Things have been getting more surreal with each passing year. When someone who spends too much time doomscrolling stops being surprised by the absurd, they’re already in trouble.
My chronic procrastination meant I finally finished this draft on an airplane, halfway through 2023. (As long as I set the date to 2022, nobody will notice, right?) This post is pure stream of consciousness—no structure, no logic.
Fractures
When one group of people simply cannot understand another—and it escalates to hostility or even aggression—you get fracture. As a Chinese person living abroad, I’ve felt this acutely in recent years, increasingly appreciating the phrase: “Human beings are fundamentally incapable of understanding one another.”
In moments like these, I’m struck by the genius of the Trisolarans from The Three-Body Problem: they can transmit thoughts directly without the ambiguity of language. If we could truly understand each other’s perspectives, there would be far fewer baseless suspicions.
The Pandemic
Inevitably, we must discuss the pandemic. Those who supported lockdowns and those who supported opening up each had their own logic and rationale. Algorithmic echo chambers and certain absurd censorship policies ensured both sides were trapped in information bubbles, making people increasingly ignorant. Information is effortless to access today, but actively seeking diverse sources—well, most people, myself included, often fail at this. Being bombarded by app notifications turns us into slaves of recommendation algorithms. I feed their creators ad revenue; they consume my time, often delivering nothing but redundant information. Perhaps I need to change how I consume information.
By August 2023, the world’s collective memory of the pandemic has already begun to fade. Only those who were hurt—individuals and families—are left waiting for wounds to heal. Some wounds may never heal. The pandemic hasn’t left; it’s simply become less important than basic survival. A powerful few could afford another three or four years of restrictions and monopolize more wealth, but most people couldn’t survive three or four more months. Are their sacrifices insignificant? Under grand narratives, those who still have a voice have grown numb. They may not know what’s happening in other corners of the same world—or perhaps they simply no longer care.
Recession?
The recession’s roots likely trace back to the pandemic. After their expansion, tech giants didn’t see the prosperity they’d anticipated. People needed to pay the price of pandemic recovery—who has money left for tech products? What followed bloat was amputation. My observations are primarily based on the tech industry and may not apply elsewhere. The research group where I interned was entirely laid off. Companies large and small froze hiring or began layoffs. It’s hard to say the employees were inadequate or the companies were wrong—just unlucky people and forced decisions. When the storm hits, mere survival becomes difficult; ambitious visions dissolve. Those who don’t directly generate revenue get left behind—thousands of such people, reduced to a number that dresses up the quarterly earnings report.
I can’t help but wonder: is there a safe harbor anywhere? Perhaps. But I don’t believe any harbor is permanent. Like choosing different forms of transportation, workplaces have their own accident and mortality rates. Companies are like sedans—moderate accident rates, varying severity, but mostly not fatal. Academia is like an airplane—extremely low accident rates, but when something goes wrong, survival is unlikely. Government institutions are perhaps aircraft carriers—rare incidents, but massive collateral when they happen.
But who cares about those riding scooters, who can’t even afford a sedan?
Going Home
I’d been thinking about going home for a long time. Not unable to—just afraid to. In earlier years, I feared the pandemic. In recent years, I fear visa complications. Who’s to blame for this? If I spelled it out, I might never be able to go home again. Those who know, know. I love China but dislike certain aspects of the “environment.” That said, even the “most developed nation’s” government handles certain issues appallingly—especially guns and drugs. Is there any utopia out there? I don’t know. But I’d like to think we can make the problematic places a little less so.
Epilogue
The blog post ends, but the journey doesn’t. This year I’ve started pondering questions I never used to think about: What am I suited for? What do I enjoy? What should my relationships look like? Where should I be and what should I be doing in the future? Perhaps this is just what happens when a man gets older :)