On the title of the blog

Dad (Left) and me taking a stroll through Stanford. P.C. Mom

One of my favourite subjects in high school was History, and I think it was partially due to my history teacher, Mr. Klingner. He once told me - “History is not about studying events, it's about trying to understand the choices.” So I figured, why not start this one off with a story?

About 30 years ago, a lanky bespectacled 17 year old would walk on to a shaded tree-filled campus for the first time. In all words, he was a rebel. His parents stated that he didn’t believe in God, yet he was taught in a mission school. The professors stated that he would barely go to class, yet he ranked first in his batch. All the girls said that they never saw him smile, yet he dated the liveliest girl on campus. Fellow students would say that he imitated Che Guevara, yet he was against the socialist government of the time. The guys said he was a very quiet kid, yet he became the President of the Student Body. He wasn’t a physically strong guy, yet he staged hunger strikes and led protests. When he left the college, he didn’t leave as an alumni, but left as a legend - The Rebel without a Cause.

Who was this person?

Why was he so contradictory?

What drove his choices and thoughts?

Truth be told, finding him was pretty easy, after all, I’m his son.

I asked him what about his contradictory actions: his famous one-line answer is that “There are too many rebels with a cause, so I decided to be one without a cause.”

However, trying to understand him during his formative years has been one of the biggest frustrations in my life. I think all these years, I have been looking at it wrong. I tried to see my dad in the sunlight, from the front. However, as they say, the shadow is far more interesting.

I forgot that somewhere in his pretty big shadow, I am also a part of that as his son. In theory, I should be able to figure him out if I figure myself out, but that’s easier said than done!

So, I asked myself, who am I? What drives me? What do I believe?

I don’t really know, but I do know that now at a similar age of who my dad was, I am at that point where I am setting my life foundations on my own. A week ago, I stepped onto a similarly shaded tree-filled campus, albeit over an entire ocean away from where my dad went to college. My dad looked more at home than me, even though it was his first time stepping on campus!

From that I figured that I’m in a special place; Stanford will be my home for the next 4-5 years. I would like to share this journey with you all here - part of this blog will be my own experience of being at Stanford, part will be guest writers who have influenced my beliefs, and part will be figuring out my beliefs and myself. Maybe along the way, we can figure out the original Rebel Without a Cause.

But until then, I consider myself to be a rebel, searching for a cause.