Category: Passion

Right up with making an Olympic Team and winning a gold medal, competing in collegiate gymnastics is certainly one of those goals that is at the forefront of every young gymnast’s mind. It certainly pervaded my thoughts to the point that I would spend hours on the weekend during my middle-school and high-school days watching meets on the Big Ten Network, almost setting up my own gymnastics version of “NFL Redzone”. On some occasions I would even have the opportunity to watch meets in person, most frequently being those hosted at the Naval Academy since I was only a 45 minute drive from Annapolis. Watching those competitions in person gave me an early exposure to the excitement and energy that undergirded the atmosphere in NCAA gymnastics and made me realize why so many held it next to international competition as the pinnacle of the sport. Having the opportunity to now to actually be on a collegiate team, and enjoy an experience I could once only dream of, inspired me to write this blog to hopefully share the unique experience of an athlete in a sport that I feel is greatly underappreciated. For my first blog, I want to take some time to commentate on my own personal experience thus far and the overall performance of NCAA teams these first few weeks

It is an understatement to stay that my debut in NCAA competition didn’t go as planned. On my first day back to practice from our Christmas Break, around two weeks out from the first competition, I sprained my ankle doing a routine dismount off of one of the pieces of apparatus. While I was thankful to avoid a fracture or any serious ligament damage, I was severely restricted in what I could train and compete over the coming weeks. While I had hoped to be competing for the team on Floor Exercise on High Bar, my two favorite and strongest apparatus, my injury inhibited me from doing either and confined me to doing Pommel Horse. While I am fairly decent at Pommel Horse, I do not enjoy it as much as the other events nor do I have the same confidence with it. Despite this, I choose to accept the circumstances as given and do my best to give my best Pommel Horse score and help the team effort where I could. Undoubtedly, my hard work came to fruition through the first three meets as I scored consistently far higher than I ever had in junior competitions (12.9, 13.55, 13.35, respectively). My ankle also healed far faster than expected during this time frame and I was finally able to get back to competing Floor and High Bar in last week’s competition. While my performance was certainly not what I had hoped for, it was nice to get the experience of competing other events under my belt as I head into more serious inter-conference competitions in the coming weeks.

While the start of any athletic season is certainly unpredictable, it is fair to say that the start of the NCAA gymnastics season has had more than its fair share of surprises. Despite my bias, I truly believed that Penn State has shown we can be a top caliber team in the NCAA this year with the potential for a podium finish at NCAA championships. Despite a step backwards last week, our first two weeks featured a dominant win at home versus Army and a sweep at the West Point Open where we separated ourselves from the next best team, Nebraska, by an 8 point margin. Another big surprise has been the early underperformance of the reigning BIG Ten champions, the Michigan Wolverines. The Wolverines have only posted one score that beat a major Big Ten team in the first few weeks and have been beaten by Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Stanford. While struggling with injuries and giving experience to underclassmen seeking to fill in the gaps left by a strong graduating class, it is nonetheless a bit shocking to those that saw the Michigan freshman class as nearly the best recruited in the country. One thing that hasn’t been surprising has been the dominance of the Stanford Cardinals, the 3-time reigning National Champions. With a roster that features countless Senior National Team Members and even World Team Members and Olympians, Stanford has posted insane scores thus far in the season without the help of Olympian and High Bar World Gold Medalist, Brody Malone. Without a doubt, Stanford has set the standard for teams chasing the NCAA title this year, and it is unlikely we are to see their dominance go away any time soon.

For this week’s blog, I will be reviewing one of my favorite books that I read during middle school : Cash In On Your Passion by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck.  For those unfamiliar with Vaynerchuck, he is a colorful media personality and speaker who started from humble beginnings as the child of Belarusian immigrants and went on to grow a multi-million dollar wine business. Vaynerchuck, who is notorious for vulgar, but powerful online messages about the importance of hard work and determination to accomplish your personal goals, shares his wisdom in a more sound way through this book. As someone who was extremely interested in business and entrepreneurship during my middle school years and looked up to Vaynerchuck as the idealization of the “American Dream”, I was thrilled to read his book. Throughout the book, Vaynerchuck builds upon the premise that there is a market for basically anything in this world and anyone has the potential to make money doing what their passionate about.

