Mengjia Lyu

Another Day with Kari

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Went to a ballet class and Central Park today.

A Night Out with Kari

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Today I went out with Kari and we went to several stores, including Sephora, & Other Stories, Forever 21, Actavis and MUJI. There were a lot of items on sale at Forever 21, but most of theme do not feel to be of a good quality. The only thing I bought eventually is a pair of short leggings, which I intend to use for my workout class. It’s interesting that none of the items they had interests me even though they had so many clothes – dresses, sweaters, leopards etc. Volume takes precedence before quality, and as many people have found out, the clothes wouldn’t last through many washes and get worn out quickly. For people who only care about cheap price and fancy look, the store does have attractive selections. The whole idea of fast fashion, which consists of high quality runway alternatives, is alluring to many who do not feel financially secured. Of course I am also one of them, as I currently have no source of direct personal income. Probably I will ONLY shop at high-end stores when I start to have a well-paid job; I might also stop looking at weekly ads anymore from drug stores or supermarkets; discounts would not bother me and I would be fully content buying things at full price instead of go bargain hunting.

To quote consumer psychologist Dr. Dimitri Tsivrikos,

These prices are obviously used to convince you that you are spending less than you actually are. A price reduction makes it even more tempting. The bargain price is appealing to you because it challenges the status quo. The retailer appears not to be in complete control of the final price of the product, and this makes you feel that you are now in control. And because of that you feel you can negotiate the final price that you have to pay - whether that is the sale price or even a buy one get one free deal…

To quote the article

“[Benson] says that when it comes to bargain-hunting addictions, what people buy isn’t as important as how big the price reduction is. In fact, the bigger the price cut, the more tempting a purchase is. After all, if something’s 80% off the original price - you’re saving 80 percent! What you may not consider is that by not buying, you’ll save 100%. Bargain addicts also make illogical purchases, like grabbing up sale-price auto parts for cars they don’t own, or bargain kid’s clothes for children they don’t have… So, why is a bargain-hunting addiction so common? Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois, says it’s a way for people to ease insecurities, and feel more competent and in control. In fact, shopping addicts often don’t realize they have a problem, even when the bags and bills start stacking up. It usually takes a big event to bring it to their attention, like divorce, a new baby, unemployment, or retirement. Or they simply max out their credit cards, and have no more spending power.”

To quote Mark Ellwood,

“As it turns out, a passion for finding bargains is genetically preprogrammed in all humans, although it’s activated much more in some than others. Spotting special offers triggers a release of dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter …

I have certainly made a lot of regretful purchases because of discount!! Clothing makes up a big part - I used to go to websites like Macy, Nordstrom Rack and other fast fashion brands like F21, HM, Zara, Charlotte Russe etc and would click on the Sale or Clearance and would spend hours choosing the right items to buy. I felt the compulsion to buy something - no matter the kind or quantity - just have to buy SOMETHING. Sadly, a lot of these clothing were not rightly treated by me and many were donated or rarely worn. I do not feel grateful for owning them or for them being there for me. Reflecting on my bargain-hunting behavior, I realize that this can never foster a mutually-beneficial person-belonging relationship. I want all of my relationships to be mutually beneficial, be it my relationship with the earth, my relationship with other humans, or my relationship with my belongings. That is why I exist: to be part of relationships that are mutually beneficial.

Perhaps my insecurities is the reason for my addiction for bargain hunting.

An Interesting Problem in Expectation

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been almost three months since the start of the semester, and I just notice from actually taking a close look at my graded homework that I lost points many times for not showing E[|X|] exists.

This motivates me to google and find the following theorem:

A random variable X has expectation if and only if

has expectation.

However, if we can show that the integral of expectation is equal to 1, isn’t existence self-evident since the integral converges?

After checking the solutions for the homework, I realize that I have to add E[|X|] = E[X] before actually calculating the E[X].

Another mistake that I repeatedly made in the homework is that I did not explicitly state the function is bigger than zero to prove that some function is a pdf.

