Lolololololololololololololololololol
lolololololol
lololol

-Bobby

I’m such a good poet.
See ya!

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The Dumbest Email I’ve Received

I always respond unless it’s a bot. But there were times where it was difficult for me to write anything back because it won’t be very nice LOL. I remember there was one time where someone emailed me telling me how much he did not understand one of my post on Derrida and how bad it was or something. I think it was one of my old school original writings on one of his major works. It was either Writing Before the Letter, or my grad school entrance paper on Voice and Phenomenon.

Bro literally sent the most useless email telling me he didn’t get it in the most condescending way. Not sure what he wanted me to say. Learn to read? Get good? You have a big forehead? 🥴 This was from 8 years ago, maybe. I remember I ended up giving an adult response (LOL), even when I already knew he wasn’t very good. I also don’t think those particular writings were by any means “difficult” other than maybe the content. But I also admit I’m not the best writer. I’m sloppy and could careless at times. Yet I always try to be clear, especially when I know the ideas are already difficult.

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Psychoanalysis and Postcolonialism/Colonialism

Look into Homi K. Bhabha from Harvard University. He is a leading figure in this area who is known for fusing Lacanian and Derridean thoughts with colonial studies. Bhabha is well known for an idea known as “hybridity” where he talks about how cultures, race, and identities mix together through different ways which produces transcultural practices. He is particularly well known for his concept known as “mimicry” that he borrows from Lacanian context where he talks about how colonized societies mimics and camouflage themselves through dominant cultures which reforms societies overtime.

He is also definitely a Homie. K?

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Thoughts on driving the Mark 8 Golf R for 6 months

While I always had interests in cars, I wasn’t much of a car guy and always thought they were boring appliances to drive that got me from point A to B. All of this changed when I got a chance to pilot the Golf R because it’s super fun to drive! But I also think driving a faster car requires more mental maturity on the road because it’s really easy to speed and drive like a hoon with it.

Cornering is probably the most enjoyable for me—and it doesn’t always have to be done at high speeds. The Mk8 R uses a dual-clutch torque vectoring system that makes it stick to the ground by controlling the amount of power delivered to each wheel. It is made by Magna and is similar to the one found in the Mercedes A45 AMG, so I heard. You can corner pretty fast with this car without losing traction. But try not to be reckless about it when there are other cars around. Have fun, but also be safe.🫡

Downshifting to accelerate is also super fun. But only do this when the engine is warmed up and when it is safe (high revs on cold engine wears it out faster). Not everyone who might change into your lane will anticipate your sudden burst of speed. And always check for popo first.😏 But you can totally hear the car rev louder and louder after each downshift where you floor it for max power acceleration. In race mode, the throttle (gas pedal) is very responsive, but it also destroys your fuel economy in exchange for fun Lol. I find 2nd and 3rd gear are most fun to accelerate in. I heard the higher gears are also fun once you stage 1 tune it to 420+ hp.

The car also makes a few pops and crackles when you ease off the throttle at around 3500-4000 RPM in race mode. It’s a good way to deter people from tailgating you because it makes some think you are shooting stuff out your exhaust.😂 It also sometimes makes a really loud pop during hard acceleration. I believe you can tune the R to spit fire out its exhaust in stage 3. But this ain’t Tokyo Drift. It’s also illegal in many places and will get you pulled over.

The exhaust sounds good for being stock. It is subtle and not loud when you drive it normally. It only starts to show character when you drive it above 3000 RPM. But it’s still not as loud as aftermarket exhausts or when you get a downpipe in stage 2. The car blends into traffic when you want it, and is faster than average cars when you need it to. Speaking of subtlety, the R is basically an Audi without the Audi badge. People often compare it to the Audi S3 because they use the same engine. Only that the VW badge is much less flashy. It’s one reason why people get them. Unlike its competitors like the Honda Civic Type R or Hyundai Veloster N, the R is not flashy looking and doesn’t have big wings and air vents. It is a good example of what people refers as a “sleeper”: a regular looking car that packs performance.

The famed DSG twin-clutch transmission is a monster with lightning fast gear shifts that will keep you pinned to your seat during hard acceleration without interruption. It also makes the signature “fart” sound when upshifting at redline. This transmission has become so popular that variations can be found in cars from other VW owned brands such as Audi, all the way to the Lamborghini Huracan and Bugatti Chiron. Personally, I drive my DSG in manual mode a lot. It’s definitely not a true manual, but I enjoy using the paddle shifters.

