Okay, I lied.
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Saya here, when not snarling for the cameras, is supposed to be a step along the way to a robotic teacher. Not quite out of the uncanny valley yet, are we ma'am? And why did they make you with a lazy eye?
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My mind was wandering today on my morning run (yeah, I know), and it happened to settle on a documentary about Japan a friend was watching last week. I forget what it was called, but the upshot was that some people there are seeing mechanization as a way to alleviate their declining population problem, by replacing the service sector with robots capable of performing various tasks like waiting on you at restaurants, selling you goods in stores, being basic caregivers, and so on.
And probably porn, which really wouldn't be helping the root issue. But let's leave that one aside for now.
At the time, the premise seemed ridiculous. The whole time I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't realize the solution to their declining problem wasn't to further reduce human contact, but rather just the opposite. All this effort and expense to develop what are at best clumsy approximations of a paraplegic in the final throes of brain death. I couldn't see the point, except from a geeky fascination with the technology itself and the inevitable progress to a workable model. But as a solution to their social problem? I didn't buy it.
Then, I started thinking instead about how Japan has recently been such a useful barometer for the future; economic, political, and technological. Why not demographic as well? The circumstances may not be the same, but you can see parallel trends in most industrialized nations. The U.S. is an exception, but most European and Asian industrialized countries are seeing declining populations. I don't really care about the causes or effects, or even really the hard numbers here... I just want to extract a hypothetical situation.
Suppose the trend continues, and generally applies to all industrialized, moneyed nations. Increasingly, just like Japan, these nations will become desperate for people to fill jobs in the service sectors of their economies. Fewer kids with a bigger tax-paying population base, at least for the first couple generations, means that education should be pretty good. So they should be graduating from universities in higher proportions, ready and expecting to join the white-collar work force, with fewer and fewer people willing to be flip burgers and sweep floors.
At the beginning, of course, this will be dealt with by a low-income immigrant workforce and by the burgeoning elderly, much as has been the case in the States for some time. But -- fully acknowledging several logical leaps along the way -- eventually that immigrant pool will decline, as the source nations are enriched enough to reduce the need for emigration.
So if you accept that progression, one could see Japan as an example for what the industrialized world might look like over the next... I dunno, hundred years? Top-heavy, slowly dying off, with nobody to wipe our liver-spotted faces when we dribble our cream of corn.
I guess the robot idea is starting to look pretty good.
Also, I Â basically just typed this so I could test out how new themes handled embedded images (this one doesn't do it very well, as you can see). It kind of looks like I jacked up my WordPress install modifying it for this theme. Meh... whatever. It looks good.
Oh wait, awesome... v1.5 is out.
Oh wait, balls... it doesn't work right. I guess I really did screw up my install. Oh well, time to wipe it clean and reinstall/restore... a job for some free weekend.
Doubt, and yet…
I cannot help but admit I am having second thoughts about returning to China. There is the inevitable voice of self-doubt, and I must decide whether it is just that -- self-doubt -- or realism. Much like my initial departure, I am very much unsure of what to expect of the future.
Trying to recapture and gauge the discouraging emotions from that time has been less than fruitful; but what I do remember is that this creeping, paralyzing uncertainty was a hallmark of my thought process before I left; and it was nowhere in evidence during my absence. The world felt more expansive, brighter, and full of possibility, even when I was hosing shit of questionable origin from my shoe in a public bathroom, or watching a stream of toddler urine slowly wend its way toward me along a subway car's floor.
I am not so naive as to believe this is a pure effect of longitude; nevertheless, I think it makes sense to pick up the search where I left off.
Recognizing that the difficulties in China will be formidable -- trying to unravel the mysteries of simply moving money from one place to another today was a trial in and of itself -- I'm sure I still want to give it a shot. I'm just having to remind myself why a little more lately.
As I've tried to explain my move to a few of my friends in China, I've often fallen back on the phrase: 一个生活没困难，没æ„æ€ . That is, "A life without difficulty has no meaning."
And aside from some personal difficulties, some real and some imposed from within, I've had it pretty easy. Prestigious private prep school, solid college, never fearing for food on the table or a roof over my head, and falling into money (in varying amounts) from one job to the next, without really ever feeling like I had to exert myself overmuch.
This applies even after I went into business for myself, a decision I more or less based on being able to buy a big TV/monitor and deduct it from my taxes. I made almost twice as much money as I ever had before, and I spent half that year essentially unemployed. Sure, I worked hard on the projects I got -- I do have a decent work ethic, after all -- but I didn't have to go through any of the trials and tribulations normally associated with running your own company.
It kind of felt like cheating, really. As if I'd entered an "Infinite-subsistence-pay-at-the-expense-of-your-soul" code on some cosmic gamepad. It never really seemed like I earned that money. Possibly one of the reasons I spent most of it on gadgets and toys for which I had no need, and food/drink/gifts for friends (only the former of which I regret).
A friend once suggested I was so unhappy because I haven't really had to try for anything, and maybe he was right. Ever since I graduated high school, in all honesty I've really kind of been coasting.
Maybe I just feel like I need more of a challenge. Maybe I'm bored and want to see what's over there. Maybe I'm running away from something here. Maybe I'm stupid, crazy, or both. Maybe I fear being tied down to unpleasantness more than the possibility of never putting down roots. Maybe I'm just chasing a girl. That last one I'm fairly sure isn't it... but who knows, right?
As I said before I left the first time, I think the desire for more difficulty in one's life must be specific to spoiled kids with too much time on their hands (i.e., me). But, meh. So be it. If I'm going to be a stereotype, I may as well try to see how far I can stretch it.
Whatever my concerns now, I'm committed to going. Regardless of what doubts I may have, or the failing memory of those first doubts, what I do remember clearly is the sense of certainty when I decided to go back.
I am choosing between safety -- the security of a job here, and the likely possibility of at least enough work to keep me going for the next few years -- and an unfathomable unknown.
Given I have awakened to the fact that I am essentially free of all responsibility but to make the most of my time, I hope I will opt for the chance of discovery every time.
Next post, hopefully another journal transcript, and not a techie/emo rant.