Tarragona in March is chilly. Luckily, the day was bright and the sun glittered on the turquoise water. The Roman ruins dotted across town look over the coast, and a few locals took in the early spring sunshine in fragrant parks next to the amphitheater or on the breezy beach. Hungry from traipsing around the empty stone ruins, we ventured into the town, down a rough-and-tumble road, stopping at the first deli-café hybrid we stumbled across--
A hole in the wall, with a menu written only outside and featuring hamburgers, platos, sandwiches. The three of us ordered bocadillos with jamón. The friendly café owner had kind eyes, and the place was empty save one other person sipping café con leche and reading the paper. He brought out our bocadillos, spread with tangy tomato sauce on crispy baguettes. Jenny had ordered a café con leche, delicious with the baguette. It was too late in the day for caffeine, but I was trying to pin down a craving.
“How much would a cup of milk cost?” I asked in meager Spanish. The owner smiled— “Don’t worry. Un regalo.” A present. In that tiny café in Tarragona, Spain, I enjoyed warm, creamy milk with my bocadillo.
Arguably it was just a cup of milk. What about the regalo made it so special?
Regalo—faithful Google says it comes from the old French word for “galer” or “to make merry, to amuse, to rejoice” Etymologically speaking, a regalo is at its heart something that makes us happy. Our English word “gallant” comes from the same root, apt when the verb became the adjective for “bold or amusing one.”
In English, the word “gift” or “present” implies a special occasion. It tastes like frosting and ice cream, sounds like the crinkle of wrapping paper on a snowy morning. Gifts are surprises from those that care about you, or maybe quid pro quo for the invitation. Gifts happen sparingly, so sparingly that I was euphoric when my mind automatically translated the café owner’s “regalo”—it was my lucky day!
An English speaker would have used some sort of idiom—like “on the house”—to describe the free milk. Perhaps Spanish speakers see the word “regalo” as the same, and my English-wired brain perceives the use of that particular word as something special merely because of the way that standard English-Spanish dictionaries translate it. Maybe I’m ascribing English nuances to Spanish words.
But wouldn’t it be a nice thought if “regalo” is used because of its special connotations? That is, we can find small regalos in everyday life, things that we don’t have to wait once or twice a year for, that can make us incontrovertibly happy? We don’t have to spend a lot of money or take a lot of time to give a regalo that will brighten someone’s day. If a shop owner with kind eyes can, in a single moment, simply hand a complete stranger (and tourist, to boot) a cup of milk as a regalo, what’s to stop any of us from giving simple regalos away?
Regalos don’t have to be complex, or beautiful. They can be simple and spontaneous, bringing nothing but happiness to the receiver.
Sources: https://www.etymonline.com/word/gallant
https://spanishetymology.com/regalo-and-gala-gallant/
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/regalar
Monday, April 9, 2018
Monday, April 2, 2018
The Price of Vanity
My mother’s catchphrase is “beauty is pain.” Implicit in the motto is that beauty is (obviously) worth the pain. For her, a woman who grew up deprived of both male companionship and the joys of female preening (she sported a bowl cut in an all-girls’ school for eleven years), the acts of plucking, polishing, blending, lining—are all part of the regular maintenance of a woman. In a word, like keeping your car washed or your lawn trimmed.
And my mother is beautiful. The day of bowl cuts and baggy clothes are long gone. Like a fine wine, she’s grown sweet and oaky. Growing up, I was often confused for her sister. If I were her sister, then I was the gawky one next to her flawless face and trim body.
She, however, always insisted I was beautiful. In the classically Korean modus operandi, all of our family and friends agree. I’ve been called pretty for as long as I can remember, my height grounds for becoming the next “Miss America,” for as long as I’ve been in the 99th percentile.
There is a subtlety at play here: you can be told you are beautiful as much as you like. But it will never improve your self esteem unless you actually believe it. The trap is this: you refuse to believe such a thing, partly because society has told you this is unacceptable, but mostly because you know that if you do, you will become the world’s most insufferable pretentious bitch.
But, paradoxically, if you don’t make peace with your own inner or outer beauty, every time you hear the words “how pretty!” they will do nothing but fuel your vanity.
Key point: low self-esteem and vanity are not mutually incompatible. In fact, they downright fuel each other.
Vanity, unlike self-confidence, is needing to be the prettiest person in the room because you were told that you are. Vanity is looking in the mirror too much because you are afraid you won’t be the prettiest. Truly self-confident people don’t need to look—they are self-assured enough to know that whatever some reflective surface might say, they’ll retain their intrinsic beauty and worth.
What I inherited from my mother and everyone else who had a nice thing to say about my looks is not self-confidence, but a fundamental sense of vanity fueled by my own lack of self-worth.
Beauty is not pain. The vanity that comes from “beauty” is pain.
What are the immediate consequences? Let’s talk about one obvious one: love. If you are self-confident, similarly self-confident people will be attracted to your aura. No matter what you look like physically, you’ll glow with assurance.
If you’re vain, you will attract everyone who looks with their eyes. The price of vanity is love. What I get in return for exchanging the potential to love somebody good, and true, is my constant judgment of everyone who doesn’t maintain themselves as well as I think they should. People look at me with their eyes, but I look back just as much, with standards that are not only unrealistic, but harmful to everyone I impose them on.