The infotainment is not as annoying as what people made it out to be. I never fat fingered the touch sensitive buttons on the steering wheel. It’s probably because I’m not a boomer.😏 But I agree on the complaints that the infotainment menu is too finnicky. Though you get used to it. Meanwhile, I like the center console’s minimalist design. The gear selection knob reminds me of the newer designs found in the Porsche 911. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising since VW and Porsche owns each other (or something).

Overall, I would describe this car as being disciplined and confident. It does exactly what you want it to do and fits the German car stereotype for being fast, precise, and commanding in an almost surgical way. Finally, I like how the infotainment screen and all the buttons are angled towards the driver. It’s a really refined design choice, but one that seals the Golf R as a practical driver’s car. 👌

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Car Hail Damage Estimate

I took my car to get hail damage estimate. While I was waiting in the lobby, some guy walks out and was like, “Who is the Golf R owner? That is a beautiful car! How many points do you have left?”. Then I asked, “Points? What do you mean?”. And he was like “Your license”. 😂😂 I actually have a clean driving record. But this shop is extremely slow because I still haven’t even gotten an estimate, and it has been nearly 2 months (I asked insurance). I will likely get another estimate from somewhere else.

A few of my friends got their cars written off from the hail damage. I think there is a very low chance that they will write my car off because it’s new. But you never know because it’s probably going to cost two kidneys to fix. I also have 36 months of depreciation waiver on my policy in case they write it off (they pay me full price of the car brand new if they do). But it would be such a waste if they do because hail damage is cosmetic lol. Besides, it’s probably more aerodynamic now because it has golf ball dimples.🤔

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The US Presidential Debate

I didn’t watch the whole thing, only the highlights. Don’t got much to say because I find US politics to be 🤡. What captured my attention was when Harris was speaking where she had a Freudian slip and said “Needs” and quickly corrected to “Desires”. 💀

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Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

I’ve recommended this book for the 10th time and just recommended it again to someone else. It’s a really good book. Sometimes people like to shit on Freud and go like, “That guy was crazy” blah blah blah. Honestly, Freud was flipping smart. Some of the things he said in this book are very relatable in 21st century. I forgot what page this was or if I got it from someone who was quoting the book (I had it saved on here):

“I take the view that the tendency to aggression is an original, autonomous disposition in man, and I return to my earlier contention that it represents the greatest obstacle to civilization…to gather together individuals, then families and finally tribes, peoples and nations in one great unit – humanity… These multitudes of human beings are to be libidinally bound to one another; necessity alone, the advantages of shared work, will not hold them together. However, this program of civilization is opposed by man’s natural aggressive drive, the hostility of each against all and all against each. This aggressive drive is the descendant and principal representative of the death drive, which we have found beside Eros and which rules the world jointly with him. And now, I think, the meaning of the development of civilization is no longer obscure to us. This development must show us the struggle between Eros and death, between the life drive and the drive for destruction, as it is played out in the human race. This struggle is the essential content of all life; hence, the development of civilization may be described simply as humanity’s struggle for existence”

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Metaphysics: Immanuel Kant’s Pure Intuition of Space and Time

I remember I spoke about this before. I’m not a Kant expert, but I will try my best to explain it. But this is basically German Idealism 101.

Kant made a famous position that humans can only experience the world through their intuitions of space and time. A physicist can use numbers and pure reason to predict the movements of a planet all the way to how gravity works. But what exactly is a number? What is knowing and what makes knowing anything possible?

Kant suggested that there is a form of knowledge which exists that is given to us absolutely without any empirical experiences in space. This type of knowledge is known as “a priori”. A good example is mathematics. If you think about it, a number does not really exist physically or empirically in the world, but rather, it consists of “metaphysical” experiences (beyond the physical) produced through pure reason (i.e. you can’t physically hold onto an integer or the knowledge and reason of 1 + 1 = 2). Most importantly, the possibility of said knowledge is also conditioned by what Kant refers as a form of “pure intuition”.

For Kant, a certain form of pure intuition exists without any empirical matter and content which conditions all other possibilities of knowledge (such as mathematics). This type of pure intuition can be experienced by anyone through something like this. If I tell you to imagine a ball in your mind, this ball could be floating in air, it could be sitting on a table or rolling down the street. The point is that the ball is always already situated through your pure intuition of space time and that this intuition is given and comes to humans naturally via a priori. The ball is always already situated within space and time no matter what shape and form it takes.

Intuition revolves around the immediate and what is “given” to us in our current senses and experience of the world through phenomena without processing or “thinking” about it. This is sort of like looking at a cup that is sitting on your table and intuitively knowing that it is round on the other side; or looking at the ocean and knowing that is has immense depth. This intuitive experience that is given to us through our senses of the world is what Kant refers as “space” which is external to us (spatial; such as the reader who is reading these words).

