You Can Look in the Mirror, but Don’t Mistake the Mirror for the Person

00:01 About Bazi—

00:02 Chinese fortune-telling—

00:06 I don't actually know much about it.

00:09 But since it can be seen as

00:11 a tool for understanding yourself,

00:15 I do try to learn about it.

00:18 I just remember that as a child,

00:20 my grandma told me

00:23 that not long after I was born—or

00:26 at least before I could remember—

00:30 she had a spirit medium read my fortune.

00:36 Later, whenever I asked her

00:38 what the fortune-teller had said,

00:41 she never—

00:42 she'd just tell me she couldn't remember.

00:45 She was already quite old at the time,

00:48 so whenever I asked,

00:50 she said she'd forgotten.

00:52 But I also—

00:54 I've honestly never asked

00:56 my parents if they had my fortune read.

01:01 But one thing I know for sure is that

01:04 as I grew up,

01:05 even after I started school,

01:07 everyone in my family—

01:10 apart from my parents and siblings—

01:15 all called me

01:20 by a different name.

01:22 It wasn't my registered name.

01:25 My registered name was

01:27 the one I used at school.

01:29 But whenever I went home,

01:31 everyone used this other name.

01:32 I found it so strange.

01:34 And then,

01:36 I forget who told me this,

01:39 but my registered name

01:41 was chosen by my dad.

01:44 Because—

01:45 apparently, I lacked the metal element,

01:50 so he put a character

01:52 with the metal radical in my name.

01:54 As for my original name,

01:59 um...

02:01 it followed my sister's generation.

02:04 We shared the same middle character.

02:07 But why did my dad change it?

02:09 I think it was because

02:11 he'd consulted a spirit medium,

02:13 who said I lacked metal,

02:14 so I needed a new name.

02:18 And my original name

02:21 was chosen by my grandpa.

02:25 Anyway, it was pretty old-fashioned.

02:29 So, about Bazi fortune-telling—

02:33 how should I put this?

02:36 I've always been trying to understand

02:38 what kind of person I really am.

02:43 And I've noticed that

02:45 after learning about something,

02:49 I'll compare it with my own experience

02:52 to see whether it rings true.

02:54 If it does,

02:55 I'll think, "Hmm, that's interesting."

02:58 But if it doesn't fit, I just think,

03:00 "Okay, that's all there is to it."

03:02 So I've explored many different tools

03:06 that help people understand themselves,

03:10 like Human Design,

03:12 CliftonStrengths,

03:14 Bazi,

03:17 and so on.

03:20 The one I trust most is CliftonStrengths.

03:24 How to put it?

03:25 CliftonStrengths—

03:27 I don't know why

03:28 it seems so scientific to me.

03:31 But the results I got

03:34 really did match me quite well.

03:39 Okay.

03:41 Back to Bazi.

03:44 Bazi is...

03:47 Let me think how to explain it.

03:54 It seems...

03:56 I don't really know how to explain it.

03:58 I honestly don't know much about it.

04:02 I'll talk about it alongside Human Design.

04:07 They might analyze

04:11 how I come to know things,

04:14 how I experience them,

04:17 and how I understand them.

04:21 For example,

04:22 I've long had this intuition,

04:26 or understanding of myself:

04:29 I can't

04:32 imagine things I've never seen.

04:35 For example,

04:36 when I was little,

04:39 everyone would draw, right?

04:41 Our primary school had no art teacher,

04:44 so we simply drew on our own.

04:47 But I found something strange:

04:50 whenever we wanted to draw something,

04:53 I simply couldn't do it.

04:55 But my classmates,

04:57 my friends,

04:58 could draw really well. So then,

05:03 I'd watch how they drew,

05:06 then imitate them to draw the same thing.

05:10 I knew my drawings were ugly,

05:13 but I had still managed to draw something.

05:17 So this whole process really...

05:22 "bothered me" isn't quite right.

05:24 It simply left me with this impression:

05:28 I had no imagination when it came to art.

05:31 I had no idea how to draw anything.

05:34 If I hadn't

05:36 seen how someone else drew it,

05:37 I wouldn't know how to draw it myself.

05:41 There are similar sentences—

05:44 no, similar examples.

05:46 Say we were solving a math problem.

05:51 If I'd never seen

05:52 how that type of problem was solved,

05:54 I couldn't solve it.

05:56 If you simply gave me a formula,

06:01 I couldn't apply it.

06:03 I needed to see someone solve the problem,

06:06 including every step they wrote down.

06:09 Once I saw the whole bundle—

06:12 the full sequence of reasoning—

06:14 then I knew

06:15 how to solve similar problems.

06:19 Another example is,

06:22 say I was entering

06:25 a field I knew nothing about,

06:28 or discussing a subject with someone

06:31 that I knew nothing about.

