Third Semester Reflections

Before I begin this reflection, I'd like to reiterate on some thoughts from my first semester reflections. My thoughts during this semester in particular have much to do with my own personal circumstances and perspectives on college life, and as such I don't think they reflect any grander truth about Sophomore year or college in general. 

With that being said, "Sophomore Slump" is a well known phenomenon is it not? With the novelty of freshman year fully worn off, Sophomores must confront arguably the toughest questions of their young lives as immediate concerns, especially for those colleges and universities which have major or concentration declarations during this year. Though I may view my reflections as intensely personal, my sense is that my fellow students would voice similar concerns. Of course, I cannot say I have confirmed for myself whether this is true, though I have tried. Perhaps this disclaimer is more indicative of an unhealthy solitude than anything...

I noticed that my writings this semester adopted a graver tone than usual. As I look back on the semester from the comfort of vacation time, I realize how challenging this third semester of college has been to me on many fronts. Sure, the coursework itself was more difficult and I had a longer list of goals I wanted to work towards. But I think what really caused me to struggle this past semester was my own ideological questioning on the purpose of college, my studies, relationships, and life in general.

Such questions surely cross the minds of all young people at some point or another. Perhaps Sophomore year is just when the abstract questions start to fuse with reality. One begins to see more clearly where he/she is going given his/her current beliefs and lifestyle. At this same time, one's friends and family often enter a period of transition as well. Old friends will take diverging paths, or perhaps grow more distant. The student's family is faced with the burden of financing his/her education. While the student is beginning to face the realities of the "real world", perhaps the parents are also faced with contemplations about the meaning of the latter half of their lives. Retirement, dreams, fulfillment, mortality... It's a big bag of deep and volatile topics, perhaps prone to mood swings much in the same way as their sons and daughters are. 

And in all of this, the student's empathy has grown. He/she sees the family changing, friends evolving, and society advancing in its ever confounding way. What does he/she make of all of it?

...

Perhaps it is best simply to not make anything at all. I have lately been trying to adopt a philosophy which simply ignores these big questions, at least for now. Perhaps the young mind simply was not meant to ponder such things.

For now, it is probably best to simply live life and absorb as much of it as you can, without reflecting too deeply on it. I'm reminded of an essay by Marina Keegan published in the Yale Daily News. Titled, "The Opposite of Loneliness", it espouses a deeply heartening, yet simple view of college life in spite of all its uncertainties. In particular, I was struck by this quote from the young author:

"We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement."

(Full Article)

Yes, this third semester has been a bit of a stumble for me in some ways. But I need to do my best to keep my life in perspective, and not attach such finality to my actions or the paths I take. Hopefully next semester I'll try more to absorb college life for what it is, rather than seeing its faults and rejecting it for what I think it should be.

A Letter to High School Students

The following is a letter I wrote to students in my high school in response to a prompt from my Sophomore English teacher. The prompt was:

1) Explain to students in high school that yes, what they are learning matters.
2) Share your part of your life story so current students may reach out to you and learn from all that you have done.

Hopefully you'll find it interesting!

--------------------------------------------
Student of EGHS,

High school is a confusing time. Amidst the daily difficulties of getting up at 6 in the morning and juggling packed schedules, one's mind begins to see the world from a more thoughtful perspective that is often as confounding as it is enlightening. Pressure from friends, family, and society only complicates things even more. As I look back on it all as a college student, it was truly an overwhelming experience at times.

Of course, you know all this already. In fact, you've probably heard it many times from innumerable sources. I remember the feeling. Everyone acknowledged that high school was difficult. But that recognition did little to alleviate the anxieties associated with the exciting, yet frightening truth in front of us: that we are truly beginning to take charge of our own lives.

I remember my reaction to this truth. Whenever possible, I simply ignored it. I took whatever path I felt I was skilled and comfortable in. One decision always led logically to another, and each of my motivations was well defined and reasoned. In short, I did everything I could to make sure that life made sense. And if you're doing that too, I offer this piece of advice: perhaps to a certain extent, you're like me, keeping things well structured and predictable, thus ignoring all the uncertainty inherent in that essential truth.

In my first year and a half of college, my attempts at making sense of life have almost all fallen apart. At critical junctions in my decision making and daily activities, I've found cracks in my old ways of thinking and as a result, have had to reevaluate what I used to believe. In short, that essential truth had, or should I say, has finally caught up to me.

I am in charge of myself. But nothing seems to make sense, and I'm not sure what I want to do.

I believe that accepting that statement above is one of the first steps to true awakening as an intellectual and as a mature adult. There are going to be events and questions in that you will desperately seek to make sense of. Yet try as you may, reaching a satisfying conclusion is impossible. That is not only ok, but inevitable and necessary. Life moves on. So long as you are open and searching, it constantly reveals new perspectives and intricacies. I say this as though I am already an old man, and indeed it's a bit haughty of me to go around making such grand statements. So take this from me as just a fellow student in pursuit of what's worthy of life, stumbling, yet gradually moving along the way.

So what does this have to do with your algebra homework or that paper you've been stuck on for the past few days? What's the point of all this? Are you going to use it for your job? Is someone going to hold you hostage unless you can recite the quadratic formula? Hopefully not. (Continued…)

These things, along with your relationships with your teachers, those groggy early mornings, lazy afternoon hangouts, your friendships, betrayals, and heartbreaks...
By engaging in all of this with honest effort, you are engaging in life and thus facing, rather than running from the truth we have been discussing. When that summer reading book actually makes you think about your life and not the date of its MAD40, you are engaging with life. When you fail a test and see it as an opportunity for improvement rather than self pity, you are engaging in life. When you talk to your teacher as a mentor and friend rather than administrator, you are engaging in life.

It's not all inspiring and beautiful though. Sometimes, engaging in life will lead you to despair. Unfortunately, such occurrences will likely not dissolve with time. But with time, they will perhaps become a source of strength and wisdom rather than weakness and insecurity. Again, I am but a wanderer as yourself, so I hope you will challenge these ideas for yourself and see if they are true.

I'll conclude with a reflection on my own time at EGHS. The material I learned help equip me for challenging coursework, but more importantly, the conversations I had and people I met kept my mind open in this increasingly narrow-minded society we live in. In particular, I felt that my time in the English department of EGHS significantly changed my trajectory as a student and as a human being. It was only through exploration and analysis of writing that my mind could successfully wrestle with the thoughts I've mentioned above. Even amidst my hiding from that essential truth, I chose to make some parts of school matter to me personally, on a deep level, not just for getting the diploma or college admission.

Those parts of school that I invested in on a personal level have continued to blossom and reward me. Fellow student, I implore you to choose to matter as well.

