The Secret Asian Man's Grand Unification Theory

I have a Facebook account, and Facebook has a function that produces a list of the things you posted on Facebook on that particular day in previous years. Today Facebook reminded that I'd posted the following a number of year ago while my mother was still alive, but suffering from dementia: " for those of you not celebrating mothers day for whatever reasons, have as good a day as you can." I've already gone into some detail about the relationship I had with my mother in a post titled "Narcissism". The reality was that I really never celebrated Mothers Day as much as simply observed it by doing the bare minimum to claim that I'd fulfilled any inherent obligation expected of a loving respectful son - two adjectives I wouldn't use to define the ambivalence I've struggled with most of my life. I mourn that I never had a chance to have a meaningful conversation with my mother that would have helped me gain some sense of closure in terms of our fractur...

I switched to an internet browser resulting in Micro-trash throwing up various internet links on each new page before I choose a URL hoping to get me to click on the link by appealing to my apparent interest based on my browser history and other data mining procedures.  They eventually figured out that I'm of Asian heritage and today included a number of links all addressing the Asian American experience in some way. I clicked on a few and began to itch a bit when I saw that these articles/links were written by Asian American women. The first article was about an angry Korean woman's story about how her sense of shame contributed to becoming an Asian American activist. What I find alarming was her placing all the "blame" for that shame on White America; she seems to be completely oblivious to how shame based Asian cultures are, and especially oblivious to how her own specific culture has a unique sense of shame called "han" which I will attempt to describe a...

My first car was a BMW, but this acronym will refer to becoming more whole as this process continues.  This is a continuation of learning how much one of my autistic students looks forward to spending time with me. It's occurred to me that I've compartmentalized how I give of myself. I have no expectations of reciprocity when it comes to serving people making dinner for the homeless every week, and of course, these students are paying for my time (for which I get a relatively meager percentage, but that's entirely another story) but when it comes to socializing, my approach is a lot more transactional, as in "what's in it for me?" - in particular when dancing is involved.   The thing is, where social partner dancing is involved. the 'better' partner is the one better able to compensate for their partner's shortcomings, so all things being equal, the less experienced partner ends up being the one who has the more enjoyable experience while the other...

 Today at the learning center my boss went out of his way to let me know how pleased he was with the work I've done with two autistic students who are now assigned to me exclusively. The assistant manager also chimed in about what I've done with another student who often started crying during tutoring sessions with other tutors.  Right now I would attribute that to my understanding something Blaise Pascal once observed some 400 years ago: People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. I'd put it a different way at first, that ideologies are based not on facts but on emotions - on the way that they want the world to be - and those wishing to appear intellectual would then proceed to rationalize their ideologies - mainly to refute liberal "intellectuals" people spouting their ideologies. However, it eventually dawned on me that when someone's choices are motivated by fear, no useful disco...

I approach this topic somewhat gingerly because narcissistic behavior is a part of my own personal history.   As I understand it, the term derives from the myth of Narcissus, someone who fell in love with their own reflection, and narcissism has a modern day definition of describing some who exhibits an excessive degree of self-esteem or self involvement. The DSM5 defines the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder as follows: “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity . . . , need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, para. 301.81) The DSM5 goes on to list  diagnostic criteria as follows:, grandiosity; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance or beauty; belief that he or she is special; a requirement for excessive admiration; a sense of entitlement; a tendency to exploit others; an absence of empathy; a preoccupation with envy; and ...

For those who know the lingo, I could be described as having adopted avoidant behavior patterns as a result of how I was raised. More importantly, I can see for myself these patterns in my behavior and have spent time understanding the feelings that prompted these behaviors so I can choose to act differently when I recognize that I'm inclined to behave a certain way. Some folks go through their entire lives entrenched in the behavior patterns they learned as children. I personally believe that this also influences one's faith, because I believe that God created the family unit to help us (as a race) understand the balance between God's justice and mercy.  Fortunately, how we've been programmed to think can be deprogrammed and reprogrammed. I believe that's part of God's promise when He promised to "restore what the locusts have eaten". For me, the process involved getting into tutoring. My goal has been to get as much experience doing ACT/SAT test prep...