"Cut Off": An Ode to Comcast

An ode to Comcast, clearly written in a moment of extreme grief and hopelessness.

"Cut Off"

Sit I before an iv'ry-colored screen
And wonder just how long I'll have to wait
Until my squirr'ly internet returns
And fickle stop-and-go speeds do abate.
How grand the world in Chrome's begoogled view!
How small the world to him whose bit rate's low!
So doth the internet's untimely fail
Yet chill my heart and strike a crippling blow.
Curse Comcast and its wretched service techs
Who sold to me this modem made in hell
I'll do my best to work on other tasks
And bear my offline isolation well.

Video Games and the World of Tomorrow

"WHAT?!?! No you don't..."
"Yes I do."
"No you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"I don't believe it."
"Well, I really do..."

I grew up with a Super Nintendo, and for my 12th birthday, I got an N64. My dad later bought the family a PS2, and I got involved in computer gaming when I was about 14 or so. I definitely did play video games. For some reason, though, some people didn't believe me when I told them that. I dunno what it was, but people just couldn't picture me playing video games, "wasting all that time on something so trivial." Well, in all honesty, a lot of it was, in fact, trivial, if you consider entertainment to be the only thing gleaned from an hour behind a screen. The thing is, that's not all that I got out of it. Everything I knew about world history was directly from video games. My strange knowledge of medieval siege weapons? Also from video games. Vocabulary? Well, I read a lot, but it sure helped that I played video games that had words like "chitinous," "arcane," and "vorpal" all throughout them. Where did I learn the fundamentals of computer programming? Playing video games. Photoshop? Same. Sound editing? Or my interest in philosophy? Well, I think you get the point...

Sometimes, it's okay to be sad...

We have this tendency of trying to always act like everything is just perfect, even when we're having a really hard time, and really, trying to stay positive and be content with our lives is a great thing. But if, when tough times come, we hide our sorrows behind a mask of false optimism and feigned felicity, we are just deceiving ourselves and shunning the aid that might be rendered by those around us.

The Bible tells us that at the death of Lazarus, Jesus wept. I've noticed that a lot of people try to interpret this, saying that He sought to empathize with others and so shed tears of sadness. I honestly don't know for sure the reason for His tears (or if there was a conscious reason) -- maybe it really was to empathize with Mary, to show her compassion in a moment of great sorrow --, but I have often wondered whether it is all much simpler than that, whether those tears were but the tears of a man whose friend has just died. In mortality, Christ was subjected to the same pains and disappointments that we endure, and so, at least in my mind, it doesn't seem so odd to think that Christ experienced sorrow at the death of a friend. How great was His joy, then, to know that Lazarus would walk again! How great the joy to know that our sorrows are but a drop in the pools of eternity and that great things lay ahead for each and every one of us! We need not forever dwell in sadness, but when those tough times do come, we don't need to feel bad about being sad either. The fact is that there is value and meaning to be found in sorrow -- not in pessimism and feeling bad for oneself, and certainly not in perpetual sadness-- but life's disappointments make the good times sweeter and teach us timeless truths. They provide us the contrast necessary to truly understand joy and, by daily striving, to at last make it our own.

The Power of the Word

It's like that moment when you finish a great book for the first time and the words ring out and linger on your lips and in your mind, and you wish that it would never end. Or the moment when you read that line of poetry that just resounds within your soul and echos about the chambers of your consciousness, and the words grow to fill you. It is the moment when you find yourself within the well-worn pages of a tattered tome and feel, if only for a moment, that someone understands you perfectly. The power of literature and of the word is the power to capture the human soul in a phrase and then to let it free. And then that phrase, that word, that thought, becomes once more a part of the human soul, only now it's found expression and can be sent on to heal another heart.

I am Robert Gu

I am Robert Gu. I am stuck in the past, and I'm too stubborn to update my views on reality and the digital age. And yet each time I hear about some feature of the iPhone or the Kindle, I think, "Wow, that'd be really nice to use." I am the Robert Gu that uses a five-year-old cell phone despite the fact that it can't receive half of all text messages because they are sent as non-compatible multimedia attachments. I am the Robert Gu that complains about modern media corrupting the traditional style. But I am also the Robert Gu who is learning to "wear" little by little and is realizing more and more how positively technology can impact our lives. I am the Robert Gu who is realizing that technology is an enabler for good or for bad, and so the decision remains with us as to what we will do with the blessings or curses of our time. I am the Robert Gu who thought he had a vision of the world until he started to see what everyone else was seeing and marveled at what he had missed out on. I am Robert Gu. And I am reveling in the media revolution.

Standing Room Only

Извините! It's Russian for, "I'm sorry," or "Excuse me." And for some reason, I still find myself saying it every once in a while when pushing through crowds or when getting off of buses. It's just one of those little things that's remained with me from my days as a missionary in Ukraine.