One thing I really enjoy about Vaynerchuck’s book is that it is not presented as a “get-rich-quick” scheme and, in fact, does not really focus on getting rich at all. While Vaynerchuck admits that wealth is the fruit of a successful business or brand, it can never be a starting point. Instead, Vaynerchuck encourages us to each reflect upon what makes us passionate: the activity which we could do all the time, would never bore us, and has the potential to be valuable to other people. Whatever the activity, Vaynerchuck argues that we have the potential to capitalize upon it and manifest a career that involves doing what we love rather than work a job we hate. Vaynerchuck gives examples of his young days where, rather than working a minimum wage job, he mastered the art of buying and selling baseball cards for profit. Through hours of studying, attending events, and collecting rare cards, Vaynerchuck was able to make thousands of dollars doing an activity that he actually enjoyed. Vaynerchuck encourages each of us to search for our own “baseball card trading” and utilize our own creativity and innovation to make a career out of it.

Even as one who has moved on from my entrepreneurial obsession phase, Vaynerchuck’s book remains an influential aspect of my mindset. As with Vaynerchuck, I would dread having a career that involves something I don’t like and deeply desire to have a job I actually enjoy. Vaynerchuck inspired me to have a mindset open to the possibility of having a truly fulfilling career if I am willing to have the effort, patience, creativity, and discipline necessary. For anyone interested in entrepreneurship or even just some great life advice, I cannot recommend Cash In On Your Passion enough!

For this week’s blog I want to look at a book that is particularly unique, Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer. This book first came to my attention during my freshman year in High School when I was taking Biology and fascinated by the complex molecular machines necessary for life to function. Specifically, I was amazed by the capacity for DNA to order the construction of proteins, the fundamental components to sustain cellular metabolism, through the processes of transcription and translation. If you’re anyone like me, who is unsatisfied with just accepting things as they are, you might wonder, “how did this degree of cellular complexity arise in the first place?” And while we covered a few popular origin of life theories in class, most of them were unsatisfying answers that seemed like cover for uncertainty. Consequently, after searching for additional resources, I was lead to the work of Stephen Meyer who takes a unique position. In Signature in the Cell, Meyer delves into why all current typologies of origin of life theories fail and eventually proposes an “out-of-the-box” solution.

Meyer begins with his experience investigating the origin of life at Cambridge for post-graduate thesis. He first realized a distinction between the “historical sciences” and “experimental sciences”. While the “experimental sciences” investigate how natural laws and phenomena affect us in a consistent manner, the “historical sciences” seek to explain a distinct event in the remote past, such as the origin of life. Drawing upon the work of great scientists such as geologists Charles Lyell and even evolutionist Charles Darwin, Meyer determined that evaluating a hypothesis in the “historical sciences’ requires analyzing its casual adequacy, or ability to explain the event in question. Meyer then demonstrates that the two main types of origin of life theories, those relying on chance and those relying on chemical necessity, do not have casual adequacy to explain the origin of life. Meyer argues that the chance hypothesis is not reasonable because the probability of forming even a single protein or nucleic acid by chance is unimaginably small given the probabilistic resources available, even if the primitive earth contained the necessary “building blocks” for life. He then refutes the idea that chemical affinities or “necessity” could explain the origin of the first life since the arraignment of proteins and nucleic acids is necessarily irregular. Our experience with chemical laws demonstrates that they almost always produce regular, predictable patterns, which is exactly opposite to the composition of DNA and proteins.

In the end, Meyers advocates for the “Design Hypothesis” or that the work of an intelligent agent is the most reasonable explanation for the origin of biological information. While understandably seaming like creationism, Meyer demonstrates that this framework of viewing science is not novel, but was shared by great scientists such as Kepler, Newton, and even Galileo. For anyone interested in biology or chemistry and want a book that explores how these topics relate to deep philosophical questions, I highly recommend Signature in the Cell.