Thus, love and vanity are mutually incompatible. The tired old idiom is true. If you can’t see your own inner beauty, how could you possibly see that in others? Vanity is the poison that stops us not only from loving ourselves, but also from loving others.
I’ve been working on curbing my vanity. Walking on my street, my head flicks towards any reflective surface—like an owl spotting a vole. Nowadays I try as best as I can to turn away from those reflective car mirrors, resisting the urge to critique my figure in every glass door I pass. These are small steps. There is still much work to be done.
But I’m grateful for having taken the first step: realizing the price of vanity, and, more importantly, that it’s not a price I’m willing to pay anymore.
And my mother is beautiful. The day of bowl cuts and baggy clothes are long gone. Like a fine wine, she’s grown sweet and oaky. Growing up, I was often confused for her sister. If I were her sister, then I was the gawky one next to her flawless face and trim body.
She, however, always insisted I was beautiful. In the classically Korean modus operandi, all of our family and friends agree. I’ve been called pretty for as long as I can remember, my height grounds for becoming the next “Miss America,” for as long as I’ve been in the 99th percentile.
There is a subtlety at play here: you can be told you are beautiful as much as you like. But it will never improve your self esteem unless you actually believe it. The trap is this: you refuse to believe such a thing, partly because society has told you this is unacceptable, but mostly because you know that if you do, you will become the world’s most insufferable pretentious bitch.
But, paradoxically, if you don’t make peace with your own inner or outer beauty, every time you hear the words “how pretty!” they will do nothing but fuel your vanity.
Key point: low self-esteem and vanity are not mutually incompatible. In fact, they downright fuel each other.
Vanity, unlike self-confidence, is needing to be the prettiest person in the room because you were told that you are. Vanity is looking in the mirror too much because you are afraid you won’t be the prettiest. Truly self-confident people don’t need to look—they are self-assured enough to know that whatever some reflective surface might say, they’ll retain their intrinsic beauty and worth.
What I inherited from my mother and everyone else who had a nice thing to say about my looks is not self-confidence, but a fundamental sense of vanity fueled by my own lack of self-worth.
Beauty is not pain. The vanity that comes from “beauty” is pain.
What are the immediate consequences? Let’s talk about one obvious one: love. If you are self-confident, similarly self-confident people will be attracted to your aura. No matter what you look like physically, you’ll glow with assurance.
If you’re vain, you will attract everyone who looks with their eyes. The price of vanity is love. What I get in return for exchanging the potential to love somebody good, and true, is my constant judgment of everyone who doesn’t maintain themselves as well as I think they should. People look at me with their eyes, but I look back just as much, with standards that are not only unrealistic, but harmful to everyone I impose them on.
Thus, love and vanity are mutually incompatible. The tired old idiom is true. If you can’t see your own inner beauty, how could you possibly see that in others? Vanity is the poison that stops us not only from loving ourselves, but also from loving others.
I’ve been working on curbing my vanity. Walking on my street, my head flicks towards any reflective surface—like an owl spotting a vole. Nowadays I try as best as I can to turn away from those reflective car mirrors, resisting the urge to critique my figure in every glass door I pass. These are small steps. There is still much work to be done.
But I’m grateful for having taken the first step: realizing the price of vanity, and, more importantly, that it’s not a price I’m willing to pay anymore.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
That time I confessed to my crush.
Some weeks ago, I executed a groundbreaking personal experiment. I confessed my feelings to my crush.
Some background:
In general, I tend to be (or at least, try to be) pretty vivacious and social. I like to think that I have (and use) some sort of sense of humor, and I genuinely enjoy talking to people and getting to know them.
Too bad all that goes out the window if I start being romantically interested in someone. I become downright mean. Or awkward. Or both. I can’t joke with them, I clam up. I get serious. Maybe even mean. If I like someone, for some reason my visceral instinct is to convey to them that I don’t like them.
Worst of all, I think I’m deeply suspicious of love in general. If I’m romantically interested in someone, for some reason my brain (and my deep set impatience) skips the friendship and goes straight to the lovin’. And suddenly this crush on a pedestal is on trial instead—would I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person? How will he react to all my hidden secrets? Should I let him in?
And then my brain kicks in: no, girl, no. Don’t let him in (you’re only going to have to kick him out again, as Dua Lipa would say).
Anyway, to return to the incident: there was some buildup here. Crush and I had seen each other rather regularly starting last semester, and I had always kind of thought he was cute (but not in the obsessive crush way—at least, not at that point). We texted a couple of times and gave each other fist pumps every so often. We hung out a little at parties and even went to the same early morning workouts for a club we were both in (we had so much in common, or so I liked to think).
Anyway, my friends noticed and the customary egging of the girlfriends began— “Oh, I think he likes you.” … “Ohmigosh you should ask him out” … and so on.
Suffice to say that at that point I was completely off the diving board and into the deep end. I was obsessed with Crush. I’m still not far removed enough from the incident to admit that I read into things that shouldn’t have been read into. But I probably read into things that shouldn’t have been read into.
