Tag Archive for 'Mahatma Gandhi'

My depression in Waterloo, part 7: my mother’s selfishness, re-visited

Published by davinci on May 30, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

In a previous post, I wrote about how my mother had been attacking me since high school for teaching and for collaborating with others. I resisted the effects of her attacks for as long as I could manage, but a short time after I switched my Ph.D. research area to quantum computing, I finally broke.

I have already written a lot about my experiences in elementary and high school, and in particular about how, unlike most of my classmates with authoritarian parents (many of whom were of Chinese descent), I had refused to allow my parents’ wishes to dictate what I should or should not do. I saw with my own eyes that those kids who had allowed themselves to become nothing more than a mere puppet to their parents’ will, at the expense of the denial of their own individuality, were absolutely miserable… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 5: feeling “unworthy”
  2. The causes of my depression, part 7: my mother’s selfishness
  3. My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice
  4. My depression in Waterloo, part 11: the biggest regret of my life
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 13: dropping out
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The causes of my depression, part 6: how Mrs. Mallo saved my academic career

Published by davinci on April 27, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There were a couple of things which helped me cope with my parents’ continual attempts to prevent me from studying what I wanted to study in high school. I found great inspiration in the writings of M. K. Gandhi (popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, an honorific which he did not like). Gandhi believed that the way to resist an unjust law is to break it with a full awareness of the consequences and the willingness to suffer the attendant penalties, while remaining firm in one’s convictions. A line spoken by the title character in Richard Attenborough’s biographical film on Gandhi in particular steeled my resolve: “They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body — not my obedience.” I recalled this line whenever my father beat me for reading books on science. I also read the works of Henry David Thoreau, who inspired Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., one of many people who put Gandhi’s words into action.

But what really saved me and my career in science from my parents was the protection and assistance of Mrs. Mallo, the mother of one of my best friends in high school… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree
  2. The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches
  3. The causes of my depression, part 7: my mother’s selfishness
  4. The causes of my depression, part 12: my grandmother’s death
  5. The causes of my depression, part 3: “stop wasting money on worthless books”
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