A Piece of Your Mind
The desire to know what's inside a person's mind (TvN's A Piece of Your Mind); Nevertheless' Park Jae-eon; Reading people in The Road; Transactional Relationships; Newsletter's UPDATES; Dabai.
The thing I love about popular culture is that its ideas can be stretched to the ends of the earth. And no one would question (unless it is absolutely illogical to the storyline) because... it is a work of fiction, not facts.
Besides, the “what ifs” may become tell tales, or warning signs to humanity on its possibility of taking place in the real world.
And while scenarios are best represented with real-life examples.. Some real-life examples are ugly, haven’t resurfaced (most don’t wish to), and can tarnish a person's reputation.
In the case of saving face, and us humans from making terrible mistakes that cant be turned back, imaginative possibilities by pop culture can be a guiding light.
A guiding light that I want to talk about today is wanting to know inside the mind of a person, or 'reading minds', inspired by A Piece of Your Mind (2020) drama.
Have you ever wanted to know what’s inside a person’s mind?
No?
You would be lying to yourself if you say that.
Think about those times when:
A random person just followed you on all your social media, then went on a liking spree.
A guy/girl who you were attracted to suddenly ghosted you.
The business proposal you spent weeks crafting, ended up getting rejected by what you thought was the ‘perfect market match’.
Now, do you still don’t want to know what’s on their mind?
“Reading minds” was exactly what Moon Hawon—the long-time crush of Kim Jisoo— wanted in the drama.
He wanted to know exactly what made Jisoo sever their childhood friendship ties—the last thread that binds them together. Unable (stubborn actually) to move on, Hawon went to the extent of hiring a third-party to record Jisoo's voice, which is then incorporated into his prototype 'healing' AI device—think of Alexa or Siri.
The A.I. device is a representation of Jisoo’s mind. It extends one’s memory of a person by mimicking their emotions and personality.
To put it simply, the device is another Kim Jisoo.
Creepy? You bet!
The drama’s reasoning behind the creation of this AI device is to help the healing process of a traumatized person.
Context: Hawon is an AI programmer. His company works closely with a hospital in solving medical conditions via technological solutions. The device is a prototype for the hospital. To see how viable the device could be to the medical field, he tested it on himself first, which eventually became a tool for him to cope with loss.
But what's even creepier is that a REAL-CASE SCENARIO similar to the drama was circulating in the news two weeks ago! A Canadian man uses an Artificial Intelligence site to “chat” with his dead girlfriend—wait what? 🤯
Not that much different from the drama, yeah?
…Proving we would go beyond leaps to get 'a piece of one's mind'
And in the case of unexpected parting from someone we treasured, a piece of their mind (on what they think of us, of the events we shared together) can be the source of comfort needed for us to move on.
Never mind A Piece of Your Mind, just think of the hottest drama right now: Nevertheless.
Don’t you just want to figure out how exactly does Park Jae Eon’s (because such people exists teehee) mind operates?
Like why and what exactly causes him to withdraw from commitment?
There may be no AI device, but this act of reading ‘Park Jae Eon’ is an act of reading people. It is the closest to what we get to deciphering how a person’s true nature is.
If all the Yoo Na Bis in the world knew how to exercise their intuition muscle earlier and figure out Park Jae Eon's truest motivation, won't the world be a much better place?
The brain, is a mysterious place
If we can enter this grey matter territory, we can understand what they expect from us, what they want us to do, and perhaps why a person's actions differ from their words.
A person’s piece of mind can show their truest feelings.
However, the brain is a private territory of a person, and we will never get past the barrier.
To put it in visual comprehension:
Reading minds is like asking for the impossible
Reading people, and getting certainty, to a certain degree is possible.
Relationships that exist beyond the 'obligation' bubble are relationships with uncertainty. To have that piece of certainty, can boil down to the simple "I know what you want from me. And I know what else do you NOT want from me."
Knowing what a person wants from us is good. But knowing the extent of their boundaries, and knowing what do they not want from us, is BETTER!
While it is true that conflicts can be solved faster if we don't have to go to the extent of racking our brains out and decoding the ‘between-the-lines’ of their vague answers..
Are we capable enough to handle their truth?
Let's say if we do know the naked truth from a person's mind, are we that objective enough to keep our cool and accept their differing point of view? Would we accept it in its entirety or fool ourselves with “this person is joking”.
Or worse, distort 'their truth' into what we want to believe in—eg: the AI device.
What would you choose? To know the inside of someone’s mind? Or not?
I’ll go for the quote “Ignorance is bliss”
Some things are best not known at all, and best kept inside one person’s mind only (unless it is the secret vaccination formula that will save humanity from virus XYZ).
Some things, shouldn’t be dug deeper and should stay unknown because…
Not knowing 'a piece of your mind' brings more ‘peace of mind’.
Technical bits of A Piece of Your Mind
I am not quite satisfied with certain aspects of this drama. Some bits should’ve been explained better.
But knowing how hard the intersection between AI and the mind (both extremely hard topics to discuss) is, props to the production team for trying.
Three things:
The A.I device was somehow forgotten/ had been reduced in the storyline towards the end without proper resolution to it.
Claps to the cinematography
Current obsession
The Road: The Tragedy of One
The drama’s slow-motion effects—symbolizing the 'investigative' point-of-view (a form of reading people) from respected reporter Baek Soohyun—caught my attention.
Investigators (FBI, journalists, police etc) need the ability to read people.
I have high expectations for this.
Serious things
I just found out what does 'ngl' means. OMG—is this the repercussions of being back on Twitter?
Transactional relationship in this podcast
A relationship based on "I need this from you, and you need this from me."
Eg: I can provide you with my cooking expertise for your restaurant, and you can give me money for my livelihood. Other than that, let's stay out of each others' businesses.
If things can be done over an email (with courtesy of course), or DM, rather than going out for a coffee session, why not? Some people think it’s rude not to have an in-depth catch-up first.
Again, isn’t life so much better when we know what each party wants and know where the limits lie at?
No excessive energy is required to go beyond that, and no time is wasted.
The Far Insights has an official Instagram now.
I was on the fence about creating this. But word of mouth is needed for people who appreciate far-reaching insights to find this newsletter. Your share helps tremendously!
Recently finished
Kiki's Delivery Service
Cried buckets. Too many real-world lessons.
Tokyo Olympics
Gotta admit I didn't watch the actual games. But I played the Doodle Champion Island Games on Google Search. Did you try playing this too?
Something about these nostalgic animations and games, that's ~warm to the heart~. Maybe because I'm a 90s baby.
From Kitty City
Dabai season in Sarawak. YUMS!
& a very Happy New Year, Awal Muharram to Muslims out there! Hope you guys are having a lovely day resting at home with your loved ones today.
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