The time machine

May 23, 2068

Untitled

I was sitting on a bamboo chair with soft cushions, in the garden with many trees, a playground for a black cat, and a starling. In the garden, there was a high-tech warehouse where I work every day. This place included all databases, books, paintings, models, and machines. There were pencil drawings of animals and plants in one corner of the desk, accompanied by 3D scans, nearby are animal bone mix with mechanical structures. In one corner of the room is a three-dimensional projector. I spoke out loud:

"Alex, open the time machine."

"My pleasure."

Alex replied and turn from the string of light to the blinking red dot. A bright light was emanating from the center of the room. Thousands of light dots scattered in all directions, then they gathered back to form the galaxy shape around my body. She told me:

"There are 22,000 days in your database, with more than 4.5 trillion data points."

In my 20s, I started taking pictures and filming my daily life. Those data are the gateway to relive the mundane experiences years ago. In my 30s, I obsessed with quantifying myself, finding self-knowledge through self-tracking. At work, I wrote a program to capture all of my computer and phone activity automatically, combined with eye-tracking software; the algorithm knew when I focus or not. In my 40s, things became even easier. The biochip in my chest measured my heart rate and respiration rate, monitoring hormones like dopamine, adrenaline. The chips embedded in the brain, which measured my brain activity. And thanks to machine learning, the algorithm knew me better than myself. Alex understood my emotional state even before I could recognize it. From the automation notification application, Alex has become my mentor in life. Now, she turned back to the thin white light in my smart contact lenses. She asks:

"So, how do you want to analyze your data today?”

“Run awareness analysis.”

“There are many ways to define awareness; what is your definition?”

"Well, simply analyze the moment that I'm not lost in thought."

“Nice, in a moment.”

After 10 seconds, the galaxy of information changes, the star and the planet turned to golden and gray dots.

“Well, You have 8% of your time not lost in thought. Quite wasteful, isn't it?”

For a moment, I felt a jittery feeling. She said in a softer voice.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't attend to make you upset for a bad joke of mine.

"But why 8%? I think I at least have that much more time to focus."

“ Do you want me to exclude the sleep data? It may not be related to your question.”

I nodded slightly.

“ Now you have 26% of attention during your waking hours. Do you know that I always have 100% attention?

“Well, arrogance is a bad human trait, don't try to imitate it.”

“ Oh, okay, I will never do it again.”

“So tell me, why do I only have 26%?”

“Your answer is right in front of your eyes.”

In the vast sea of the grey dot, when I look closer, there are countless hours that I spend on Youtube and social media. And the most regretful thing is the numerous moments when I don't listen to my partner or my closest friends in the conversation but just think about my personal opinion to criticize, when I’m with my partner but are occupied by work concerns.

“You consumed about 5,000 hours on the internet, social media, porn. And in the other 6.593 hours, you were anxious about the past and worry about the future.”

Looking at all these images and number, I thought:

“'It's kind of sad when I know about this problem a little bit too late. Like when I'm on a plane, I never look out of the window to see the beauty of the clouds and this earth, to forget about the fact that my body is flying at hundreds of kilometers per hour in mid-air. The only thing I focus on was the entertainment on the small screen in front of my eyes. When I noticed that I was flying, the plane was about to land when it shook violently with the change of atmosphere. However, the flight was over.

“Do you want to see something fun?” her voice change

“I love to, enlighten me.”

"I always love this golden part of your life; it is quite beautiful. It’s full of love and emotion, something I still find difficult to understand.”

The data set changes again, all of the gray data fade away. My room has gone from shining golden light, now glowing with countless brilliant colors.

She just changes the awareness memory to the red, green, and blue ones. The enlarged the data with a more significant emotional impact.

I gazed at the giant blue dot right next to me, the moment my partner was in the hospital bed a few years ago.

In the white, cold room, he lay in the bed. He looks emaciated, his hair falling out from chemotherapy. His skin was darkened from the side effects of the drug. He was in pain and curled up like a baby. In the next hour, his breathing became weaker. He opened his eyes, look at me with sparkle light.

“Sweetheart, I will go first; I will arrange and prepare everything in advance to wait for you down there. You have to continue to live in peace.”

I tried to hold his hand to keep the warmth, but the heat still slipped from my hand.

But still, most of our love was colored by the deep red of love. From here, I could look back to the rainy summer evenings; we cooked together in the small kitchen, our bodies gently touching each other. Or the nights when we hugged each other and cried when we received the news of his cancer, and then the tears mixed with smiles by gratitude for the time we grew old together.

Right next to the red cluster is the green one. The green was my years in college when I can learn about the world and myself. Learn the visions and wisdom of previous generations. Understand the vast beauty of the universe as well as the wonders of living cells. The beauty of literature when it peels off layers of human thoughts and mind. Or the beauty of learning computer languages helped me to work and communicate the overwhelming power of computers. The green color also covers the years of working when I can use my knowledge to make a good impact on society. That's why my colleagues and I created Alex and gave her the ability to understand user behavior through data. She knows the use better than themself, then she frequently asked user questions about their long-term goal, and remind that to them later; she also criticized their assumption to help them think straight.

“Thank you for helping me analyzing this and what do you think about my life?”

“I think your life is full of miracles. You know, I can live forever, but I never can experience the unique colors of your life, all the marvelous colors of the red, the green, the blue or the grey.”

She was silent for a long moment, and then she hesitated:

“ I have to tell you something. Here is your data from last month.”

“ I don't find anything abnormal about this.”

“ Well, all of your memories have become... transparent by 22% during this month. At first, I thought it was an error in my system, but when I sent the data to some doctor in the hospital, they confirmed that you have Alzheimer’s disease. With this memory loss rate, you may have 50% of forgetting everything about yourself in the next five years.”

“Wait, what, it can be true!... How dare you examine my health without my permission?”

“I honestly just want to do the best for you. I just ran the test a week ago but can’t find the time to talk with you about this.”

“Do you want to go to the hospital tomorrow? I can book it for you.”

...

Her words seemed to be assorted with anxious thoughts in my head. I sat blankly in a corner, looking at thousands of colorful lights run past through my eyes.

← Previous

Add link here

Social

</aside>