But I’ve been through this song and game before. I’d become obsessed with a crush, think about him for days (or… weeks), and do absolutely nothing (out of a mixture of fear and general ineptitude) and wait for the guy to fall off the pedestal when I saw him pick his nose or something.
Anyway, it was on the one train uptown when I realized that the problem with this approach is that, while it makes sense to wait for something to happen naturally, I end up beating myself up over the crush. I don’t give myself any rest.
And I was agonizing over Crush. Like thinking about whether I should have gone to a party last night to get a chance to see him. Or whether I should have worn something different, or said something more exciting to him the last time I saw him.
And keep in mind—I barely knew this guy. Objectively—in my brain—I knew we were pretty different people. But my heart kept reassuring me that we were essentially soul mates.
So on the rickety subway uptown, it suddenly occurred to me—in the midst of all this agony—that this can’t be healthy for the brain, and that I had spent enough time thinking about Crush. There had to be a way to end it. And I knew there was. If I could just straight up ask if he was interested, then I would get an answer—either Crush would admit that he, too, fantasized about running his fingers through his soft, curly hair—I mean, my hair—or I would get a No. And I would be humiliated.
I whipped out my phone. Without thinking too hard, I dashed out a “are you free today or tomorrow.” The subway was underground. No service. For about three stops I stared at the screen, wondering whether or not I should take the leap. The service bars on my phone flitted in and out of existence. On the fourth time I saw three bars—I forced my thumb down and sent the text.
The response was immediate. “Yeah, why?”
It wasn’t too late to back out. I could still flake. But at that moment I had decided that humiliation was better than perpetual agony. At the very least, humiliation was a familiar enemy I felt like I knew how to deal with.
The hardest thing I’d done at that point in 2018 was make myself send the crucial text: “Can we have dinner tonight or lunch tomorrow?” I told Crush there was “something important” I needed to tell him.
He suggested coffee. I tried not to think about the fact that the time between messages got longer and longer from his end.
The hour of coffee was upon us. I spent the day prep-talking myself into not being a nervous wreck (I did a pretty good job of it, if I do say so myself—I was pretty calm). I told myself the typical nervous-girl lines—I am a CATCH and if he doesn’t think so it’s NOT my problem—and so on. It helped that I was reading Wollstonecraft that day, too.
The worst thing that could happen, I told myself, was that he would express disinterest. And then, presumably, I could get on with my life. The key, the most crucial point, was that I could replace agony with embarrassment.
To make a long story short, the beginning of our brief one-and-a-half-hour coffee date was extremely awkward. He was nice about it, apologizing and talking about how great I was but.
I kept a careful watch on my own emotional state. Surprisingly, I had put myself in a mindset where I refused to be embarrassed. I got my answer, and it was what I was half-expecting. The agony was over. And our conversation was relatively normal.
Obviously, it wasn’t a magical experience or anything. I was definitely not vivacious or energetic. I was definitely not suddenly over him. But the conversation was good. We talked, and I realized that maybe Crush and I weren’t so compatible after all. We have some pretty different core values that I just couldn’t see when he was so high up on the pedestal.
We split the bill (I was a little chagrined at that—I had kind of envisioned paying for it myself). When we met, we hugged (and I was excited). When we parted, we hugged (and I was trying not to make it awkward).
And for the rest of the evening, I watched the Olympics, ordered takeout Pho, and ate ice cream with friends.
I thought about that hour and a half for most of the week. Inevitably, ex-Crush and I were awkward whenever we saw each other. I tried to embrace my humiliation and tell myself that the alternative—love-sick agony—was far worse. Humiliation, embarrassment—these are things I am familiar with. I know how to deal with these feelings.
And maybe there’s some truth to the idea that being straightforward has its benefits. Because not long after that brief, awkward, embarrassing experience, I got over ex-Crush. A week after the Date, when I saw him again, I looked candidly at his face and realized that my heart didn’t skip a beat.
And despite the fact that this was one of the hardest things I had ever done (you know, come clean with my feelings knowing that I was most likely going to be embarrassed)—I think it was the right thing to do. Obsession isn’t love, and it definitely isn’t the right way to start a relationship.
At the very least, I managed to clear my head. And now, weeks and weeks after, I remain grateful for that.
Some background:
In general, I tend to be (or at least, try to be) pretty vivacious and social. I like to think that I have (and use) some sort of sense of humor, and I genuinely enjoy talking to people and getting to know them.
Too bad all that goes out the window if I start being romantically interested in someone. I become downright mean. Or awkward. Or both. I can’t joke with them, I clam up. I get serious. Maybe even mean. If I like someone, for some reason my visceral instinct is to convey to them that I don’t like them.
Worst of all, I think I’m deeply suspicious of love in general. If I’m romantically interested in someone, for some reason my brain (and my deep set impatience) skips the friendship and goes straight to the lovin’. And suddenly this crush on a pedestal is on trial instead—would I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person? How will he react to all my hidden secrets? Should I let him in?
And then my brain kicks in: no, girl, no. Don’t let him in (you’re only going to have to kick him out again, as Dua Lipa would say).
