You Can't Handle The Truth

Sorry to be so accusatory with the title to this post, but, you know, a movie quote is a movie quote.

23 days ago, my friend Cynthia mentioned Serial to me.

21 days ago, I got hooked and listened to all 12 podcast episodes consecutively.

Then for the next 21 days, I've found a way to wiggle a mention of Adnan Syed into nearly every conversation to panhandle for thoughts and theories.

The one thing we can all agree on is that there wasn't enough evidence in the case to convict anyone of murder, but as far as who actually committed the crime, there are only two plausible scenarios in my mind:

1. Adnan did it and continues to deny it.
2. Jay did it, and Jenn helped cover it up.

I just can't wrap my head around the absurd idea of there being a 3rd party serial killer involved... that Jay also somehow knew/witnessed and is scared to death of.

But the crux of the matter is, to put it simply, we can't handle the truth.  And the truth is, we will never truly know what happened to Hae Min Lee.

This shred of human nature also brought the downfall of Adnan Syed at trial.  The victim's family, the jurors, the prosecutor, the police, they all needed someone to blame for such a tragedy, and when nobody else presented himself as a viable suspect, they started thinking (as I have myself, many times), "if not Adnan, then who else?"

And from that point forward, call it bias or cynicism, but it was easy to take the (lack of) evidence and manipulate it to be used against Adnan.  "How could he not remember that day at all?" they thought, when in actuality, if we are under the assumption that he is innocent, how many of us could remember details of a "normal day" 6+ weeks in our past?

At this point, I'm not sure what the next course of action is.  Obviously, if Adnan is actually guilty, I'd rather the system "fail" than let a murderer go free.  But on the other hand, if he is in fact innocent (which I'm currently inclined to lean towards after reading Rabia's blog), then hopefully more can emerge out of this hoopla than a few months of rabid entertainment for us wannabe detectives everywhere.

Living in the Moment

I know it's too early in the year for new pet peeves, so I'll reframe this into the form of a resolution: let's all live in the moment in 2015.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like we're too mature (see: old) to still be desperately looking forward to things, like an overgrown kid still wanting to grow up too fast.  If there's one thing I've learned since college, it's that everybody lives on their own timeline that's as unique to them as their fingerprints.

Long ago I made it a goal of mine to never rush someone else's timeline, whether it relates to a job, a relationship, a child, a house, or anything else that's life-changing to that degree.

So you think people should find the career of their dreams right out of college, then find their significant other, then get engaged after a minimum of 1.5 years and a maximum of 3 years of dating, then get married after a minimum of 9 months and a maximum of 14 months of engagement, then have kids after a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 3 years of DINK (Double Income No Kids), and your magical ideal timeline goes on and on and on.

That's cool.  That's fine.  But that cookie cutter formula just isn't for everybody.

Perhaps I'm harping on this too long, but I just hate when people are pressured into monumental decisions in their lives.  And on top of that, life is going by way too fast to perpetually waste time looking toward "the next step."

(Come to think of it, maybe this entire post should have "Trace Adkins - You're Gonna Miss This" playing in the background like an old school Asian Avenue page.)

Let's all just take a deep breath, laugh a little more, and enjoy where we're at.

Education: Game of Molds.

"Obama to propose free community college," the Headline Reads.

After browsing through a few more articles, Obama's "plan" is less of a plan and more of a "conversation starter" (as described by Obama's domestic policy adviser). If this loose wish eventually comes into fruition, we can all point to Obama and praise him. The more realistic outcome is that a dumbed-down version results and only 20-30% of community college applicants receive 40-60% of their tuition paid for. Politics, y'all.

Getting Educated On Education.

I finally finished schooling in May 2014 with 2 degrees and 25 years logged on Earth. If I live to 75 years old, I would've spent 1/3 of my life in school. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that a waste? 1/3 of anything is a huge chunk. Like I said, I know nothing about education, but I'd say 1/3 of my life spent towards education is too much time (and money) spent on education. Of those 25 years spent in school, I likely could've learned everything I did in 1/3 of that time: 8.33 years. So why's it take so long? 

Higher education is a business. Think about core-curriculum at your university. Think about how useless that stuff is, especially if you have a decent idea of what you might want to do. Do you really need TWO separate history courses? I remember one thing from my college history course: the route from my apartment to the classroom. I recall nothing substantive. And those two semesters cost me a few thousand, not to mention the time wasted.