Even as someone who plans to major in electrical engineering, I have always held a deep inf finance. During my sophomore year of High School, I channeled my inner Warren Buffet and became so obsessed with the financial markets that I spent countless hours a week analyzing economic news and indicators that could predict future market behavior. To reward my fervor, my grandfather endowed me with a brokerage account to manage, as well as a copy of One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch. While my grandpa knew that I could understand GDP reports and even fluctuations in monetary policy, he feared that I lacked an understanding of the power of long-term investment. One Up on Wall Street was consequently a perfect gift for my situation, as it presents a detailed explanation of the philosophy of “value investing” by one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time. The book is an easy read and avoids the technical jargon ubiquitous in Wall-Street circles while demonstrating a practical guide to crafting a successful investment portfolio.

Lynch starts the book with a basic idea of what “value investing” means. At its core, it is the principle of searching for discrepancies between how the market values companies and the actual potential of the companies themselves. And while this type of investing can involve a great deal of research and analysis, Lynch explicitly notes how some of his greatest investments were the simplest. He recalls multiple instances where he could sense the rising consumer demand around “hot “companies and decided to invest in them.  In these instances, Lynch recalls profiting five or even ten-fold his initial investment, although this frequently required the patience to hold through the dips and plateaus along the way.

For the more advanced and technically inclined investors, Lynch elaborates upon this basic idea of “value investing” with concrete research that can be done to determine if a company may be “undervalued” relative to its market price. For instance, he cites a low P/E (stock price divided by company earnings) ratio as one of the most important indicators of a stock being undervalued, especially when compared to other similar companies in its sector. He additionally notes the importance of a strong balance sheet and considering how much debt a company is carrying relative to its equity before investing in them.

As a young investor who was more of a short-term “trader” in the market looking to make quick money, my grandfather’s gift of One Up on Wall Street was a much-needed reality check. Lynch’s legendary legacy as a Wall Street icon is only enhanced by his book’s straightforward and easy-to-follow strategy that enables one to generate large returns without sacrificing your life to watch stock prices. For anyone new to the idea of investing in the stock market or even an experienced investor eager to capitalize on their returns, I cannot recommend One Up on Wall Street enough.

 

After a couple of weeks of switching up the genre to nonfiction, I am back this week to review another classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In a futuristic environment that is somewhat akin to that of Brave New World, the society is oversaturated with cheap media and entertainment while books and other activities that encourage any sort of deep intellectual stimulation are outlawed. The story centers around the character of Guy Montag, a fireman whose occupation centers around burning books and prosecuting those who get caught hiding them. After encounters with a young girl named Clarisse, Montag becomes increasingly interested in answers to deep philosophical questions he had never before pondered. Consequently, he decides to search for the answers in the items that it is his job to burn, books! His introduction to literature ignites a passion that cannot even be tamed by his fire chief, Beatty, who cites confusing and contradictory excerpts from various books in an attempt to convince Montag that reading is useless and ought to be suppressed. After being caught for hoarding books by his own wife, Montag burns Beatty to escape arrest and becomes a fugitive running from the “Mechanical hound”, a robotic monster that is unleashed to catch and kill Montag. The story finishes with a dramatic manhunt that warrants the coverage of national television stations. In the end, Montag is able to escape into the countryside and meet an “underground” network of intellectuals who share a passion for great works of literature and philosophy. While the story ends without a definite outlook of the future, Montag ends up formally joining the group whose goal it is to re-write the great works they have memorized and eventually rebuild civilization.

In a time when our society barely consumes any social media, television, and other forms of instant gratification, Fahrenheit 451 is a reminder for us to never forget the importance of literature in maintaining a thriving and rich culture. Otherwise, we will become just like the characters envisioned in the world of Bradbury, complacent and mindless citizens simply moving through space without any real purpose. Bradbury also reminds us of the importance of defending great literary works against efforts of censorship. Implicitly, Bradbury advocates for the importance of free and open expression to cultivate a nation of free people. Without the opportunity for free expression, a society quickly crumbles towards despotism and autocracy. Like 1984 and Brave New World, I highly recommend reading Fahrenheit 451 if you are interested in learning about the potential ways in which our society can retreat from democracy, and what we need to do to avoid it.

