justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: A Rambling on Effortlessness
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-rambling-on-effortlessness.html
A Rambling on Effortlessness. There's a quality that's been popping up in many places, and I want to take the time to, if not nail down what it is, at least feel its edges. There are many guises to this thing. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's called Quality. In The Timeless Way of Building. It's also called quality. Abraham Maslow. Calls it self-actualization. Both the Kingkiller. And the Sword of Truth. Or presentness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Might call it flow. Climbing one of the wo...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Mental Objectification
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013/11/mental-objectification.html
DISCLAIMER: I’m new to the discussion about objectification, and being a heterosexual, cis-gendered, upper-middle class Asian male makes me blind to a lot of things. Please let me know if I miss something obvious. Also, TRIGGER WARNING. Rape is briefly mentioned as a point of comparison. I imagine this second scenario feels more acceptable, or at least weirder and less offensive. While the first one is repulsive and objectifying. The question is, why? Instrumentality: The objectifier treats the object as...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Don't Shoot the Symptom
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013/11/dont-shoot-symptom.html
Don't Shoot the Symptom. The usual disclaimers about not seeing outside my life experience apply. This is my last rant on social issues. I find it amusing that I feel compelled to put the warning above, even though it's almost tautological. I saw the latest James Bond film ( Skyfall. Several months back, and was afterwards surprised to find that there's. Bond seduces the sex slave Severine, with full knowledge of her past. M (played by Judi Dench) is killed, and is replaced by a man. While still being mi...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Thoughts on a Cognitive Sport
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2012/01/thoughts-on-cognitive-sport.html
Thoughts on a Cognitive Sport. This post contains a lot of rock climbing jargon and may be hard to comprehend for the uninitiated. Interested readers should refer to Wikipedia‘s glossary of climbing terms. A description of rock climbing that I wish I had thought of is that it is a “cognitive sport”. I found this term used in two separate blog. Rdquo; moment led me to trying a different sequence, more often than not allowing me to finish the problem. This problem-solving aspect is so salient in my mind th...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: 2013-08
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013_08_01_archive.html
A partial list of things that cannot be taught:. This is not to say that you can't induce. People to be some of these things, it's just unclear how they can be taught. Them without already knowing how. Some teachable things, but difficultly so, include:. The only line I can draw is that the second list seem to be more about ways of thinking. While the first list contains ways of being. If anyone can draw a better line, or has ways of teaching things on the first list, leave a comment below. As I thought ...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: 2014-08
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2014_08_01_archive.html
In Defense of a Public Digital Life. I am a private person, but you wouldn't know that from looking at my online presence. I have a fairly active Twitter account. Which is entirely open to the public. A lot of my tweets are inane. This content is also mirrored on Facebook, although on there it's visible only to friends of friends. And, of course, I keep a blog, which stretches back a good number of years and has covered the same. As my tweets, if about slightly more personal topics and in more words.
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Unteachables
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013/08/unteachables.html
A partial list of things that cannot be taught:. This is not to say that you can't induce. People to be some of these things, it's just unclear how they can be taught. Them without already knowing how. Some teachable things, but difficultly so, include:. The only line I can draw is that the second list seem to be more about ways of thinking. While the first list contains ways of being. If anyone can draw a better line, or has ways of teaching things on the first list, leave a comment below.
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Asexuality
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013/11/asexuality.html
Author's note: Sunday's post will be delayed due to climbing. Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: I'm asexual. Or at least, I would consider myself practically asexual, in the same way that I'm practically atheist, since you can't prove a negative (meaning I'm technically agnostic. Maybe I should backtrack and say what it means to be asexual. As a point in the spectrum/space of sexuality, it has a different meaning from the biological sense of the word (eg. asexual reproduction. There are ...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: Generative Protection (aka. Graduate School in Midsight)
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2012/11/generative-protection-aka-graduate.html
Generative Protection (aka. Graduate School in Midsight). I feel like I should talk about grad school and how my fourth year has somehow crept up on me, but really what interests me is the idea of generative protection, so I'll talk about that and use examples from grad school to illustrate it. A month later, a friend asked me why I think I'm not good at taking compliments, and I replied:. The idea of generative protection came back to me at the end of last year, after I worked to pass my prelim that sum...
justinnhli.blogspot.com
Justin's Think Tank: 2013-09
http://justinnhli.blogspot.com/2013_09_01_archive.html
I think it’s interesting that language, despite it being a powerful way of communication, cannot express a lot of things. To use a cliched example, language cannot express what love is. People resort to saying, “No one needs to tell you you are in love, you just know it, through and through.”. Same with art, which people can only know it when they see it (or obscenity. Or be spontaneous, but we can tell them to do things that will eventually lead them to be effortless or spontaneous. All in all, it&rsquo...
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