Sunday, December 3, 2017

On Languages

A word language comes from Latin 'lingua', which means a tongue. In Kazakh we even use the word for 'tongue', when we speak of language. This means that people mostly think of spoken language when the word 'language' is mentioned. However, we know that language is not limited to spoken or written languages. It seems to be something much wider than that. One way to look at language is as a medium of information exchange. In this respect, every professional community has its own language. Algebraists may speak of groups, rings and modules. Geometers might speak of points, curves, surfaces and tangent planes. Civil engineers might speak of well their stuff, let's say. People from different professional communities might not be able to understand each other's languages. The same might hold even for related fields.

However, all these people from different professions will understand when one speaks of patience, compassion, losses and victories. Because an activity in every discipline involves dealing with failures, learning from books or more experienced people, being curious and so on. In this sense, any person speaks a multitude of languages: domain languages, a language of ethics, a language of human emotions and so on. When people say that communication skills are important, I believe that they mean not only knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, but a whole family of languages which are needed to understand people and express oneself.

When I was in high-school most of my peers were trying to learn English at it opened doors to overseas colleges. Many students sacrificed their time and energy to learn English vocabulary and grammar. Some of them got into desired colleges and completed them with honours. However, when one completes such an educational institution, it becomes clear that knowledge of English alone might not automatically enable one to contribute to respective community. It takes much wider knowledge of human needs, available resources and ways to make a meaningful contribution. After few years the same phenomenon might be applicable to Chinese language, as China becoming stronger with each day. Surely, knowledge of Chinese is helpful, but so is knowledge of other types of languages. 

Sunday, November 26, 2017

On The Little Prince


Having watched the movie 'The Little Prince', I came to know that it is based on the famous novella  by Antoine Saint Exupery, having the same title, so I set myself to read that novella. As always, I could find a right time to read it, but recently I managed to read it. The first surprise came with a storyline. It is has very little resemblance with that of film. The book is about a prince, depicted as a naive young boy, who lives in a small planet with small mountains and the rose. Somehow, he sets to leave his home planet, and leaves the rose, which is his beloved. He meets all kinds of characters in his journey and learns much about life. There are few lessons that I learned from this book, which I think are worthy of sharing. 

The first lesson is about value we give to the things around us. There are different ways to assign values to things or people. The most common is economic way. Prices of most objects are determined by markets, while the value of people are mainly determined by the economic value that they are capable of generating. For this reason, we respect CEOs, as their decisions can bring millions of dollars, while the decision of an office clerk might not bring as much. There are also values that are determined by society or an agreement of majority of people. We tend to respect scientists even though some types of research bring no immediate economic benefits. We do this, because majority of people believe that these things are important to investigate and to learn. Apart from these two valuation systems, there is also a personal approach: how do I value a particular object. Observe that a personal value might be very different from above two. For instance, a child of office clerk might love his father dearly, even though his father might generate relatively low economic output or have relatively low social status. The prince has realised that the personal value of the things are determined by the energy, love and time he puts into those things. In the case of his rose, he has put so many hours to take care of his rose that it became dear to him. When he encounters a valley with thousands roses, they catch his breath for some time. However, he then realises that those roses mean not so much to him, no matter what other people might think of them. 

The second lesson has to do with a dichotomy between following one's desire, which I call recklessness in this case, and being responsible. In modern times people tend to value their freedom. Society tells us to celebrate our differences, take pride in our uniqueness, and think outside of the box. In this kind of environment, it becomes easy to fall into a trap of recklessness. It becomes easy to ignore voices and feelings of other people, and to follows one's desires. This kind of behaviour tend to satisfy one's soul for a short time, however, as time goes along, a sense of remorse may replace that of satisfaction. At one point, a little prince regrets leaving his rose alone. He remembers how vulnerable his rose is and tries to return to his planet to take care of his rose. It shows that being responsible person tends to give one a sense of serenity and peace, as one knows that one has done the right thing, instead of following one's fancies. I guess that I need to learn this lesson. 

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

On Animal Farm

Recently I have completed reading of Animal Farm. I have heard quite a lot about this book, and it lived up my expectations fully. The author, George Orwell, astonished me with his plot. Who on earth would come up with a plot where animals overthrow their owners to form a republic. It seems that creativity has no boundaries and Orwell demonstrated this with his ideas.

