A time comes when you think you cannot bear another thing, but it happens to you, and you can bear it. –Lucy Stark, All the King’s Men

Lucy Stark says this in All the King’s Men after the death of her husband Willie Stark, the protagonist of the novel. Throughout the novel, Lucy has to deal with enormous challenges. Willie becomes separated from her because his political career causes him to have affairs and stray from her conservative values. Her son, Tom, impregnates a girl without marriage and subsequently becomes a victim of paralysis due to a football injury. And, towards the end, Willie is assassinated. Yet, even after being through hell, she says this quote to Jack, the narrator of the novel. The quote is powerful because it conveys that every challenge is bearable when the time comes to actually face it no matter how monumental it may seem beforehand. Tom’s new beautiful daughter whom Lucy is tasked with taking care of is symbolic of the fruits of bearing seemingly insurmountable challenges. We have the ability to rise to the occasion and meet every obstacle.

Warren, R. (1946). All the King’s Men (p. 640). Harcourt.

“You can’t fool me. I listen to public radio!” – Squidward

On the famous television show Spongebob, Squidward is known for being very close-minded and bitter despite his arrogance and belief that he is the most culturally-aware and brilliant character. I commonplaced this quote by Squidward because it epitomizes the direction in which our society is headed with 24-hour news channels, social media, and a bombardment of information such that we are left with no capacity for independent thought. Through irony and humor, Squidward’s quote illustrates how we look to the Internet or television for our thoughts and even when we come up with independent thoughts, we run to the Internet and television for confirmation. The quote reminds me that the information available in public space is not the end all be all. It is up to me to take the pieces from various sources, connect them, and formulate my own opinions.

Drymon, Derek, Hill Tim (Writers), & Hillenburg, Stephen (Director). (2005). The Spongebob Squarepants Movie [Animated film]. In Hillenburg, Stephen, Pistor, Julia (Producers). Hollywood, CA: Paramount.

Jose vs Joe: Who Gets a Job? – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR7SG2C7IVU

One of the flaws of our society is our growing tendency to sweep serious issues under the rug and ignore or ridicule truth-tellers whose goal it is to bring problems to light. One such issue is discrimination, stereotyping, and profiling. A large section of our society likes to pretend that in 21^st century America, these problems have disappeared. But they still exist, if only more subtly.

In the video, Jose Zamora discusses how no matter how many jobs he applied to, he failed to get interview or offers. However, after changing his name to Joe while keeping everything else the exact same, his phone exploded with calls and offers. The harsh truth is that employers avoided Jose because the name implied he was a Hispanic male. Even if only subliminally, employers instantly offered Joe an interview because the name Joe implied that he was a Caucasian male. If the resume also changed, the employers might be justified, but Jose kept everything else the same.

Stereotyping and profiling is not exclusive to Hispanics. Most minorities face it consistently, including blacks and women. How, if these age old stereotypes continue to be applied to certain sects of the population, are they supposed to have a chance to break free from such generalizations? First and foremost, ignoring the problem like many people want to do will not help. I commonplaced Jose Zamora’s story because it reminds me to explore people before forming opinions about them. But on an even broader scale, it illustrates the need for us to talk about issues instead of simply pretending that time has healed problems such as racism, racial profiling, and stereotyping.

 

 

 

 

[Screen name: BuzzFeedYellow] (2014, August 30). Jose vs Joe: Who gets a job? [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR7SG2C7IVU

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare

After learning something new or having an epiphany when studying, I tend to have a feeling that I’m on top of the world. And quite honestly, the high school I attended did little to help my humility. However, after coming to Georgia Tech and seeing students who are all equal to or better than me in terms of knowledge and motivation to learn, I realized that I have a long, long way to go. I commonplaced this quote first of all because it’s from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and his name alone implies credibility, at least in moral lesson terms. Secondly, the quote serves as a reminder that true wisdom means realizing that what we know is a mere fraction of what we have yet to learn. The irony of a wise man knowing that he’s a fool makes the quote memorable, and if a wise man is a fool, I, an 18-year old college student who is far from wise, must be a fool of even greater magnitude. Knowing that helps me be more inquisitive and thirsty for knowledge.

