Today, I came to the realization that relative to my time spent on things, I do not spend enough time reading for myself — reading books on my own to-read list, reading up on current news/events in the political, social, and economic spheres…

While I give myself credit for the overloaded class + extracurricular schedule I always have for myself, relative to my own time management and time-spent-on-other-things, I could totally be reading “for myself”…it’s just that I choose not to.  One “excuse”/reason is that many books I do want to read tend to be nonfiction (thus usually more ‘dense’/educational)…which makes this type of reading similar to the types of readings I have to do for my classes (so then it’s as if I never get a break), but it honestly is NOT an excuse.

I started to think about how much I used to read through middle school and the first half of high school… And I realized that partially, it was because I really did not watch TV. Nowadays, I’m following TOO many shows for my own good and perhaps spending too much time socializing on weekends… And that’s when I realized/decided that this type of hedonistic lifestyle I’ve adopted for myself during my free time isn’t really what I want for myself. Or is it?

I watch so many TV shows and indulge in mindless activities…all of this only makes me  a victim fallen prey to our escapist-, entertainment-obsessed society that I too criticize. I mean, while I am not watching TV shows/indulging in mindless activities, I know it’s not like I’m “wasting my life away” and being unproductive, but when I do have the “free time,” I AM being “unproductive.” Perhaps we all need the “mindlessness” of such activities and the escapism into worlds that are not our own — but when done in excess it becomes a dangerous lifestyle, at least for myself.

I always used to justify my love for mindless things, such as watching chick flicks, watching trashy TV shows, watching non-trashy-but-purely-entertainment-based TV shows, etc. by saying it is one of the few times my poor, over-analytical and over-evaluative brain gets to rest… Maybe it’s true. But it does not serve as an excuse!!!

Anyway…this has been probably one of my more pointless rambles… Just documenting my “journey” of attempts for self-improvement, don’t mind me…

I’ve always, always enjoyed reading..as a kid, I loved going to libraries, although I must say..a majority of what I read as a kid included The Babysitter’s Club, Sweet Valley series, and others like those…but regardless it has always been enjoyable to me.

As I went through high school, I never lost that love for reading (books that I want to read) but I just found less and less time to do so. I don’t think it was really until the summer after I graduated high school that I began to read a lot again, and re-discovered how amazing it was.

After starting college, I still tried to maintain some for-fun reading, but mostly it ends up being during the summer time that I get to do this. So, this summer (well – the 4 days left of it..) I’ve also been trying to get some reading done. The list of what I want to read just keeps getting longer and longer, and I order some of these books and they just keep sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read, but yet I can’t seem to give them the time of day!! I feel bad for them, really. I’ve been meaning to read Atlas Shrugged for a YEAR now (and I know this because I’d added this book to my Library last year..) and finally am just starting to read it!

I know that I really DO have time to read books for fun – I just have to make time for it. I think that during the year when I’m in school, it’s just harder to want to read for fun with my spare time because I already am reading so many books/articles/etc. for my classes… Who knows. But I just know – I need to spend more time doing it in order to read everything I want to…..

I’d like to take a moment to put a spotlight on a project that Hannah and I have been working on over this past month: Uberessay.com. Uberessay.com is a student resource and writing community that was founded by Hannah and I on the basis of promoting students to share their well-written papers and essays, as well as becoming a resource that students can refer to when writing their own papers for quality, insightful papers.

Although I’m no English and/or writing-based major at my school, I’ve always been sort of in love with writing… Okay, so I may sound quite nerdy, but it’s the truth. Somehow, when I’m writing an essay or paper, I will always find a way to be inspired or be somewhat excited about what I’m writing: in doing so, I allow myself to become fully enwrapped by whichever topic or subject I’m writing about, and thus actually learn something from writing. I may not have the best writing skills, and maybe I do kind of suck at citing correctly and using MLA-format the right way, but at least I still enjoy writing!