 

 

 

For this week’s passion blog, I will be reviewing Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile. In accord with last week’s trend of shifting the genre from dystopian to nonfiction, this novel conveys another fascinating story about a historical event that is somewhat enigmatic from the perspective of the public. Namely, it covers the efforts of a rogue Democratic Congressman, Charlie Wilson, to raise federal funding for the Mujahideen to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the Cold War. Viewed by some as an anti-communist patriot and by others as a Washington degenerate that over stepped his authority as a legislator, Charlie Wilson remains a controversial figure to this day. After all, the most iconic figures in politics rarely follow what others do, but rather pursue new things that others may follow.  While the operation was venerated and celebrated in the immediate aftermath of its success, the ensuing decades of intervention in the region against radical Islamic groups challenge whether the operation was truly a geo-political win.

As with The Big Short, Crile does a superb job of actually telling a story, leading the audience to be genuinely entertained while learning far more about the event than one would from a jargon-filled historical analysis.  For instance, the eccentricities and debauchery of Charlie Wilson are readily integrated into the storyline, such as the fact that he was under federal investigation for cocaine use in three different jurisdictions (including the Cayman Islands). While the emphasis on character development develops “side-stories” that engage the reader in tandem with the central plot, it also accentuates the unlikelihood and improbability that Wilson’s plan was to actually succeed. In the end, it was Wilson’s uncanny ability to network and develop connections with others such as Joanne Herring, a republican socialite whose staunch anti-communism led her to go as much as meet with Mujahideen leaders in person, that propelled it forward. Along with Wilson, responsibility for Mujahideen funding can be additionally credited to the CIA operative Gus Akrakotos who merged the efforts of Wilson in Congress with the prime agency responsible for sponsoring clandestine anti-communist operations, the CIA. Like Wilson, Akrakotos is portrayed as an eccentric and ambitious operative who induces both the extreme praise and scorn of his colleagues. The cooperation of this unlikely duo makes the story all the more fantastic, especially given the fact that its grounded in reality.

For anyone interested in a novel that explores our efforts in the Middle East during the cold war or simply interested in a thrilling and exciting novel, I cannot recommend reading Charlie Wilson’s War enough. As The Big Short does with Wall Street, this novel similarly exposes the seemingly unorthodox and even scaringly informal ways in which politics operates within Washington. It is a novel that reminds us that there is always far more going on “behind the scenes” than we could ever imagine.

 

 

While all of my previous blogs reviewed dystopian novels, this week I will be reviewing a story that captures a real historical event. Interestingly, the event was such an incredible catastrophe that it probably would have been considered “dystopian” before it actually happened. The name of the novel is The Big Short by Michael Lewis, author of other iconic stories such as Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, and The Blind Side. Lewis’ ethos as a great storyteller certainly did not disappoint in this work, as it makes the complexities and intricacies of the 2007-2008 economic recession personable and understandable to someone completely unfamiliar with the financial sector.

One of Lewis’ greatest feats is his characterizations of the wall street insiders that foresaw the collapse of the U.S financial and housing markets such as Michael Burry, Jared Vennett, and Steve Eisman among others. Each character is depicted in a way that juxtaposes any stereotype of a wall street analyst, with unbelievably eccentric and unorthodox behavior. Burry, for instance, is portrayed as a slightly autistic, but brilliant money manager who actually made it through most of medical school before discovering his affinity for trading stocks. His impeccable ability to focus intently on tasks that interest him leads him to read thousands of reports on mortgage backed securities and realize the discrepancies between actual risk and how the securities are being evaluated by rating agencies such as Standard and Poors. Consequently, he allocates most of the money in his hedge fund towards “shorting” (or betting against) these mortgage backed securities, inducing the fervent anger of his shareholders. Despite this, Burry remains a brick wall, doubling down on his “billion dollar” bet against the housing market by freezing the positions of his shareholders so they are unable to withdraw any funds. In the end, after years of confusion to Burry as the mortgage securities remained valuable despite the underlying assets failing, he is heavily rewarded on his initial bet, earning himself and his shareholders hundreds of times their initial investment while the rest of wall street struggled to avoid bankruptcy.

