I think the main thing AI has taught me, through all the time savings it brings, is that I’m not a very interesting person
Faced with a surplus of free time, I realize I don’t really have hobbies besides content consumption
I’m forced to conclude that I don’t have very deep friendships, and am not a core member of any particular community
I’m not very cultured, I’m finding, and don’t have abiding interests in art or literature or history or much that isn’t directly related to my work
I have a work-centric life, in other words. AI pulls back the curtain on just how impoverished such an existence is, by disabusing me of its necessity
Given the freedom I’ve always said I wanted, I’m at a loss as to what to do with it, except plow myself even harder into work, thus exacerbating the lesson
There’s nothing more confronting to humans than freedom
You seek a sense of security from others, hoping to discover your "true self" through other people.
Yet the truth is this: the root of your loneliness and unease lies in your failure to love yourself, and your refusal to abide in your own company.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
She does not see youthful recklessness as decadence; what is truly degenerate is my premature conservatism, evasion and nihilism.
— Ni Zhanke, Summer and Siberia
Perhaps you truly love me only when you love my frailties and flaws.
But when will that be? How much longer must I wait?
In this crumbling world, amid a history where human lives weigh no more than a feather, to love fiercely despite all danger and uncertainty is a great, extraordinary thing.
— Albert Camus, Letters of Love by Camus
“My dear child, you may believe whatever you wish, yet you must learn tolerance.”
“What is tolerance?”
“It means respecting others’ opinions.”
“And what is respect?”
“It is letting others believe what they choose to believe.”
— Tove Jansson, The Summer Book
The love we share is an ornament to an already full life.
I do not deny you have brightened my world far more. Yet it is equally undeniable: long before I met you, I already possessed the power to light my own way
Everything passes.
Having stumbled and struggled through this so-called mortal world all these years, this single sentence is the only truth I am willing to believe in.
Everything passes.
— Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human