And that’s really just the point of Uberessay.com. Personally, when Hannah approached me with the idea, I definitely and instantly agreed to help co-found it, because it’s something that I hope everyone who wants to be apart of can become a member of. My hopes for Uberessay are to foster a community that promotes discussion and fosters learning for all contributors and readers, as well as to develop a reliable and decent resource that we can all (in the future, hopefully) refer to when writing our own papers.

So, if you’ve written a great essay this past year – and anytime in your college career – please consider submitting it! And, if you have any feedback, please let me know. I would love to hear it!

I wrote a response paper for a Chinese literature (taught and read in English) class earlier this year on Daoism, because we had read Laozi’s Daodejing and a portion of the Zhuang-zi. After reading the primary texts (or at least a part of it), I’d have to say I definitely made too broad of assumptions (if they were assumptions at all to begin with) in my religion paper I wrote on Daoism my senior year of high school (see Religion Paper Excerpts). I just think it’s interesting how my views on Daoism have changed. Obviously, I’m not suggesting I completely understand it, but from what I’ve read, this is just my own interpretation, which is all that matters for me, right?

Anyway, just thought I’d post this up… I also have it in PDF form, with the sources cited. Otherwise, here it is–

The Zhuang-zi and Laozi texts attempt to identify human’s vain desires for materialistic goods and temporal values, and in turn, suggest an alternative – the Way of the sage. Both texts are filled with contradiction after contradiction, paradox after paradox, all of which amount to one conclusion: that there is no answer, and that in itself is the answer.

Both Zhuangzi and “Laozi” highlight the emphasis humans place on fleeting values and tangible goods, such as wealth and jade. Laozi states that when the Way weakened, humaneness, rightness, intelligence, and wisdom emerged (84); he juxtaposes the Way with concepts that humans and society define as “good.” Zhuangzi, likewise, criticizes “knowledge,” arguing that human’s quest for knowledge triggered division and the “so’s and not sos’s” (117). Zhuangzi and Laozi’s critiques of human values stem from their argument that everything in the universe is constantly changing and transforming, and thus “the placement of value distinctions…[are] merely fleeting moments in the game of life that all come to naught” (Cook 66). Does this mean, then, that there is no point to knowledge, honor, wealth, and even virtue? What is virtue?

Zhuangzi and Laozi regard the sage as one who lives in harmony with the Way and disregards such temporal temptations and values. The ability to live amongst the paradoxes and contradictions is what Laozi characterizes as “profound virtue” (83). According to Laozi, a sage “accomplishes things by doing nothing” and furthers teaching with no words (80). The sage exists amongst ordinary men, amidst argumentation and conflict, but has the ability to consider, take positions when necessary (without argumentation), and make distinctions (Zhuangzi 119). The sage’s purpose is to harmonize with the Way as well as teach humans how to be stripped of natural desires such as ambition, knowledge, and wisdom. The sage, by doing nothing, brings society into order (Laozi 81), because “by doing nothing, nothing is left undone” (87). How does “doing nothing” result in “something”? What can be attributed to as “undone”? What is the meaning of words?

Present in both texts is a continuous play on words and strings of paradoxes. Zhuangzi presents pages and pages of dialogue about flutes, finger-pointing, there-is’s and there-isn’t’s only to say that we don’t know if we “know that what [we] call knowing is not, in fact, not knowing…[and] what [we] call not knowing is not, in fact, knowing” (Zhuangzi 119-120). The paradoxes and contradictions in the texts (and the texts themselves) become physical manifestations of the Way: ever-changing, open to interpretation, and words that may or may not mean anything and may or may not make sense.

Laozi and Zhuangzi’s manipulations of words and twisting of ideas throw the readers (like myself) in all directions, leaving me wondering what it is that Zhuangzi and Laozi are trying to convey about the Way. Only after reading the endless paradoxes and anipulation of language can I finally begin to comprehend “the wordless teaching [of the Way] and the advantage of doing nothing” (Laozi 89).