way of life, or flaw in my way of reasoning. But whatever it may be, there’s one thing that’s clear; my only friend is loneliness.

 
Of all things that I could write, describe and shine light at unlit places, there’s one thing that I could not be able to write about. That is myself.

The inability to describe who I am in words has startled me greatly. Is it because I am indefinable? Do I have no characteristics that are uniquely my own? Or is it because I know that I’m nothing much to be written about, that I subconsciously acknowledge my unattractiveness, and thereby subconsciously refusing to write about myself? Or maybe it’s simpler than that; I don’t know how to describe myself.

It’s not uncommon that we are not completely aware of ourselves. We habitually do things without thinking about. Maybe if someone could observe me, she could write great things about me. I could be under appreciating my identity because I’m not aware of my great self. But until I recognize that, I’m still nobody.

There is no denying; I’m definitely materialistic. I define my success with my possessions. I blame it on having to grow up in a low-income bracket family, where money is the topic of concern everyday and night. Having more money meant buying a replacement for a broken dishwasher. Over the years, I’ve been tune to value the materials I own and what I might own in the future. After graduating high school, I’ve taken the road of higher education. I am now poorer than ever. $5000 of tuition fee for each three-month term has left me like a broken vase. I have little material goods to value. As a materialistic, I’m an utter failure. Of course, I don’t want people I know to know about this. So I can’t write about myself as a failure and hope somebody is going to find me attractive.

The reason why I can’t write about myself is because I’m not happy about myself. If there were something I can do to change everything and make all my unhappiness disappear, I would do it. The beginning of my quest for finding the things that I must do to become happy opens up vast wildlands to uncover.