The last three days without any posts can be legitimately attributed to the fact that my laptop has been broken very seriously. I was just poking it on the software level, specifically changing an NVIDIA driver. I did not know the new driver I chose was wrong, and more importantly, if I rebooted by computer after that, I would not be able to wake it up again. Now my computer is just a piece of metal, because when booting, it just shows a black screen with some dim light. I posted a question on AskUbuntu, but looks like no one knows the answer to my question. Now I am a PhD student in Computer Science without a personal computer. There were multiple stages of grieving after this incident, including panicking, extreme sadness, acceptance, work-around, and enlightment. I want to share about some enlightments.

Firstly, I want to recognize how meaningful that specific laptop is to me. Its name is Silver (due to its color). I bought it when I started college, and have been using it until the recent incident. So it’s basically the most important piece of material during my journey of getting my Bachelor degree. I still remember a night during my first year – I was in an extreme happiness state when I look at my newly purchased computer and using Notion on that. At that time, the idea of making the computer a second brain spreads throughout my college, as productivity apps were blooming with the promise of being able to run your entire life in them. I was looking at Silver, at Notion, at how smooth the keyboard was, how high the resolution of the monitor was, how large was the gain in processing speed compared to my old computer. I just love that I finally own a powerful device. That was one of the purest types of happiness that I have ever had. And that was a rational happiness – the device actually enabled me to a ton of opportunities, ranging from the first job (peer mentor), the first tech internship (Holistics), to tons of assignments and ambitious projects, through Covid, to PhD applications and Capstone.

Secondly, three days at school without a personal computer enlighted me about how important a computer is to knowledge workers like me. It is just a must-have, an ultimate enabler, period. For me, I use a laptop to do ALL the work, to spritually reflect, to entertain, and just to learn. Without it, I am disconnected almost entirely. I felt naked in class without a laptop to look up information and take Obsidian notes. I felt naked during conference calls because the iPhone’s screen is just too small. I felt naked when I have some work to do and I have to go to the lab of the school and retype my long password in order to access to a strange computer. I did not take the existence of a computer for granted, but I am still shocked when it goes away.

Thirdly, I want to highlight the significance of the digital world as a dimension in our lives. It is an absolute norm now to see two people sitting next to each other physically and don’t even notice about the other person. They would engage in some virtual conversations or crafted contents on the inter web, connected via a digital device like smartphone or laptop. Using a laptop is not that different from a pair of VR goggles and becoming emerged in a simulation. And this is a very ‘sticky’ simulation, because sometimes it coercively brings us back to it via notifications or just our internal addiction to the digital world.

For what it’s worth, the digital world is not a bad place to stay in. Giang Oi was the most vocal figure I am aware of when it comes to destigmatizing the digital world. It is not just virtual. It is has real impacts; it is challenging, educational, and as complex as the physical world. There are also other “worlds”, like your spiritual worlds, your financial worlds, etc. Each of them has its own rich dynamics, and they affect each other. That said, I think the Metaverse idea is not something ungrounded. We are already in a metaverse. Let’s see who get to shape that world, and get rewarded for that.