So I googled again, and find out that pdf p(x) should satisfy three properties:

The probability that x can take a specific value is p(x)
p(x) is non-negative for all real x.
The sum of p(x) over all possible values of x is 1.

Another mistake I made is assuming that (n/n+1)^n > 1/2. Strive to make our day >1 everyday and the accumulated results exponentially will be near to infinity :)

Random_thoughts

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Devote yourself to loving others

Devote yourself to your communities

Devote yourself to creating something that gives your purpose and meaning

Quote from “Tuesdays with Morrie”

Personal mission

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Sacredness of Life

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:13:00 +0000

Song of Myself

今天去了纽约的中国城，看到了路边的小白菜，看到了90年代的商场和面包店的影子。那些在中国城的中国人，他们现在的生活比在中国的生活更幸福吗？

今天在42nd Street 地铁站看到另一面墙上写着

”Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose”.

这句话出自于Carl Jung的 Alchemical Studies:

Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose. And whenever the conscious mind clings to hard and fast concepts and gets caught in its own rules and regulations - as is unavoidable and of the essence of civilized consciousness - nature pops up with her inescapable demands.

Carl Jung is a Swiss psychiatrist who is best known for his theory of the collective unconscious.

I find out a newspaper article about it by Kevin McGeary for Shenzhen Daily.

There was a time, argued English novelist J.G. Ballard, that the real world meant the external world of offices, factories and shops. But now, the external world is full of unreality. From computer games that offer escape to advertisements that create unrealistic expectations.

To fail to understand the natural world, such as that cabbages thrive in dung, is to be neurotic.

Jung believed that many of his patients were not mentally ill, but their lives lacked meaning because they were detached from the earth. Jung criticized industrial civilization for this, which brings me to my third quote: ‘the least of things with a meaning is worth more than the greatest things without it’

We are part of the nature, not its master.

Namaste.

What makes life worth living

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What makes life worth living?

Candies, friends, lovers, chocolate, work…?

A lot of times life feels like a race; you do not exactly know where you are heading but you are afraid to stop running as it feels like a race. It is easy to want what others want, but hard to know what YOU really want.

“An unexamined life if not worth living.” said Socrates. Life seems to be the ultimate messy thing that is so hard to be examined objectively. Overall, we seem to examine people by their education, job title, familial and social connections and outward appearance. We tend to think that Stanford graduates have a better life than people from non-pretigious programs. We tend to think that someone working at Google has a better life than a cashier at Walmart. We tend to think that good-looking people have a better life than most. And we look at our own life through similar lens. Instead of examining our own life, we try to carve out a life that is perceived to be “good”. However, what is “good” anyways?

For most people, pleasure is good. After all, that is why so many people are addicted to drugs that can make your brain emit the pleasure chemicals. We desire pleasure, from basic food and housing to sex, power and achievements. The problem is, pleasure also follows the law of diminishing returns. No pleasure can last FOREVER and the pursuit of pleasure will never be fully completed - until we die and turn into zombies who cannot feel any pleasure at all. To some, this might further confirm the importance of pleasure in life as we only get to experience pleasure when we are alive. So, is life about optimizing pleasure and avoiding pain?

There is a temptation to say yes - yet some experiences in life make me think deeper about “pleasure”. I remember feeling the heavenly appeals of music as a young kid; the peace and coziness from sunrays radiating through tree leaves; the deep feeling of love at some little moments. Those feelings are different, like suddent misaligned notes from a music score that draws you out of current time and space. Maybe it is the spirit. Something within us that is paradoxically bigger than us. Maybe it is the eternal, as opposed to our transient flesh-body…

Can we program our own mind to have more of those serene states? To me, those moments, the moments where I feel the eternity, is what makes life truly worth living…

Poem to share:

The Moment

by Marie Howe

Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment

when, nothing

happens

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list

maybe half a moment

the rush of traffic stops.

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be

slows to silence,

the white cotton curtains hanging still.