Could I Meet Someone I Like Along the Way?

00:00 I've noticed that I

00:02 sometimes become drawn to people for no obvious reason.

00:04 By "drawn to," I mean

00:06 I might see

00:08 a video someone posted,

00:10 or hear

00:11 something they said,

00:13 or read

00:14 something they wrote,

00:15 and think,

00:16 wow, I really want to know this person.

00:21 A recent example

00:23 was a while ago—

00:25 actually, quite a while ago.

00:28 I watched an interview

00:31 by a creator on Xiaohongshu.

00:34 The creator

00:35 was Johnathan Bi.

00:38 That interview was

00:40 with one of Alpha School's founders,

00:46 I believe.

00:47 I'd known of

00:48 Alpha School for quite a while—

00:51 since last year, I think.

00:53 Because I used to work

00:55 in education,

00:57 I've always paid

00:59 close attention to it.

01:01 And once AI took off,

01:04 I became even more interested in how AI could empower education.

01:08 So

01:09 at the intersection of AI and education,

01:14 I've explored quite a lot.

01:17 That podcast episode—

01:19 or rather, that interview—

01:21 happened to fill in

01:23 some of what I'd missed

01:27 when I first learned about Alpha School.

01:29 It filled in those gaps.

01:33 I'd followed Johnathan Bi for a long time,

01:37 but I'd never

01:39 listened closely to his work.

01:42 I'm strange in this way.

01:45 When I see someone

01:47 doing certain things,

01:48 I'll feel

01:49 drawn to them.

01:52 But

01:52 I won't go through everything about them

01:55 exhaustively.

01:58 For example, after following

02:00 Johnathan Bi on Xiaohongshu,

02:03 I wouldn't watch everything he'd made.

02:07 I'd keep a general impression in my mind:

02:10 I know this person fascinates me.

02:14 I might keep following his work,

02:17 but I don't feel the need

02:20 to understand all of his content

02:22 right away.

02:23 So it's a bit like

02:25 learning about someone in pulses.

02:30 Then I started wondering

02:32 why this pattern

02:36 shows up so clearly in me.

02:39 For example,

02:40 some time before that,

02:42 I was curious about someone else.

02:45 My curiosity started because

02:47 I also saw

02:49 an interview with him on Xiaohongshu.

02:52 It wasn't very long—

02:54 maybe one or two minutes.

02:56 But from that interview,

02:58 I got a sense of how he expressed himself:

03:02 his presence,

03:03 and his voice,

03:05 all had a powerful allure for me.

03:09 So I followed his account.

03:13 He's a model,

03:15 and he also

03:15 works in design and magazines.

03:22 I really don't know much about him.

03:26 But besides those things,

03:30 I know that

03:33 he and his friends

03:35 have a podcast on Xiaoyuzhou.

03:39 That's about all I know of his work.

03:42 Yet this person

03:44 feels so compelling to me,

03:46 so magnetic.

03:48 So the day I discovered him,

03:51 I posted

03:54 a text-only post on WeChat Moments.

03:56 I said I hoped that one day

03:59 someone would interview this creator.

04:03 His name is Bohan Qiu.

04:09 If one day

04:11 someone releases an in-depth interview with him,

04:14 I'll definitely listen closely, all the way through.

04:19 Of course, I've also wondered

04:21 what it would be like if I were the interviewer

04:25 and invited him on as a guest.

04:28 But

04:30 I'm not really—

04:32 at the moment, I don't have

04:34 an established podcast of my own.

04:39 I can't seem to find a formal reason

04:42 to message him.

04:43 So

04:45 I'll keep this plan with me for now

04:48 and see if I ever get the chance.

04:51 Speaking of Johnathan Bi,

04:53 I've realized that my experience

04:55 and his

04:56 are somewhat similar.

04:58 His field was related to computer science,

05:06 and later he studied philosophy.

05:09 As for my university major,

05:12 it was also in STEM

05:14 and related to computing,

05:16 but it wasn't strictly computer science.

05:22 Still,

05:22 within that technical field,

05:26 I was very much

05:29 the humanities student among STEM students.

05:32 That was the role I occupied.

