Critical Thinking

“What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”
Joseph Campbell

I believe in the importance of diversity, not perfection.


Initially, the academic world teaches us to follow the footsteps of our forefathers and replicate justifiable results -- never do they teach us to be wrong, to seek the incongruities of our society.  Why?  It is the optimal path to completely understanding the mechanisms of our world.  I am not arguing against our education system, but identifying the unfortunate flaws.  Especially in the world of science, the fundamental foundation of principles are the product of successful experiments with reasonable explanations.  The time required to understand these concepts is massive.  The amount of time required to understand the concept and how much exposure to the concept must be optimize in order to efficiently educate a large population.  In other words, we cannot replicate the time spent by past scientists in order to expose their full thought process -- it's kind of like cutting introns from exons on a piece of mRNA.  I believe that the struggles that our forefathers went through, the thought process required to reach their goal, is as important as understanding their principles.  Yes, practical application such as labs help replicate their experiments (the practical application the better), but to begin from a basic idea and flourish into a new realm of thought is beautiful, but difficult.  This is also known as critical thinking.


Critical thinking requires time and guidance.  Understanding basic principles in conjunction with critical thought encourages research, curiosity of the unknown.  The US education is moving towards the right direction as we are in a time of an increasing number of researchers in many fields particularly in natural sciences.  What does this mean?  A higher traffic of idiotic ideas which sooner or later will cause a breakthrough.  Stupid ideas are proportional to breakthroughs.  


A random note,


Dan Huh

A Minority Amongst Minorities

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth."
Mahatma Gandhi 

Mahatma Gandhi understood the importance of peace of mind.  Despite the struggles facing a people or an individual, there is always a safe haven: truth.

I decided to attend a Korean Calvary Church to surround myself with my culture -- if I can still call it my culture. To be a part of a Korean service made me feel at home and relaxed, listening to the language I am familiar with -- definitely a change from the University of San Diego scene, however I felt distant from these people.  For the majority of my teenage years, I was subjected to a non-Korean crowd.  Though it was my decision to be in these circumstances, I've always felt like the minority, regardless of the situation.  I took advantage of this position and enjoyed making friends with people unlike myself, but there was always a lingering discomfort.  I craved to be a part of the majority, to live in an environment with no judgment, with no stereotypes.  

Once I entered the University of San Diego, the craving exponentially increased and left me to discover the more diverse side of San Diego.  Not traveling far, I drove 10 minutes to the Korean Calvary Church and was greeted by a small contingent of church-goers (mid-20's).  Embracing the language which my mother taught me, I entered the main sanctuary and began to listen to Pastor Kim's message.  He spoke about the importance of maintaining your composure in times of change and want.   Despite the changes in environment and transitioning into a new location, one must not feel alone.  We have God and we have each other.  Strangers are and will be friends.  I appreciated the message, however I also noticed the interactions and exchanges of word between the people listening to the sermon.  There was an aura about them that I could not relate to, but could understand.  This is the feeling of anxiety.  I felt like an outsider despite the cultural backgrounds we all shared. 

I look like you, but I perceive the world through a different lens.

And so, I felt like a minority in the group of Koreans despite the similarities.  Did this discourage me?  Not at all.  This gave me the will to go out and continue to be a part, if not immerse myself into culture and make it my own, however there is always a battle to fight back at home.

Dan