Animal farm has started with the noblest of intentions of securing freedom and well-being of its inhabitants. Animals came up with their constitution of seven lines written on the gates of the farm. At the beginning everything worked as it supposed to work, until some of the animals started using dirty tricks to secure and maintain power over the farm. Those animals have enjoyed privileges beyond any of their dreams in the past, while lives of ordinary animals got even worse compared to their old times. However, illusory ideas of freedom kept them lingering to their lives. In truth, they were not free,  the only thing that changed was identity of their owner. The constitution that they once upheld has amounted to nothing.

One could see a story of human civilisation in this short story. People have experimented with many kinds of government structures, legal systems and moral codes. Most of them started from pure and genuine sources. However, in each case the result of such systems were similar, a tiny fraction of people turned out to rule and sometimes mistreat majority of people. One could ask if this is a human thing. It seems to me that it is not. 

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

On Personal Energy

Time is more valuable than money: if you have time you can always earn more money, but not vice versa, a saying goes. All it says is that having access to a generator is more valuable that having access to generated objects only. In the same category, there are sayings like, better to know how to catch fish, rather than having fish. Also we have: having a chicken is better than having eggs (Did I just made up some saying?). Anyway what I wanted to say that sometimes I find myself with an ample free time, but with no power to do anything. For this reason, energy seems to matter. Having energy allows one to pursue dreams and aspirations, while a lack of thereof makes it difficult even to get up from bed. Having experienced different levels of energy I have observed few things about what and how changes my energy.

Positive feelings boost energy. It has to do with a simple fact that emotional parts and physical parts of the body are connected. By pumping up the emotional part, one could add to one's energy. Any positive feeling seems to work, like: love, understanding, thankfulness and much more. 

Negative feeling deplete energy. Most of the time I found myself exhausted was not because I did some extra-challenging work, rather it was due to unnecessary worries and regrets. Negative feelings such as envy, fear, regrets crushed my energy resources many times. The strangest thing is that I kept falling at the same trap of negative emotions knowing their danger. At the same time, I thought myself as a quite intelligent entity. Turned out I was not so right. These days I try to avoid negative feelings whenever possible. In doing so I have observed that negativity of other people affects me much less than before. Previously I was thinking that negativity is highly contagious feeling, however it might not be the case.

Finally, levels of energy depend very much on usage. By nature, human beings are pretty weak. Any inconsistency in our body could send us onto a deathbed. Our emotional parts are not resilient as well. For this reason, energy is a scarce resource, and should be used wisely. 

Monday, October 16, 2017

On Commitments

Commitments shape our lives. Commitments can have rather different forms. A young couple can be committed to each other. A single mother can be committed to raising her children. A teacher might be committed in providing the best education for the students. A father can be committed to providing for his family and ensuring their well-being. Not all commitments are as positive as ones I have mentioned. Some people might be committed in doing crazy things. But for the purpose of this essay I wish to focus on positive commitments and how they change over time.

Commitments bring heavy weights with them. A committed person might realize the need to act on this commitment, however it might be extremely difficult at times. A part of this challenges come from society that we live in. Take for instance an example of aspiring teacher, a fresh gradute from local teaching program. She might might have high aspirations on educating future generation and contributing to society. However, as she tries to do what she loves the most, there would be numerous people who would discourage her by making nasty remarks about low-pay, lack of respect for teachers and lack of jobs. When she arrives home in evening, news agencies are always ready to tell her about numerous bombings, killings and other crazy things around the world. A single such day might not affect the level of commitment in our aspiring teacher much, but continuous bombardments with all this negativity will have its effect. As time goes on, our teacher might question very foundations of her commitments and convince herself of futility of her situation.

Let us understand what we have observed in our story. Why did our teacher lost her initial commitments? I believe that it has to do with social dynamics. Any person who observe nature for sometimes would realize that dynamics of a single object is vastly different form that of multitude objects. Group factor, or social factor in case of humans, add extra layer of complexity on that of individual behavior. In general a social movement can be a source of abundant good as well as evil. Take for instance peaceful movement of Gandhi and Nazi regime of Hitler. Both were massive and influential, however qualities of the influence were completely different. A movement of Gandhi was constructive and contributed to independence of India, while that of Hitler was destructive and contributed to devastation of the world. But one could ask what prevented people led by Hitler from recognizing their wrongdoing? A part of answer lies with social dynamics. When a large number of people are engaged in certain kind of behavior, it might become a norm in that society, even thought it might contradict to the basic tenets of human conscience.