-Chris Luo
EGHS '14
Brown University '18

Marya Bolkonskaya

Weakness and Strength: An Analysis of Princess Marya Bolkonskaya

It's been a busy month, so I haven't had the time to sit down and put my thoughts to words lately. But I still do have a lot on my mind, so I hope you will look forward to those manifesting as posts over the winter break!

For those of you who are interested in more Tolstoy, here is an essay I wrote for the class on the admirable Princess Marya from War and Peace. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Lamentation for an Idealist

Where has he gone?

I can no longer find him.

Like a mirage, he has faded.

Now I doubt I ever knew him.

I am surrounded by friends and family.

Yet I feel lonely without his company.

My selfish mind struggles to move on.

Where has he gone, that idealist?

Yet in my heart I know.

God keeps some mysteries for himself.

Some thoughts are not to be dispelled.

Some farewells must be endured.

Some things don't make sense.
And life is not patient.

So I can only hope.

Perhaps one day we will meet again.

That starry eyed

Naive

Idealist

Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

I'm taking a class on Tolstoy this semester, and one of the assignments is to assemble a quotes log as we go through his works. Tolstoy's language is elegant and extremely potent, so I thought it would be a shame not to share them. Here are some of my favorite quotes from my current log.
---------------------------

"A man is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems to him that there is nothing more splendid and interesting than himself. " -The Cossacks (87)


"Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple, most ordinary, and most terrible."
-Death of Ivan Ilyich (255)


"That Caius - man in the abstract- was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite separate from all others."       -Death of Ivan Ilyich (280)


"He experienced the unfortunate ability of many people, especially Russians - the ability to see and believe in the possibility of goodness and truth, and to see the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to participate in it seriously. Every sphere of work was, in his eyes, bound up with evilness and deceit. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he undertook - evil and falsehood repulsed him and barred him from all paths of activity. And yet he had to live, he had to keep busy. It was too frightening to be under the burden of all the insoluble questions of life, and he gave himself to the first amusements that came along, only so as to forget them." -War & Peace (538)


"A good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced that he has lost because of a mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of his game, but forgets that there were also mistakes at every step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect. The mistake he pays attention to is conspicuous only because his opponent took advantage of it." -War & Peace (709)


She now saw his face before her. Not the face she had known ever since she could remember, and which she had always seen from a distance, but the face – timid and weak – which on the last day, as she bent close to his mouth to hear what he said, she had seen for the first time close up, with all its wrinkles and details.  War & Peace (730)


"With the enemy’s approach to Moscow, the Muscovites’ view of their situation not only did not become more serious, but, on the contrary, became still more light minded, as always happens with people who see great danger approaching. At the approach of danger, two voices always speak with equal force in a man’s soul: one quite reasonably tells the man to consider the properties of the danger and the means of saving himself from it; the other says still more reasonably that it is too painful and tormenting to think about the danger, when it is not in the man’s power to foresee everything and save himself from the general course of things, and therefore it is better to turn away from the painful things until they come and think about what is pleasant. In solitude, a man most often yields to the first voice; in company, on the contrary to the second." -War & Peace (745)
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I'll be collecting more quotes as I re-read Anna Karenina and go through more readings. Anyway, don't let the size of works like War & Peace or Anna Karenina intimidate you from reading some of his works! Tolstoy has many brilliant short stories as well, and anyone interested in literature should definitely read at least one of his pieces.

On Weakness

Recently, I’ve been experiencing my shortcomings in visceral ways. I choose this sentence in place of something like “I’ve realized my shortcomings” because I want to emphasize two words. Those words are “experiencing” and “visceral.” In this post, I’d like to elaborate on why those two words have caused me to see weakness in a new light.

First is “experiencing.” It’s not difficult to “know” what weakness means. All character driven stories use it for plot and character development. We’ve seen and judged someone else’s weaknesses before. We’ve all felt weak ourselves, and how we interact with this experience is often a defining element in developing our self-esteem and identity.

In all of this, it’s tempting to take weakness as a concept and simplify it. Perhaps it just becomes a hurdle to overcome, or even something intellectual and abstract.

But as I experience my own weaknesses more, I feel that one simply can’t describe it in such a manner. One cannot define its meaning neatly. One cannot lift it to the abstract world like he/she can with love and death. With such concepts, it’s at least possible to understand a little bit of its essence with artistic mediums or perhaps through hearing personal stories. But doing this to weakness not only fails to capture its meaning, but often misrepresents it. Understanding weakness on any level must be personal.

The true meaning of weakness lies in those times where the mind comprehends its own faults and yet cannot seem to avoid them. We catch a glimpse when we not only read about the tragedies in history, but somehow feel their weight and the impact in our own lives and the world around us. It begins to show itself when personal effort and conviction fail.  The list could go on eternally, because one experience can capture many different meanings of this word “weakness” depending on the person.

And in all of these experiences, the word that immediately came to my mind to describe them is “visceral.” It is all instinctual, illogical, often ugly and even crude. I don’t think there’s a sure way to tell when we are starting to know weakness, but if I had to hazard a guess, it’s when we behave viscerally. Everything that we have formed around us falls away and we are left with something so strange and animalistic that it’s impossible to convey it in words.

After this cloud passes, only then can we begin to understand what “weakness” is. The tone of this post has been rather grim. I apologize if I have misrepresented weakness as I inevitably would as I write about it. In reality, I think that the key element of any wise person is that they have had this visceral experience. Such a person begins to understand weakness and I would speculate humanity itself. This understanding is powerful. It has so much potential for helping others. But it also has unlimited potential for exploitation.

"Dearly Beloved"

Dearly Beloved

What can I say?

Nothing in the world seems to go our way

Dearly Beloved

Back in the day

Those little things, they had more sway

Dearly Beloved

We were okay

To each onlooker, perhaps even gay

Dearly Beloved

What can I say?

Those things on delay

For each we must pay

Dearly Beloved

Back in the day

If I were only a shining ray

And you a flower of May

Dearly Beloved

We were okay

Now you're out by that bay

And here I just lay

Dearly Beloved

What can I say

Back in the day

We were okay

Dearly Beloved

I'd like to start anew...

Dearly Beloved...

How about you?

Update: Hiatus and Back to School!

Apologies for the long hiatus, things got pretty crazy as preparations for the new school year began. Anyway, I'm getting back into the rhythm of university life, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to writing more regularly!

I've actually been in school for 2 weeks already, and one thing has constantly been on my mind: The interaction between work and rest.

