TMT - Scene #6?

Hello everyone! Welcome to this week's update: Scene #6

A 104-year-old woman died right before Guinness could confirm her record of being the oldest person to skydive. About two million liters of red wine flooded the streets of Portugal after a distillery's tank was ruptured during transit. An Indian couple got married on a Boeing 747 plane as they flew from Dubai to Oman.?

Stray

At some point in our lives, we all get the feeling that someone has abandoned us, left us in the dark, and found a new path that we don’t entirely understand. We naturally look for situations and people that are a perfect fit. When you spend all of your time trying to hit that point of perfection, you risk losing what you’ve already got, spiraling endlessly, wondering why you can never reach that unrealistic goal of yours, and eventually telling yourself that you aren’t good enough.?

Here’s a quote from a YouTube video called “Stop trying to be perfect” posted by one of my favorite authors Mark Manson - “We don’t get to completely control our impulses and feelings and desires”. Now this can be looked at in one of two ways. One - that the people around us don’t have that control and two - that we don’t. In both scenarios, accepting the fact that we don't makes it a lot simpler to keep our minds at ease, focus on goals, maintain relationships, and in a nutshell, find the strength to move on from all the failures that we face every day.?

The world is only spewing out more information as time goes by. Information that creates a sea of possibilities but one that you can easily get lost in. For this very reason, I have found a way to curate the content that I consume. Think of it as a list of authors, creators, and other credible sources of information. Mark Manson tops this list. He is straightforward, relevant, and keeps things simple. I suggest that all of you watch this short?video?which I think has helped me clear my mind this week.

We tend to believe that if we don’t do that specific thing that we planned to do at a particular time every day, we have failed. On the contrary, a lot of research shows how we benefit more from slightly deviating from routines and breaking patterns every once in a while. Following something like it's the only way to succeed is equal to setting yourself up to crash and feeling like you’ve turned your mind into a prison. We are more helpful to our bodies and our minds when we accept that there will be days when we reach the gym at 6:30 AM and not 6:00 AM. When we hold ourselves to unrealistic expectations, whether that’s in a relationship, at work, or with our health, we tend to give up much quicker. The goal is to be able to tell yourself that it doesn’t matter if you are an hour late today and that you can still go to the gym and do what you need to do.?

On average, we see more results from the people who become comfortable with accepting their tiny failures every day than from people who think that missing a deadline or waking up late means that you have made an irreversible mistake.

“The all-or-nothing mentality is a way to avoid responsibility for dealing with your failures” -?Mark Manson.?

Cardinal

In this week’s scene of Cardinal, I wanted to talk about the elephant in the room to get it out of the way. Not to be a bore but it’s about time we discussed AI and how it is going to be a part of our learning and development as people. Like everyone says, AI is applicable in all of our lives, almost everywhere.

Personalized shopping, content, and healthcare are some areas that I would like to bring to your attention. Before going on to talk about how AI is going to change the world and how cool it is, we must understand that it is a part of technology like any other that we can use to apply, help build, or utilize. Some people create this technology, some implement it and some just experience it. Most of the world experiences AI, in different forms, whether it is a chatbot, the suggestions that the internet makes to us influencing our preferences, and so on.?

While there are people who are better equipped to talk about the science behind this technology, I spent a moderate amount of time understanding its applications in the real world and realized that the first thing I wanted to do was protect myself from it. AI is quicker, more reliable, and more capable than humans in many ways. Without getting into whether AI is an evil force or not, I would like all of you to understand what can be sold to you, what you are being sold, and how. AI plays a large role in helping people sell to people if that makes sense.

By itself, AI isn't any better than a glorified calculator. It is when AI interacts with people that we see how it can support businesses and organizations to pry on the reward systems of the human brain. Repetitively offering us new images, colors, and products that will grab our attention and if it doesn’t, AI will find something else that does. According to Gartner 37% of all companies already use AI, which means that we are now being sold content, products, and a lot more without the intervention of humans.

I understand that not everyone might be interested in understanding what goes into building AI systems, but I do know that we would all like to live as consciously as possible, not have our attention spans destroyed by algorithms and other technology. I believe that it is observable behavior amongst a lot of us who consume social media and other such content that we have become a lot more susceptible to impulse buying and the world of temporary gratification. There are some wonderful articles on the internet, some of which are very technical and some which simply tell you how to avoid being bait. I recommend that for the sake of knowledge and security, you pick some of these articles and read a little more about how AI is going to play a role in our lives.?

Coming to what’s possible, AI has opened up many avenues to explore especially now that tools like Chat GPT have become available to the modern everyday consumer. AI can work for you, against you, or with you. Being able to use AI and AI-related tools gives you an impressive amount of leverage over the market. With AI being at the cutting edge of technology, we must get creative with how we use our time and build skills that are unique to being human, so get started and start creating.?

Lexicon

Reverie - A noun that describes the state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts.

Naivete - A noun that describes someone when they display actions of innocence.

Untrammeled - An adjective that means to be unrestricted or free.?

Corporeal - An adjective relating to someone’s body.

Rhythm

Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer