brigid1209

[brigid1209]

Imaginary Numbers

For those who never grow up but have an old soul.

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Everorchard

For those who never grow up but have an old soul.

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Time to Change

If you want change to happen, here are two options for you:

1. Having the same people do different things;

2. Having different people do different things.

(Of course, you don’t want the same people to do the same things.)

If you believe that people are basically the same, then you can cross out the second option.

How can you make the same people do different things? There must be a reason for them to have a different mindset, or at least the desire to change. Sometimes the person who needs to do the different thing is not others, but yourself. But you don’t want to change, because you are afraid of uncertainties. Then you turn around to find somebody else to do something different. However, as mentioned before, people are basically the same. Then you feel disappointed, and begin to expect our future generations to make the change happen. But remember: you are the future generation to your ancestors. If you can’t save the world now, your future generations can’t save the world either. 

It's your time to change NOW.

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The Average

I have doubts about the statistical concept of the average. 

By smoothing out the differences in the data, what exactly does it represent? What useful information can the average tell us? Will people above the average feel happy? Will people below the average feel unhappy? Does the world want everybody to constantly push themselves to progress in order to remain in an advantageous position? Or conversely, if everyone is flattened to the average level, will everyone be happy then?

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Friendly Reminders

Synchronicity means nothing if you don’t know what you want and where you are standing. 

Oracle reading means nothing if you wish for something to happen in the future, but you have no idea what is happening NOW. 

Time line means nothing if you don’t have time to stay with yourself. 

Starseed means nothing if you just want to escape from the earth instead of learning your lessons.

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Professor & Pancake

When I was doing my doctoral studies about 10 years ago, there was a man selling egg-stuffed pancakes at the breakfast stand near the gate of our academy. During Spring Festival, Chinese people will have their vacation for one week or longer. The man selling egg-stuffed pancakes was on vacation, too. When we went back from vacation, a classmate of mine told me something interesting. Here it is:

When I was passing by the breakfast stand, I saw an old professor standing there. He said to the man in the breakfast stand, “Ah, you came back! When you are not here, I have nothing to eat for breakfast. I miss your egg-stuffed pancakes so much!”

That was the time I clearly realized the fact that we are living in a dynamic web in which everything is connected. When the man selling egg-stuffed pancakes didn’t show up for a week, an old professor had no breakfast for that entire week. 

There are many jobs which may not be considered “important” but they actually play an indispensable role in our society. For example, every day the sanitation garbage trunk come to our community to collect our garbage. If the sanitation garbage trunk doesn’t show up for one week, the environment of our community will be a mess. If housewives or househusbands are absent from home for one week, the house will be a mess, too. But in our value system, sanitation workers, as well as the man selling egg-stuffed pancakes, may not receive as much salary and respect from our society as professors. Housewives and househusbands sacrifice themselves to back up their family members, but they are regarded as somebody who doesn’t create wealth for our society. If you ask an economist, he or she may tell you theories of wealth distribution to rationalize what you have questioned about, but those theories were invented on the basis of the assumption of having an overall control of the wealth of the collective, not based on concepts of individual happiness such as safety and self-esteem.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, wealth and employment belong to the level of safety needs. It can be inferred that people think some jobs are “better” than others because they can bring more safety, as well as certainty. For example, some people pursue a diploma of higher education, not for the love of doing research, but for the financial security that a teaching position in a university can bring to them.

Now here is the problem. Certainty might be an illusion. We are living in an age where the old value system seems out of date, but the new value system has not taken its form. The rise of AI has an unprecedented impact on what we once believed to be safe and trustworthy. The capital is enthusiastically investing on various AI projects, while teachers in school are preventing students from writing their papers with AI tools. Anthropomorphic robots are taking part in football games, running marathons, and doing simple households. They may look a bit awkward now, but the momentum is undeniable. 

Everything happening now reminds us that the safety of a career once we built on our mastery of skills is being challenged, because at the skill level, machines can learn faster and do better than humans. We used to make ourselves irreplaceable in the job market by mastering multiple skills, or having a rare skill. But now the job market itself seems to be unstable. Both the professor and the man selling egg-stuffed pancakes may face the danger of being replaced by some advanced robots in future.

Nonetheless, we may still want human professors who write books by themselves, and humans selling egg-stuffed pancakes made by their own hands. The answer is simple: we are humans, not machines. 

Let’s go back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Above safety needs, there are love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Can AI do that for us? Below safety needs, we have physiological needs: food, water, sleep, air, etc.. Have our excessive needs of safety already hurt our health, both mentally and physically? Are we sacrificing our environment for economic growth?