This summer, I don't feel like I did much work. I slept in, went on vacation, and spent lots of time with my friends. All of this I did with the mindset that this would be my final summer just to relax until the pressure of internships and other more scholarly summer activities occupied my time. Nevertheless, thoughts about such activities still preoccupied me, and I found myself with a keen sense of guilt as I woke up at 11am yet again to spend a day reading fiction, browsing the internet, and playing video games.

I feared that I wouldn't be able to adjust to the packed schedule of college life with how long and lazy my summer was, and yet I picked up the pace almost immediately upon arriving back. Work and homework piled up, and before I knew it, I had little time (and sometimes even desire!) to engage in the entertainment that preoccupied me so much during the summer.

What am I trying to get at here? I guess I've realized that the actual activity that one does in the summer isn't as important as what the time period/activity symbolically means to the person.

As I look back on the summer now with a bit of business under my belt, I see that despite the lack of concrete goals accomplished, it was a good summer. I deepened my relationships with my family, old friends, and consequently my older inner self that had weakened with all the new things constantly popping up in college life. I got to read more and flesh out my philosophies on some important topics. And of course, I had a lot of fun and laughter throughout those three months. I didn't realize the importance of all these things until they began to wane in my collegiate schedule.

When I symbolized the summer as a time of laziness, it propelled me to make more of my college time. But as college began again, I saw different dimensions of what I did over the summer, and it came to mean something else entirely.

I guess this has evolved somewhat beyond just work and rest. Every time period has its intricacies. They can be happy times or maybe sorrowful times. One may succeed in all his/her endeavors and feel empty inside, or fail and yet experience a rush of motivation and inspiration from that failure that leads to a new beginning.

Truly, the explicit happenings of the future are not under our control. But depending on how we symbolize our past, perhaps we are always in control of what the future means to us. And if that meaning grows strong enough... well, who know what we are capable of then?

What Keeps Me Up at Night

The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep. (Ecclesiastes 5:12)

Lately, I've been having some problems going to sleep. This is not the same as having problems falling asleep. On the contrary, as soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm usually out in ten minutes or so. What I mean by problems "going" to sleep, is that I feel a peculiar sense of dissatisfaction around midnight that stops me from actually putting my head to the pillow.

Understandably, one may wonder what I mean by "dissatisfaction." Looking back, I've been asking myself and others this question for some time now.

"What keeps you up at night?"

On the surface, it's basically just a more interesting substitute for "what do you care about?" At least, that's what I've thought until now. But as I sit here at 2am once again unable to go to sleep, I'm beginning to see that the concept may actually have more depth to it.

People are not consistent. Our thoughts and personalities shift throughout the day, often for no rational reason. Reflecting on this, the meaning of "what keeps you up at night" suddenly gained an important disclaimer to me.

What keeps you at night is very different from what keeps you up in the day.

Many a giddy sleepover girl or partying student knows that people change at night. Darkness brings with it a primitive vulnerability that leads to new thoughts and reflections that often elude us at daytime. When it comes to talking with others, darkness facilitates openness and creates a new layer to social interaction that is both subtly and overtly different from daytime interaction.

In short, I guess what I've realized is that "What keeps you up at night?" is actually a question that probes into deeper aspects of the answerer's life, and may not be suitable as a good conversation starter. People are too complex to truly answer this question in a casual way, and to do so would be a disservice to what really goes on in the mind at night.

Now that that's out of the way, I guess we've arrived at the point where I actually answer my own prompt.

Here's what is keeping me up tonight:

-The moon is really bright and beautiful. I have not seen the moon like this for a long time. I wonder if it's because I haven't been looking?

-I have some regrets.

-I keep thinking about all the things I want to do tomorrow, but I don't have faith that I will finish them. Numerous times, I have pondered if I should just stay up the whole night so I can get started immediately when the sun rises. Somehow, this never happens thankfully.

-There's a lot to process about my overall situation, even if nothing much actually happened today.

-This computer is a devil, at least to my sleep.

...

Perhaps I am just not a laborer yet.

One Year, One Iris

It's been one year since I published my first post explaining what "One Iris" means.

When I first started writing, I wasn't sure how far I would be able to take it. Will college life make me too busy? What if I run out of things to write? Are my thoughts even worth writing about?

It's been 38 posts since then. Looking back at those posts (and the prior paragraph), one thing stands out to me. I ask a lot of questions. I think that writing is such a lively thing because the craft itself is indeed alive. The act of writing seems to me like breathing. One inhales life, and exhales writing, though the form of that writing is of course unique to the person. My soul as a writer seems to exhale questions I cannot answer. I would even say I often feel crushed by the magnitude of questions I conjure without resolution.

Whether this is a product of my own personality or just my stage in life, I do not know. I am a student. Does it follow then that my purpose is to seek answers? But what then should I be doing with those answers? Are they simply there to help me find a job or obtain some other possession? Should I be forming a concrete philosophy to live by? Can such a thing even exist?

I've been reading some Tolstoy lately, and a line from his diary really resonated with me. "The mind's game of chess goes on independently of life, and life of it." I think that somewhere among my incessant question asking is a desire to form a plan for every situation. Even if I don't have an answer, I want to always at least have a response or some other intelligent sounding babble to spit out. And yet the more I think about it, many of the best conversations I've had were spontaneous, and my fondest memories are often ones I did not anticipate.

One Iris itself was a product of a late night idea that had little planning or philosophy to back it up. But writing here has truly been a blessing. The final line of my first post says that this blog will be a window into one iris in this world. That mission has not changed, and I thank you for reading One Iris! Here's hoping the second year will be as fruitful as the first!

Japan: Assorted Musings

Can you guess where I'm traveling from the flower above?

...

Yep, it's Japan! Can we just take a moment to appreciate how elegantly this flower captures the nation? It looks like the Japanese flag, while the central red spot also resembles a sakura petal, another national symbol. The flower above was in the "Sky Garden" at Kyoto train station. The station has terminals for the famed "bullet trains", as well as normal train, subway, and bus lines. Japanese public transit is truly a marvel. Here are some other assorted musings about my time in Japan.

-The dichotomy between traditional and modern Japanese culture is very pronounced. Though I've read they can be at odds with each other, at least at a surface level, the interaction is subtle and truly fascinating.

-Strict manners and other social behaviors (such as bowing) are very alive in Japan. Foreigners stand out pretty quickly.

-For other prospective travelers, most Japanese people (outside of hotels and huge tourist attractions) don't speak english. However, key vocabulary words are not out of the question. Some pointing, gesturing, and elementary japanese can usually get the job done (if not somewhat sheepishly.)

