To Be Or Let It Be?
The present world and its rules.
Every time I start writing a sentence, it begins strangely with how I sat down sipping on my tea and had a random urge to spill my words across the internet. I sure do have guts, thinking people will discover me magically and I will, for at least a few seconds, become a part of their discussion. After all, screaming in the void does delude you; there is an imaginary audience, waiting for me. But here’s the thing. This doesn’t feel like a void. My voice is heard but communally avoided.
I am reading the book Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney. I started reading about a week ago, but made no progress. It’s not the book’s fault; it’s the way I drown when things aren’t going in my favour. It has a certain way of making me question my capabilities, and sometimes, my sanity. Anyways, this is my second book of hers, first being Intermezzo. I felt drawn towards the ‘introverted’ Ivan, mainly because he is sensitive and, well, introvert. It would be a lie to call myself the same, since there indeed is a part of me that loves talking. Calling Ivan ‘introverted’ would be wrong too. The catch is I tend to focus more on what’s missing. A connection perhaps. I’m not quite sure. But it is a similar feeling for both Ivan and I.
If I were asked to host any event, I would probably succeed in two things—one, forgetting what I was there for, and two, pretending like I am composed whereas on the inside I am praying the earth to open up and swallow me.
What inspires me to keep writing is, well, my life. It’s not dramatic, but maybe that is why I write. To make up scenarios and live in them before I slip back into my boredom. Not that I always enjoy writing about it. It’s just that there is no other medium where I can express myself well. I can’t seem to catch a break from writing.
In Beautiful World, Where Are You, Alice, a novelist, responds to a mail sent by her best friend Eileen, and there, she discusses whether writing systems can be ‘lost’. How history is still striving at present because of us. It makes me wonder about the present me, or my present writings. Or the past me, embarrassing photos stocked in either Facebook or Instagram. Writings captured on a phone with low quality camera. All over the internet. Still trying to find people. Still trying to hope it will land on somebody’s feed some day. This hope is a ridiculous thing. It only romanticizes the aftermath, not the ambiguous journey which does not guarantee if I will find that aftermath.
Maybe in fifty years from now (or less), there will be enough equipment for humans to decode ‘lost’ writing systems, if, that is, required at all. No need to put extra effort or labour. Certainly not with mine, if it ever happened that my language reached an idiosyncratic level. I would be tagged desperate and boring and all the data directly linked to me will be archived under a file named ‘The Bore Who Did Not Get Away.’
I am not sure about the language people use these days. But they sell a lot. They seem to drive people to shift their ideals, much like successful conversion in marketing. An invisible division is dawning upon us. Slowly, people are crossing that line, one they don’t see but believe because a superior system has regularized it. Beneath the metamorphosis, they find people on the other side of the line purely amusing. The people here are amused as well.
Maybe one day this environment will be successful in its attempt of making me cross the line. But it may not happen as well. I don’t think anyone has time to even bother who has stopped and decided to question the authority. During early ages, this was honored as bravery, going against the system and protesting. People fought wars. People wrote books about it. Now it is only a trifle. Not going with the flow? No worries of getting outcasted. Everyone has a right to their opinion.
And the more people move forward, you see their backs. But they don’t turn back and see you. Hence, a dichotomy is effectively established. To go or not to go? (Forgive me, Mr. Shakespeare)
For example, to the people who are training AI models, what exactly do you infuse in its learning capacity which makes a non-humane technical agent better and not us? (I get that it isn’t just about driving emotions, that if we look at the bigger picture, it is about performing advanced tasks in lesser time among many other things)
As humans we aren’t deprived of experiences. But we are devaluating them and allowing them to be synthesized with no memory. We are literally putting our minds out and making memories that will serve as a learning medium for a machine. The difference here is we have lived those experiences, and these models only control the consequences. It will run infinite simulations to avoid failing. So, does it make those models better while making us dumb at the same time?
I have no exact knowledge and thus, I am only presenting what appears to be bothering me so far. I am not here to write about the pros and cons of AI. It is becoming a part of everyday and that is the reality now.
To go back to ‘lost’ writing systems, I think someday or other whatever I say or write will be lost. Although there lingers a reassurance; it wouldn’t take much to find it. It’ll be easily pulled out like an excel sheet, circulated among many to decipher its meaning. It wouldn’t be time taking at all. And thus, everything will remain the same, except efforts. The language I still know and speak.
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