To make the point clearer, let us consider few more examples. Take for instance, mass riots. Sometimes peaceful riots might turn violent, where cars get burned and glasses get shattered. The cause of such behavior might not be barbarity of the protestors. But the cause might have to do with group dynamics which involved at that particular place. On the other hand of fence, we might have policemen shooting rioters. Again these policement might not intend to seriously harm people, but when crowd is running person's ability of reasoning might undergo significant chages. This examples seems showcase a group dynamics in action.

Does all of this mean that we are just social robots, who are not capable of individual decision making? I hope not. What I wanted to convey is the fact that society exerts much influence on commitment of people. On the brighter side, one could use social component in positive ways by joining communities which facilitate action of one's commitments. Finally, I wish to remind that a commitment by definition is a personal thing. A society can influence person's desire to fulfill commitments, however it is up to every person whether he or she will pursue those commitments. 

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

On Days

Days carry me like a river. I have no control over their passage. Whether I wish it or not, sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. Some days are full with happy moments and they make me feel rich, while others appear to make me poor. Some days I can't do any research, nor can I write. On other days, ideas come pouring and I can't write them all down. Each day is so different, yet days themselves come and go as one. This an example of balance between constancy and variance. I like both. It would be hard to live on the planet where days and nights come with complete irregularity. On the other hand, living each day in the same manner would be boring. I have seen many sunrises and much more sunsets. Yet most of the time they still manage to struck awe in my eyes.

I feel tempted to divide days into good and bad ones. But I know that each day is a good day, or rather the best day. No matter how hard things can get in a given day, hardships are bound to go away. On the other hand, no matter how happy I am given any days, that happiness is also bound to go away. Everything goes away in the flux of time. Steve Jobs once mentioned that there is a benefit in living each day as if it was last, because one day it is going to be so. So no matter what given days gives, one could be thankful, for each day is a gift. 

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

On differences of opinions

People tend to have differing opinions on lots of things starting from trivia and ending with the most critical issues. This difference can be used constructively as well as destructively. Different opinions give rise to all sorts of cool ideas, which help to improve our daily lives. A group discussion plays an important role in both religious and secular lives. In this kind of brainstorming sessions differences are encouraged, understanding and mutual respect prevails. People are not driven by their egos, rather they are driven by well-being, development and success. On the other hand, negative usages of differences are also quite widespread. In this kind of environment, new ideas are shun and people do not show any willingness to listen to others' viewpoints. Mostly these people are driven by personal or sectarian ego, which makes them sacrifice long-term success. People have been using differences of opinions in both ways since a dawn of civilization. I do not expect that all kinds of discussion turn constructive overnight, but I hope that more discussions would be constructive rather than destructive.

Let us now focus on current difference of opinions on Artificial Intelligence or AI. Since an exchange of comments on AI between Zuckerberg and Musk, all kinds of people shared their views on the topic and sided with one of mentioned technological entrepreneurs. Both of these figures, who contributed immensely to the technological advancements, should be deeply aware of what they are saying. Let us try to understand their standings. Zuckerberg seems to view AI as a kind of tool which helps to improve lives, say by discovering new drugs. On the other hand Musk sees a danger in ever-developing AI which might pose a threat to the very existence of humans. These views seem to be in a wild contrast. So, is AI a source of good or evil?

As with majority of things, AI is neither inherently good or evil just as nuclear fusion, ships and cars. However, it can be used for a good as well as evil. Zuckerberg envisions its good use, while Musk is concerned with its evil implications. In this sense, both of them seem to be correct, where Zuckerberg's comments concern short-time horizon, while that of Musk mostly deal with a long-term future. The real question is what does each individual going to do about this issue. How can we ensure that AI is used for good, and not for evil? Should we rely on our previous experience of dealing with technological innovations like steam power or electricity? Can coming AI innovation be different from all previous ones? How should we design new economic landscapes for such a change? And can we? These are all questions that need to be addressed. Hopefully, humanity will be able to benefit from forthcoming effect of AI. 

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

On Problems

When I was a child I used to play football. I sucked at it. I could not receive the ball properly, neither could I kick it well. Everyone around me seemed to be inclined to play well. When it came to matches, I found it easier to be a defender. I did not have to score goals. Being a goalkeeper intimidated me as well. So I spent my time around goals, away from stress. Even though I kind of liked this order, deep inside I knew that I was giving up on myself. I gave up on improving. I gave up on enjoying playing football. Fear of making mistakes replaced a love for a play. No wonder that I have never learned to play football decently.