Even law school. An American legal education is so blatantly a business. Law school most definitely does not need to be 3 years long, ask any law student. Heck, ask most professors. People think you finish law school and you're just good to go, able to tackle any legal issue. Your friends ask you about really specific laws, expecting a black/white answer, and you know how a law school graduate responds? "Well, it depends..." because you don't learn much actual law; you learn how to think, which is a very, very valuable thing. But it shouldn't take 3 years to get there. I recall sitting in half of my classes in my 3rd year of law school thinking, "what a complete waste of time." Where I went, you needed 90 credits to graduate, but only 40-50 hours were useful in my mind.

This is the greatest fault in our education system. There is no individualism. Think of education as a consumer product. Education is this massive product that mostly everyone feels like they need, or at least they're told this, and so it's mass produced. But with any product created on a huge scale, there are issues with quality control and customization. When you create something for the masses, corners are cut. To cut corners, molds are made. When there are molds, individuality suffers. And when individuality suffers, there is wasted time spent navigating a course that rarely takes you to the exact location you were searching for. Think of a mathematician at a state college who is required to spend 80% of her first 2 years taking courses like History, English, and Biology. This process sort of makes sense though, right? A good chunk of people enter college with absolutely no idea what to study, so they close their eyes and blindly choose something that sounds remotely interesting (more or less), maybe because that's what their friends chose, or their parents said it would be good for them. For these people, core curriculum is a decent place to start searching for direction. But for those who have a more focused idea on what they want, core curriculum is synonymous with throwing away hours and dollars. So who's to blame? How come so many 18 year olds entering college have no idea what they want? I was one of them. Well, it all comes back to molds and minimizing individuality. Our education system does very little to help us navigate all the varying avenues of possible vocations. And frankly, for the vast majority of us, our environments at home and in our communities likely do very little to usher us towards finding passions. I'm using passion here as a very general term with a low threshold. Passion merely means being interested enough in something to propel you to want to know more. Passion is curiosity, and curiosity may be the most crucial aspect lacking in American education.

No, can't be. Really? That's _______.

Cynicism. We all possess a bit of it. Some show it, others keep quiet. Thanks to social media, we can now do the former without much accountability. Cynicism is tricky because it's rooted in a milieu of reasons, from one's innate response to past experiences to societal influences to insecurities.

Cynicism, to a certain degree, is healthy to have. For all intensive purposes, I'll equate this healthy level of cynicism to discernment, which involves pulling in wisdom to the doubt that we respond with in whatever we see, hear, or feel. It's a protective measure against all the voices that tell us how the world is and how we should interpret it.

Lately, I find myself reading any article or hearing any conversation or attending any public event with a frame of cynicism. It does, after all, take very little effort to be cynical. And it also can make us feel like we have an opinion about something when we really don't know what to think, or it allows us to blindly go against the status quo when we really just want to be heard, or it can just make us feel like we're important - that we have an opinion, that we have something to stand against, that we have a right to defend, that we have a cause to pursue.

I think it's increasingly important to take into consideration where our cynicism comes from when we find ourselves blindly responding with it. But then again, who am I that you should listen to me?

Mok My Beans

There are two things that I have scoured the interwebs for at least once a year for 10+ years.  The first is a Jack in the Box commercial that spurred the creation of one of my oldest nicknames.  The second is a shred of photographic evidence of the best day of my friend Simon's life, in which he was originally asked by a passing girl to take a photograph of her and her friends and somehow ended up being in the picture while said girl kissed him on the cheek.

While the latter situation is one that will likely only live on in legend, a few days ago I stumbled upon the commercial that first coined the "Mok My Beans" nickname that a loyal few still recall to this day.  (Starts at the 6:20 mark.)


Now that I can finally check off that commercial from my life bucket list, and with such a glorious start to 2015, I figure new year's resolutions are in order.

My wife recently told me that everyone should have three kinds of hobbies: a fitness hobby, a money-making hobby, and a creative hobby.  So the creation of this blog essentially kills two birds in both serving as a creative outlet and representing a tangible way to help with another one of my resolutions: to keep in touch with my siblings until they come to their senses and return back to the great state of Texas.

So for all the imaginary people out there who have been waiting on pins and needles for the open-ended curtain call from mok's blog, wait no more.