The Big Short serves many different functions at once; it acts as both a story of the past and a warning for the future, a reflection upon tremendous feats of human intelligence and a reflection upon tremendous stupidity and greed. Regardless, it is undoubtable that the “The Big Short” has captured the attention of readers intrigued more to learn about how the system of American banking, which seemed so stable, could have been so corrupt and negligent. Moreover, it made Wall Street something that we could relate too and realize that it operates with far more informality and uncertainty than we would ever except.

 

In continuance of my recent trend of reviewing dystopian novels, for this week I will be reviewing another one of Orwell’s great works, Animal Farm. Animal Farm complements Orwell’s overall message in 1984 regarding the dangers of totalitarianism and its potential consequences for society, but its structure and nature as a work of fiction is entirely different. Namely, Animal Farm is a satirical allegory that personifies animals overthrowing their human owners on a farm  to mirror the events of the Bolshevik Revolution.  After this revolution, the quasi-government that the animals establish quickly descends from collectivism to despotism. The initial principles of animalism that inspired the spirit of fraternity and solidarity are abandoned by Napoleon — the pig that ascends to leader of the farm– who favors using power to enrich himself. The story ends with the pigs, the elite class, behaving more and more like humans as they abandon all that they promised when they began to take power.

Orwell’s significant accomplishment through this novel was utilizing a simple story with events that are easily understood to act as symbols for something less understood by most people, communism. When considering the historical context that Orwell likely intend for the novel to reflect, the group of barn animals represent the Bolsheviks revolting against “Manor Farm” or tsarist Russia. The presence of animalism as a guiding ideology, that advocates above all for the equality of all animals, is most closely related to the Bolshevik devotion to Marxist-communism. Later in the revolution, we can see Napoleon emerging as the singular leader of the communist state, similar to the historical figures of Stalin and Lenin. Snowball, his main opposition, is symbolic of Leo Trotsky, Lenin’s main rival. The pig’s themselves, as an elite class, are like the “vanguard of the revolution” that Lenin imagined would be necessary to ensure the revolution took place before “real communism” could take over. However, just as is historical fact, the concentrated power is never forfeited by the communist leaders and instead simply enhances the status of the ruling class. There is also the presence of “purges” in Animal Farm, representative of the actual political purges that took place under Lenin and Stalin.

Despite its short length, Animal Farm is another novel that remains as important as 1984 in establishing Orwell as master of dystopian novels. For those unfamiliar with communism or its general historical failure as an ideology to achieve its said ends, reading Animal Farm is a great way to get a close understanding to the real history without going too deep in the mud (get my pun?). Additionally, as with 1984, Animal Farm remains a stark political prophecy that highlights the subtlety by which totalitarianism can infuse a society and even by the best intentions.

After reviewing Brave New World in my last blog post, I found it fitting to analyze a more well known and iconic dystopian novel this week: 1984 by George Orwell. In this novel, Orwell depicts a more traditional representation of what one would think when they imagine a totalitarian regime, somewhat along the lines of an exaggerated version of today’s North Korea. The regime of Oceania is cruel, oppressive, and seemingly omnipotent; it demands its citizens to display unfailing reverence to the ubiquitous symbol of the regime, “Big Brother”. However, one citizen, named Winston Smith, devotes his life to small acts of rebellion against the party in hopes of being apart of a movement that will eventually bring the party down. His defiance is ultimately unsuccessful, and he undergoes severe torture under the supervision of top party officials to ensure he is converted back to political orthodoxy. Regardless of its unsavory ending, this novel is one that has drastically shaped our society; namely, it has shaped the way we collectively thinks about government, censorship, democracy, and even objective truth. Hence, my short review will seek to demonstrate how Orwell crafted a novel whose message reverberates as an eternal truth by focusing on his use of irony and the motif of suppression of civil liberties.