It might seem that above story is about football, but it is not. It is about how one deals with problems. Above story is an example of sweeping problems under the carpet and pretending that everything is fine. Above examples is about giving in to the problems and betraying the love for the football.

In general people do not like problems. When people hear about problems, they tend to become agitated. Because problems perceived to be bad. But is it really so? Are problems evil?

Let us look at the brain and its neural structure. It is thought that a brain forms new patterns, when its predictions contradict the reality, in other words when it faces problems. When a baby learns to walk, he or she might fall thousands of times. In each of this fall, the brain is reconfiguring neural signals with muscular responses. A fall might seem as a problem, but in reality it helps the baby to walk, then run, faster and faster. Or take an example of social relationships. In general social arguments are considered to be dangerous. But this kind of arguments can help parties to understand each other better.

So problems are not always bad. They are actually quite beneficial for our character, growth and learning. When faced with problems, one could try to solve it alone or with the help of other people, rather than pretending that everything is great. I wish that I had played more football matches in different roles. Perhaps I could learn football that way...

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

On Power of Now

While people have bucket lists, I have a booklist, a list of books I wish to read. The 'Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle has been in my list for a long. Many people seem to be recommending it. So I decided to read it. Prior to reading it, the central theme of the book seemed to be well-known. You just have to live in now, what might be so difficult about it. But I was humbled by reading this book and observing author's answers to many questions on how to live in present moment. I could totally relate to the fact some people tend to live their lives being unconscious. I remember how often I found myself regretting about my past decisions or fretting about the future. At that times I was not present, I was inside a self-made time machine.

The book reminds its readers that the present is the only thing they have at any given moment. Concepts of past and future are mostly mind constructs. This is not to say that past and future does not exist, but they exist according to their own time, not right now. Since present is only thing that one has got, it makes sense to focus all attention to the present. To the things like smelling flowers on the road, understanding problems or understanding a person in front.\\
All of these might seem obvious, so what makes a person be willing to live in past or in future? It seems to me that there are two main reasons: possessions and aspirations. It is natural for people to identify themselves with possesions they have, be it a house, a car, some advanced degree or a respect from fellow people. These kinds of things give one a sense of value or worth. And it is comforting to feel that you worth something, the higher the better in many cases. As for aspirations, the future is full of them. It is common to hear people saying, I want this in five years and that in ten years, so that I can have this and that in twenty years time. These kinds of aspirations give a person a sense of hope. For some it is important to stick to past and future. But sometimes, life demonstrates that nothing is as permanent as we think. At that moments, people tend to value the given moment. But how can one love the present moment, if most of the time, it is full of mundane tasks, unproductive meetings and likes of them. By being present, a person can turn mundane stuff into exciting experiences and unproductive meetings into an opportunities to understand people and their challenges better.

Though it might seem pretty straightforward to live in now, it might be a rather difficult thing to do. As with many things in life, its idea is simple, but implementation takes a lifetime to master. Take for instance a practice of meditation. I am not into meditations much, but it seems that through meditations people try to cleanse their thoughts to focus in the present. One could also look at yoga. In yoga it seems to be important to control your breath. Why is it so? Because mind which is rambling around is not capable of controlling the breath. But as mind calms down, it starts to feel the breath. At least it seems so. And finally, one could look at Zen masters. These people come up with challenges which test their physical and spiritual endurance to extreme. It seems to me that their challenges have something to do with not giving in to pain and hardship. They seem to be willing to transcend their bodies to reach some higher state. Perhaps this higher state is living in present, who knows.

In the book the author shares a dichotomy between happiness and peace. Most of classical texts assume that people pursue happiness. This might be true. By living a quarter of century by this time, I have experienced both happiness and sadness several times.  I have found both of these states to be transitory. But there a state which is more permanent. This is a state of peace. Author seems to suggest that by living in now, more and more people will be able to enjoy a state of peace for a longer time.

Finally, there is a question of how should one learn to live in now. I would imagine this path to be a path of gradual construction of certain skills. In our society we are used to idea of building skills. We hear about people learning certain programming libraries. The more libraries you learn the more employable you become, as logic goes. But living in present seems to be a different kind of animal, according to the author. Observe that babies live in now without even realizing it. They neither worry regret their past, nor fear about their future. They just live. So, living in now is something everyone is born with. This means that one could go deeper within, rather than further up. But perhaps everyone has unique journey. Perhaps, I need to find mine. Peace.