-Fast Food restaurants are replaced by convenience stores such as 7-11, Family Mart, and Lawson. You can buy boxed meals from the freezer (which they microwave at the register). The food is cheap, but still delicious, and lots of people come in during mealtime rush.

-Traveling to Japan opens one's eyes to many different facets of beauty. There's plenty of natural sightseeing as well as amazing industrial complexes. There's functional beauty in the way certain systems are run, and especially in traditional Japanese architecture and interior. Of course, if one has the opportunity to see them worn, yukata and kimono offer a unique beauty that can't be seen anywhere else.

-The amount of cute things (relative to an American of course) is pretty hard to describe. The advertising, the mascots, the music that plays in stores, the restaurant menus, certain behaviors of very people themselves...

Well, that's all I can come up with at the moment. I hope you've learned something about Japan from this unorganized little post.

Update: Vacation and Discussion on Entertainment

Traveling tends to produce lots of ideas, but it doesn't necessarily offer much time to write about them. I'll be out until August 17th, but I'll still try to write posts (though they may be shorter than usual.)

In lew of a formal post, here's an adaptation of a reply in an email conversation I was having with one of my friends. We were discussing the merits of entertainment mediums (particularly movies and videogames.) I edited the email to make it more cohesive and smooth out grammar issues, but it's otherwise preserved in all its spontaneity. Although this is informal, I hope it is still thought provoking!

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I do feel like movies, games, and entertainment in general these days are getting very realistic. They have more power to affect our lives than ever before. That power can be used for great things, like lifting people's moods reliably, or bringing people together to share fond experiences. But it can also cause harm if one wants to... say, escape the real world and its problems. It's a tricky topic.

I always lose energy after watching movies. It doesn't matter how much I enjoy it or what kind of movie it is. I always don't feel like doing anything afterwards. If you ask my family, you'll find out I pretty much refuse to watch movies any time except for right before bed for this reason. I wouldn't call it depression, but I think I have an idea of what you mean.

I would say I've felt this way for videogames quite a lot actually. I try to reason myself out of it with something like this:

Games (and movies) are made by other humans to satisfy a need or craving in human minds. There's a lot of possible needs, but some include social connectivity, a feeling of achievement, an outlet for mental passion, and many more that I can't think about. If a game succeeds in engaging its user on that level, then it "sucks us into its world." Leaving that world can make reality seem like a lower, boring, less productive form of existence.

I think this is what causes the feeling you're describing. It's not necessarily that the game or movie world is so much more interesting than yours (although that is often the case.) It's that these entertainment mediums provide total engagement. Your mind experiences full activation and utilization, and I think this is what we humans love the most: working hard to the best of our potential. It's hard to find this in life, but I'm sure you've felt this when practicing piano/organ or doing other things. When work becomes a melody and not a chore, all of our positive emotions come out.

Videogames and movies are especially effective in immediately activating this feeling, leaving them can cause feelings like this. But we should remember that although that fictional world isn't real, the emotions it made us feel were real, and those emotions are what makes entertainment valuable.

Ultimately, it's a tricky subject to write something cohesive about. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should take those emotions from entertainment and use them to seek out their counterparts in real life. That doesn't mean that games and movies are useless. They help us recognize these feelings, and know how to find them, both for ourselves and others. For that there is nothing to be depressed about. Of course, anything in excess can be harmful, and entertainment is particularly vulnerable to this. It's a fine line to walk...

Memory

As I sorted through some old pictures from my phone I was struck by how many events I had forgotten. With how fast the world moves today, it's pretty easy to forget the past isn't it?

I proposed an exercise to myself, and if you're interested, you can try this too. Think of a set time period in the past (could be a week ago, or even a year). What events can you recall? What days were the most memorable? What have you been doing?

Then take a look at your phone gallery, facebook wall, or any other source of your past. Which things did you forget about? What about the things that stuck out? Why were they important to you?

Yes, it is entirely possible that one simply forgets things because... well we're forgetful. But I feel that the events we recall the most clearly are especially revealing about our priorities and interests in life. I don't mean to say this lightly. Decoding our memories is never an easy task, and there are times when it is even potentially harmful. Yet the past contains the building blocks of who we are today, and shapes what we will use to build ourselves tomorrow. Framing one's life in this larger sense helps us stay on track towards our goals.

But more importantly, it may reveal the end of one road, and safely guide us towards another.

On Conviction in the Information Age

Have you ever convicted someone for having a conviction?

It could have been a sincere belief, or maybe just an uninformed opinion. Perhaps you debated with the person who held the conviction, or maybe just ridiculed him/her. Or maybe you did nothing at all. Your conviction simmered quietly in your mind underneath your casual and uninvested smile.

We live in an age where it's easier than ever to be convicted. Of course, I mean this in both senses of the word. It is both easier to be wrapped up in beliefs, and to shut them down.

Our vast information technology allows beliefs and ideas to grow at incredible speed. Movements can start overnight. An impression can be compared with the opinions of thousands of other people to give it pseudo factual status. If one is interested in a topic, the information is out there. Blog posts, news articles, videos... you can search to your heart's content. The result of all this is that one can easily form strongly held beliefs with plenty of qualified research with relative ease.

But shutting down these beliefs has also never been easier. With smartphones becoming so ubiquitous, simple factual inconsistencies rarely live past a few minutes before being slain by google. To a certain extent, this mentality has extended to opinions as well. A high opinion of a movie with low review scores for example, can lead another viewer to cite sophisticated reasons as to why said movie was actually terrible.

What does this double edged sword of information ultimately mean for conviction? This is a complex question that has no easy answer. But here are some basic ideas that I have been thinking about lately.

My age group seems to be afraid to have conviction. Because of the depth and ease of access of sophisticated counter beliefs, one's own research and personal experience is rarely enough to convince a person, let alone a person who has an opposing opinion. Information technology also allows opinions to gain support to levels that have never been seen before. One can now invest in opinions that are mostly shared by individuals from all over the nation, or maybe even the world. Opposing such views can be a daunting task indeed.

The result is what many have observed to be a widespread tone of casual disinterest. No matter the subject, we seek the compromise or simply cite some widely held belief with no personal investment in our words. But underneath it all, people are passionate beings. We may hide our passions or deep beliefs, but they are there. But what happens to a conviction untested? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

On Loving Others

What makes us dislike or even hate others? The level of tolerance varies by person. For some, incorrect manners or social awkwardness can be enough to dissuade further interaction. For others, such actions would be lamentable, yet ultimately excusable so long as the person is honest and kind in their intentions. Perhaps for them, it would take betrayal, or another deeper sort of wronging to incite negative sentiment.

Truly, there are innumerable reasons one could dislike another person. Lately, I've been considering what mine are.