Anyway, to return to the incident: there was some buildup here. Crush and I had seen each other rather regularly starting last semester, and I had always kind of thought he was cute (but not in the obsessive crush way—at least, not at that point). We texted a couple of times and gave each other fist pumps every so often. We hung out a little at parties and even went to the same early morning workouts for a club we were both in (we had so much in common, or so I liked to think).
Anyway, my friends noticed and the customary egging of the girlfriends began— “Oh, I think he likes you.” … “Ohmigosh you should ask him out” … and so on.
Suffice to say that at that point I was completely off the diving board and into the deep end. I was obsessed with Crush. I’m still not far removed enough from the incident to admit that I read into things that shouldn’t have been read into. But I probably read into things that shouldn’t have been read into.
But I’ve been through this song and game before. I’d become obsessed with a crush, think about him for days (or… weeks), and do absolutely nothing (out of a mixture of fear and general ineptitude) and wait for the guy to fall off the pedestal when I saw him pick his nose or something.
Anyway, it was on the one train uptown when I realized that the problem with this approach is that, while it makes sense to wait for something to happen naturally, I end up beating myself up over the crush. I don’t give myself any rest.
And I was agonizing over Crush. Like thinking about whether I should have gone to a party last night to get a chance to see him. Or whether I should have worn something different, or said something more exciting to him the last time I saw him.
And keep in mind—I barely knew this guy. Objectively—in my brain—I knew we were pretty different people. But my heart kept reassuring me that we were essentially soul mates.
So on the rickety subway uptown, it suddenly occurred to me—in the midst of all this agony—that this can’t be healthy for the brain, and that I had spent enough time thinking about Crush. There had to be a way to end it. And I knew there was. If I could just straight up ask if he was interested, then I would get an answer—either Crush would admit that he, too, fantasized about running his fingers through his soft, curly hair—I mean, my hair—or I would get a No. And I would be humiliated.
I whipped out my phone. Without thinking too hard, I dashed out a “are you free today or tomorrow.” The subway was underground. No service. For about three stops I stared at the screen, wondering whether or not I should take the leap. The service bars on my phone flitted in and out of existence. On the fourth time I saw three bars—I forced my thumb down and sent the text.
The response was immediate. “Yeah, why?”
It wasn’t too late to back out. I could still flake. But at that moment I had decided that humiliation was better than perpetual agony. At the very least, humiliation was a familiar enemy I felt like I knew how to deal with.
The hardest thing I’d done at that point in 2018 was make myself send the crucial text: “Can we have dinner tonight or lunch tomorrow?” I told Crush there was “something important” I needed to tell him.
He suggested coffee. I tried not to think about the fact that the time between messages got longer and longer from his end.
The hour of coffee was upon us. I spent the day prep-talking myself into not being a nervous wreck (I did a pretty good job of it, if I do say so myself—I was pretty calm). I told myself the typical nervous-girl lines—I am a CATCH and if he doesn’t think so it’s NOT my problem—and so on. It helped that I was reading Wollstonecraft that day, too.
The worst thing that could happen, I told myself, was that he would express disinterest. And then, presumably, I could get on with my life. The key, the most crucial point, was that I could replace agony with embarrassment.
To make a long story short, the beginning of our brief one-and-a-half-hour coffee date was extremely awkward. He was nice about it, apologizing and talking about how great I was but.
I kept a careful watch on my own emotional state. Surprisingly, I had put myself in a mindset where I refused to be embarrassed. I got my answer, and it was what I was half-expecting. The agony was over. And our conversation was relatively normal.
Obviously, it wasn’t a magical experience or anything. I was definitely not vivacious or energetic. I was definitely not suddenly over him. But the conversation was good. We talked, and I realized that maybe Crush and I weren’t so compatible after all. We have some pretty different core values that I just couldn’t see when he was so high up on the pedestal.
We split the bill (I was a little chagrined at that—I had kind of envisioned paying for it myself). When we met, we hugged (and I was excited). When we parted, we hugged (and I was trying not to make it awkward).
And for the rest of the evening, I watched the Olympics, ordered takeout Pho, and ate ice cream with friends.
I thought about that hour and a half for most of the week. Inevitably, ex-Crush and I were awkward whenever we saw each other. I tried to embrace my humiliation and tell myself that the alternative—love-sick agony—was far worse. Humiliation, embarrassment—these are things I am familiar with. I know how to deal with these feelings.
And maybe there’s some truth to the idea that being straightforward has its benefits. Because not long after that brief, awkward, embarrassing experience, I got over ex-Crush. A week after the Date, when I saw him again, I looked candidly at his face and realized that my heart didn’t skip a beat.
And despite the fact that this was one of the hardest things I had ever done (you know, come clean with my feelings knowing that I was most likely going to be embarrassed)—I think it was the right thing to do. Obsession isn’t love, and it definitely isn’t the right way to start a relationship.
At the very least, I managed to clear my head. And now, weeks and weeks after, I remain grateful for that.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
The Bathroom Dilemma
I probably haven’t mentioned this, but I go to a pretty good university. The downside to going to a pretty good university is that every building of note is super old and in dire need of renovation.