There is observable imbalance among the five levels of needs reflected in our realities. Safety needs have been stressed too much as a result of people’s fear of uncertainties. Therefore, one way we may heal the world is bringing more balance into those needs, by acknowledging the excessive needs and giving attention to those overlooked needs. When we spot the imbalance and start to take actions, it is the time that change happens.

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How Art Work with Our Minds

Art is perceptual, driven by a mysterious power beyond logic. Art is a manifestation process that transforms the unseen into something observable or tangible. It is our inner voices speaking to us at a subconscious or even unconscious level. But they don’t speak in some strange language we don’t know. They speak through the data set in our minds, such as vocabulary, syntax, sounds, scents, and images. That is why we need to learn, to discover, to share, to appreciate. By doing so, we are able to enrich our mind data set, which will help us express our inner voices in turn.

The process of self-expression goes like the resonance of vibrations –– your frequency will resonate with frequencies from people who have similar frequencies with you. The similar parts will be strengthened, while the dissimilar parts will be weakened. That can also be compared to the recommendation algorithms used by social media platforms. You attract not what you want, but what you are.

It may be sensible to choose carefully what you see and hear every day, because those could shape your mind data set in a way you may never expect. A rich mind data set will help you express your inner voice and create your art. The quality of your mind data set will shape your style.

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Don’t Overlook the Smallest Seeds

When a seed is planted, it is not loud. 

It will take some time to see the first green leaf come out of the earth. At first, it seems very weak and fragile, as if anyone can tread on it and treat its life. But as days go by, it will grow into a giant tree standing safely and proudly as a gift from nature.

Some voices are planted in our minds just like seeds. 

Perhaps we have convinced ourselves that we have become accustomed to how the world has treated us all the time. When we feel uncomfortable about injustice and hatred, we suppress or hide our feelings instead of acknowledging them. We say “It’s OK” when we are actually not OK. Until one day, a thin voice speaks to us, “That’s enough.” That voice is not loud, but we can’t erase it from our mind as easily as before. Some people may begin to sense that there is something different in the air. They wonder if they are the only one to feel in that way. After a few days, weeks, or months, they find somebody who they can share their feelings with. At that moment, they start to believe that they are not alone, and it is confirmed that they are not crazy –– that voice in their minds is speaking the truth. That is the voice of the weak, the depleted, the overlooked –– the anger of being treated unfairly. That anger is not about anything or anybody more powerful, but about their own inability to protect all the things they treasure. 

When the voice is nothing but a haunting idea in our minds, it seems not so powerful to change anything, but it is crucial, because awareness is the beginning of transformation. When the voice is confirmed by others, that is the moment we are awakened and empowered. The seed is sprouting, and it will keep growing into something undeniable.

Some people have questioned the significance of speaking out the unpleasant truth, since pointing out the problem doesn’t necessarily mean the problem will be solved. What we really need is a workable plan to make the world a better place to live. However, awareness alone is significant enough to make a difference. We can’t expect everything to happen overnight –– an old world is destroyed, and suddenly a new world is built. Meanwhile, we are not waiting for a solution made by future generations, or having different people do the same thing –– the trap of fighting for powers. What we can do NOW is plant the seeds, and give them enough care. By doing so, we transpose our present selves into future selves, and vice versa. That is how the elevation of our awareness can shape our future.

[brigid1209]

The Mystery Buried Underground

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Although science has made great leaps over decades, there are still so many things we don’t know about the world. 

Scientists said over 90% of the universe is composed of dark matter. In other words, the part of the universe we have observed is less than 10%.

What do you think?

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Break the Spell of Scarcity

The grabbing hands, grab all they can.

Most of us have to contend for the leftovers.

The grabbing hands, make up stories of the recession. They have succeeded in making us believe that the world is going down, and we are not enough. We are not good enough. We are not qualified or skilled enough. We are not lucky enough. Hence, we are pushed to learn more, to pursue a higher degree diploma, to squeeze ourselves to work harder and sleep less, to pray for good luck. However, when all these are done, nothing has changed. Nothing seems particularly interesting or hopeful. All the hard work turns out to be meaningless in the end, and the same mistake appears again and again. At the same time, some people seem so lucky. They have their names in the news report. They seem to make achievements effortlessly. When most of us work so hard but gain so little, they celebrate their success with glittering champagne in their hands, and a nonchalant smile creeping on their lips. 