In short, pure intuition is not something humans need to put effort into producing. Rather, it is fundamental to the human mind. It shapes and conditions human knowledge and how the mind engages with all the phenomena of the world that we experience everyday in our lives. Kant goes further and makes a similar argument with causality: that a causal experience happens in space is what allows humans to recognize that such cause only happens over time. Such that, water slowly boils and eventually creates the effect of vapor bubbles through space, and requires a certain amount of time from the future that we can observe through our senses which gets internalized.

Thus we can say that, for Kant, space and time conditions everything that humans could possibly know in the universe. The act of knowing something is always conditioned through spacetime and our intuition of what is given to us in the moment. This idea of intuition and experiencing the world through what is immediate led to the birth of phenomenology, the study of phenomenon; most notably by a philosopher and mathematician named Edmund Husserl. But this type of internal temporal logic of causality from past, present, future, and all its relationship with the spatial-temporal that Kant presents is also challenged by psychoanalysis and deconstruction.

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Pets

I have a red eared slider turtle.😊🐢
His original owner (my sister’s ex-boyfriend) didn’t want him, so I took care of him since he was a little baby. He doesn’t have a name, so I just call him “Turtle”. 😂 In the past, people gave him names like, “Raphael” (from Ninja Turtles), and “Godzilla” Lol. He also recognizes me and lets me pet his head with my index finger if I do it slowly. Since I didn’t get him at birth, I lost track of his age, but he is likely around 21-23 years old. I should start naming my future pets after philosophical concepts.

Sliders are pretty high maintenance. They poo a lot which means you have to change their water frequently and use a strong filtration system. They are good swimmers and needs a pretty big tank depending on how big they grow (females are bigger than male; mine is a male and is actually smaller than average). He also has his own VIP basking platform that extends outside his tank with UVB and heat lamp. I used to have a lot of decorations in the tank, but ended up removing them because it’s too much work to keep clean. I had an underwater house for a long time, but all he did was poop in it.💩

I give him a wide range of diet where I usually combine pellets with vegetables and fish. I used to give him live feeder fish to eat, but they were too fast for him to catch. So I just buy fish from the supermarket and cut them up into chunks. Things I also occasionally feed him is cooked chicken (no flavour), apple, and dry shrimp as snacks.

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Art, Criticism, and the World of Ideas

It has taught me the relationships between art, culture, and how they relate to big ideas.

I had a pretty sharp eye for art criticism when I was in undergraduate school. But I was not outspoken about it because I know I can get too cutthroat at times. I had a reputation among certain groups of people for being a nerd in art theory and philosophy. There was once or twice where people offered to buy me coffee and ask for my opinion about their art work. I remember someone once asked me about the difference between art in a museum versus art in a small gallery which I thought was really interesting.

I spoke about this before. But the short answer is that great art is about the idea and not just a pretty sculpture, painting, song, or photograph. Art informs, provokes, and challenges. It is like philosophy or psychoanalysis. Good art makes you a little uncomfortable and exposes a truth that is beyond your conscious knowledge. Art that gets displayed in big museums are often curated by someone who is very knowledgeable in art and culture (sometimes, they are a scholar or PhD who are hired to curate a specific show). They often try to produce and explore various conceptual themes that the curator thinks can be found in certain art works where they organize them around the gallery accordingly.

Let us consider an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock where he splatters paint everywhere on a canvas. Anyone who goes and sees it at a fancy modern art museum, or sees another artist whose splatter painting found in a small gallery might say, “I can do that”. And they’re correct. But they are also missing the point. What matters most is the idea, context, history, and intention; along with all the subtle nuance of subjective experiences. But the real question is, “What’s the real difference if anyone can do it?”.

I remember I once read an essay about Pollock’s painting which was dubbed as “automatic art” where Pollock lets his mind go blank and allows his arm do whatever it wants. Now that’s interesting! His paintings now has much more substance that informs about the movements of the human mind and body! What would happen if he was sad? Angry? Or thinking about something? Suddenly a splatter painting is given much more depth and substance with philosophical components to it. As such, it is now much different to the artist who simply splatters paint that wants to make it look good. We can now talk about Pollock’s work through existentialism, phenomenology, and many more intellectual disciplines! Art provokes ideas.