The bathroom situation, needless to say, is atrocious. Buildings will have one stall in one bathroom for one gender for one floor. If you want to use that teeny bathroom with the foggy mirrors and cracked floor between classes, well, good luck. Especially if you’re a girl. Being stuck at the door keeping it awkwardly open because you cannot lose your spot in line while there are 2 minutes before class and all you need to do is change your tampon is not my idea of fun.
So since coming to college one of my favorite past times has become discovering where the best bathrooms on campus are.
I keep this running log in my head. The checklist is:
The trick is actually committing to the list. Once I’ve singled out the best bathrooms for use, I go out of my way to use those bathrooms whenever I can. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to stop sitting around and get up (even if it means crossing campus to get to the business school).
Objectively, the best bathrooms are the big ones (like the one in the business school) because you’re nearly always guaranteed a stall and no infernal wait when you go in. But my personal favorite bathrooms are the little undiscovered ones—the ones that are exactly the same on every floor of the building (what?? A building with bathrooms for both genders on every floor??) and have one or two stalls each. If someone is using one bathroom, I just go up or down a floor and the exact same tiny cute bathroom will be there waiting for me.
You can almost—almost—forget that it’s been weeks since you’ve used a non-public toilet. And when urination is not the order of the day, let me tell you these tiny unused bathrooms are your friends.
-Walnut
The bathroom situation, needless to say, is atrocious. Buildings will have one stall in one bathroom for one gender for one floor. If you want to use that teeny bathroom with the foggy mirrors and cracked floor between classes, well, good luck. Especially if you’re a girl. Being stuck at the door keeping it awkwardly open because you cannot lose your spot in line while there are 2 minutes before class and all you need to do is change your tampon is not my idea of fun.
So since coming to college one of my favorite past times has become discovering where the best bathrooms on campus are.
I keep this running log in my head. The checklist is:
- Lots of stalls or generally not well used
- Clean toilets
- Nice tiling
- Full length mirror (this is a huge plus)
- Well-lit
- Less than fifteen years old (as far as I can tell)
The trick is actually committing to the list. Once I’ve singled out the best bathrooms for use, I go out of my way to use those bathrooms whenever I can. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to stop sitting around and get up (even if it means crossing campus to get to the business school).
Objectively, the best bathrooms are the big ones (like the one in the business school) because you’re nearly always guaranteed a stall and no infernal wait when you go in. But my personal favorite bathrooms are the little undiscovered ones—the ones that are exactly the same on every floor of the building (what?? A building with bathrooms for both genders on every floor??) and have one or two stalls each. If someone is using one bathroom, I just go up or down a floor and the exact same tiny cute bathroom will be there waiting for me.
You can almost—almost—forget that it’s been weeks since you’ve used a non-public toilet. And when urination is not the order of the day, let me tell you these tiny unused bathrooms are your friends.
-Walnut
Monday, February 26, 2018
Subsume
Subsume—it pierced my mind in the wee hours of the night, when I was delirious from lack of sleep. It seems like a strange mix of “sublime” and “consume,”—two very opposite words; one frees and the other captures. In definition, subsume is akin to the latter. But it strikes me as something that has a deeper meaning than merely to be devoured.
“I am subsumed in hatred” seems to me to mean “I am utterly drowning in the infinite sea of hatred.” Not something like “a big animal called hatred is eating me.” Looking at the definition, subsume seems to be organizational, scientific—example sentences like “Red, blue, and green are subsumed in the word ‘colors’” leach all power from the word and relegate it merely to the realm of taxonomy.
I refuse to believe that the word is so innocuous. Subsume seems violent to me, an unstoppable force of nature that is underestimated in Merriam Webster.
Google tells me that the word comes from the Latin roots “sub” meaning “from below” and “sumere” meaning “to take.” This probably implies that the word should lie on a higher plane than the objects it takes, elevating the words that live below it to its level in some hierarchical sense. But what’s to stop subsume from lurking underwater, taking objects from below instead?
The subsumed objects are not being rescued—they are drowning. Somewhere in the utility of the word is the insidious power of stripping an object of all its unique qualities and letting it drown in the sea of subsummation.
Consummation has sensual overtones—it is the ringing gavel of finality. Subsummation, by contrast, is the vacuous break of waves on the beach. It belies a larger infinity, going on as long as the eye can see. Subsummation is the logical end to the act of subsuming. Below the mottled waves is a veritable treasure trove of objects snatched from a higher plane and dragged under.
Maybe subsummation isn’t all bad—sometimes the things that we crane our necks to see are too complex to understand. We need them to be dragged under the waves—we need to pigeonhole, process, synthesize, subsume these abstract or intricate or dense ideas so that we can simplify our lives and understand what’s going on around us. Sometimes we’re grateful to that unfeeling infinity for taking the complexity and making it disappear.
But—and how can there not be a but?— the inevitability of subsummation cannot mean that we are happy to see everything we truly care about lost at sea. And if we don’t rescue the things that have already been lost to the waves, sooner or later the briny green and barnacles will make these objects—once free to roam in all their complexity—indistinguishable.
We have long known, as Bruegel might say, that big fish eat little fish. But far more sinister than any marine predator is the danger of letting the tranquility of the salty sea breeze pacify us. Subsummation is the danger that we think less about. More concerned about being consumed by the big fish, we forget the threat of being subsumed by the ocean.