06:35 If I truly knew nothing

06:37 about that field,

06:39 I couldn't anticipate

06:42 what I might encounter in it.

06:44 Nor could I anticipate

06:45 what I should do when I encountered

06:48 certain contexts within it—

06:49 how I should behave

06:51 or respond.

06:56 If I really had to give an answer,

06:59 I'd search through all my experiences

07:03 and find the closest match.

07:08 A classic example is

07:11 a test I saw on social media

07:14 related to the subconscious.

07:18 It gave you several keywords,

07:20 then

07:21 asked you to form a sentence in your mind

07:24 and say the first sentence

07:26 that came to you.

07:27 The other person would use it

07:29 to infer—or construct—some meaning

07:35 about what your current state

07:37 might be like.

07:39 So how did I approach

07:41 this kind of test?

07:44 First, I would think of

07:46 the scene closest to those keywords,

07:50 then think about what things

07:52 had appeared in that scene.

07:55 If nothing similar

07:56 had appeared in it,

07:59 I'd use the keyword to find

08:02 the thing most closely associated with it.

08:06 That was the process

08:08 that produced my sentence.

08:12 Later, I asked AI why

08:14 my thought pattern worked this way.

08:18 That's when I learned

08:20 that for people like me,

08:24 my ideas

08:27 and thoughts

08:29 are based on things in the physical world,

08:34 on things

08:35 I can actually see.

08:37 I think it meant being driven by concrete things.

08:44 I forget if that was the exact term.

08:48 It means I simply

08:50 can't imagine something that isn't there.

08:55 This reminds me of something

08:58 someone once said—I forget who.

09:01 They said innovation isn't actually

09:06 something created from nothing.

09:08 It's a series of new combinations.

09:13 If you can take things

09:16 that are completely unrelated,

09:20 combine them into something useful,

09:26 or a tool that solves certain problems,

09:31 then creating that tool is innovation.

09:34 It's an invention.

09:37 That includes phones, computers, and TVs.

09:46 Strictly speaking,

09:47 they didn't

09:51 come from nowhere.

09:52 Their predecessors

09:53 must have had predecessors in

09:56 something tangible that already existed.

09:58 That tangible thing made you

10:00 imagine what else it could become.

10:05 Take our shoes, for instance.

10:08 What might they have looked like

10:10 in the earliest times?

10:13 I mean...

10:15 I think

10:16 everything that exists today,

10:19 if traced back to its origin,

10:21 must have had an original spark.

10:27 That's more or less

10:29 my new understanding of innovation.

10:33 I used to think innovation

10:35 meant creating something nonexistent.

10:38 But after encountering ideas like this...

10:43 I think I was reading a book at the time.

10:48 After reading it,

10:50 I realized, wow—

10:51 innovation isn't far removed from us.

10:54 It's actually very close at hand.

10:57 What matters is

10:59 whether we've seen enough things,

11:02 whether we can recognize patterns,

11:05 make associations, imagine,

11:09 and build on what we know—

11:11 whether we can take familiar things

11:15 and connect them

11:17 in counterintuitive ways,

11:19 then create something

11:21 that truly meets an existing need.

11:26 That's an incredibly powerful ability.

11:32 Now I've lost my thread.

11:33 I've lost my train of thought again.

11:36 I don't remember

11:38 what I was talking about earlier.

11:41 Let me think.

11:43 This episode—

11:47 where did this recording even begin?

11:52 Ah...

11:55 This is awkward. I truly can't remember.

12:01 What did I start with?

12:05 I talked about a book,

12:10 and then...

12:15 Bazi! Right.

12:16 Yes, yes, yes.

12:17 I started by talking about Bazi,

12:19 then about self-understanding,

12:21 and some of my past experiences,

12:28 then what they brought to mind.

12:31 Okay, let's go back to

12:34 tools for understanding yourself.

12:38 Some tools might say I'm...

12:45 Wait...

12:46 Oh, right.

12:47 I just gave all those examples.

12:50 They show that

12:51 I'm driven by concrete things.

12:55 I can't imagine images

12:57 that have never appeared in my mind.

13:00 And in my Bazi chart—

13:03 was it my Bazi chart?

13:04 Or was it my Human Design chart?

13:06 Anyway, one of those

13:08 self-understanding tools

13:10 mentioned that...

13:15 Hmm.

13:16 Let's take my Human Design chart.

13:21 My Head and Ajna Centers

13:24 are both completely undefined.

13:26 That means...

13:28 what does it mean?

13:33 It means I'm a very flexible vessel.

13:38 I can take in many different things,

13:42 transform them,

13:44 and give them an explanation.

13:48 But where did that term come from?

13:54 Or where is it validated?

14:00 I don't know.

14:04 This is honestly hilarious.

14:05 I wanted to find evidence

14:07 that validated these traits,

14:10 but I couldn't find any.

14:14 Oh well.

14:15 But CliftonStrengths is very accurate.