05:35 During university,

05:38 although I was studying

05:40 a technical subject,

05:42 nearly everything I explored

05:44 was related to the humanities,

05:48 or the humanities.

05:51 I explored books and films,

05:56 as well as painting,

06:01 and other subjects in arts and humanities.

06:06 One classic example I remember

06:10 is when I was reading a poetry collection.

06:14 The book

06:16 included many paintings.

06:19 I had an idea:

06:23 I wanted to track down

06:25 every painting in the book.

06:28 I wanted to know

06:29 which artists and works

06:31 the illustrations came from.

06:35 So

06:36 I spent—I forget how many days—

06:40 going to...

06:41 going to my university library,

06:43 to the tenth...

06:47 if I remember correctly,

06:48 it was actually the thirteenth floor.

06:51 I immersed myself

06:53 among books on that floor.

06:55 I leafed through album after album,

06:58 trying to find

07:00 which one contained a painting I'd seen.

07:03 The art books would tell me

07:06 who had made each painting

07:08 and when

07:10 it had been painted.

07:13 So I searched all that information.

07:15 Sometimes, though,

07:17 I couldn't find a painting

07:20 in any of our library's art books.

07:22 So

07:23 I'd photograph it with my phone

07:25 and use image search

07:27 to find

07:29 the source of that illustration.

07:31 This was before AI became available,

07:34 so I couldn't use AI

07:36 to identify it directly.

07:38 But that experience

07:40 is still

07:41 something worth remembering.

07:44 I've forgotten

07:45 how many times I'd already

07:46 followed a sudden idea

07:48 and tried something like that.

07:52 In the end,

07:53 of the more than a hundred paintings

07:57 in the book,

08:02 I managed to identify

08:04 the artist and source for just over a hundred.

08:12 But there were still a few I couldn't find.

08:18 Anyway, that's roughly

08:21 what I explored back then.

08:24 Looking back on it now,

08:27 I still find it quite interesting.

08:31 It's one of my most vivid memories

08:34 of exploring the humanities.

08:40 Coming back to Johnathan Bi,

08:42 I've also wondered

08:46 whether I'll ever get to speak with him in person.

08:52 I really don't know.

08:55 Maybe I will,

08:57 maybe I won't.

08:59 But who knows?

09:04 I have a feeling

09:06 that the path I'm on also stands

09:10 at the intersection of humanities and technology,

09:12 where I'm trying to make sense of things.

09:18 I mentioned earlier that

09:19 I've explored many things

09:22 across the humanities.

09:24 Beyond

09:25 painting,

09:27 I've also watched a great many films.

09:30 At this point,

09:32 most film directors people mention

09:35 are ones I've at least explored.

09:38 With some directors,

09:39 I know their names and their films,

09:43 though I hadn't seen them.

09:44 One that caught my attention

09:48 and recently went on my watchlist

09:52 is a film by the Spanish director

09:55 Pedro Almodóvar.

09:58 I think it opened on March 20 this year.

10:03 I haven't seen it yet.

10:05 His films...

10:06 How to put it?

10:07 The colors in them really draw me in,

10:10 and so do their themes.

10:13 Then there are

10:14 certain qualities of the director himself.

10:17 To me, he's a...

10:21 How should I say this?

10:23 Let me explain with another example.

10:26 During university,

10:28 I got involved in soccer.

10:32 Once, at a tournament,

10:36 I volunteered as a photographer.

10:39 As I took photos, I'd observe

10:42 the players on the field—

10:45 how they looked and how they played.

10:48 Then something happened.

10:51 There was

10:52 a player with medium-length hair.

10:57 Wow, he immediately caught my attention.

11:00 That moment later led me

11:05 to some other unusual experiences,

11:07 also related to soccer.

11:10 Maybe I'll talk about them someday.

11:13 I'll save them for a future audio episode.

11:18 I mentioned films, paintings, and books.

11:24 Oh, when it comes to reading,

11:26 I've explored a lot:

11:29 psychology,

11:31 psychoanalysis, philosophy,

11:37 and, as I mentioned, education.

11:42 At university, my exploration of education

11:45 mainly centered on

11:47 my own self-education.

