Lately, ever since becoming a professor at MBZUAI, I have been getting a lot of generic emails sent to my MBZUAI email from people asking to work with me, telling me everything about themselves and their amazing portfolio in AI and tech related stuff.
What is amazing about these emails is that the word biology is nowhere to be seen. Since undergraduate times all academic work I've done has been related to biology, and especially computational biology. While claiming to so eagerly want to work with me, these emails make it blatantly clear the sender does not care at all about what I do. They are so blatantly insincere I find them almost offensive. Certainly, they betray a clear disregard for mine and others time and thought: I am not the only one getting these emails, the sender has invested no time and no thought in what they are saying to me, why is it reasonable to expect an answer which demands time and thought?
Most people in a position similar to mine appear to be satisfied with ignoring these emails and going on with their lives. For some reason I can't do that. I would like to engage deeply and meaningfully with that which life presents me with. Even if it is a generic email sent by someone that does not actually care. The fact that there is a reply button with a human being on the other end means that there is still hope. That human being could still be made to care. If I were to reply, it would probably be seen by human eyes.
And so I’ve been trying to do a little bit of that. To point out to the sender the act of alienation and estrangement they are mechanically engaging with. Don't they see? In putting no thought into what they do, they are wasting the only thing they have: their own existence! If we were all to live mechanical and alienated lives, doing things like machines and putting no thought and feeling into what we do, then what is the point of life?
I've taken to writing short replies pointing out something to that effect. But I feel like I'm talking to the void - I am yet to hear back on one of those replies. Spending my time, thought and effort with someone that doesn't care hurts me, and saps my energy. At the same time, getting these generic, thoughtless emails elicits such a strong inner reaction that ignoring them would be as sapping.
Thankfully, I found the answer: going forward, I will reply to these generic, thoughtless emails with this essay, in which I put time and careful thought. My hope is to wake up the sender to realize they are wasting their existence.
So if I sent you this essay: wake up. Don't do things mechanically. Don't engage in stuff you don't believe in. Don't pursue things you don't find interesting. Don't do things just because others are doing them, or you feel you “should”. Don't live your life as if you were an “object”, a victim of external forces. Think of yourself as the subject of your own life, as someone that does what you do because you want to. If you do that you'll see that life becomes much more engaging and much more meaningful. And you will see that people will start meaningfully engaging with you too. I certainly will.
If any of this resonated with you, welcome to the Human Dilemma. You will probably enjoy reading at least the introduction of book by Rollo May: Psychology and The Human Dilemma.
https://archive.org/details/psychologyhumand00mayrrich