Some of us start to convince themselves that people belong to different classes, and the higher class have all the resources that the lower class can never dream about. They said to themselves, “It’s OK that I don’t have power in my hands, because I never dream about it; I will be very satisfied with a decent job and a stable income. Things may go down, but they are tolerable to me.” Alas! No wonder that you have to suffer from it. You have handed over your power, maybe subconsciously, to somebody you think is of a higher rank. Your mindset has allowed such things to happen to you. You have accepted that your fate can be decided by somebody else, and you can do nothing about it. In that case, your scarcity is a spiritual problem. If you see the world in that way, you will never be good enough. The “higher ranked” will never be satisfied. They are so greedy and cruel that they will rob the last piece of fortune from you, and you? You even give up fighting for yourself. 

What about the future of the “higher ranked”? Their good days will not last forever. When the love of the earthy family goes against the laws of the universe, their future generations will do crazy self-sabotage things that ruin all those wealth and fame accumulated by their past generations. Such things have happened in history. Moreover, when the “higher ranked” collapse one day for what they have done, those people who have handed over their own power to them, who have accepted the fate of being enslaved in order to receive something “stable” as some kind of compensation, will be sacrificed for the end of an old era. 

Every success and prosperity can’t last forever; self-sabotage will appear when we believe that things will just work as usual. That goes like a spell of scarcity in history. Historians have warned and called for us to break that toxic cycle. 

What can we do now?

We should stop believing that our chances of living a prosperous and safe life are decided by somebody of a higher rank. Instead, believe in ourselves –– we can create the life we want. They can take whatever they want, but they can’t take creativity from us. And please stop worshipping stability. Nobody can guarantee any form of stability. We keep learning, not for a stable income, not for being “good enough”, but for preparing ourselves in the fast changing world where a new chapter of history is about to come. 

The moment you believe in yourself, the moment you can truly create abundance. 

[brigid1209]

Why Can’t You Turn Knowledge into Money?

I remember when I worked as an editor in a book publisher, our boss asked us one day, “Why can’t you turn knowledge into money?” He was wondering why our books couldn’t make a hit. But at that moment, I was thinking about why I earned such a poor salary with a decent diploma. Anyway, that is a great question.

In my opinion, the spread of knowledge and making profit are two independent concepts. Knowledge is knowledge, money is money. As a consequence of industrialization, the capital can make profit with the power of knowledge such as advanced technologies, and then hire more people to make even more profit, which may be one of the historical origins of the job market. In such cases, knowledge works as an amplifier. But if there is no sound at all, then the amplifier can’t help you hear anything.

As far as I know, it is the inner cycle of knowledge reproduction that can make the spread of knowledge itself as a career –– students become teachers. (For those who don't choose education as their career, they go to the job market to find more possibilities.) The need for publication is closely linked with the need for education. However, the education system now is confronted with unprecedented challenges, not only from outer factors such as AI, but also from something unsustainable within itself. The existing education system, no matter which country or region we come from, seems to be left behind by the present world. People in the education system are focusing too much on the reproduction of knowledge, or the so-called academic activities, and that builds an invisible wall between them and the world outside. However, knowledge can only thrive in its collision with reality, and that is the moment it can be truly testified. If knowledge loses connection with reality, then it will become a fossil displayed in a museum.

Some people may think it is wrong to expect all knowledge to be useful today. How about paleography? Is art useful? Learning is a natural instinct, an indispensable part of growth. Curiosity is the best teacher. And the like. Yes, teaching and learning is meant to be a beautiful process of interaction, as well as socialization. Learning itself is useful just by existing. The problem is, knowledge should be shared freely if we truly understand what that means. But now, we seem to want too much. We want knowledge to be shared freely; we want to take control of knowledge so that we can make profit, by copyright or something else. We want a Utopian-like environment that even the most unpopular study can be encouraged regardless of usefulness or workability; we want to learn something useful so that we can find a decent job. Unfortunately, those things are contradictory, so they can’t be all satisfied at the same time.

Perhaps things like knowledge should be shared freely, but the premise is, there is a solid economic background to support that. However, when researchers talk about that, they tend to treat the collective as the same group of people in a very abstract style. But just as I mentioned before, people who have knowledge and people who have money can be two different groups. It is similar to what somebody said that the rise of AI may destroy some old jobs, but it will create new jobs in the future. The ignored point is, people who lose their jobs and people who receive new jobs can be two different groups, too.

It is really hard for people today to find their role playing in society. That’s a crucial question for everybody, but knowledge can’t help answer that –– what you were taught in school may not be relevant to your job, and one day your position may be taken place by AI. Who knows? Some people call it an existential crisis, because in the past we used to define ourselves by our skills and our careers, but now that logic doesn't work. We don't know who we are, or what we are becoming. We are suffering from some kind of cognition disorder. We get lost in a virtual reality world where everybody can have an avatar and then can be whatever we want. In that case, “playing the role” is not figurative, but real. It becomes real not by things we learned in the past, but by our imagination. If we accept the fact that knowledge can be shared freely, then there is no reason to worry about losing grip of that. From now on, one of the most important lessons for us may be how to use our imagination to contribute to the world, in a creative way.