Irony, or the prevalence of contradictions is a major strategy of the regime in 1984 as it gives them a monopoly upon language and truth. A political regime that can control the language to mean whatever it wants can have complete control over what the society believes. This is evident from the novel’s beginning, where Orwell illustrates irony in the party’s central slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”. While such a slogan seems nonsensical as it literally equates antonyms, it demonstrates that the party has crafted the language in a way that serves their interests.  The importance of language is further emphasized in the linguistic mission of the regime to create an entirely new language named  “Newspeak”. Orwell hones in on language to convey the importance of sharing a common understanding of truth in a society and prophesizes that a nation divided upon something as basic as language will not preserve a prosperous and self-governing society, but will crumble into authoritarianism.

The suppression of civil liberties is a widespread motif throughout 1984 that illustrates Orwell’s belief in the importance of them to a functioning democracy and how their absence breeds despotism. Citizens in Oceania, for example, certainly have no protection of any fundamental rights such as religion, press, speech, fair trial, or participation in the political process. Rather each of these “rights” are considered disloyal against the regime. For instance, speech is encouraged to be strictly orthodox, any organized religion is forbbiden, and the enforcement of crime itself is completely partial and only serves to eliminate political threats to the regime’s stability.

While there are countless things about 1984 that I did not mention in this short review, it remains that this novel portrays one of the greatest political prophecies in modern history. I would suggest that if there is any one singular book that every citizen ought to read as an indirect guide for preserving democracy against totalitarianism, it would be 1984.

Recently, I finished re-reading one of my new favorite novels, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. From the beginning pages to the end, the reader is immersed in a dystopian future that exaggerates the potential of genetic engineering, medicine, and mass production to cultivate a society that is “always happy”, but at the same time enslaved. While similar in nature to 1984 in the sense that it depicts a perceivably irremovable totalitarian regime, the tactics of each regime are entirely different. While the Oceanic government in 1984 is brutal and oppressive, the government in Brave New World encourages indulgence and vice as a way to control the population by their base appetites. Namely, Huxley develops the idea of controlling and enslaving citizens through their passions and instincts.

One major motif in Brave New World that conveys how human desire can be used as a method of control is the consumption of Soma, a euphoric and hallucinogenic drug. The ubiquitous substance is given to workers in daily rations that can either be used manufacture a slight high or a “holiday”, where one is only semi-conscious for an extended period of time. Soma is uniformly considered an immediate cure for any problem one may face, or a way to enhance one of the many recreational activities the population is encouraged to engage in. Ironically, it is the use of this drug that “the Savage”, a character from a tribal reservation that is brought back to “civilization” in the name of scientific experimentation, takes the biggest problem with. His mother Linda becomes addicted to the euphoria of the drug when taken back to “civilization” and is allowed to essentially overdose by her doctor. Even while the use of Soma does not result in an overdose for most people in the society, it represents how their sense of pleasure and happiness has been confined to a substance that they are reliant upon.

Another major motif in Brave New World that connects control with allowing the indulgence of passions is in the encouragement of promiscuity and prohibiting monogamy. The employment of genetic engineering in Brave New World, which applies Henry Ford’s mass production techniques to biological reproduction, excludes the need for sex as a means of reproduction. Marriage and childbearing are hence considered taboo, as well as real relationships and romanticism. Promiscuity is not only a social suggestion but also strictly enforced, as those with too few partners or those who sleep with the same person for a while may fall under the suspicion of the government. Similar to Soma, this aspect of “civilization” is heavily scrutinized by “the Savage” who desires marriage with Lenina, a girl he is heavily attracted to. His intention to develop a real relationship with her and avoid fornication confuses her, and eventually leads him to be fully ostracized by those around him. Widespread promiscuity keeps the population complacent to their desires and ensures the success of the genetic engineering apparatus, but it prevents them form experiencing any of the true happiness associate with marriage and real relationship.