What does it mean to be human in a technological age?
- Aoyumi Jung
- Feb 6
- 15 min read
Updated: Mar 23
01 Feb 25
On setting intention for my new year, my new age, and reflection on the course.
Before the course started
Questions from YIP
Why is it important to contemplate on the brain in the light of technology?
How is consciousness shaped by technology?
How does the development of technology influence our togetherness?
How can we reimagine our relationship with technology and what’s possible?
What capacity do we have and believe we can have and nourish rather than let them go, or depend on technology?
Context of myself
Reflection in a community meeting (24/01/25)
Space and spaciousness at YIP. Hear and speak the unspoken.
YIP has stretched my comfort zone in viewing power and privilege differences in the world related to visa complications; working with people from new cultures and my creative capacity. The way I show up in group work is quite different compared to my past group work. I was challenged and learned to assess relationships whether to change or let go. I learned to confront conflict with myself and new realities with compassion and how to be of service for a community of 40 something people. In hope of building our community, I hope we could be present, make conscious choice to create and to relate to others. I would love to get to know each other again and see everyone anew.
Free writing about light in a creative writing workshop as I just turned 26 (19/01/25)
“What can I see with my full self in the fragment of light? It’s possible to capture all in front of my eyes, no. Not enough. I must activate all of my sensations, tracing back in time and space, yesterday, looking inwardly and outwardly. Bright colors, pink, aspects I am not fond of, but I must try to make sense of it. Noone stops me, I have the permit for myself. Nothing can stop me from looking for new songs, new light, hidden angles. It’s not about how much I can find. It’s about how deep I look into the process considering the gravity of space, where I am attracted to. Did you hear my voice? Elements, shapes, anything I may not be able to call from my known knowings. All noises can be loud. I am lost at times. But I don’t surrender. I know that the light will guide me to cool breeze, to warmth, to joy. I’ve walked upstairs, high up to mountains, I wish I could swim more effortlessly, to see the newness, like eat home-cooked food. It feels so at ease. How can I be outside, out into the mystery with courage and firmness in my root? You told me I am the dust of the star. Yes, I am so small and yet special. I still don’t know about the dust itself, let alone the stars or the universe. Remember to always look up, look out and inside, we are oneness. I will keep moving, in the misty sky, in the darkness, in the infinite horizon. As along the way, I would find surprises. Which corner I bump into will give me lessons, puzzles, curiosity. I might have limited capacity, and yet my toes won’t stop moving. They will rest and carry my body and my mind ahead. In this silence, here and now, silence of my voice, my soul is scribbling down thoughts, or my heart? I’ve had huge breakfast. So wonderful to feed myself with food. Get ready. Nine, eight, seven, six…Counted down for the time. Here I am. Been hesitant to be here but I came. Tell me again, look deeply what my heart’s feeling like? I must go beyond the instant doubt and hesitation. And realize the quest of the now and the tomorrow.”
My brief intention for the course
How does technology affect our brain?
When could humans realize that technology is the cause of fear? Where does fear come from? How can we own technology?
I have the most luxurious chance to be free from technology at YIP out of the past 9 years. So thankful and light! In my previous work and study, technology usage was a must. Every job requires different applications of technology, even outdoor education. Being in the outdoors required technology for communication for example. If I could choose, I would choose to live with nature and humans instead of technology. I had a fight with my parents over this topic because my mom spoke highly of technology for its being favored in the current workforce and our government. I couldn’t utter well that I will simply use it for the right thing, and will focus more on the authentic connections between humans and nature. Instead, I told mom I would not do anything related to technology, and mom assumed that I would be going backward given studying overseas. I’ve buried myself with work in ways that I didn’t even relax and play. I valued time by occupying myself with laptop-based task so to make my time worth.
At the moment, I don’t look at the watch that much.
Course started
Poem everyday:
Silence to light
Light to silence
The threshold crossing
Singularity
Inspiration
Desire meets the possible
Santuary of art
Treasury of shadow
Material casts shadow
Shadow belongs to light.
(Catch the light, author?)
We began every day with a poem of light, close our eyes to center ourselves, and reflected, seeing if anything is emerging from the night or the break. We meditated shortly to land, and share what came up individually and collectively.
Contemplative Inquiry
How to understand nature fully?
What is our relationship with time and light?
What is the biography of our perception towards light and time?
What do we see without light?
How would the world be like without fire?
