These days people are suspicious of incoming calls on their cellphones. Unless the number is registered in your phone book or you’re notified beforehand that you’ll be reached by phone at a certain time of the day, many people, I’m not surprised to learn, will ignore phone calls from a stranger. Recently, I missed such a phone call. To my surprise, the unknown caller left a voice message. So I was curious to retrieve the voice message. Out came a half-hearted, stiff male voice, saying “Sorry, you did not reveal yourself to be human, goodbye.”
It does sound creepy. Even now when I relive that moment, I still feel goosebumps. But I was intrigued by the misstatement. How can I prove it wrong? Well, under the influence of a rational but curious mind, I traced back the phone number with the help of the powerful search engine spelt with the capital letter G. (No need for me to advertise this tech giant for free by spelling out its name.) I found the full version with a female voice of the voice message originated from the same phone number. If you want to hear, click here. If I’m not human, I shouldn’t have felt goosebumps, should I?
If I’m not human, I won’t be vulnerable to visible diseases and disasters and hidden post-disaster mental trauma. But hold that thought. Our applications and software in the Internet of Things (IoT) are also vulnerable to bugs and cybersecurity threats. These implications are no small costs financially, psychologically and socially. Do we need to buy health insurance for the IoT like we do for our bodies and minds? Will the insurers be responsible for the lifecycle of the IoT in which insurees—both consumers and manufacturers—have incentives to participate in a circular economy? After all, a circular economy is to achieve economic growth by eventually decoupling from resource consumption.
In my lifetime I may only experience the partial decoupling between economic growth and materials, but I’m living in the golden period of this transition that some historians call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” or in the belligerent pundits’ view, the early stage of an ongoing world war that is dominated by cyber and finance. I’m not an expert of war affairs. However, my reading of bits and pieces of “The Art of War (孫子兵法),” an ancient Chinese classic about military treatise dating from roughly 5th century BC, informs myself about a fact that contemporary mortals not only fail to apply the essence of this classic work and alike to modern life and livelihood, but also are slow to modernize our classical view, which is passed down by our ancestors without being examined and refined by state-of-the-art science. Haven’t you heard of a saying that humans’ brains are hardwired?
“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. (是故百戰百勝，非善之善也；不戰而屈人之兵，善之善者也。)”
—Sunzi, “The Art of War” | 摘自《孙子兵法·谋攻篇》
Indeed, according to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, the human brain wires itself to the social reality it finds itself in. This ability is one of the most important evolutionary advantages humans have as a species. However, Dr. Barrett also warns that every individual bears some responsibility for others because your action shapes other people’s concepts and behaviors. In neurological sense, we create the environment that turns genes on and off to wire other people’s brains, including the brains of the next generation.
So should I feel flattered because the robo call said I didn’t reveal myself to be human? That means I’m not restricted to human physiological limits and the hardwiring nature of a human brain. But since I can write coherently with empathy, I know this is a false presumption. Furthermore, my systems thinking enables me to visualize scenarios of the future more accurately. My op-ed series about the Covid-19 pandemic three months ago seems to have presented a valid caveat. It’s a known fact that we cannot minimize the adverse effects of the pandemic without a concerted effort from all nations around the world. The non-vaccinated herd immunity only makes our goal of ending the pandemic farther and more complex. Last Monday (August 30), the World Health Organization added a new coronavirus variant to its watchlist of “variants of interest.” The Mu variant, also known as B.1.621, was first found in Columbia. It is reported that the Mu variant has been detected more than 39 countries and it possesses a cluster of mutations that may be less susceptible to the immune protection provided by the Covid vaccines.
I’m also, perhaps, a human of antiquity. I take pleasure in writing cursive letters and reading books in three dimensions. That is, I prefer turning the pages, jump chapters, highlight sentences, and write notes in a bundle of bound pages that is protected by a cover. If I want to be a better human, I need to learn to love others like I love myself. Love Mother Nature as if she’s a selfless human with love. Reflecting on the blessing of Martin Luther King that:
“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.”
I’m inviting you to a free concert for all global citizens this September. Check out here for details. This global event reminds me of the bestselling pop song in the 1980s. If you were a little human like me back then, you must have heard this song called “We Are the World.” Fighting the Covid pandemic and climate crisis, we, the human race, have never felt so strongly and urgently that “we are the world, we are the children. [. . .] We’re saving our own lives. It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me.”
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(***This piece of writing marks the 100th piece in this op-ed column since its inception online. I’ve never expected that I could regularly share my ideas with the public. Oftentimes I prefer writing to and for myself like a hobby. I’m indebted to my family and several friends whom I’ve never met. They encourage me to write with my shoshin (初心), a beginner’s mind. Most importantly, I’ve never expected that my writing can influence prospective employers to whom I submitted my resume to modify their websites, online programs and new job postings. I wasn’t an ideal candidate for them but I was at least once shortlisted. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been easy for me to spot the similarities in diction between their website literature and my op-ed writing. Pardon my linguistic sensitivity and analytical specificity.
That said, the best reward for a volunteer writer like myself is to practice my communication skills in writing while helping others. Your success is my success. This sentence may sound trite but I’ve said this to a few acquaintances including my former colleagues and classmates. And now I say (write) the same to you, who find my writing informative and inspiring. If you’re interested in brainstorming with me virtually, would you like to connect me via LinkedIn? Sustainable development needs sustainable professional friendship as well. Your career will give me a new perspective. (Who knows? We might be living in the same neck of the woods, I’d love to invite you to my house for tea.) Thank you for your support. Please share the sources you learn with the underserved communities and responsible leaders who pledge to make a difference for the better. The more positive change humans make, the better-off the habitats of animals and plants will be. They’ll sustain our food chain and the health of Mother Nature on which we rely.
Writing to me is a journey of soul searching and discovery of my beloved Mother Nature. I read an interesting article in which the author argues that positive psychology is the end of economics. I begin to lean toward this argument because in my view, in order to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 to ensure health and well-being for all at all ages, human beings must address both material and spiritual inequity. As Robert William Fogel, the Nobel laureate economist once wrote, “Spiritual (or immaterial) inequity is now as great a problem as material inequity, perhaps even greater.” His words echo Viktor Frankl’s remark a half-century earlier. The Austrian neurologist and author of the landmark “Man’s Search for Meaning” said, “People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.” Ending on this quote, I’m glad that I’m a socially-conscious-and-environmentally-friendly human being through and through to share this 100th piece with you.***)