Year of Discovery (Week 11: Inner Voice, Black Mirror and Free Will)
Before I embarked on my YoD, I was told by a wise friend that there would be different ebbs and flows as I go through the days and weeks of my ‘soulbatical’. Some days would feel energizing and others would be full of self-doubt and anxiety. This week felt like a slower ‘progress’ week when it came to getting closer to answering some of my learning questions and I hit a point when I asked myself if I was heading in the right direction (even with an unclear destination). Ultimately, I realized that the seeds I have planted will eventually blossom into flowers with the right conditions and I need to nurture the right conditions inside of me to do so. And nourishment and nurture takes time.
With that, this week, I’m sharing some reflections on the inner voice and the relationship between technologies of the now and future and free will.
Observing the Inner Voice as the Dust Settles
Shifting my mind from optimization, efficiency and utmost productivity everyday to one that allows for patience, curiosity and kindness has enabled me to see my thought patterns and observe how they do and don’t serve me. With time, I’ve observed some patterns of negative and toxic self-talk and self-condemnation repeating on autopilot in a variety of situations. I realized how harmful they are and how they have caused different patterns of behaviors and beliefs that I’ve held onto. Through such observations, I have been able to catch my thoughts and feelings as they arise and spend the time asking myself whether I wanted to release these voices, reframe and replace with another belief that’s more accepting and kinder to myself.
I want to liberate all living beings from samsara (cycle of suffering) — rebirth etc — but how can I do this? As long as I remain in samsara myself, how can I help? I can’t even solve my own problems so how can I solve others? — Buddhist Monk Kelsang Sangkyong
One of the realizations on my journey so far is that the more I understand my own mind and re-wire it towards more kindness and compassion, the more kind and compassionate I can be with others. It’s easy to look at others’ journeys and proactively help to fix their challenges, and the reality is that it’s a lot harder to look inward and cultivate a new default state of the mind.
This last week, I had a situation with someone that triggered a familiar frustration and anger from the past. I felt the emotions flood my mind and my body and felt the pain and hurt deep in my heart and stomach. With difficulty, I stopped myself and actively used it as an opportunity to practice patience. In my mind while working, I would have held onto my frustration for longer and run scenarios through my head on repeat, holding onto the idea that I was right and that this person was unnecessarily causing me suffering and dampening my happiness. This time, through meditation, intentional breathing and time for observation, I was able to practice cultivating a feeling of patience and compassion for this person and understanding how difficult his behavior may be on his own life experience as well.
If, like a doctor who only wishes to benefit his patient, our enemy only tried to do us good, we would never have the opportunity to train our mind in non-retaliation. Therefore, even though our enemy has no intention of helping us with our practice, he or she is still worthy to be an object of our veneration. — Buddhist Monk Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
Each person and interaction presents an opportunity to re-train my mind, and while this takes time (and potentially many lifetimes), the more I practice the mind I want to have today, the more I will be the person I want to become later.
Black Mirror Coming to Life and Free Will
This last week, I’ve explored different technology trends from BitClout, a new type of social network that mixes speculation and social media — built from the ground up as its own custom blockchain — to breakthroughs in deep learning and generative networks to create digital photographs from what a person visualizes, transforming these images at up to 99% accuracy. In simple English: 1) there is now a social network where someone’s value in society has a monetary value through a coin that people can buy and sell 2) in the next decade, we will be able to save our real or imaginary mental images into actual photos that we can save and share.
When dystopian TV show Black Mirror first came out in 2011, I felt both awe and fear in the implications and use cases of the technologies depicted in the episodes. I calmed my nerves by telling myself that these realities were probably 1–2 lifetimes away. But as new technologies, breakthroughs and innovations on existing technologies emerge today, I’m realizing how naive I was. These technologies — even if being built with the best of intentions — will have positive and negative effects on our world that I can barely fathom today. BitClout is similar in application as what’s shown in the Nosedive episode and the ‘vision and imagined photographs’ is similar to what’s depicted in The Entire History of You episode. Worth checking out.
While change is inevitable, I’ve often wondered how much we can do about where the future is heading. In Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, a lesson from one of his short stories is summarized by: “past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully” as he questions whether there is true free will.
While the world is impermanent and free will is a big question mark, I find myself being fascinated by how to influence the direction and ethics of a society that can embrace the wide-scale change that more technologies will bring. There are many different pathways that the world can take and if there isn’t free will, then I feel lighter and less pressure in making decisions as long as I’m guided by the values I have, and if there is free will, then I feel responsibility for contributing to a world that is kinder, ethical and more compassionate.
What I’m reading about this week: The Future of the Wellness Market