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How Professional Is Professional?

Something reminds me of those days when I was working as an editor in a book publisher. The main business of that publisher is publishing the Chinese translation of technical books written in English. I was in charge of a book about JavaScript, in which there were quite a few new terms that had no agreed or uniformed Chinese translation. Our translator, who was very experienced and had worked with us for many years, translated those new terms according to his understanding. When the Chinese translation of that book was published, the translation of one particular term caused debates among our readers. Some readers thought it was unnecessary to translate it into Chinese, because programmers just use English terms in their works. When it was translated into Chinese, some readers got confused about what the book was talking about. Some readers left very unfriendly comments about the book, because they thought we made a mess of the translation and we needed to apologize for that. Unfortunately, a similar thing happened again when I was in charge of another JavaScript book. As a result, we had to fix it in the future print by picking up every Chinese translation of that term in the book one by one, then replace them with the original English text. 

That public crisis caused us a lot of trouble. I was very exhausted at that time, and for a long time I felt very sorry for that mistake. But now, when I look back, I regard it as a sign of progress in the average level of collective knowledge that the standard of being “professional” is no longer monopolized by a small group of people. The audience has the power to decide what is needed.

When I was an editor, I put a great effort into meeting all those requirements from the regulation department of publication. For example, each foreign language term should have its corresponding Chinese translation. But in such an area like computer science and technology, knowledge is so dynamic that everything is changing very fast, and it is common that newly emerged terms may not have their agreed or uniformed Chinese translation. Terms of regulation of publication seem to be far left behind by the development of information technology. Moreover, readers are different from the past. In the late 20th century in China, there were relatively few people studying foreign languages, and books written in foreign languages were hard to find. At that time, translations of books were mainly done by renowned scholars, aiming at helping more Chinese people learn about the world. But now, searching for information and learning new things are so easy that reading books is no longer the only way to gain knowledge. Everybody can have the chance to be professional if enough time and energy is put in the right place. Language is no longer an unconquerable barrier with the help of AI tools. Now readers still want a “professional” translation of a book instead of AI translation, not because they know nothing about what the book is talking about. That is because they want a clear understanding of some problems in their minds, and they want to save time and energy in the process of learning. Perhaps that is why the new “invention” of the translation of a term may not be favored in this era. That doesn’t help people understand easier. People don't expect creativity to be used in that way. 

At this point, some people may worry about the destruction of authority –– when everybody can define what is professional, then nobody is professional. It feels like when everybody can define what is beautiful, then nothing is beautiful. However, if we think in that way, perhaps that is because we unconsciously believe that the standard of being professional, like being beautiful, is monopolized by a small group of people who have the power to decide what we believe to be true. That may be sensible in an old world where information technologies are not so developed. But now, things are different. Ways of gaining knowledge are diversified. Different opinions can be shared in various forms, on various social media platforms. We are no longer in a time when a small group of professional people produce content for everybody to watch and listen to. Now everybody is producing content, just like everybody is making and selling something, but has no idea who will buy it. There is too much information contending for too limited attention, which makes attention become a scarce resource.

We are living in such an era that knowledge becomes a burden and profession becomes an illusion. There are so many contradictions in our lives. We think we should have many choices, but in fact we have only a few in our hands. We are taught to learn more, experience more, but choose only one or two careers to settle down when we grow up. We are required to have relevant work experience, but we are asked to do so many irrelevant things. We want to be more concentrated, but being constantly interrupted has become our new normal. It is impossible to have a perfect answer for everybody at once. One has to make his or her own way out of the chaos, as an individual, by embracing the authentic self. 

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Beware of Speculators & Bystanders

When we are confronted with uncertainties, different people will react in different ways. Take AIGC as an example. Some people consider it as a future trend, while other people consider it as a fleeting gimmick. Everybody may sound reasonable to some extent, but in order to make a better choice, we need to have a clearer vision. That is why we should beware of speculators and bystanders.

SPECULATORs invest in both sides to make sure that the profit can be maximized. They don’t invent or create new things; they smell the trend from existing things. They don’t care what the future is, because no matter what the future may look like, they can make some profit from the win and loss of other people. 

BYSTANDERs are a pessimistic version of speculators. When speculators are seeking every chance to make profit, bystanders are cynical about whatever others think hopeful. For example, when speculators are investing in both the AI tools and something AI can't do presently, bystanders are criticizing the Al tools for their technological ethic issues and their imperfect performance in real life, lamenting on the end of the old good days when AI didn’t have so much influence on our lives.  