So remember the dangers of subsummation, and never underestimate its agent, subsume. In this seemingly innocuous word is the power to destroy all that we hold dear—to, by the power of its infinite, uncaring waves, wipe smooth the jagged faces the things that truly matter.
“I am subsumed in hatred” seems to me to mean “I am utterly drowning in the infinite sea of hatred.” Not something like “a big animal called hatred is eating me.” Looking at the definition, subsume seems to be organizational, scientific—example sentences like “Red, blue, and green are subsumed in the word ‘colors’” leach all power from the word and relegate it merely to the realm of taxonomy.
I refuse to believe that the word is so innocuous. Subsume seems violent to me, an unstoppable force of nature that is underestimated in Merriam Webster.
Google tells me that the word comes from the Latin roots “sub” meaning “from below” and “sumere” meaning “to take.” This probably implies that the word should lie on a higher plane than the objects it takes, elevating the words that live below it to its level in some hierarchical sense. But what’s to stop subsume from lurking underwater, taking objects from below instead?
The subsumed objects are not being rescued—they are drowning. Somewhere in the utility of the word is the insidious power of stripping an object of all its unique qualities and letting it drown in the sea of subsummation.
Consummation has sensual overtones—it is the ringing gavel of finality. Subsummation, by contrast, is the vacuous break of waves on the beach. It belies a larger infinity, going on as long as the eye can see. Subsummation is the logical end to the act of subsuming. Below the mottled waves is a veritable treasure trove of objects snatched from a higher plane and dragged under.
Maybe subsummation isn’t all bad—sometimes the things that we crane our necks to see are too complex to understand. We need them to be dragged under the waves—we need to pigeonhole, process, synthesize, subsume these abstract or intricate or dense ideas so that we can simplify our lives and understand what’s going on around us. Sometimes we’re grateful to that unfeeling infinity for taking the complexity and making it disappear.
But—and how can there not be a but?— the inevitability of subsummation cannot mean that we are happy to see everything we truly care about lost at sea. And if we don’t rescue the things that have already been lost to the waves, sooner or later the briny green and barnacles will make these objects—once free to roam in all their complexity—indistinguishable.
We have long known, as Bruegel might say, that big fish eat little fish. But far more sinister than any marine predator is the danger of letting the tranquility of the salty sea breeze pacify us. Subsummation is the danger that we think less about. More concerned about being consumed by the big fish, we forget the threat of being subsumed by the ocean.
So remember the dangers of subsummation, and never underestimate its agent, subsume. In this seemingly innocuous word is the power to destroy all that we hold dear—to, by the power of its infinite, uncaring waves, wipe smooth the jagged faces the things that truly matter.
Monday, February 19, 2018
What should you major in?
A common misconception about majors is that you should be good at the thing you’re majoring in. Admittedly, that would be ideal—majoring in something that is naturally easy for you would be great for your social life, your confidence (no demoralizing reliance on “the curve”), your GPA…
But in reality there are not many people in this world built like Einstein or Beethoven or Shakespeare—so-called geniuses naturally good at one thing. Especially if that one thing is something that has a reputation for being hard.
I’m an applied math major. I am not good at math. I happen to be rather good at time management, which is not the same thing as having a deep intuitive understanding of the subject. I’m no Newton or Laplace or Ramanujan, and I know it. This might be a stretch, but I think most people are non-geniuses like me, people who won’t ever find the one subject they happen to be marvelous in.
So how do you choose a major? The obvious answer is to look at Forbes’ top 10 paying majors and choose the easiest-sounding one. But I remain an idealist: we come to college to learn something that we can’t learn on our own (I mean, presumably that’s where the tuition money is going, right?) Majoring in something just because it’s easy sounds like a cop-out to me—maybe a way to have a bomb social life, but not a way to become academically fulfilled. In my experience at my pretty good university, college students spend most of their time studying anyway. Might as well not waste that time studying something just because it’s not hard.
Anyway, here’s the textbook thesis of the post: a major should be something that you choose not because you’re good at it, but because you can still at least halfway enjoy it when you’re bad at it.
Maybe you’re lucky and the thing that happens to bring you joy is also easy for you. But I wasn’t and was deeply disturbed by the fact that I didn’t have a natural so-called passion or calling. I chose math somewhat arbitrarily, because I had given up on chemistry after discovering that lab work absolutely sucked. To my surprise, I found that I actually enjoyed talking to the wacky, insanely smart professors in the department. And I don’t mind spending all my time trying to understand some random proof.
As insurance for the future, I’ll add that we’ll see how I feel about math after I’ve struggled through Partial Differential Equations (oh GOD). But for now, I’m satisfied with my decision.
Here’s a checklist:
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE SELECTED THE CORRECT MAJOR
But in reality there are not many people in this world built like Einstein or Beethoven or Shakespeare—so-called geniuses naturally good at one thing. Especially if that one thing is something that has a reputation for being hard.