11:49 I paid close attention to youth organizations,

11:53 whether they had study tours

11:54 or physical community spaces.

11:56 I followed all of them closely.

11:58 Those explorations

12:00 raised my understanding to another level.

12:06 My exploration of film

12:09 also began at university.

12:11 That's also when I entered the world of music.

12:15 I learned about post-rock,

12:19 and instrumental music.

12:22 That started in university too

12:25 and has stayed with me ever since.

12:29 I'm also interested in

12:33 things like

12:34 how technology

12:36 shapes how we think.

12:39 That's another area I explore with great curiosity.

12:44 I often wonder

12:47 why I'm so interested

12:49 in both the humanities and technology.

12:51 Maybe it's because

12:55 in high school, we had to choose between arts and sciences.

13:00 At the time, I wondered,

13:01 should I choose humanities or science?

13:04 I'd always been interested in the humanities,

13:07 but I ultimately chose science.

13:10 My reasoning was very simple:

13:13 I thought I was too emotional

13:16 and needed some rationality to balance me out.

13:20 As a teenager,

13:22 I didn't know

13:23 what humanities and sciences really meant.

13:26 I chose my direction based only

13:29 on the words "rational" and "emotional."

13:34 So I chose science,

13:36 hoping to learn a more rational way of thinking

13:40 to balance my emotional side.

13:46 Later, I chose a computing-related major.

13:50 More precisely,

13:52 it was an engineering major related to computing,

13:54 not pure computer science.

13:56 I chose it because at the time,

13:59 I thought computers

14:04 seemed interesting.

14:06 And back then,

14:07 programming also seemed like a lucrative career.

14:12 So I chose that major.

14:14 My first real encounter

14:20 with computers and code

14:22 didn't come from

14:24 using phones or computers.

14:26 It came from a computer class in high school.

14:30 Our teacher gave us

14:34 some very, very simple

14:36 introductory programming lessons.

14:39 I think we used VS Code?

14:46 I don't remember.

14:47 But we did open

14:52 an IDE and write some code.

14:55 The code was extremely simple,

14:57 extremely basic—

14:59 just what a high school student could learn.

15:02 And that computer class...

15:06 I can't remember whether it

15:08 started in my first year of high school.

15:11 I really don't remember.

15:13 Anyway, that was the opportunity

15:15 that set me on the path to where I am now.

15:18 Ah, I've forgotten what I was saying

15:21 about humanities and technology.

15:23 Anyway, I think these two

15:28 will remain key areas I explore in the future.

15:32 I mentioned two creators I follow:

15:36 Johnathan Bi

15:38 and Bohan Qiu.

15:43 The last creator is

15:44 Cao Jiang Jiang Jiang Jiang (草匠匠匠匠).

15:49 At first,

15:50 I didn't know about her.

15:52 One of my young students told me about her.

15:55 Since I'd worked

15:57 in education,

15:58 I recommended some

16:01 sex education content in class.

16:04 Then

16:05 one of my students

16:08 recommended Cao Jiang Jiang Jiang Jiang (草匠匠匠匠) to me after class.

16:13 My class got her interested in

16:17 sex ed.

16:17 Then one day, she came across

16:21 a Xiaohongshu video

16:23 posted by this creator.

16:26 It was the pinned video

16:28 at the top of her profile.

16:30 If you follow her,

16:33 you'll know which video

16:35 I mean.

16:36 At the time, this student

16:39 had originally found it on Bilibili

16:42 and shared the link with me.

16:44 Later,

16:45 after I started using Xiaohongshu,

16:47 I searched for

16:50 the creator's account there

16:54 and followed her.

16:55 And I noticed that

16:57 her pinned Xiaohongshu video

16:59 is still the same one my student shared.

17:04 Hmm.

17:05 Anyway, I've said a lot.

17:09 It probably sounds quite scattered.

17:11 But the only two points I can remember are

17:16 humanities and technology.

17:19 And if I added one more,

17:21 it would be these people I'm inexplicably drawn to.

17:26 They're all precious to me.

17:28 I hope that in the future

17:30 our paths might cross.

17:34 I don't know if that will happen,

17:37 but I'm working toward it

17:41 and looking forward to it.