In the same way, why the hell is Marcel Duchamp’s urinal “sculpture” so famous? Why not a bathtub? In truth, it could very well be a bathtub. People who are baffled by why a urinal can be art and thinks it doesn’t deserve to be is missing the point—precisely because that is actually the point. 😂 One of the main reasons why Duchamp’s urinal became so well known was because he was one of the first few who took an industrially mass produced object and called it art. The act of doing this speaks a lot about our society at a time where everything was being mass produced and turned into a commodity to be sold—including ideas and art itself. In fact, the way Duchamp took a urinal and called it art is reminiscent to what some people might refer as art nowadays: a collection of pre-composed objects that are loosely based on popular templates, formulas, styles, and designs, that are ready-made to be consumed, sold and used—just like a urinal or bathtub. We can, for example, think of how people recycle popular chords in music, or reuse popular narrative structures in films, etc. which forms the most popular music and movies in modern culture. Now we can see how Duchamp’s urinal means much more than just a urinal. For it now provokes questions and boundaries of art and its function in society, and world.

It’s similar to Maurizio Cattelan who duck taped a banana on a wall and called it art back in 2019. Someone even took it off the wall and ate it. 😂 Or we can think of Andy Warhol, who exhibited his Campbell soup designs as art which speaks a ton about the commodification of art in 20th century and its influences by capitalism where people no longer makes art for art sake, but for the purpose of it being sold—like your most popular song (similar to how people goes to school to get a job prospect and not for knowledge for knowledge sake). We can also think of Banksy’s painting that automatically shredded itself as soon as someone bought it, where it transformed the entire auction space into an art exhibition. What does any of this say about our world today? How can it inform contemporary life? What problems do they reveal? Other than, perhaps, learning that someone spent $120,000 USD to buy a banana duct taped on a wall LOL. But even that says a lot about our world. Does it not?

Sometimes, the reason why people don’t understand art is because it requires you to think critically and have a solid understanding in contemporary intellectual engagements with the world. They challenge your mind and all the things you think you know. Art is an event. It summons the subject who thinks!

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“I’m done with girls”

My friend said this to me the other day and how he was talking to some girl on the phone while she was playing Fortnite with her friends and talking through her computer mic with them. 😂😂 I told him we can play some Fortnite together and try to queue up against her to kick her ass. 🤔…Or get our asses kicked. 😂

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Why care what other’s think?

There are times where what other people thinks of you is important such as a job interview, for example. But for the most part, don’t give some random Joe the power to dictate who you should be. Someone thinks I’m a weirdo? Nice! Who gives a shit.🤷‍♂️ Just walk it off if it bothers you. And if they think like that, then they are just passing by. Don’t sweat the small stuff. As Jean-Paul Sartre would say, “We do not judge those who we love”.🫡

And let me be real. In your life, you will only meet a handful of people who will like you for who you really are. Most others are there because they are in it for themselves, want something from you, or for mutual benefits. It’s hard to notice at times because people cushion this by wearing a mask. And they do it without realizing it. In short, you will have more fake friends than you will have real ones who actually cares.

It is what it is…..I guess.🤷‍♂️

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Metaphors of Love and the Limits of Human Knowledge

I reread my old writings every once a while because I sometimes forget what I wrote in them. But I found some of the examples funny and way oversimplified. But it is after all, a metaphor. I also recently made some small edits. I still remember someone from Germany emailed me asking if they could cite the post for their masters degree thesis. I was pretty flattered.😊 Based on my inaccurate stats, it is also currently my most popular post on Lacan in the past month.

My favourite parts were the middle sections where I talk about how love is giving what you don’t have where I quoted Bruce Fink and Alenka Zupancic. The entire concept of lack and love can only be understood metaphorically and cannot be spoken about except through metaphors.

I also think I totally killed it in the last section where I tied metaphors of love with people discovering new knowledge about the world. Turning Newton’s famous story on the discovery of gravity into a love story is probably the last thing most people expect.😂 It is very ambitious and bold.

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“You should try to get her number”

That’s tough because I don’t want to put her on the spot and make her uncomfortable while she is working. I also can’t tell if she likes talking to me or if she is just doing her job. Honestly, it’s probably the second one.🥹 So I likely won’t ask. Maybe unless she makes it obvious. But she seems like the type of person who is chatty with everyone. And besides, a girl like her likely has a boyfriend. She probably gets hit on a lot LOL.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d still talk to her the same way I’ve always had when/if I see her (like a casual friend/acquaintance). But I won’t do anything out of the blue. I’m also not good at these things. I actually don’t want to overthink it this time around and just let it flow. It won’t change my respect for her regardless of outcome.

….OKAY FINEeeeEE. I’ll take her to Home Depot as first date right meow if she wants.😹

Just kidding.