Moonlit Ruminations

  As we now enter the month of may, I think it's best to use this platform to address stuff that almost all ri sing seniors are feeling—college, moving away, new chapters, beginnings and definitely endings that are lurking in the corner. So, for the next post this summer lets take a break from philosophy and dive into some more real feelings that linger in our minds. Obviously, with the college applications season approaching on August 1st it has been a wild ride writing supplements and essays—researching schools and being surprised at how much I love a school that was never on my radar. Strangely, this whole process of writing essays has been the most profound way I've started to learn more about myself on both an academic and personal level. I genuinely need to appreciate the US college system with how its admissions are structured—forcing you out of the robotic movements over the past 4 years and making you reflect on the bigger purpose as to why you put in that effort in th...

In all my experience, I believe the academic relationship between a mentor, a teacher, is one of the most genuine forms of human transaction. It overrides the human tendency of jealousy in most simple cases because there is no direct line of comparison. A teacher sees their knowledge culminate in another and see it bear fruit. If anything, their greatest accomplishment would be seeing someone they taught benefiting off their effort. Although the intent or subconscious reasoning may be humanly flawed the authenticity behind the want for someone to succeed cannot be questioned. I say this with my own experience getting the opportunity to formally tutor students. I always believed that some lingering amounts of jealousy may exist when someone succeeds in our arena but I found that when someone succeeds due to me it doesn't feel like competition at all, but instead a continuation of knowledge held in another person. But of course, a relationship stronger than this is evidently one bet...

What I have written and am writing now already exists—this exact combination of letters, words and feeling—in a mathematical certainty. Hard to believe?  The Library of Babel is a thought experiment by Jorge Luis Borges—an infinite library that is claimed to contain every possible combination of words and letters wherein it becomes inevitable that in the gibberish, somewhere exists the true story of your death, even the conception of the universe. But the problem lies in the fact that it is literally infinite, and no one can look for something unless they know it.  This paradox reflects the implications of a block universe, a deterministic universe, where all that is to have occurred in the past and the future is set in time and we are merely puppets moving through a carved path. Every point in time, the existence of dinosaurs, the day of your birth and your death are just as present in this block as this second. Everything exists congenially. If such a universe were to exist,...

Imagine you're behind a veil before birth. You don't know if you will be born rich, poor, healthy, disabled, in a war zone, or a palace. What laws would you write for that society? This thought experiment by John Rawls traces the delicate notion of equality and the human answers and solutions reveal much about our nature and our innate perception of justice and fairness. If the question was asked without the catch of the uncertainty of your placement in society, it is most understandable that one would choose to craft a society wherein life's circumstances become most fortuitous and in your favour—the aspects of living conditions that exist beyond control will now be under the mercy of your choosing. But it is interesting to note how much consideration an individual might ascribe to the well being of others in such a situation. I believe this depends on the individual themselves. Based on the actions of humans in this world—teeming with malice, the ones who, in their heart...

My future daughter may someday know sixteen-year-old me better than I ever knew sixteen-year-old versions of my parents. One night, years from now, she might lie awake scrolling through archived pieces of my adolescence: podcast episodes recorded after school, philosophy blog posts, magazine drafts, research papers published before I even became an adult. She may hear my younger voice crack through a microphone on Spotify or read the books I published on Amazon one day, because the internet doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The present day version of myself will always be trapped in the work I created—always accessible decades later. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing isn’t it? But I'm afraid of how vastly different the perception of ambition and success is going to differ for the kids born to our generation. The accessibility of the internet has made the rise of multiple student ventures and initiatives possible. I mean the fact that I've spoken to nearly 90 people about th...

It indeed is a bittersweet feeling standing at the edge or everything you have ever known, knowing your time to step off of it is coming closer than ever. As the class of ‘26 gets their college acceptances, it is incredibly daunting to know that I am going to be next—in their steps, applying to colleges, writing essays, dreaming of a future that is mine to take if I work hard enough.  The image of my 8-year old self, wide-eyed and imaginative, watching college move in vlogs and acceptance reaction videos is still so vivid in my mind that It is impossible for me to acknowledge that it was so long ago. In my head, the idea of me even thinking about applying seemed like a distant future that I am now living in. It is unbelievable, yet It would be wrong to dismiss the slight pride I feel in coming this far. I had imagined myself—at this stage, going into my last and final year of highschool—to have looked more older, mature, but I still feel like the same child that thought the SAT was...

I recently came across a pertinent piece to recent debate—philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson’s essay called A Defense Of Abortion . The essay proposes a scenario where you one day wake up and find yourself connected to a famous violinist. You now share a bodily symbiotic relationship where you must stay connected to him for 9 months to ensure his life. Do you stay connected or not? This scenario raises multiple questions and I want to try to address most of them. The most probing one to me is the contextual relevance. When I first read it, I immediately started examining the circumstances of my life that would permit me to continue. First would be ability and mobility: how much of my living conditions would have to change to accommodate the connection? How much of my mental and physical wellness am I willing to sacrifice to sustain his life?  Obviously, if much of my life is brought to a pause as a result of this situation it is hard for anyone to say yes. Time is irreplaceable for ...