In middle school I was well known among my friends for making grand (often somewhat exaggerated) statements. This habit of mine led me into a few strange, yet ultimately fascinating conversations. One particular day we were discussing people we didn't like in our class. When it came to my turn, my response was: "I have no enemies."

Throughout high school this idea became a playful joke among my friends. If anyone did something that appeared to displease me, my friends would immediately start chanting: "He's your enemy Chris!" Of course, this would always lead to my vigorous denial and some lecturing about why I don't believe in the concept. In retrospect, the latter part is probably why the joke was funny, but I was happy to oblige if I could talk about my "grand philosophies."

All joking aside, I find that to a certain extent, I still believe in this lofty concept, though acknowledging its reality and applying it in life is far more difficult than it was in middle school. Nevertheless, whenever I find myself disliking a person or something with a person behind it, I find myself pondering, "Do I really have a reason to feel this way?"

People are flawed. Our minds could be biologically flawed or scarred by prior experience. We make simple mistakes with huge consequences. We have fears, both irrational and not, that lead to harmful actions. We scheme against rivals and enemies for our own benefit. We're selfish. We don't notice other people's feelings at times. The list goes on and on.

These flaws are a part of being human. Thus the errors and imperfections of others are also a part of me, and to hate them is to hate myself. To not forgive them is to condemn myself and in a sense, humanity as a whole.

I don't mean to suggest that everything is excusable. There are serious evils in the world, and we will make grave mistakes in our lives. This is lamentable, and as a society, we must give justice where it is due.

But forgiveness and justice are not mutually exclusive. After all is said and done, one can always forgive.

The title of this post is "On Loving Others", and yet I've hardly discussed love at all in this post. Love is thrown around a lot in our world today. Its meanings seem to differ for every person, but there are certain aspects of it we can all agree on. When it comes to loving others, I'm suggesting one of those aspects for all of us to sit on. Perhaps the basis of this love is an acknowledgement of flaws, evil, and hate. And perhaps its ultimate form is the ability to forgive, even when the wronging is grave, and it appears impossible. In this, our human love perhaps begins to understand the divine.

Picture: Window

Here's another picture for us to look at. It's important to slow down sometimes to appreciate the art in everyday life.

What struck me about this picture was the black and white contrast. The hazy afternoon light nevertheless reflects off the snow brilliantly, making the room inside seem pitch black. Mixed in with all of this is the color brown, represented by trees in both their natural state (the woods) and as processed by man (the table, chair, and windowsill.)

White, Black, and Brown, these are not usually very exciting or unique colors. But in this picture, they illuminate some pretty important elements. They highlight Light, Shadow, and Life. The table pictured is a centerpiece of life to the family that lives in it, just as the great tree occupies its place at the center of the scene outside. Around the table and the tree, light, shadow, night, and day are constantly changing, and yet they remain the same. So this initially harsh and contrasting image highlights a different kind of "homely" feeling. I would say this image makes me reflect on what is constant throughout the bright and dark periods in our lives.

Well, that's what I see here anyway. I hope you enjoy these little exercises as much as I do. Let's always keep our eyes open to the ordinary beauty around us.

A Freshman Reflection

It's hard to believe that my first year is over. Just eleven days ago, I was still studying for my last final and scrambling to pack up in time for the end of freshman year.

When I say "just eleven days ago" I don't mean that time has gone by quickly outside of college. On the contrary, I feel like I've been home for a month already. Truly, the transition between college and home life warps one's sense of time. Such is the magnitude of the contrast between two. Going between them feels as if one were traveling between simultaneously familiar yet foreign countries. It's a surreal experience.

In retrospect, perhaps it is not just this transition, but the college life itself that feels surreal to me. My life as a college student felt both enlightening and confusing in ways that I find difficult to describe in words. Perhaps that is why in these past eleven days, the common question of, "So, how was college?" has continued to confound me. How does one capture the essence of being a college student? Which thoughts and experiences are the most important or defining?

I had planned to write this reflection two weeks ago during finals week. But I was, and still am unable to answer these questions. There are many possible reasons for this, but I think the most fundamental one is this: I find it extremely difficult, if not impossible to interpret college as more than a personal experience.

This year I experienced the deepest loneliness I've ever felt. But I also deepened my friendships and my familial relationships in a way I could not have understood at the beginning of the year. I've alternated between feeling like an utter fool and a passionate genius on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. I've clarified things I already knew about myself, and discovered completely new things as well. But as I continue to uncover more about myself and the world around me, I become conscious of the shadows I had ignored, and ultimately I am left with more mysteries than I solved.

The deepest reflections I have on college life are intensely individualistic and specific to my own immediate surroundings. I cannot think of a single ubiquitous concept.

Where then, does that leave this piece of writing? I guess you could say it is a testament of sorts. It's a testament to the wonderful strangeness of the college experience. Each student has a different story to tell. But perhaps it's one of those stories you can't understand properly until the end.

"The Computer"

Show me the world

Let it unfold

I’ll not say goodbye

Until the day I die

It’s hard to resist

When will I desist

This electrical screen

With all its gleam

One day I’ll fall to dust

For all it’s a must

I’ll be gone

Yet this computer lives on

      As finals week once again begins, I find myself glued to my computer producing papers, presentations, and other scholarly things.

Reflecting on all of this, one really does spend an extraordinary amount of time staring at a computer screen in college. I actually found the little poem above from my high school folders, but looking at it again, the poem seems to have more weight now than when I first wrote it.

As a prospective CS major, I already spend plenty of time working on computers for my coursework. But even outside of that, I've realized that much of my free time and energy are invested on the internet. Of course, I even wrote the poem on a computer, and the irony of that doesn't escape me. 

To be sure, we've created an awe-inspiring machine. But after a long day of typing, researching, and programming, I can't help but feel that a certain kind of fundamental energy is draining unnaturally fast the longer I spend staring into my computer screen.

And so I've recently been planning out my days and studies on paper as much as possible. It's going to be a long finals period. But among these student woes, there are valuable lessons to be learned: priceless lessons on perspective, and on where our time goes. It's time that we'll never get back.

Picture: The Bracelet

Today I'd like to try something different. In High School, my English teachers occasionally had the class look at a picture and analyze what symbols or meanings it had. These pictures were usually famous and deeply tied into our current period or theme of study. Thus fishing around for common "book answers" was easy, and by the end of the year, the exercise even became the subject of satire among my peers.

However, the exercise left a deep impression on me. Although we had often analyzed works of art of famous images in class, I was fascinated by a new idea: The idea that an ordinary picture could contain something deep.

The image above comes from Thayer Street, where I encountered this pretty bracelet just lying on the windowsill.