Going from America to Ukraine was pretty disorienting on its own, but with two years there to pick up the social customs and the language and the mannerisms, coming home was, perhaps, an even bigger shock for me. I remember getting off the plane and marveling at drinking fountains, something I had seen only once in my two-years' absence. I remember my perplexity at seeing everyone crazy-talking -- that it, chattering away into their Bluetooth earpieces. More than anything, though, I remember thinking that Americans were really rude: you would ask them how they were doing, and they would either say hi or give a monosyllabic answer and hurry off to who knows where. In Ukraine, "How are you?" is a question. And the people stop and respond to it openly. "My dog died, and we don't have money to pay for power, and I planted my tulips today." Here in America, "How are you?" is a greeting, to be offered up in passing. It really threw me off for a while. I still feel sometimes like there's this hazy "Russian" layer of reality that just kind of lingers in the back of my mind, the remnants and daily evidence of my time in Ukraine. Words will trigger it. The smell of fresh bread will trigger it. Public transportation. Old people. Little kids. Names. Faces. It's everywhere, and yet I'm the only one to see it.

Crowdsourcing and Geospatial Mapping

In my writing class, we've been reading Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End, a sci-fi novel that investigates the rapid progression of technology and its potential impact on the way that we interact one with another. One line was especially interesting in light of a video that I watched recently about crowdsourcing. It noted that independent sources of information (i.e. regular people, blogging, taking pictures, sending texts and tweets) were smarter, better-informed, and more numerous than government and media sources. The video I watched talked about humanitarian efforts in Haiti, where crowdsourcing was used to generate up-to-date geospatial maps for disaster relief in the ruins of Haiti's 2011 earthquake, all based on input from citizens sending in text messages, emails, etc. Eventually, the U.S. government, among others, adopted these patchwork maps, as they were consistently the most accurate and most useful, by far surpassing even the round-the-clock efforts of formal specialists and analysts. We are seeing a revolution in the way that information is transmitted and consumed, and as we learn to embrace this, we will see doors open to new and exciting discoveries both in the world of communication and in other spheres of human interaction.

The Economy of Heaven

So, today in church today, we heard a number of talks on the topic of service, and of note among them was one presented by a young and aspiring econ major. He talked about the meaning of the word service in contrast to goods, services being intangible acts, while goods represent actual commodities. He explained that economics is the study of the flow of services and goods, and then he explained something that I hadn't really thought about before: the study of economics is limited in its scope in that it can only measure a portion of the services rendered, as they can only account numerically and statistically for those services that are carried out in exchange for another service or commodity. A great many services, acts of kindness rendered by thousands on a daily basis, fall outside the scope of traditional economics and make up what I like to think of as the economy of heaven. This is the economy of selfless giving, of parents caring for young children, of friends in a time of need, of every teacher who realizes his/her noble call, of every disciple of Christ. This is the economy of friendships forged and hearts healed and little-boy scrapes, cleaned and kissed. No earthly model can adequately represent the good that is done each day in selfless service.

I recently read an article about gift economies, or societies wherein goods and services are given without any expectation of reciprocation. This kind of got me thinking about a social experiment that I carried out last semester, initially a response to Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of my Experiments with Truth. I felt that the charity that Gandhi spoke of and the charity that we read of in the scriptures weren't really present in modern America, and I wondered how people would respond to free giving. So, on Sundays, I would don one of a number of beautiful ties that I had picked up when I was in Ukraine on a proselytizing mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then, any time a guy would compliment me on my tie (guys are usually the ones to notice), I would immediately offer it to them. Their eyes would reflect first confusion, then desire, then embarrassment, and it was visible what a struggle they were going through inside. A few offered trades, and others accepted then later graciously turned down my offer, but in the end, not a one accepted the gift. Honestly, I don't know if that should be taken to mean anything, as it was sort of a set-up interaction -- I was an actor in a play --, but it's still interesting to think about the foreignness of the idea of gift economies in the eyes of America's general populace, in our own eyes. Perhaps it would benefit us all to practice a little bit more selfless giving.

To B.A. or not to B.A.?

If you know me well, you know that I haven't been an English major for too long now. Up until last semester, I was majoring in biochemistry, but after two years of school and two years in Ukraine to think it all out, I finally got over my fears and decided to chase my dreams of becoming a writer. That's another story, the end of which is yet untold, but the transition from chemistry major to English major has brought about a remarkable transformation in the way that people relate to me and react to my choice of major. This is a change which, I feel, deserves a moment's notice.

Situation 1
"What are you studying?"
"Biochemistry."
"WOAH! You must be really smart then. I couldn't handle something like that."

Situation 2
"What are you studying?"
"English."
(Understanding look, as if to say, "Oh, you're one of those kinds of guys...")
"Oh... Cool... What are you going to do with that?"
"I want to be writer."
"Oh... that's great..." (almost invariably spoken with a poorly-masked look of sympathy or worry)

Situation 3
"What are you studying?"
"Well, I just switched from biochemistry to English."
"WHY?"

It is, in these new-found moments of awkwardness, that I have pondered that age old question: "To B.A. or not to B.A.?" That is the question.