My parents was around for the weekend for a weeding last week. I had a few discussions with my dad, one about him trying to understand what I’m planning to do once I’m done with uni, and the other is about him realizing that AI is coming faster than he expected them to. It was a damning talk for him, realizing what kind of devastation ChatGPT, StableDiffusion, and their kin could create on the unskilled. Sure they probably won’t affect the 5-10% that are in the top of their craft, but the devastation would be large enough that it would cause untold damage, most of those to young creatives who are trying to make their life comfortable for the first time.

For me personally it was a good conversation! Because finally I could convey the kind of dread, the kind of doom, the kind of void that I’ve been struggling against in the past few years. He has been dismissing a lot of my worries about AI and technology elite capture as an unrealistic fear, but now he’s aware, and I think it rattled him somewhat. It feels like glimpse of the end. Apocalypse. The rapture. For what it’s worth, I think dad will be fine. His time in Eden, grappling with the many call of the apocalypse should have prepared him to have the faith to move forward (I sincerely hope so).

Fighting through the doom is DIFFICULT. It is very hard to not succumb, especially when everything seems to be falling and there’s no clear way out of this. Not counting the singularity, there’s like the Climate Crisis, the Culture War, the War War, growing inequality, and each of them takes a great deal of work to not succumb to. I don’t think it’s much of a surprise why a lot of people in my generation have a very bleak outlook on life and is very depressed with these concerns looming over their head, on top of the more pressing day to day matters like the housing crisis and decaying social support systems.

I, however, think that there are ways out of this! I think these are solvable problems! I think we have much to work on, and that situation is difficult yes, but as with a lot of things, I think this is an imagination problem that if we put our head together we can overcome! Lots of optimism!

Said optimism is based on my faith of my abilities (surprisingly faithful that I’m capable of greatness) and those of my peers. But faith is not easy. I don’t have the kind of faith production that my parents have, not yet at least. Also the faith and optimism that I have must be strong enough not just to fight the already difficult to carry doom that I talked about, but it must also be strong enough to help all those around me that is being crushed by said dooms.

And here’s where I’m currently struggling with. I don’t have to help all those around me. I could focus on being strong enough to carry myself, focus my energy on what I want to see more in the world, and only help those you can help. And I agree! I think I should do this! But at the same time it feels like this path leads to strong elite group behaviours where you start feeling like you can’t help those that are a little reach away. But also I know that this is probably dumb youth wishful thinking, to be able to save everyone. I get that! And yet, if you have the capabilities to do so, shouldn’t you help those that are near you?

I know, I know, It’s very trolley problem-y, and I could go on and on and on about the ethics of this. It’s not helpful to navel gaze about it from a safe place, and energy I spend on thinking about these problems is better used to enact actions, because the world have a bias toward action. But, to disregard the part of my brain that thinks about these requires a lot of faith. Faith that I am doing the best that I can, that thinking about these things does not help, that I am taking the right actions. There are ways in which you can lower the cost of this, one of them is by not caring about other people to the extend that I am, and I think this is the path that a lot of people take. Focus on the people that you can help, disregard the people who you cannot. This is the path that I keep on being pulled towards, but I must continue fighting against this desire lest I fall down the path of Matal Mogamett.

The path that I’ve chosen to take is probably the hardest one I could have taken. To face reality, to have optimism in the world, without lowering the sensitivity I have to the world. To still care about the people who I can’t directly help, to still have empathy for them, to always try to help them, while at the same time focusing my energy on helping people who I can help, those that resonates with me, those that are moving toward the same goals as I do.

My faith is not endless. I still don’t have a large enough reservoir, nor a constant enough production. I am doing my best to work on this. I am working toward building stronger connections to peers that I strongly resonates with in order to share the burden, to have friends who I can share my burdens with. However my main priority is growing myself as a vessel so that I could have the faith to keep up my optimism for longer periods of time while starting habits and building space filling processes that help refill it, because to a certain extent, the path will be lonely, and I will have to go through it alone.

Every now and then though, I fall down that spiral of doom, and it’s scary. It’s really scary. Doom + acceptance of death makes suicidal thoughts visits and pulls strongly every time I fall down. I’m afraid that during those moment of doom I do something I regret. I’m afraid that people will leave me. I unravel the many things that I’ve build. Gaps that was bridged by optimism falls down, leaving me more and more alone. Productivity plummets, striking me down a deeper hole. I start doubting myself. I doubt my abilities. The part of myself that cannot defend themself gets kicked down, parts that hurts wreck amok. I’m afraid. I’m really, really afraid.

But I don’t think there’s any other way out of this other than through, and for that to happen I must continue walking forward. I shall take the next step. Carry the heavy veil of hope and continue moving forward. Be strong, strong enough to be as sensitive to the world as you can, to face the doom head on, and still walk forward.