The price of computer hardware keeps climbing, especially high-end graphics cards and memory. The reason is that in a few years, computers will mainly be used for AI. From an efficiency standpoint, AI simply gets more done than people do.
It took an hour to change the water in two fish tanks and scrub them clean. I used to wonder why anyone would enjoy keeping fish, and before today I had never really asked myself why I kept them either—maybe I saw a friend doing it and followed along. Today I realized the process is oddly soothing. The irritation I had been carrying around eased for a while. When the tank is bright and clean and the fish are swimming around, you find a small patch of quiet that belongs to you in the middle of a messy world.
Last Sunday, some trivial thing made me furious. My daughter gave me a big hug, patted me on the back, and said, “Dad, don’t be angry anymore.”
Every time you read a long post on someone else’s blog, those words are reshaping your brain.
Lao Mo’s piece “Will You Suffer?” made me look at my own suffering again. I suddenly realized that memory itself is a kind of pain. The good memories are always short, while most of life is painful. Precisely because pain runs through our whole life, we learn to treasure those brief, beautiful stretches.
So what is pain? A person you like, or a person who suits you—which would you choose?
Living only to 50 would not be so bad. In the distant past, most people might have already reached the end at 50. If you look at it that way, our generation should feel immensely lucky: both body and soul have been given more time. How fortunate we are.
Our child is applying to join the Youth League. This year there are many hard requirements in our area. One is that you must be at least 14. She was in seventh grade and could have joined, but her age blocked her. Then, after the seventh-grade second-semester final exams, another rule was added: at least 21 hours of volunteer service. Fortunately, I had taken her to various volunteer activities over the summer, and we got the hours in before school started. We finished the application and the thought report, and I told her to hand them to the only League member in her class—and to address the recipient as Secretary Liu when she did.
I picked up a new skill: carrying my mother up and down six flights of stairs. All those sports I played when I was young to build up my body have finally come in handy now that she is older. Ha.
If two people’s time together has run out, there really will be no further intersection.
We laugh at how foolish AI can be, and yet we cannot get by without it. Poor humanity.
When something happens to you, there is someone more anxious than you are. When you are hurt, someone stands by your side without hesitation. When you are short of money, someone lends it to you without a second thought. If you have someone like that, treasure them.