A Strange Idea: The worst crime Zoom classes are committing against humanity is depriving kids those real-life serendipitous opportunities to fall in love.
Author: Warren Zhu
Riffing off Nighthawks
Space stills. Atmosphere coagulates. Objects conjure. The hats hang in their densities. The windows refrain from inviting. The doors remain perpetual possibilities, obscured and exhausted. They have known each other. But what is knowing but inopportune misglances? One understands more in a glimpse than hours of mutuality. Time deceives; knowledge, in its safe familiarity, obscures understanding. She … Continue reading Riffing off Nighthawks
Learn some Math. Seriously. Try it.
For 1095 days, I left math for philosophy. I’ve decided to give math another chance, and it has been exciting and depressing—exciting because math is so wonderfully fun, depressing because I began to see how I’ve been cheated in the past 18 annums, cheated out of the joy of mathematics. Here’s for all us humanities … Continue reading Learn some Math. Seriously. Try it.
Some College Advices (From Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge admit)
A condensed version of college advices I wrote for my cousins. Hope it is helpful. Start of Advices Disclaimer: My advices will be idiosyncratic, and probably (definitely!) won’t apply to everyone, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. There’s a high degree of luck involved in getting into Elite Unis (though you … Continue reading Some College Advices (From Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge admit)
Truth, Goodness, Beauty
(Some thoughts on how one can define the good life) An interpretation of the Trinity: there is no supreme value that we have to pursuit at all cost. But rather, the proper path emerges out of the interactions between several values we hold in high esteem. Translating back to theology, there is no unitary God, … Continue reading Truth, Goodness, Beauty
Against Method—A Quasi-Book Review
(Written for a school publication, for one of the most enjoyable reads last year.) I. Recommended There are entertaining books that lack substance. There are substantial books that put you to sleep. [1] There are entertaining books that have substance, but do nothing more than confirm your prejudices. Then there are books that are entertaining, … Continue reading Against Method—A Quasi-Book Review
All Hail Procrastination!
Proposal for how we can reframe procrastination: rather than treating procrastination as a disease, wailing about how rushed we were for our last project because of procrastination, and how much we've tried to get rid of our habit of procrastination to no avail, and deriving some morbid pleasure from that show of our failings, perhaps … Continue reading All Hail Procrastination!
Why Fiction?
Question: What is the point of reading fiction, watching movies, listening to stories? Why do we need an Iliad that is 500 pages when its plot summary is 20? Why do we care to even know the plot, if we know that it has never happened? Answer: I argue that fiction (in the sense of … Continue reading Why Fiction?
The Last Judgement and its Modern Counterpart
Summary of The Last Judgement: The angels harp their trumpets, and Jesus Christ, the ideal man, judges all according to their worth, putting them in their proper place after their sojourn on Earth. The sinners are damned, and the saints are saved. This is a vision of the ideal that humanity should strive for. A … Continue reading The Last Judgement and its Modern Counterpart
Theoria, Christianity, and Fratire (Pt. 1)
In Ancient Greek Philosophy, Theoria is the moment of clarity when one participates in the spectacle of truth, as when Plato’s Philosopher-King climbs out of the cave and observes the forms. This Theoria came from a cultural activity of travel-logging, where a member of the polis is elected to goto aother city-state (either to Dionysian … Continue reading Theoria, Christianity, and Fratire (Pt. 1)