Personal Growth

March 2026 Thought Notes 468 entries this month | Recorded: March 1 — March 31, 2026 Monthly Theme: Angkor Wat · AI Agent · Self-Narrative Core Topics: Gewu/AI (~53), Gewu/Cambodia (~38), Gewu/Angkor Wat (~23), Gewu/Hinduism (~15), Guanwo (~14), Gewu/Vietnam (~11) Daily Notes Archive March 1, 2026 Sunday (29 entries) Northeast China’s Direct Culture: How Labor Independence Shapes Non-Draining Relationship Patterns 2026-03-01 10:35:04 Women’s status in Northeast China is slightly dominant. ...

On the edge of a cliff, all logic fails. Only intuition can connect with the world. I wrote this sentence one night in Lhasa. Finding it now, I feel it can serve as the entry point to this review. Over these past fourteen months, I’ve been living on the edge of cliffs — almost literally. Encountering ice slopes on ACT mountain trails with drops beside me; every step at the altitude of Genie Sacred Mountain requiring all my strength; riding a motorcycle around the outer circle of Angkor Wat for three days with a splitting headache, yet not stopping. But I also know that those “cliffs” were more often internal. They were the cosmic-level monologues in one’s own mind after getting drunk late at night in a foreign country, with the world fading into the background. They were that night in Shenzhen, standing under DJI’s light beams, feeling like I hadn’t even reached the starting line. They were a certain morning at the end of 2025, suddenly realizing that exploration itself no longer provided enough traction, without knowing where the next fulcrum would be. ...

This is Part 3 of “Ignite and Settle,” and the close of the series. Part 1, The Quality and Time of Companionship , asked why we turn away just as we come close. Part 2, Avoidant Attachment , described how the “turning away” person is made. This part describes the other half — the one that looks opposite, and bites tight to the previous one at the bottom: the anxious. 1. Anxious is not “loving too much” Anxious typically refers to anxious / preoccupied attachment — not simply “loving too much” or “too sensitive.” ...

This is Part 2 of “Ignite and Settle.” Part 1, The Quality and Time of Companionship , described the act of “running when someone gets close.” This part focuses on its origins and repair. Part 3 will describe anxious attachment — its mirror, with which it is biting at the bottom. 1. First, get the terminology right In the Chinese context, what people often call “avoidant personality” is more accurately avoidant attachment or emotional avoidance — not necessarily the clinical “Avoidant Personality Disorder” (AvPD). ...

This is Part 1 of the “Ignite and Settle” series. Part 2 is on avoidant attachment — why we want to run when someone gets close. Part 3 is on anxious attachment — why we keep seeking reassurance in love. You can enter from any of the three. Read together, they form one map. Opening: A deceptively simple question Let me start with a deceptively simple question: in companionship, which matters more — quality or time? ...

“Software is eating the world.” — Marc Andreessen, 2011 “Now AI is eating software—and the question for the rest of us is: what’s left for one human, alone, in front of a screen?” — me, asking myself one night in 2026. Prologue: How Big Does One Person Need to Be? In February 2026, I ran my first complete overnight agent. I set a prompt, dropped it into Claude Code in a loop, and went to sleep. At 7 a.m. the next morning, what I saw on the screen was: 6 commits, 4 PRs, 3 auto-rolled-back failures, and a research brief I hadn’t even read myself. ...

“From love springs grief, from love springs fear; for one freed from love there is no grief—whence, then, fear?” —Dhammapada “Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life, so let one cultivate a boundless love toward all beings.” —Metta Sutta In the same scriptural tradition, love is both the source of grief and fear, and a boundless, infinite kindness. These two seemingly contradictory lines are the doorway to this essay. To walk through that doorway, we will first borrow five modern lenses to illuminate the whole elephant of love, and then return to the one vantage point from which the whole elephant can be seen. ...

Pascal wrote in the 17th century: “All of humanity’s problems stem from one thing: man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Three hundred years later, I thought of this sentence late at night in Lhasa, and added one more: They’re not sure who exactly is the one sitting in that room. Introduction: The 3 AM Emptiness For a while, I woke up almost every day at 3 AM. ...

My 2023 Annual Summary As 2023 swiftly draws to a close, my university life is nearing its end with just half a year remaining. A friend once said, “What’s frightening is not losing your passion for work, but never being able to find it again.” This year, I encountered many people and experienced numerous events, gradually shaping my world view. I’m fond of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and often reflect on my own state through it. I enjoy challenges, both in my work and hobbies (like hiking, cycling…). It seems I’ve successfully fulfilled the first four levels of Maslow’s theory: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, and esteem needs. I’m probably at the stage of self-actualization needs. However, it’s worth mentioning that while Maslow’s theory is hierarchical, human needs aren’t always linear or fixed. For instance, someone at the self-actualization stage might still encounter needs from other levels at different times. If a person loses their job or faces financial difficulties, they may refocus on safety needs like financial security and stability. Similarly, the end of a close relationship or changes in one’s social network might reignite a desire for social needs. Even in everyday life, when we fall ill or feel hungry, our focus might temporarily shift from higher-level needs like self-actualization to physiological needs. ...