So here's the picture. Let's assume it has some kind of meaning to it. What do you see?

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To me, I immediately focus on and personify the bracelet as an individual. The environment around it is largely uniform. Solid blue paint. Concrete sidewalk. Dirty Glass. But the bracelet... It is multifaceted. It refracts light in different directions... Relative to the environment around it, it is magnificent.

But the dirty glass behind it acts as a mirror. We can see that with each iteration, the image of the bracelet becomes more washed out, and blends in with the surroundings it once outshone. The glass captures the side effects of reflection. Whether it is a mental or physical mirror, the more one looks inward towards the self for meaning, the more diffused the self becomes.

Thus the image captures the duality of the lives we live here in America. Each striving to be a special and brilliant individual, yet also walking a dangerous line in which we may simultaneously wash ourselves out. As in the image, there's a definite simple beauty in all of this, but we must be careful to look for a deeper beauty as well.

---

There's my immediate impression of the image at the moment. Yet even as I write this, I've had lots of other ideas for what one could form from this image. What I enjoy about this exercise is the freedom inherent in its structure, as well as its potential to generate unexpected thoughts and realizations.

For example, that I focus on the bracelet as an individual already shows how deeply cultural and personal beliefs affect reflections such as this. Perhaps in other cultures, a person would take in the image more holistically, rather than define it in relation to the most eye-catching element. The mind is a mysterious thing isn't it?

Verbosity

Before

After

As a freshman in high school, I learned that when it comes to writing, less is more. At the time I loved to throw in as many impressive adjectives and clauses as possible, and while I didn't use a thesaurus, with my mindset, I may as well have. Even now, I know I still have a problem with using too many words. Proofreading can usually catch this, but for informal writing, such as on One Iris, I let it slip sometimes, and for that I apologize.

Recently, I've been assigned some rather dense articles for my coursework. As I spent hours pouring over these readings, I couldn't help but despair.

They're just plain bad at conveying information sometimes.

While I admit it's certainly possible that my reading level is just not as high as these academic elites, shouldn't good writing be able to convey one's ideas to as wide an audience as possible? What's the point of such robust vocabulary and advanced (but barely passable) sentence lengths? If the reader gets confused along the way, it's just not good writing.

The images above come from one article that I found to be very wordy and annoying to read, especially for an introductory paragraph. I spent a minute copying it into a word document and cutting it down to see if there was a better way to present the information. I cut down the size by 25% easily. The paragraph on the right captures the same information in a much more succinct way.

Let's consider another example from a rather terrible (in terms of verbosity) article I just read. Here's the first sentence:

"If 'emotion' is taken to mean 'an emotion,' 'a bounded sequence of anger, sadness, fear, and so forth (which are the sorts of events I will for the most part be considering here), rather than some more abstract or derivative usage, than it has not been of central concern in anthropology until recently."

An article full of such language gets extremely tiresome very quickly. Consider the following revision:

"Emotion as a bounded sequence of anger, sadness, and so forth has not been the central concern of anthropology until recently."

It took just a few seconds to come up with this revision, but it conveys the exact same idea in half the words. Why is "rather than some more abstract or derivative usage" even there? Shouldn't such a vague idea be elaborated on in another sentence, or even a separate paragraph? And the parenthesis... Given that you're starting this article by talking about this definition of emotion, I know that you're going to be talking about it, and not the "abstract" usage. These simple omissions improve clarity by leaps and bounds, and really I wish more academic authors took the time to proofread their articles readability.

I understand that this is a pretty silly rant, but it has definitely become a pet peeves lately and I felt compelled to write about it. For my fellow students, please do not adopt verbosity. "Short and sweet" doesn't apply to everything. But when it comes to information transfer, less really is more.

19

Today marks my 19th birthday. 19 is such a strange number. 18 somehow seems to carry more weight, and feels significantly older than 17. 20 of course marks the 2nd decade of one's life. But 19? It's just a transition. The year seems numerically and symbolically to be just sort of, well, there.

As I'm writing this it's currently 3:01am, so I've been 19 for a total of three hours so far. I used to stay up very late just thinking about things, but it hasn't been a habit as of late. But this particular night, I couldn't help but reflect on how 19 is the perfect number for me right now.

Lately, I've been feeling a profound lack of purpose. I guess this could be a common sentiment for the millennial teenager, and I'm probably more disturbed by this than I should be. But what ultimately disturbs me the most about all this is precisely that I don't feel very disturbed about the fact itself.

That's a bit of a confusing statement, so allow me to clarify. As far back as age 16, I recall having a desire to change the world in some meaningful way, to live my life in a way that was out of the ordinary. I wanted to avoid a passive existence, which I saw as nothing more than wasted time as death slowly encroaches on us all.

In my case, this nighttime philosophy rarely translated into any notable daytime action. I walked through life as an academic, elite high schooler much in the same way that my peers did. Although I like to think that differentiated myself in some way, I know that ultimately I bought into what was placed in front of me with little questioning. In the back of my mind, I figured I had to build up my foundation before attempting anything "world-changing."

This way of thinking was misguided. I see now that my existence up to this point is not something I can shake off easily. The habits and thought processes I have acquired are well ingrained into me. I never had to courage to be something different in high school, so it's not surprising that now, though I struggle with a desire to make some grander purpose in my life.

Such is the criticism that I find myself repeating with ever growing frequency as this final teenage year begins. So many people have invested in me, but what exactly should I do with this investment? Am I simply to serve myself and my immediate friends and family? How can I do anything meaningful? Cynicism is a funny thing. You rarely ever notice that you're cynical until you try to be optimistic. But because it is thus so infrequent, one begins to question whether it is cynicism or realism talking, and whether there is even a difference between the two.

When such feelings strike, I feel a powerful drive to overcome my halfheartedness and to do something impulsively, such as signing up for a job, or taking a class I'm not sure I'm comfortable in. Usually these are good decisions, because even if I fail, I've learned about myself and will be wiser for the next burst of "inspiration."

But there are also days where I feel that there's nothing wrong with a lack of grand purpose in life. There are plenty of people who live a simple, locally focused life (in terms of time and community.) They probably have generally happier days than me too. Or perhaps they don't.

My mother recently asked me to rate my life on a scale of 1-10. After complaining about "objectifying life experience" and other pretentious topics, I replied "10."

As I sit here almost upon my fourth hour of being 19, I realize that I feel pretty aimless. But the journey up to this point has been fortunate and joyful. When I think of this fact, I feel a sense of peace with myself, and I know that this inner strength is what will see me through this next year and the rest of them. So for now, I guess I'll leave the future to itself.

