Taipei, Songshan District, Dancing Elephant Wine Shop (跳舞大象葡萄酒專賣), 2nd visit. I'd forgotten how many years it had been since I last came here. These past two weeks I've been under high pressure handling Taiwan–US, China–US, Taiwan–Taiwan, Europe–US... all kinds of interpersonal communication and trying to solve every kind of problem. Line, WeChat, TG, Email, Zoom, Tencent Meeting... Rarely—even though I normally spend all day meeting people and communicating—I felt utterly exhausted and strangely didn't want to talk anymore. Human hearts, human nature, human feelings, human connections: such wildly different attitudes, from coercion and suppression to inducement and wooing, from harsh words to kind words, whether aimed at me or at each other. The day AI can truly grasp what humans are thinking probably still isn't coming soon. Constantly switching perspectives back and forth, translating everyone's words and real needs and goals, smoothing over content that was too sharp, trying to get each person willing to listen to the other and understand their position and why they say and do these things, while also absorbing all kinds of emotional venting alone—these two weeks have truly dra…
