Writing Something, and Thoughts on the Scarcity Mindset

A few weeks ago I was already planning to write about work: what I have done, what I have learned. And, from GPT-3.5 to Opus 5.5, I want to talk in a piece about how I have experienced using AI, and how AI has developed in my world.

Let me first fill in the hole I dug yesterday. It is ten o’clock now. I plan to write for at least thirty minutes, wherever my thoughts go, and then meditate, or let my mind wander. I’ll arrange things like this from now on. This is the first step in overcoming the scarcity mindset.

I always feel a kind of urgency in my life, a sense of scarcity. In the end, every moment of life seems to exist for the sake of the next goal. So as each deadline draws near, the present does not serve the present; it becomes urgent because of the future.

Time is a strange thing, the cornerstone of all human civilization. But if you think about it carefully, you find that time does not exist. It is only an illusion resting on the movement of things through space. Illusion is a powerful weapon. Humanity has come this far largely because we share a belief in all sorts of illusions. But the more we believe, the stronger they grow, and the stronger they grow, the more we believe. Yesterday’s fantasies, once forgotten, slowly became truths, and in the end turned into real lies. And I live under those lies.

“I have to work hard today for my future.” There is nothing wrong with that sentence. But then today there are a great many things I must do to prepare for later, and before I know it, it’s late at night. I want to push everything onto today; today exists entirely for tomorrow, and suddenly I’m full of enormous enthusiasm. That kind of thing is truly frightening. The mirror image of it is wanting to seize every minute of leisure: after work and on days off, I wish I could enjoy myself while also studying or doing something useful.

Neither usually ends well. With the first, never mind whether I can do anything properly along the way; even if I do, I can’t keep it up. I don’t know. Maybe the next day I just don’t want to. Maybe because the starting point was a false future all along, or maybe because yesterday was so tiring, and I realize I gave up the present for the sake of the future. Either way, it doesn’t feel good. As for the second, it’s simpler: rest time and leisure time are never nearly enough. I so wish this moment could stretch on forever. I have become a short-termist through and through.

I want to master time. I want to cram today full. There is no tomorrow in my world, ha. I suppose that is a way of living in the present too. This is what the scarcity mindset does. Because time is scarce, of course I have to do everything I possibly can with it. Because it is scarce, of course I have to give everything today and see the return tomorrow. Because it is scarce, I can’t bear even a moment of boredom, and of course I have to throw myself into something fun right away.

But this isn’t real. I think boredom matters. Having nothing to do matters. Knowing there is a tomorrow matters. Only then, under low pressure, can we slowly try to find our own interests and wishes. Only then can we see ourselves moving toward a goal step by step. Only then can we… Rather than, because of scarcity, passing time unconsciously and then feeling that life is so dull.

Let me leave it here for now. I don’t want a perfect piece. I don’t want a list of things I must do today. This is what I wanted to say. This is what I wanted to write. Put some things off until tomorrow, and live in the present.

From where we stand, isn’t the world eternal? Our lives are not like fruit trees; they have no autumn and spring. So don’t believe it too much.