Little Things

As the years go by, I find myself more and more attracted to little things. While I wouldn't call myself a shaker just yet, I've definitely come to appreciate simplicity and pure functionality far more than even just a few years ago.

I found the little basket pictured above at a Hobby Lobby store a few months ago. At that time the decision on Hobby Lobby's controversial contraceptive case was still hotly debated, and I had myself been reflecting on what my stance on the issue was.

Walking around in the store that day, I was struck by just how ordinarily life goes on in the face of national attention and for some, even scandal. For the average employee and shopper, the headlines didn't matter. What mattered were those cute flower wreaths, or in my case, those precious little baskets.

It's so miniature, it can barely even hold my phone without tipping over. But there was just something about its old and hand-made look... I could easily imagine a young girl carrying it around a hundred years ago or so. Maybe her doll owned it, and she had a bigger one. Or maybe some farmer long ago used larger baskets such as these to gather his crops. I guess it's one of those odd moments you really have to experience before you can identify with it, but I was happy to pay the $2 to buy it.

Just last weekend I was shopping with my family in an Asian market when my sister pointed out a small tin of Japanese fruit candy on the shelf. These "Sakuma Drops" were featured in Studio Ghibli's "Grave of the Fireflies", which we both had watched, so we were excited to purchase two tins immediately.

Once again I paid $2 and found myself holding what would ordinarily be just a little trinket. But as I opened up the tin and gave it a shake, the sound of the fruit drops rustling against the metal provoked something powerful in my mind. It wasn't simply that I recalled the emotions in "Grave of the Fireflies" (a masterful movie by the way). Rather I began to see how such a simple little tin could mean so much to kids, parents, and anyone else who enjoyed them. There was a humility in the way I had to pry open the lid that limits children's access to the candy. Its no-nonsense construction and appearance really conveyed the long tradition of the candy, which was first produced in 1908. Beyond just being candy, I guess I could again picture to myself a young girl or boy begging mother to pry open the lid to give him/her a sweet treat.

As I reflect more, I realize that these everyday images have taken on a sort of beauty to me. Life is full of complications, big picture ideas, and other grand images. And these are great to be sure, especially for youth. But what keeps us running day to day are these simple memories, and really, I think life's greatest joys often come from them.

There's a couple more objects in that picture that I could write a paragraph or two about. My trusty Pilot V5 pen, which I've been buying since freshman year in high school, holds a lot of meaning to me as the instrument I used all throughout my journey as a writer in high school. My notebooks, so simultaneously clean, yet brimming with intellectual scraps from my life. And even this computer, my companion for much of the day, who has never failed to boot up when I have work to do, or entertain me when I'm feeling tired or down.

In a sense, I guess these objects are no longer simple to me. Maybe I'm just being overly sentimental. But I have a sense that others feel this way as well. Perhaps all things are just like empty canvases, waiting to be filled with the art of one's life and memories.

On Music Part 1: Music to Me

I had originally planned to release this post concurrently with my previous post, "Music: Aurora's Theme", but as I began to gather my thoughts on this subject, I was halted by the sheer magnitude of the topic I wanted to write about.

That topic of course is Music.

I've written about some pretty abstract topics here on One Iris. What was it about music specifically that stopped me dead in my tracks? As I've let this question settle for the past 17 days, I have finally begun to form a semblance of an answer. There are two main reasons why I find music difficult to write about. The first is my own curious relationship with it.

-----------------------------------
"Music: Aurora's Theme" was my spontaneity in its purest form. As I listened to the song, I jotted down whatever thought or image happened to cross my mind, and then attempted to distill it into a sentence or two. When I happened to feel like making some rhymes in the middle of it, I just went with it.

When I listen to music, I search for a story I can associate with it. It doesn't have to be something elaborate. A character, a setting, or just a single scene can be enough to tell the tale.

I search for clear melodies, rich background instrumentation, themes, and many other elements. Whatever helps in creating the story.

You may have noticed something about Aurora's Theme. It actually comes from a videogame, specifically the 2014 title "Child of Light." Videogames are home to almost all my favorite pieces of music.

Lately, I've been continuously asking myself: "Why?"

Why is it that when I hear the songs on the radio I often feel disdain and not joy? Why don't I tap my foot to the drum? Why am I not curious about the lyrics? Why am I equally proud, yet nervous to share my own favorite songs?

As you can imagine, there are an infinite number of questions that can branch out from these few alone. What about independent artists? Does it have something to do with lyrics? Or maybe I just haven't listened to enough music?

This is why I feel my relationship with music is quite curious. With any other topic, I can usually at least form a decent opinion or reflection. But when it comes to music, I feel equal amounts of empowerment and confusion.

And yet I am sure of one thing I really love about music. I love the stories and imagination it has the potential to evoke.

Perhaps this could begin to explain why from a young age I have loved videogame music. It does a fantastic job of creating stories. When we consider the purpose the game music serves, it's not difficult to see why. In games, the music must be clear, catchy, and intimately intertwined with the gameplay and story that it plays along with. Hearing the song outside the context of the game is then more likely to trigger memories of specific moments or scenes within the game. This makes the music much more significant to those who have played the game, as the stories and emotions one can derive from it have a richer context and more associated memories.

Aside from video game music, very little has caught my ears or my mind. Among them are musical scores, some film score, and assorted artists I've come across on youtube.

I'd like to present another of my favorites, "The Last Carnival" by Norihiro Tsuru. Can you hear a story in this song? How does your image differ from mine? What subtleties does the title evoke for you that it doesn't for me?

These questions fascinate me, and I've come to see that they constitute a great part of my enjoyment of music. I want to know how the image is created. How can something ultimately mechanical stir the spirit in such powerful ways?

I posted Aurora's Theme at the top of this post once again. If you're curious, you can google "Child of Light" to learn a bit about it's protagonist, which the song is meant to describe. I provided very little context or explanation for my thoughts in my prior post, so I thought I'd try again.

Aurora's Theme makes me think about growing up. The song feels like it could describe a full grown adult, or perhaps a curious young child. Coeur de Pirate creates something both fantastical, yet organic in this song with her instrument choices.

It's a song that feels... like it's flying. It sounds like child-like wonder, but within the context of a mature epiphany of some sort. There's a subtle sense of sorrow mixed in with all of this, yet somehow this sorrow seems to detail a deep and indescribable kind of joy as well.

The song embraces these dualities with strength and even a sense of warmth and comfort. All of this makes me realize a wonderful part of growing up, which all too often becomes victim to the mind's thirst for nostalgia. In overcoming this turbulent point in one's life, the song evokes a great beauty in life. I can't say this is what the artist meant for sure. Even for me, the song sounds a little different each time I listen to it. Yet these are my thoughts right now.