How did fire change our relationship with nature and time?
Out of astonishment, we started by looking at our relationship to nature. I liked the the Greek myth story where Prometheus brought fire to human life. Fire has enabled us to create and expand. Personally, I don’t know much about Greek stories. It reminded me of certain truth expressed in Vietnamese folktales. Such primitive stories came out of raw perception and imagination. This may not be as accurate as the scientific concepts in this age of reason but it was viewed without any filters, without enforcement of languages.
In Vietnam, we have beautiful folktales about the existence of Vietnamese and why we have certain traditions. For example, Lac Long Quan and Au Co, fell in love and gave birth to hundreds of eggs. The eggs became humans who then followed each parent to mountains and oceans to settle. That marks the beginning of civilization in Van Lang, ancient Vietnam. We also have folktales of Banh Chung, Banh Giay. In the 6th Hung Dynasty, the Hung King called for the submission of the best offerings to our ancestors from the people. As a result, Banh Chung and Banh Giay got recognized as it is made out of delicious sticky rice, nowadays, are important delicacy in Tet, our New Year. Banh Chung, in square shape, represents Earth, Banh Giay represents the Sky in round shape. Ancient Vietnamese believed that the Earth and the Sky are attributed to the fullness of the universe. These are folktales that worship our ancestors who built our nation, culture and means our interdependence with nature. This spiritual worship is also expressed in other forms of storytelling such as in festivals, songs, and theater.
Thinking of perception of light, I thought of my favourite book “All the light we cannot see” (Antony Doer). The light comes from within the main character, the willpower to find the loved ones in the war, though not being able to see actual light from the cosmos. Often times, people without senses do have intuition, imagination and love, above their physical senses. The way they approach everything is different from the worldview of those who have vision then insert such vision into the blind’s alien reality which we do not have a clue of. We act as if we are guiding them, but they have the light that we cannot translate.
Recently, so many things have happened coincidently or driven by law of attraction. I joined and hosted a workshop on “Light and Shadow within you” right before the course for my love for light. So, I was taken aback by being asked to look into my relationship with light at the start of this course, Being human in a technological age. I wonder if my past work was to prepare myself to transition to this course that I had minimum expectations about. I felt like the Little Prince travelled to a new planet where we talked about the origin of technology. In this new planet, I challenged myself to view technology with kindness and newness while it was fascinating to have someone speak the familiar language revolving around what I care about such as natural elements, spiritual belief and creative living. It was fascinating to listen to these creative and philosophical discussions out loud from a stranger. Yet I felt exposed, close and distant at the same time, about the meeting with Elias, our contributor. Seems that this course comes at the right time for me to dive more deeply into anthroposophy as well as living without fear.
Contemplative inquiry
What is my relationship with technology?
How can I be awake to my preexisting perception of technology?
Can fire support non-mechanical thinking?
What is my experience of time, light, tools, perception, and the shifts?
How do I construct my memories?
How was the unity of human and nature before the evolution of tools and mechanism?
What might be irreversible in our reality?
Can tools be not materialistic like facilitation tools?
Can tech heal the fragmentation of consciousness?
Elias said that “technology and tools are the externalization of body, of inner faculties to do something.” My understanding is that it’s the manifestation of the will. We have desires and want to manifest ideas by activating our muscles, neurons, and body to achieve our desires or needs. Human beings are never satisfied, we reach for new creations, experiment, and progress.
As we spoke about the emergence of the future and how we can have the image of the future in the now. I wrote: “My community will allow the free flow of time, free movement and sensing of nature, and how we are in relation to nature, to live, design and act.” This is my imaginative future of a community I will live in.
Contemplative inquiry
How do genes affect consciousness?
How do we have higher complexity (consciousness) than its less complex structure (brain) that came before?
How does the brain learn to do something?
Who has to consider the consequences of tech?
How to expand my consciousness with the support of tech?
How can we be awake to the meanings of tech?
How is my subconsciousness shaped by tech?
What are ways can I use tech to hold space for real interaction?
What does it mean to (re)connect with nature?
I don’t think that consciousness is an “epiphenomenon” of the brain. Anthroposophic courses on health and planetary have shaped my perception of consciousness. My consciousness comes along the development of my brain. It’s not under control of my brain, or related to it somehow, to explore more. I am more than just my physical body. My consciousness was born with my mom’s, my ancestors, my past life? My brain is young. It’s becoming, slowly.