 

 

Thinkexist. (n.d.). William Shakespeare quotes. Retrieved from http://thinkexist.com/quotation/a_fool_thinks_himself_to_be_wise-but_a_wise_man/227471.html

Reality of Technology

I decided to commonplace this image because it utilizes humor to portray a very valid truth. Technology comes with its fair share of distractions. In my high school, we had a policy called BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology), where students had the freedom to use smartphones, tablets, and laptops in any class. The potential for such a policy was tremendous because students had a wealth of information at their fingertips. However, what looked like hardworking students were just victims of Facebook and Twitter buried in their screens while the teacher was lecturing.

While the image may effectively portray the negatives of technology, I disagree with how the blame is placed on the boy, who I believe is instead the victim. Despite the numerous positive aspects of technology, maybe it’s inevitable that we will all use technology in all the wrong ways. Perhaps it’s unavoidable that the Internet access that was meant to look up Shakespeare will instead be used to search the latest Twitter updates. I believe the availability of unfiltered technology is responsible for dumbing down society, and with all the strong opinions when it comes to censorship and regulation, it might be too late to reverse the trend.

 

Derhoppse. (n.d.). [Graphic image]. Retrieved from https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8247505408/h7E7144F8/

“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” –Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant physicists of our time, is exposing what he perceives to be irony and hypocrisy of people, such as myself, who do not believe in free will but still proceed as if it exists. Perhaps Hawking is suggesting that we actually do have some degree of freedom that allows us to control our path. He is possibly claiming that while a certain outcome might seem predestined, there are multiple decisions we can make to influence the final result. The act of looking both ways is a matter of choice and free will, and not looking could have deadly consequences. Therefore, every decision we make is vital.

 

BrainyQuote (n.d.). Stephen Hawking Quotes. Retrieved from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/stephenhaw393342.html

Heart surgeon after 23-hour-long (successful) heart transplant

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes context is vital to understanding a photograph. I commonplaced this image because of the irony it presented and my completely false interpretation before learning the context. The focal point of the image features a patient connected to a maze of tangled wires, creating a sense of chaos. The man is hooked to ivy, a series of tubes, what appears to be a life-support system, blood, and plasma. The most telling aspect of the image is the posture and gaze of the surgeon. He is powerlessly slouched over with poor posture, and his face appears dejected with his eyes peering off to the side as if he feels guilty or saddened. The image of the assistant slouched over and asleep in the right corner further adds to the sense of gloom, along with the overall dull color of the image due to the plain white walls. With all the negative emotions stirred up by this image, one would expect that the operation failed. However, the irony is that the photograph was taken after a 23-hour heart surgery that was actually successful, which in the medical world is beyond extraordinary. One would probably expect that as an aspiring surgeon, I would be discouraged by a picture like this. But given the context, the photograph is highly inspirational. It illustrates the whatever-it-takes attitude that I must have if I want to become a surgeon, a position of intense risk and responsibility. It reminds me that people will be placing their hopes in my hands, and I must do everything in my power to succeed. The look on the surgeon’s face, as strange as it seems, indicates triumph.

 

Stanfield, James. (n.d.). Heart surgeon after 23-hour-long (successful) heart transplant [Photograph]. Indulged. Retrieved from http://indulgd.com/26-of-the-most-thought-provoking-photographs-of-all-time/

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein

I have always been curious about the nature of intelligence. What exactly does being “smart” mean? Is it something genetic or a manner in which our brains are hardwired? It’s true that the chemistry of our brain plays a major role in intelligence, which includes the strength of neural networks in our minds and the capacity to store memories. However, with the help of this quote by perhaps the most famous physicist in history, Albert Einstein, I came to realize that I was asking the wrong question. The real question is, do you have to be the smartest person to be the most successful and self-fulfilling person? According to Einstein, who often insisted that he was not a genius, success comes from perseverance and grit. I commonplaced this quote because it serves as a reminder that while I’m not always the smartest, I can work the hardest. If one of the most brilliant minds of all time did so, why can’t I? Whether it is staying with a physics problem longer or sticking to my goal of becoming a surgeon, this quote epitomizes the attitude with which I must approach every obstacle I face. Einstein has become synonymous with intelligence, but perhaps we are making a mistake. Maybe Einstein should instead be equated with the determination he had to stick to his work even when crucified or demonized by critics and members of the scientific community who disagreed with him. That was the true genius of Einstein.