But what do you hear?

Music: Aurora's Theme

(0:00-0:08): The steady thump of the piano... An invitation into a distant world.

(0:08-0:38): The melody is clear and beautiful. As the piano presses on, it begins to shape a story.

(0:38-1:08): Here it is again, but there seems to be a change. In our party, a guitar, strumming away in some place.

(1:08-1:41): It's subtly sad, yet it soars as well. It's certainly not befitting of just a little girl who fell. I hear someone growing, stumbling along; towards a journey complete, by the end of this song.

(1:41-2:10): Briefly I hear, something very dear. An inner spirit perhaps, guiding her out from despair.

(2:10-2:41): One last time that melody appears. This time there's a drum marching on in the rear.

(2:41-3:29): The story concludes, so we find ourselves in our world again. Yet perhaps with just a little more light, than with which we began.

On Faith

"Faith" is quite an interesting word. Most denotations go something along the line of Webster's online definition, which says, "strong belief or trust in someone or something." Yes, I know that this kind of introduction is quite cliche. But in a way, so is faith as a concept.

Hmm, this is already starting to sound a bit dark, so allow me to put in a classic controversy diffusing disclaimer. I say that faith is an interesting word because its meaning changes significantly with the context it is used in, despite not changing its literal definition. Perhaps the most common use of faith is in its meaning as it relates to religion. When speaking of higher powers, faith is "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). In this iteration, faith becomes a sort of abstract concept, and thus can be easily critiqued and reflected on. It's a simple kind of faith.

But as with everything else in the world, faith gets a lot more messy when it exits the realm of the abstract and into reality. Lately, I've been pondering a lot on what faith means when it pertains not to God but to ordinary people.

Everyday we place our faith in those around us. We have faith that the driver in the next lane will not suddenly swerve into us. We trust our friends and family to care about us. The loss of faith in these situations can be devastating to one's development and mental state.

Others are always placing faith in us too. In my personal case, I think a lot about how much faith my family, friends, and even large organizations, support my life. Whether it's on a monetary or emotional level, there's a faith that I am worth something and deserve their investment. Of course, this is not to say that family members love each other only because they expect something in return. On the contrary, I believe that while it is rare, unconditional love exists as the most potent spiritual existence mankind can experience. Nevertheless, it seems to me that its presence should inevitably create a sense of humility and indebtedness to its receiver.

So we humans continue placing and receiving faith.

Yet we are fundamentally flawed. We are not faithful, and we are not constant.

But even knowing this, we place faith in each other. Those who can resist this aspect of humanity are admired for their consistency. On one hand, there doesn't seem to be anything inherently wrong with this is there? Aspirations towards consistent excellence... There is certainly no shame in that.

What of those moments of failure though?  How do we react when our faith is misplaced? What does it mean and how should we feel when we fail to deliver to those who have faith in us?

To me these questions are heart wrenching to think about. I almost don't even want to consider them. But to hide them away while acknowledging their inevitability seems to be a grievous wrong as well.

This post doesn't have a set focus or answer to this issue. The question of faith remains one of the most mysterious ones I've thought about. All I can recall at the moment is a verse from 2 Corinthians, 12:9.

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

It speaks of a kind of faith through weakness, and even a power from weakness... Perhaps it is fitting that faith in its different incarnations have sprung up into this conclusion. Where does this leave faith in its purely human-to-human form? I guess that's a question for another time.

On Snow Part 2

For my inaugural post of 2015, I'd like to explain the title of this post.

"Snow" is a word that has a multitude of meanings for me.

From childhood, I began to associate snow with excitement and beauty. The flurry of flakes is magnificent both in its appearance and in the potential it brings for fun. I would venture to say that such associations are universal among children. Although I rarely build snowmen or toss snowballs at my sister anymore, snow will always call back these memories from childhood.

Snow is curious in that regard. Its presence and connotations change with age, but all of those meanings can simultaneously reappear each time the first snowfall begins to descend.

In my adolescence, I began to see snow as symbolically beautiful. Engaged in romanticism studies as I was, snow began to seem like one of nature's few remaining victories. For a brief moment before the snow trucks come along, the world looks completely natural again. Indeed, this is all courtesy of the descent of nature's purest blanket, although some days it may seem to be more like a vicious white army. Is this push of nature just a fleeting vision of what once was? Or is it an eternal counterattack?

So many stories are told in this blizzard than I could ever know. Both real stories of our joy within the cold, or imaginary, fantastical legends of old. Snow provides perhaps the most flexible backdrop ever told.

These days I see that snow is perhaps not as tranquil as it seems, but rather a mad mistress who can rip life apart at the seam. For those without homes, or whose spirit is low, snow only makes reality all the more cold. And so my old friend, I see you square. You're not quite as innocent as your color seems to bear.

Through this all, the snow continues to fall. The only thing that's really changed is me.

Is it a memory of a forgotten excitement? Perhaps a setting for one's developing mind, in both its imagination and newfound cynicism? Or is it just like any other natural force, so innocent, yet teetering on disaster?

Or perhaps in the end, snow can be anything. And what could be more pure than that?

On Snow Part 1

Much to my disappointment, winter this year has been surprisingly devoid of snow. To me, snow has always been a quintessential part of the New England winter, and its absence during Christmas day especially killed the winter atmosphere. But yesterday morning finally marked the first significant snowfall of the year.

As I sat in front of the window gazing at those floaty little flakes, I suddenly felt compelled to write something about them. So for my first post in 2015 I will write about snow.

Initially, I found this idea a bit ridiculous. Of all the things one could write about to start off a new year, why snow? One Iris has come a long way (well, 21 posts anyway) since I started it back in August. But as I reflect on these first 5 months, I realize I've lost a part of my original purpose for the blog.

One Iris started as a hobby to make sure I wouldn't forget how to express myself amidst the "newness" and business of college life. I wanted to write in as spontaneously a manner as possible, with no fear of judgement and with as much vigor as I could muster.

And yet recently I've felt a bit of pressure to say something significant. To make One Iris not only a "web log" but a place were one can find wisdom, or some other concrete benefit to take away. I've realized that's quite haughty of me.

The start of a new year is a great time to make new resolutions, and also to remind oneself of those made in the past. Perhaps all these reflections are what made the snowfall so inspiring to me yesterday. Snow is so clean, simple, and graceful. It has always been a powerful source of nostalgia to me, bringing me back to a time when I would jump for joy at the mere sight of it, let alone the act of playing in it.

In the spirit of this nostalgia I think it would be fitting to remind myself of how One Iris began...