Monday, September 11, 2017

On friendship of Adam and the leaf

Humans developed methods of synthesizing oxygen from ocean water in large scales in 2117. The process which provided oxygen for atomic submarine crew, could now be used to provide oxygen for all people. Since humanity no longer needed vast forests, people decided to cut down trees to free space for housing and industrial projects. Seventeen years old Adam took part in this operation as a controller of massive tree cutting machine. Adam's job was quite easy as he manipulated a gigantic laser gun using personal screen at operations control unit.

Being bored, Adam directed the camera installed on his laser gun to surrounding area. As the weather was rather windy, he watched movements of leaves, which seemed to him as a kind of play. Suddenly, some leaf caught his attention due to its irregular moves. It somehow defied the patterns he observed in the movements of other leaves. He stopped his machine and ordered all other machines to halt, as he went to look at the leaf closer. As he was approaching the tree with the peculiar leaf, he saw many trees lying down, with their leaves getting yellow. It was the first time Adam saw trees and leaves so closely, as neither his neighborhood nor his school had any greenery. Eventually, he came to that leaf, brushed the dust on its surface and touched it. Since he did not know what type of leaf it was, he took his multi-purpose scanner to scan the leaf. Upon scanning, some unknown symbols started to appear on the screen of the scanner. As he could not make sense of these symbols, he tried to downgrade the operating system of the scanner with the hope that previous opearting systems might recognize the symbols. At that point, the scattered symbols rearranged themselves in a sentence which said, Hello, Adam, I have been waiting for you. Adam felt perplexed as he never knew that leaves could send messages to scanning devices. He kept reading the message which contained following lines:

Hi, Adam. I am a leaf of the oak tree. Your generation has never seen us close enough, but your grandparents used to play in forests full of trees. People used to come forests to have picnics, where they were teaching their children about us. But soon things stated to change. We went on with our lives. We clean your air by transforming carbon dioxide into oxygen that you breathe. We never felt wary of our duties, even if humans made our tasks harder by polluting the air. Many forests were cut down and turned into mines or plantations. Dust particles from those mines tended to land on us, making our job unbearable. Yet we kept going, as we knew the value of doing the goodness.

Upon hearing this, Adam felt sorry for the tree and the leaf. In his school children were taught about superiority of the human race, so Adam were never interested in other forms of life. As an attempt to learn more about leaves, he looked around and saw millions of leaves surrounding him. A sheer number of leaves stunned him with each of them looking exactly the same. So he sent a question to the scanner asking the leaf whether all the leaves are identical. After several seconds, the following reply was on the screen of his scanner.

Look closely, Adam. No two of us are identical, as no two humans are identical. In this sense, each leaf is unique. But, you are right in saying that we look similar. Indeed the leaves of the same tree look alike. We cherish our similarities and differences. For instance, each of us provide different levels of nutrients, oxygen and energy. We do not compete with each other as to who provides more. It is a meaningless comparison. We know that each of us is doing its best.

After reading this reply, Adam realized how inconsistent was his previous knowledge about plants. He understood that plants share much more with humans than he thought before. Trying to clarify his hypothesis, he asked the leaf about its life by sending the message into his scanner. After several moments, a following message appeared on the screen.

Our lives are pretty short. We are born in spring, reach maturity in summer and pass away in autumn when strong winds and rainfalls bring us down. For some of us, the life can be much shorter. Knowing shortness of the life, we value each day. We live in the present. We have no idea what might happen next moment. Currently, we are seeing your machines and what they are doing to other trees, yet we are at peace. As I am talking to you, Adam, I am treasuring this moment, as it might be the first and the last conversation between man and leaf. In case, there will be no more trees left on this planet, pass the messages I have sent you to other humans. Let them know that we loved human beings and still do.

Reading the last part of the message, Adam could not hold his tears back. He started to sob while hugging the tree. They say that the worst feeling one could have is regret. And the worst of all regrets is harming the one who always have done good to you. Adam regretted his actions. He wished that he would never had cut down a single tree. As his sobs subsided, he hugged the tree at last and whispered that he would protect it.