I’m an applied math major. I am not good at math. I happen to be rather good at time management, which is not the same thing as having a deep intuitive understanding of the subject. I’m no Newton or Laplace or Ramanujan, and I know it. This might be a stretch, but I think most people are non-geniuses like me, people who won’t ever find the one subject they happen to be marvelous in.
So how do you choose a major? The obvious answer is to look at Forbes’ top 10 paying majors and choose the easiest-sounding one. But I remain an idealist: we come to college to learn something that we can’t learn on our own (I mean, presumably that’s where the tuition money is going, right?) Majoring in something just because it’s easy sounds like a cop-out to me—maybe a way to have a bomb social life, but not a way to become academically fulfilled. In my experience at my pretty good university, college students spend most of their time studying anyway. Might as well not waste that time studying something just because it’s not hard.
Anyway, here’s the textbook thesis of the post: a major should be something that you choose not because you’re good at it, but because you can still at least halfway enjoy it when you’re bad at it.
Maybe you’re lucky and the thing that happens to bring you joy is also easy for you. But I wasn’t and was deeply disturbed by the fact that I didn’t have a natural so-called passion or calling. I chose math somewhat arbitrarily, because I had given up on chemistry after discovering that lab work absolutely sucked. To my surprise, I found that I actually enjoyed talking to the wacky, insanely smart professors in the department. And I don’t mind spending all my time trying to understand some random proof.
As insurance for the future, I’ll add that we’ll see how I feel about math after I’ve struggled through Partial Differential Equations (oh GOD). But for now, I’m satisfied with my decision.
Here’s a checklist:
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE SELECTED THE CORRECT MAJOR
- You failed a test and instead of freaking out and crying (as you did for the chemistry test) you went to office hours because, damn it, you need to know how you got that problem wrong.
- Office hours: you think the professors are the bomb, even if/especially if nobody else seems to like them. You go to office hours. The professor knows your face.
- You spend three to four hours getting tutored by the grad TA and instead of feeling empty and tired at the end, the fact that you finally finished the problem set makes you want to run up the top of a hill and sing.
- You start making up dumb inside jokes about your major and get sad when none of your friends understand/care.
- You can name at least three famous people in the field who are still alive (bonus points if one of them has taught you)
- Thinking about what you used to want to major in makes you want to laugh.
- Plan your future classes on a spreadsheet or something. The face you make is not a grimace.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Nice
My least favorite word in the English language?
“Nice.”
It’s a word we use these days to mean a vaguely pleasant time: “How was the date?”
“Oh it was nice.”
It’s a word we use to describe the weather when we don’t feel like going outside, instead merely looking out the window: “Oh, weather’s nice today.” It’s a word we use to describe approbation when we hear something that will hold our interest for approximately three minutes before moving on: “I scored with Julie last night!”
“Niiice.”
And of course, my biggest pet peeve of all—using “nice” as a word to describe people who are a vague mix of everything above: vaguely pleasant presences vaguely pressing our perceptions.
“Nice” is a kind of Orwellian platitude, a word that’s been used in so many contexts and in so many situations for so long that it’s lost all real meaning. Once a word with obsolete (but precise!) definitions in the English language, it was used as words should be: with care. Laurence tells Friar John of Juliet’s fateful letter to Romeo: “The letter was not nice [trivial], but full of charge…” he cries. When Mercutio falls bloody at the hands of Tybalt, Benvolio mourns to the prince: “How nice [silly] the quarrel was, and urged withal/ Your high displeasure.” Alas, the glory days for that word have gone. “Nice” deserves now to be in that infamous writers’ pantheon of utterly useless and misused words, joining its brethren: “very,” “never-ever”, “really”, “like.”
We’re wasting our breaths when we use such an empty word. What does it really mean, after all, when someone says the weather is “nice”? Is it sunny? Cloudy? Breezy? In using the word “nice” we are perpetuating not only the deep, abiding uncertainty of whether or not we’ll need a sweater today but also the deep abiding uncertainty of what the speaker really has to say. I’ll never know what kind of weather is “nice” to him. And chances are, I’ll never ask.
The situation becomes much direr when we inflict that infernal word on people. I should know. Growing up, I was the tall introvert with glasses, and when people asked who I was—invariably—they received this answer:
“Oh, her. She’s nice.”
And that would be the end of it.
Using that word reduces someone’s entire humanity to something absolutely meaningless, squeezed between the confines of the “n” and the “e.” Instead of actually taking the time to use the English language properly, thinking about words and their meanings, we slap on “nice” as filler, mad-libs style, adjective-plus-noun, hurling someone’s entire lifetime—all their experiences, feelings, thoughts, beliefs—into this whirling black abyss. Nice people are doomed to a doughy, shapeless kind of existence, and no matter how far or fast we run, no matter how interesting or social or attentive we attempt to be, we remain nothing but “nice.”
And we use this profane word to describe our friends, our family, the people we love most in the world! If you truly care about somebody—if you truly know them, I am absolutely certain that there are other, less insulting words to describe them. After all, if I asked you to describe Jesus, or Santa Claus, or Madonna, you certainly wouldn’t say “nice.” You might say instead “inspiring”, “jolly”, or “drop-dead sexy.” But never “nice.”