14:19 For example, it lists Learner and Input,

14:23 as well as...

14:27 what else?

14:29 Deliberative, Maximizer, Adaptability, Strategic...

14:38 What were the others?

14:43 There are ten in total.

14:45 I don't remember.

14:46 The ones I just mentioned

14:48 are all among my top ten themes.

14:50 And I've found

14:51 that I truly am good at these things.

14:55 But these strengths—

15:00 although I may have great potential,

15:03 but so far,

15:04 in my life,

15:06 I haven't put them to very good use.

15:10 It feels as though

15:11 I've spent my first twenty-odd years

15:15 simply accumulating things, without yet

15:20 developing a strong ability to structure what I've accumulated.

15:23 So everything I've absorbed,

15:25 or all the knowledge I've stored away,

15:28 still exists only in my mind.

15:31 I haven't transformed it into

15:35 something visible that others can see.

15:39 So sometimes I feel

15:41 that I genuinely know a great deal,

15:43 but I have no proof

15:47 that I can show someone and say,

15:49 "I really am good at this.

15:50 Please give me this kind of chance."

15:53 But I do know

15:56 that some of my abilities are very weak,

15:58 such as commercializing things,

16:01 or my...

16:05 I mean...

16:08 My CliftonStrengths report suggests

16:13 that in Relationship Building—

16:18 Harmony...

16:22 Is Harmony in Relationship Building?

16:26 I forget.

16:28 Anyway, my talents related to

16:30 relationships rank near the bottom.

16:35 I'm not good at maintaining relationships.

16:42 Oh, something just occurred to me.

16:44 Speaking of relationships,

16:45 there's an interpretation

16:49 of my Bazi chart that says

16:53 my benefactors—

16:55 or my network

16:56 and resources—

16:57 will appear through work

17:00 and social situations.

17:03 That means if I hide myself

17:06 and don't let anyone see me,

17:08 I won't be able to meet those benefactors.

17:13 This is genuinely

17:14 a major obstacle for me right now.

17:17 I feel I have something to offer,

17:21 but I have no way to prove it.

17:24 So a lot of the time,

17:27 I feel like I have no value.

17:32 Yet deep down, I have

17:35 this powerful conviction that I am extremely valuable.

17:38 That conviction has no clear source.

17:41 You have no idea

17:43 how it came into being,

17:44 but you know it's there.

17:47 It has always been there.

17:49 All my life,

17:50 I've carried this feeling inside me.

17:54 But my reality

17:56 has never made me feel that way.

18:03 This reminds me of a Korean work

18:05 I marked on Douban a few days ago.

18:10 I think it came out this year.

18:13 It was...

18:16 I forget the exact title.

18:18 It was roughly about

18:19 spending your life fighting worthlessness.

18:24 Oh my.

18:25 When I saw the title,

18:28 I practically jumped out of my seat.

18:31 It felt so true.

18:34 For my first twenty-odd years, I've fought

18:39 against the idea that I have no value.

18:43 On one hand,

18:44 some part of my body tells me

18:48 that I do have value.

18:50 But another part of me

18:54 tells me that I don't.

18:57 These two forces are constantly clashing,

19:00 colliding.

19:02 And this conflict

19:04 also appears in my Bazi chart.

19:08 So I thought, wow,

19:10 this is fascinating.

19:13 Perhaps one interpretation prompts me

19:16 to examine the struggles I'm going through

19:19 and the things I've experienced.

19:22 Before I had

19:24 these tools for self-understanding,

19:26 I didn't realize

19:28 that this was a struggle I had,

19:31 that I was going through this.

19:33 Their very presence

19:35 made me search through my experiences

19:38 and examine my feelings.

19:41 That allowed me to name

19:43 my experiences and feelings.

19:45 I don't know

19:46 whether those labels are scientific,

19:49 but at least I know

19:50 that in using these systems,

19:52 I've always treated them as references,

19:55 as tools,

19:57 rather than as my identity.

20:01 When I was learning

20:04 to use these tools

20:07 to understand myself,

20:08 I was actually doing it through AI.

20:13 And AI gave me a very...

20:18 how should I put it?

20:20 Something it said that I found very helpful.

20:27 It made this point:

20:29 it said...

20:32 This is awkward.

20:35 What were the exact words?

20:40 It was something like,

20:42 when you use something like this,

20:45 you can treat it as a tool,

20:50 as a means to an end,

20:52 but it isn't who you are.

20:57 Ah, the exact words were—

20:59 I think they were:

21:03 "Use it as a means,

21:05 but don't treat its result as the complete, real you."

21:11 This also shows

21:13 that when we encounter

21:14 tools for understanding ourselves,

21:17 we need to consider

21:19 what kind of object they should be to us,

21:22 and how we should approach

21:25 their relationship to who we are.

21:30 That is absolutely crucial.