On the way back to the operations control unit, Adam sent these messages to all people around the globe via satellite connection. The people around the world understood importance of trees and their value. The program on clearance of forests was immediately halted. The remianing trees were preserved under heritage laws and made into national parks. That was the story of the friendship between Adam and the leaf.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

On True Love

There is a saying that the universe was born out of love. I do not know about the universe, but it is pretty clear that people are born out of love. The love makes people do all sorts of strange things. Some go great distances to be with their beloved. Some might sacrifice the most valuable thing, their life, for the sake of their beloved. It seems that what we call the love is pretty complicated thing. So what is a love? As many things in our lives, it is hard to define it with words, one needs to feel it. Strong castles of logic break under the pressure of the love. Oftentimes people love each other for no apparent reason. The only reason they give, because it is as it is..
Do not ask me to define love as some mathematical expression, for I have no idea how to do it. But I can try to describe effects of a love on one's life. When people truly love something, they become limitless, they have no sense of fear. A true love does not wither away with time. It does not subside when object of love is not present. A very opposite seems to be true, when object of the love is far away, love makes one strive to the beloved. Such love is not shaken by illusory things, such as fear. Where there is true love, there is no place for the fear. A true love seems to be immortal.
When one observes the history of humanity, it becomes quite clear that greatest feats were carried by the feeling of love. Giants of thought such as Einstein, Feynman and Shannon were in love with the universe and laws governing it. They were loyal to their love until death took their souls away. The beautiful equations that we study these days are artefacts of their love. These equations describe diverse topics ranging from matter to light and information. These people were able to find the relationships between those different objects. Thanks to these equations we are aware of interconnectedness of the universe we live in. These equations reminds us of greatness human beings can achieve when they truly love an object of high value.
Those who truly love, do not seem to expect any returns from their beloved. Mothers do not expect any returns from their children. Great minds did not expect a wide recognition or great riches for their pursuits. Once, I have heard Peter Thiel mentioning about inefficiencies of the current economic system which does not reward contributions of scientists as much as it rewards contributions of the entrepreneurs. Mr. Thiel has a point here, we need to find ways to reward scientists more justly. But one should realize that greatest scientists we have seen were not after money, rather they were after the universe, their beloved. It would not make any difference to them personally if people rewarded them with billions on top of their normal salary. On the other hand, scientists whose main aim is money, seem to have much lesser contribution than those who pursued research for its own sake. After all universe should know its true lovers.
I might not know about true love, for I do not know if I ever loved somebody or something truly. But I tasted glimpses of love. It made me feel peaceful. It gave meaning to my life. I want to be in love. 

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

On essays


My first encounter with essays happened while preparing to an English language examination, either IELTS or TOELF, I do not remember exactly. Having never seen this word before, my mind wondered: "what the heck they want from me". Later I learned that I was expected to write some piece of writing following some structural template, which should have some nontrivial vocabulary and certain word count. Being able to fulfill these requirements proved that I was able to write in English. I enrolled in essay writing classes which taught us templates we should follow, big words which make essay look good and tips on time management. In this way, essay writing was associated with proving something: that I can speak English, that I deserve to be in certain university and that I remembered some course material. At some point, I was fed up with all these 'proving myself' things. I had realized that I have nothing to prove. I had enough. I desired to express myself.

Gradually I started to remember what I enjoyed doing when I was a child. I loved reading all sorts of books for fun. So, I started to read for fun again. My reading spectrum was quite wide, ranging from popular science to novels. Once I was reading 'How to live' by Sarah Bakewell on the life of French essayist Montaigne. At the beginning of the book, the author gave an etymology of the word 'essay'. It turns out that 'essay' comes from French 'essayer' meaning 'to try' or 'to attempt'. Immediately, I found myslef dumbfounded. I could not believe what I was reading. Essays were never meant to be perfect nor they were meant to impress. They had much humbler origin: they were meant to express. They were meant to be an attempt of something. After understanding this, all crappy essay-writing techniques, all TOELF and SAT essays lost their meaning in my eyes. I understood that essay is not a tool of proving my value, but rather my attempt to express or to portray certain things.

From that time I knew that I want to write my own essays. I wanted to share my own life experiences. I wanted to share my lessons. This is why I write essays. 

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Welcome to this blog

Hi, my name is Birzhan Moldagaliyev. Here I want to share my essays on different topics along with lessons drawn from various book. Let us see how it is going to work out.