There is still an issue to address for my skeptical readers. What if you don’t know your target? Even I’ll fall into the trap of using “nice” to describe someone I don’t know very well. It’s an easy pitfall, especially in an age where brevity is becoming more and more valued, and thought less and less.
But even for those acquaintances, it’s trivial to think of better words to describe them than “nice.” Are you referring to their excellent manners in society? Use “polite.” Their eagerness to associate with others? Use “friendly.” Their willingness to give up their belongings for others? How about “generous” or “selfless” or “altruistic”?
“But,” you may be wondering, “what if I want to say something about my target less specific, to point to their general excellence of character?”
Well then, I implore you to use the word “kind” instead, a far more descriptive and meaningful word that says so much more about the warmth of spirit you are obviously encountering.
To my worst enemies alone will I reserve the word “nice,” because to them I say that they are not worthy of my thought and time enough to call or “revolting” or “contemptuous.” I won’t spit on my worst enemies—I won’t even acknowledge them. They are not worthy of the basic humanity that calls for me to listen to what they have to say, or understand who they are as people.
So then, to them and to them alone will I reserve that damned four-letter word, and if everybody on Earth were to do the same, the English language would be all the better for it.
“Nice.”
It’s a word we use these days to mean a vaguely pleasant time: “How was the date?”
“Oh it was nice.”
It’s a word we use to describe the weather when we don’t feel like going outside, instead merely looking out the window: “Oh, weather’s nice today.” It’s a word we use to describe approbation when we hear something that will hold our interest for approximately three minutes before moving on: “I scored with Julie last night!”
“Niiice.”
And of course, my biggest pet peeve of all—using “nice” as a word to describe people who are a vague mix of everything above: vaguely pleasant presences vaguely pressing our perceptions.
“Nice” is a kind of Orwellian platitude, a word that’s been used in so many contexts and in so many situations for so long that it’s lost all real meaning. Once a word with obsolete (but precise!) definitions in the English language, it was used as words should be: with care. Laurence tells Friar John of Juliet’s fateful letter to Romeo: “The letter was not nice [trivial], but full of charge…” he cries. When Mercutio falls bloody at the hands of Tybalt, Benvolio mourns to the prince: “How nice [silly] the quarrel was, and urged withal/ Your high displeasure.” Alas, the glory days for that word have gone. “Nice” deserves now to be in that infamous writers’ pantheon of utterly useless and misused words, joining its brethren: “very,” “never-ever”, “really”, “like.”
We’re wasting our breaths when we use such an empty word. What does it really mean, after all, when someone says the weather is “nice”? Is it sunny? Cloudy? Breezy? In using the word “nice” we are perpetuating not only the deep, abiding uncertainty of whether or not we’ll need a sweater today but also the deep abiding uncertainty of what the speaker really has to say. I’ll never know what kind of weather is “nice” to him. And chances are, I’ll never ask.
The situation becomes much direr when we inflict that infernal word on people. I should know. Growing up, I was the tall introvert with glasses, and when people asked who I was—invariably—they received this answer:
“Oh, her. She’s nice.”
And that would be the end of it.
Using that word reduces someone’s entire humanity to something absolutely meaningless, squeezed between the confines of the “n” and the “e.” Instead of actually taking the time to use the English language properly, thinking about words and their meanings, we slap on “nice” as filler, mad-libs style, adjective-plus-noun, hurling someone’s entire lifetime—all their experiences, feelings, thoughts, beliefs—into this whirling black abyss. Nice people are doomed to a doughy, shapeless kind of existence, and no matter how far or fast we run, no matter how interesting or social or attentive we attempt to be, we remain nothing but “nice.”
And we use this profane word to describe our friends, our family, the people we love most in the world! If you truly care about somebody—if you truly know them, I am absolutely certain that there are other, less insulting words to describe them. After all, if I asked you to describe Jesus, or Santa Claus, or Madonna, you certainly wouldn’t say “nice.” You might say instead “inspiring”, “jolly”, or “drop-dead sexy.” But never “nice.”
There is still an issue to address for my skeptical readers. What if you don’t know your target? Even I’ll fall into the trap of using “nice” to describe someone I don’t know very well. It’s an easy pitfall, especially in an age where brevity is becoming more and more valued, and thought less and less.
But even for those acquaintances, it’s trivial to think of better words to describe them than “nice.” Are you referring to their excellent manners in society? Use “polite.” Their eagerness to associate with others? Use “friendly.” Their willingness to give up their belongings for others? How about “generous” or “selfless” or “altruistic”?
“But,” you may be wondering, “what if I want to say something about my target less specific, to point to their general excellence of character?”
Well then, I implore you to use the word “kind” instead, a far more descriptive and meaningful word that says so much more about the warmth of spirit you are obviously encountering.
To my worst enemies alone will I reserve the word “nice,” because to them I say that they are not worthy of my thought and time enough to call or “revolting” or “contemptuous.” I won’t spit on my worst enemies—I won’t even acknowledge them. They are not worthy of the basic humanity that calls for me to listen to what they have to say, or understand who they are as people.
So then, to them and to them alone will I reserve that damned four-letter word, and if everybody on Earth were to do the same, the English language would be all the better for it.
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