 

Virtues for Life (n.d.). 10 Great Life Lessons from Albert Einstein. Retrieved from http://www.virtuesforlife.com/10-great-life-lessons-from-albert-einstein/

Education is killing creativity – Sir Ken Robinson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

As an international adviser on arts education for various government and educational bodies, Sir Ken Robinson is nothing short of credible in this TED Talk as he implores the world to change its approach to education. Robinson’s use of humor also adds to the appeal of his argument. I agree with his underlying premise that education is designed, even if unintentionally, to kill creativity because I have seen it with my own eyes over the past 12 years. As a child, I used to be extremely witty and artsy, coming up with imaginative stories, drawings, and jokes off the top of my head. At one point, I absolutely could not think unless I was moving or fidgeting in some way. However, after years of being hammered with math and science and being told that creativity cannot get me a job, that entire area of my brain has been repressed. Now I can’t even sit down and write a small poem or story without my mind feeling blocked.

One of the primary ways education has harmed my creativity is by embedding into my mind the concept of right and wrong. To this day, I absolutely fear being wrong and even worse, being punished for being wrong. Therefore, I am sometimes afraid to undertake new ventures or try new ideas out of fear that I might fail, whether it’s writing a story, taking a new approach to an experiment, or making rap beats on FL Studio.

Furthermore, the technological means of education has also drastically limited creativity, which Robinson does not mention. Not only do we steer away from the arts and humanities, but even in math and science, instead of exploring for answers, we are given everything we seek by technology. Whenever I cannot figure something out, I always get the strong urge to hop on Google, an urge which I’m sure is not exclusive to me.

If we fail to make drastic changes to our educational system, then instead of creativity being merely repressed in humans, it may disappear altogether due to the lack of its need evolutionarily. The issue has to be addressed economically. Creativity is being killed by education because of the lack of demand in the work force and business world. Thus our foremost job is to create demand even if the economy itself cannot.

 

Robinson, Ken. [Screen name: TED] (2007, January 6). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Can you solve this? –Veritasium http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo

*Spoiler Alert: Watch the video first.*

Humans are gifted with an ability to form relationships and patterns to observe their surroundings and solve problems, but often, such an ability can create challenges. In this video, Derek Muller, creator of the verified YouTube channel Veritasium, illustrates how mental sets or particular frameworks for approaching problems can actually prevent creative thought and innovative solutions, even when the answer is staring us right in the face. With over 190 uploads and two million subscribers, Muller has developed credibility as a liaison between the scientific community and common people who are interested in science but lack the time or resources to study in depth.

Muller, in this video, has a simple pattern. He lists three numbers which increase in ascending order, 2, 4 and 8. He then asks various people to either guess his rule or propose their own pattern which fits his rule. People are so mired in the fact that the numbers seem to double, but that’s not the rule. They continue to list various patterns, but they can never figure out the rule because every single pattern they propose seems to be right and none of the patterns seem to have anything in common. Our minds, which like concrete, logical ways to think about problems, are boggled by this. However, after many tries, when participants finally propose a pattern in descending order and Muller informs them that it fails to fit the pattern do they realize his rule. The numbers must simply increase.

While utilizing humor and relating to the common person, Muller illustrates two important concepts. The first is that a framework or algorithm we may have previously developed to solve a problem might not always work, and we have to think outside of our mental sets. The second is that we have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Even though Muller’s pattern is very simple, we naturally expect a complicated and intricate pattern, and our guesses reflect that.

I commonplaced this video primarily because like the participants in Muller’s experiment, I also failed to explore more options than I was used to in middle school math class. All my guesses were fancy patterns, and it did not occur to me to try a descending pattern. The video illustrates a truth that will be very vital to my college education. Instead of relying on what I already know, I have to be ready to experiment with solutions that may seem far-fetched. Especially as a biochemistry major who will be doing research, I have to explore outside of my mental set to meet the challenges I may face in my scientific work. Most importantly, I have to realize that every answer to a problem does not have to be complicated. Instead of searching for what I already expect or trying to confirm a theory I already have, I need to simply search and be prepared for whatever I may find.

 

Muller, Derek. [Screen name: Veritasium] (2014, February 24). Can you solve this? [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo