To be what you want to be, follow these instructionsc

From my experience, the most successful people in society seem to be people who enjoy what they are doing. One of my instructors at a university in cleveland told me, "If I love what I'm doing, do it." I find identification in my music, because I love to perform. There are more times that I can practice with pleasure than times when I practice for requirement.

Unfortunately, the university has changed that perspective in many ways. I understand the need for requirement classes in general. From what I'm told, requirements teach me the basics of what I want to study, or live with. From my experience, I've experienced a contrary. I've only been to michigan for a year and a half, but my required learning experiences has included: studying independently than to attend lectures by bumbling professors, reading textbooks assigned by professors who haven't read them, learning the differences of Gregorian chant, and learning how to properly argue the existence of self-identity. This can be useful to many people, but the most important question for me is, how will this help me land an orchestra job?

So for now, I will learn what is being prescribed to me. But if anybody is seeking out to apply to Michigan, I'd strongly ask them to talk to current students themselves rather than to go to the admissions office an watch testimonials. From what I see, Michigan is giving me the choice of identity, but is telling me the recipe of becoming that identity. I've always wanted to identify myself as a performance musician. But right now, more than ever, I feel as if I'm wasting my time learning material which I am becoming more and more disillusioned with. I'm being fed butter at a time when I feel I need bread.

Why the hell is Austin doing English homework on a Friday night?

The first thing you may wonder is, "Why the hell is Austin doing English homework on a Friday night?"

In answer to that question, my reply might come across to most as a highly pessimistic and cynical point of view.

As most of you might might not know, I came to Central Campus to get some electricity, since all of north campus lost power for the entire night. While I was doing my musicology essay at Expresso Royale on state street, I spent a lot of my time looking out the window, seeing some of the most diverse characters walking outside, some of them including middle aged men smoking blunts, one person dressed in flashy 80's garb, and countless college students whom I believe are being total frauds.

The idea of people being total frauds in public was an issue I raised in my first essay in English. In it, I criticized the behavior of people in public, behaving in a manner that is not genuine to what they really are. For example, if somebody in English class had a grudge against me, that person would not express that grudge in front of the class in fear of losing their respect to others.

This idea of "acting" felt very relevant as I was looking out the window today. There were so many college kids all spruced up and hyped for the most eventful night of the week (besides saturday?). Some were walking with bottles of vodka, others with five of their friends, most of them as a couple, all of them walking to either the Union or Necto. I can understand that most behave as such to let out some steam and relax after a long hectic week, but it's (what I believe is) the minority of those people that irritate me. From my experience, some of those people (especially the guys) go out to make themselves heard and seen amidst the ego-driven crowds, maybe grab themselves a cute girl to date for an added bonus. It can be my own fault and experience with such people that gives me this pov, but assuming I'm correct, I find it completely detrimental to others to act in a manner that is contrary to what you're true personality is.

I forgot where this blog post is being headed, I'll try to write more tomorrow.

My Epilogue

Hopefully by now you haven't fallen asleep reading this, no?

By the time I turned 18, I was given the complete freedom of making my own identity independent from my parents. While I was able to easily tweak my identity of clothing, eating habits, and maturity (or lack of maturity), the option of choosing what religion I wanted to believe in seemed like too heavy a subject to want to deal with.

It's probably now that I am in great need of a god. All my life, I was surrounded by religions of one form or another. The biggest obstacle that I find troubling are the consequences of my foreboding choice I will have to make. Will I join my extended Korean family's take on Christianity and call non-Christians evil? Or will I follow my stepfather's footsteps with a god that I feel truly exists, and earn the disgust of my extended Korean family? I've followed the road of postponing this decision (ie, atheism), but more recently, I've felt so ungrateful for what my life has turned into. Who can I thank for my loving parents, my two dogs, my education, or just life in general? Who's been answering my prayers and giving me so much to be grateful for?

My identity with God (or Allah, or Ganesh, or Buddha, or Darwin?) Part 2

Part II: My dad's relationship with the Divine.

At about the same time I was officially baptized a Christian, my mother met my future dad. Being one of the personal assistants to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for much of the early 70's to the early 90's, my dad had a very different view of God.

My dad's religious beliefs best described as a scramble of eggs. From my experience of knowing him, he's practiced (and I think still practicing) Buddhism, Catholicism (of which he recently converted), Hindu, Christian, and is studying Islam. All in all, he's learned a little of each of these religions and values them equally as such.

My experience of religion outside of Christianity might stem from my 7th grade in middle school. I recently earned a D+ in Algebra, a grade that I thought I would never have to see. My dad just got diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and wasn't expected to live much longer. Most of my friends were already asking people out to prom, and I felt resolved that I was never going to go. A couple weeks later at the house of my dad's friend, I ran across a statue of the Indian diety Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles. Having only experienced Ganesha's alleged magic through my dad's stories, I spent about ten minutes complaining about my griefs to what I believed was just a funky statue of a buddha with an elephant head. Two days later, I received from another one of my fathers friends of a Ganesha statuette. It seems silly that I took that statuette as a response to my prayers, but it seemed more of a coincidence. The next four years seemed like a miracle. I earned myself a C in algebra, my dad got himself heart surgery, and I temporarily later lost interest in girls in middle school.

Part 3 will concern my dilemma on who I can identify myself with. Stay tuned, and please don't fall asleep when reading this, or comment when you're drunk from a party.

This came from my last entry.

I've been making a 3-part essay about my identity with God. I feel it would be appropriate to put all three entries onto one blog for the sake of continuity.

Last Friday, I was invited to the bi-monthly dinner party hosted by a christian outreach organization with whom I enjoy good company with. But it was only recently that I shared my weird experiences with religion for the first time with anybody. What resulted was a feeling of liberation that I was able to share my skepticism with God with people who believed in God.
My relationship with Him seems to be at a 3 way junction. I'll put it into three paragraphs as the weeks go by.

1) My family's God. I was first exposed to God when I was about 3 when my grandparents took me to Church, and I cared less about it. I was young, and I preferred to play with toy bulldozers than to read another book, especially something as big and complicated as the Bible. I continued to go to Church with my grandparents until I was 14, when my grandfather became too weak. Unfortunately, I treated Church like a vitamin pill; I thought it was necessary, but I had no care for it. Whenever I prayed for anything or anyone, it seemed that I was at the bottom of God's shopping list. I did not feel as if I was getting an answer. When I was around 14, I went to my friend's Sunday School, and I was shown a skit in which they (and in their view, righteously) ridiculed non-Christian religions by claiming their idols did not exist and that the only path to salvation was with God, no questions asked.

After that event, and an intense conversation with my friend on whether Hindus and Muslims were going to Hell, I was completely disillusioned with what I was taught. Was I learning to love God, or was I learning to glorify His name through the negation of what others believed in? From that point until I was about 15, I declared myself atheist and free from the complications of deist debate.


Part 2 will be coming up. Stay tuned.

If you're reading this title, you don't need glasses

If you're directed here from my last blog, you have found my blog. If you have been directed here from my Facebook profile, you have found my blog. If you're a stalker, you have not found anything worth stalking.

Much love, Austin.

P.S. If you're wondering where my title comes from, it draws inspiration from my first chamber music group I worked in. How we combined the Goethe classic with the 1930's cyberpunk film is way beyond my memory. Anyways, enjoy.