I recalled my past work on instructional design in Bangkok. The work expanded my relationship with technology and the human brain where I must contemplate: how do humans learn? How to utilize technology to support grownups learn given constraints of virtual settings?
Apparently, instructional learning theory and adult learning theories stress an importance to the cognitive load. I didn’t look much into “consciousness” literally. However, we considered how data is retained from short-term to long-term memory, how our brain is wired towards certain types of information, what learning style one has. We put on students' hats wondering if the content in the course was within cognitive capacity and attention span or not. Meanwhile, we wear the professors’ hat to understand their teaching goals of the subject matter, and construct a learning journey for students towards learning outcomes.
It was the art of designing learning experiences with an academic body of knowledge, “entrepreneurship”. As challenging as a few subjects such as business analytics and financial management, it was captivating for me to approach the science of learning, and explore technological tools to develop meaningful learning experiences. We put so much effort into creating “measurable” learning outcomes as anchor points of course design. We brainstormed learning possibilities, searching for ways to turn them into a learning management system. We followed the design principle called “Constructive Alignment” which is the alignment of Learning Outcomes, Assessment, and Activities. We often started out with learning outcomes, the ground to expand to relevant learning activities, and making sure to measure the learning outcomes with assessments.
At the moment, I don’t really believe that learning outcomes can be measured because of the breadth and depth of unique human experiences. YIP has seeded this belief within me, that learning outcomes are only tentative, but can’t bound the emergence of learning and growth of the learners. Due to the saturation of technology in my past years, I shift my focus on the holistic development of human beings in relation to nature.
Contemplative Inquiry
Are there any tech that doesn’t intervene in holistic development of humans?
Where does thought come from?
What is thinking?
Thoughts are past, finished, programmed. Elias said 90% of us are in the past. We must wake up, to think about thinking, to view thoughts and past perceptions. We can’t think freshly from the conditions of the systemic program. We will be the product of the system, or be in slave without questioning it. In “On Education” Book, J Krishnamurti taught that if we do not question the belief system, we will conform to the authority, and live in fear. The system reproduces same way of thinking, of doing, though highly speak about the next generation. However, the concepts, norms, patterns are imposing on the young so that we won’t be different, we have to follow the “knowledgeable” adults. All thoughts are already thought by the society, by culture, like trees, clouds, stones. These thoughts are passed on to children who may not exactly see what they are told verse what it is. “Our very seeing, hearing, touching, and so on- the categories by which we anchor what is real to us- are permeated with concepts particular to our culture, language, and personal history.” (Michael Lipson, The stairway of Surprise, my favorite book).
Contemplative Inquiry
What about thoughts that are like my philosophy, remaining true to myself, thoughts that are my present, and shape my intention to live? Are these thoughts?
What is the origin of word and language?
Who is the invisible self that leads our thinking?
Is the higher self physical?
Elias said “the world reveals itself as a standing reserve.” from some philosopher. Seems that the world and nature is viewed as something finished, frozen, not alive. Humans like to see things that are measurable like science. We think that our senses can blind our thinking, we do not search to extending our senses but like to extend materials. Elias shared a term called “inframing”, meaning that the world is in a fixed state, we are stuck in the past. We put on mask and become the mirror of the frozen world. Krishnamurti also said, images created by the past are root cause for conflict. We have the images of ourselves and the outside world so we are constantly in conflict. We cannot love if we do not pay full attention to the being in front of us, in other words, we are not at the present. Thus, there’s the separation of the self, and the world.
The thing is: we are the world. We are living in the world, and the world is within us. There is no such separation as the mind just decieves the reality. “With the insight of interbeing, we can see that there are clouds inside us. There are mountains and rivers, fields and trees. There is sunshine. We are children of light. We are son and daughters of the sun and the stars. The whole cosmos is coming together to support our body in this very moment. Our little human body contains the entire realm of all phenomena”. (The art of living, Thich Nhat Hanh).
Contemplative Inquiry
What is the world asking us to do?
What is the tradition? Which part needs preservation and which part needs questioning?
Why in the East there is such a strong sense of community unlike the West?
What’s the difference between social identity and the programed identity?
Is it the self or nature that lead to a sense of creativity?
On discussing identities created and stretched by technology, I don’t like to categorize them. I might have virtual identity but it’s as raw as it can be. What it takes is to observe when I feel vulnerable to be certain version of myself. It’s all a choice to show up based on respective relationships. All identities deserve freedom of expression.