Speculators can tell you where you should spend your money, but they can’t tell you where the future is. Bystanders can point out what is going wrong, but they can’t provide a workable plan for improvement. 

If you want to create the future, and you need a workable plan, it may be sensible for you to avoid being a speculator or a bystander. Being a pioneer sometimes means moving with an intention, taking steps forward with faith, and trusting your intuition. That is what speculators and bystanders can’t understand.

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Seek Originality? Seek Creativity? Seek UNIQUENESS!

As an artist, I have felt the unprecedented impact from the rise of AIGC (AI-generated content) on the general art industry. Things we used to believe have become meaningless; the old world is being shattered, while the new world is still in its embryo stage. 

From my perspective, one of the most important things is, in the past we might think that the protection of originality could encourage creativity. However, when AIGC seems to take the place of human artists, we suddenly realize that ORIGINALITY and CREATIVITY are not the same. And yes, according to the dictionary, the two words have different meanings:

Originality: the quality of something new, of the first to appear, not a copy of something else, not derived from something else.

Creativity：the ability to make something new and interesting, involving skills and techniques to create.

We can see that an AI generated picture can be “creative”, but may not be “original”, and that is why AIGC has some copyright issues. That may be the root of many debates on AIGC, because some people are questioning its originality, but other people are defending its creativity.

Additionally, if we take a review of the history of copyright laws, we will find that they came into existence much earlier than the invention of computers and the internet. Copyright laws were made for the prevention of unauthorized copying, spreading and using of the original work. But now, the copying and spreading of the digital form of any original work is so easy that it is very hard to prohibit. It is even more perplexing to define the copyright issues of AIGC, because AIGC feels more like derived art rather than simple copying of the original work.

There are still possibilities for human artists to make their way out of the chaotic world. Originality and creativity are both natural results of free unique self-expressions. If something is unique, then it must be original, and creative. There is no need to prove that. Now many artists find themselves trapped in proving their originality. They have to save time stamps, save screenshots, or register a copyright license if needed. On one hand, this era is not very friendly to originality due to the excessive easiness in copying and spreading the original work; on the other hand, our works are original, but may not be so unique. UNIQUENESS means one of a type. You are the only one in the world, and nobody can take your place. However, being unique has some risks: more chances of failure, more chances of not being welcomed or recognized, not meeting the requirement of massive industrialized production, and the like. Nonetheless, it is the chance to be yourself. It is the chance to free yourself from the battle between your originality and the creativity of AIGC. 

Don’t be afraid of being unique. The journey has just begun.

[brigid1209]

Ancestral Tree

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Sometimes we may feel the emotional call for linking ourselves to something ancient, great and wonderful, like seeking our place in an ancestral tree. However, this call for linkage may become so strong that the wish of belonging to some spiritual family outweighs the wish of being an original creator, especially for people who devote themselves to the inheritance of traditional culture. 

Being original or creative doesn’t mean cutting off the bond between you and your tradition. In fact, we can create nothing from the air. By standing on the shoulders of giants, we are able to achieve more than depending on ourselves only. There is always the tension between being yourself and being influenced by others, and the rise of AIGC just intensified this tension. The point is, originality, creativity, and uniqueness should be put into the context of your community and history to make them recognizable. Link with your ancestors first, then you will know who you are; otherwise, you may feel lost when you are exploring the new land without a road map for you.

You can be a defender of the legacy your ancestors left for you; at the same time, you can be an original creator, an innovative pioneer on the road nobody has ever walked. No matter which path you take, your ancestors are always here blessing you.

[brigid1209]

The Blessing of Being Forgetful

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Instead of gripping it too tight, just go with the flow. 

Live like you have made the initial act and then forget about the result.

Things don’t happen all at once. Focus on the present moment. 

Do whatever you can do, but don't worry about the result, don't worry about taking control of every step. 

Trust the universe. The right thing and the right people will meet you at the right time –– not on your timetable, but on the conjunction of the traces of fate.

[brigid1209]

The Burden of Remembering Too Much

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Memories sometimes can be a curse.

When sudden changes come to your life and there is no way to turn back, memories start feeling like a bitter sweet dream. Or is it just a dream? The place once you grew up and lived with your family and friends, now has become debris of the past. 

There are people who refuse to change. They may say something like “We should go back to the past.” However, that is partly because they have gained a lot from the past, and they want to continually take advantage of that. But for the young, the new beginners, the only past is the childhood that they can never go back. 

Don’t look back. Trust yourself. Take your first step.