I moved more than ten years of blog archives into my local "second brain" (AI).
By doing so, it now proposes drafts in a tone that sounds like me.
Like an influencer, I could chase cost- and time-efficiency, automate and post as-is — but even if it's only social media, I can't bring myself to do that.
So I post AI drafts after editing them by hand.
And yet there's that feeling-out — "somehow not quite right", "that's embellished", "is this the colouring I want?" — the same as with a real editor. And then, "well, fine", and I give the OK.
Now, the main part.
After the migration, on a whim, I asked the AI: "overlay my past diaries for June 11th with the actual weather data of the time".
The analysis that came back was fascinating.
11 June 2015 — fumbling through my first natural-farming season, planting rice with my family in the rain.
The data records no precipitation, yet the diary says "the rain got heavier and we retreated" — we had felt on our skin the localised rain peculiar to the mountain's edge.
2017 — a record of me puzzled that "it's the rainy season but it keeps being sunny and the field won't hold water", and my small daughter laughing, covered in mud. The actual data — 0.0 mm of rain, a high of 24°C — backs up the worry and the heat with numbers.
2021 was a midsummer day with highs near 30°C. The trial and error of "the green algae is spreading, so I'm sticking in pine branches", and the scream of a frog heard from ten metres away.
And today in 2024, under harsh sun, worrying about tadpoles short of water, and praying for rain: "you're so close to becoming frogs".
Mere "old diaries", once the years accumulate and the real temperatures and weather come alongside, begin to take on a new meaning: "a record of dialogue between nature and people".
Digital data, and the bodily feel of touching soil.
When these two cross, there's a sense of my past steps coming back to life as a "living asset" that supports today's life and choices.
The coexistence of technology and tradition.
Reading "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt,
I feel this strongly too.
AI and technology are tools.
Am I being used by the tool? I ask myself, and keep moving my hands and feet so as not to lose sight of it.
Without objectifying others, as Hannah Arendt pointed out;
without being selfish, as Confucius taught.
The filter bubbles and echo chambers of social media invite us into selfish individualism and blind us,
but the weather and nature pull me back to reality.
(Hideo)