As such, technology might just be the mean that facilitate our freedom of expression but never replace our true nature.
We did an interesting activity where we partnered up and shared with each other about a time where we experienced out highest creative potential. The first round was normal conversation, the second one required blind fold and the suspension of our judgment to fully listen.
My takeaway was that we are so beautiful when we are in a state of creativity. We shared a few qualities of creativity from the debrief of the activity. To me, it was the engagement in the doing, feeling awake more than ever, feeling selfless, forgetting my own existence, with all senses immersing in the experience, the creation of the unknown. That somehow attracted others to join, to be creative, and to observe how it turns out to be. Creativity power actually broke the images and assumption I had about others but turned out not even close to the reality. Indeed, creativity enables the expansion of the self to the infinity.
Contemplative inquiry
When do we begin to take responsibility for the disconnection in the world?
How do we understand the consciousness of the child?
Can freedom born without conflict and separation?
Is it the conflict for us to realize the importance of freedom?
Without struggles, can we still feel pain?
Journal Questions
In what way does the technology you are using now separate me from the world?
In what way does the technology you are using now connect me with the world?
What would your 7-year-old self tell you about the relationship between you and tech now?
How do you want to change it to be? What capacity do you want to learn?
In your dead bed, what would you tell how you view technology?
How can tech serve your highest potential in the future?
How can tech serve your community’s highest potential?
What is one thing you can do today to come closer to this reality?
Contemplative Inquiry
What is one thing that tech has helped you create where you are required to use all of my faculty?
How do we make technology imbue with cultural impulses?
How to use it to bridge relationships and allow new way of thinking?
What was my first experience of all concepts in the world?
How do we change the “brain rot” phenomena? When we are entertaining ourselves to death.
How to deconstruct the act of knowing?
What enters our consciousness? What makes our memories?
What are concepts? Why are things the way it was?
How do we begin to define our experience?
How are concepts inwardly related? How do they connect from their essence?
How do we take the totality of our experience and purify it by subjecting it to truthfulness of concept, stay strue to our emerging observation?
How do we unite right concepts to right percept? Or how do we stay fully in the present to think, digest thoroughly?
We explore these questions to see what technology cannot substitute us. The act of knowing is always present, incomplete. Being at the present is being incomplete and also full. If we are not at the present, we are unable to crack the concepts open, our mind will be distorted. When we are in control of technology, it is difficult to have fresh initial percept, or being at the present, attentive, as we might be constantly occupied with information, conflict, judgment, and mental pictures. Can we prompt technology to help us rather than let it promt us and loose our thinking, feeling and creative capacity?
I think there’s relationship between the concepts, the essence of interbeing. I learnt from Thich Nhat Hanh that we exist as interbeing because we depend on everything, on each other, transcending time and space. How concepts reveal to us is our own interpretation. We created the concepts as humans, rooted from our primal needs, or any need to design, make inventions to serve ourselves. With the understanding of such inward interconnectedness, humans are one step further distinct from technology.
Final Contemplative Inquiry
How can we wake up everyday and see everything anew?
How can we be aware to the power we hold with tech, to be creative?
How to allow and facilitate tech creators to look inward?
How to become more sensitive and awake from being numb?
How do we participate in society and at the same time come to our inner light, constantly reflect and connect to the source that keep us alive?
Human beings are always becoming. A healthy soul is a soul that is touched by the world instead of believing in dead concepts. (Rudorf Steiner). Therefore, we must rethink, reframe what’s already concluded. Or there might be no conclusion, because we are always becoming. In my personal initiative, I would like to practice living anew principle to expand my creative capacity inspired by Stairway of Surprise book written as follow:
How can I see the world as an unobstructed thing, putting aside prejudice and minor perception formed by our culture, language and upbringing? There are no concepts such as stone, leaves, water bottle or paper! Express gratitude in freedom. Be grateful to fully focus on the present, since that full attention allows us to see what we have received from others in that moment. I would practice to thank events and people that are yet to come in the future. Carry on my belief in the kindness of those who I have met and will meet in my life. Life can be so mysterious, and I can become a dump wonderer wearing an open heart and mind. Be open to switch off all past recollections and see all kinds of expressions that the world offers. Expressions beyond words, colors, movement.
My journal at the end of day 4:
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