Urban Dictionary

July 11, 2022July 9, 2022 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

If Aliens abduct me and ask me to give them one book, I'd choose the Urban Dictionary. Before my reasons, here are some of my favorite definitions: Awesome: Something Americans use to describe everything. Funny: When someone else gets hurt. Harvard: A well-known mental health facility located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Harvard -- Where only 10% of residents seriously consider suicide every year!) Filibuster： (1) To reject someone's friend request or group invite on Facebook … Continue reading Urban Dictionary

Grief. Melancholy. Depression

August 17, 2021 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

There are 3 types of sadness. Grief (mourning). Melancholy. Depression (in the non-clinical sense). Each signifying a relationship to the loss of an object. Grief is sadness over the loss of an object that I once had. It is when something is taken away from me. When someone dies. When some situation changes. It is … Continue reading Grief. Melancholy. Depression

Movement

August 14, 2021August 13, 2021 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

(I was to do some research on Berkeley. But, as usual, I ended up procrastinating. This time I found some old writing for UChicago Uncommon App that I've abandoned—because I was rambling too much and for too long. But I do really like it. I've added the last half from jouissance onwards. Hope you find … Continue reading Movement

Levels of Shame

August 2, 2021December 16, 2022 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

What makes us human? Love? Violence? Evil? All of that, true, but also shame. It is a proof of the Bible's great literary value that the first thing Adam and Eve acquire after the fall is shame. They start to wear clothes, they are embarrassed when God visits them, they are thrown into the chains … Continue reading Levels of Shame

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

July 29, 2021May 3, 2022 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

For Freud, we escape from reality into dreams, and then encounter in it what is so real and traumatic that we escape from dreams (desperately) back into reality. This is how we should read the play. It is not a comedy, but the more tragic of all because it ends happily. The middle portion where … Continue reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Be Myself?

July 24, 2021May 3, 2022 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

Hannah Arendt wrote about this in Between Past and Future: We are always subject to social pressures. When parents reject any form of discipline of the child, in fear of destroying their childhood innocence, of tyrannizing them, they are only leaving children to the tyranny of the larger social group. I can see this clearly … Continue reading Be Myself?

The Sublime Object of College Admissions

July 23, 2021December 16, 2022 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

This year will probably be the most stressful year of my school life. I am applying to University this November. There are still 3 months but I am frankly already worn out. I really just want to do what I love (reading Literature, writing, doing contemporary continental stuff), but instead I have to do what … Continue reading The Sublime Object of College Admissions

The Aleph

June 30, 2021 ~ Warren Zhu ~ Leave a comment

I have been slowly going through Borges’ Collected Fictions for quite some while now (in fact, almost a year), and I’m, finally—or perhaps sadly—more than halfway through. There was one story that I read today that left a great impression on me, more than some of his more famous stories (Garden of Forking Paths, Lottery … Continue reading The Aleph