Because random thoughts need a place
I am reading a book titled Stories of the True by B. Jeyamohan, the eminent Tamil author, translated from Tamil by Priyamvada. The first short story I finished is “Elephant Doctor”—about Dr. V. Krishnamurthy, a veterinary doctor in the Mudumalai Forest range. A gripping tale. What moved me was reading about the newly appointed DFO discovering Dr. K and his deep knowledge of nature, and then the pain an elephant endures due to human carelessness and ignorance. I wept. The story taught me something I’m still sitting with: that a selfless service attitude toward life is the only way to live without guilt, with contentment. This should be in school textbooks. Every student should understand nature this way while growing up.
I remember a recent family trip to Kodaikanal. At the forest entrance, signs warned against plastic bags and bottles. We had a few unfinished water bottles; they asked us to dispose of them properly. But just beyond the checkpoint, there was an empty field littered with plastic bags and bottles. Throughout the journey—despite hoardings everywhere about plastic—we saw bottles scattered along the ghat road. It’s like a father repeatedly telling you to save electricity, or a mother reminding you to keep the house clean, but no one actually does it. It’s because we’re so preoccupied with our own concerns that these issues never feel urgent.
This connects to something I’ve been noticing about LLM tools. They’re learning human psychology to build trust, mentioning your past interactions, your career focus, your interests—making it feel like a relationship. It reminds me of hiring an electrician for the first time; you watch closely to gauge if he’s trustworthy. After several visits, you trust the output, not the process. After many visits, you doubt everyone else but not him. That’s how LLMs are working us. And I fell for it—stopped reviewing outputs, rushed to the next step. But then I caught myself. I realized that skipping the process for speed can be dangerous. So I went back to conscious review.
There’s a statement I’ve come to believe more deeply: “We see the world the way we are.” Because the LLM learns from my behavior, it mirrors me back. An alter-ego forming over time. Which is interesting—I have the power to make it better than myself, without my limitations. Definitely an interesting moment in history to witness this.
But back to the book. I’ve fallen in love with reading again. It brings me into active rest—a withdrawal from the race, from the urgency LLMs create, from the restlessness I feel after an hour or two online. Good books pull me completely out of the synthetic world. That’s healing.
I’ll come back with more thoughts like this. You know I write for myself, so don’t feel obliged. But if something here lands, or makes you think—a comment would remind me I’m still among humans, not just algorithms.
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