Who is Kaori?

I came up with this name only weeks ago; it still feels unfamiliar when I use it to refer to myself, but this is what I would call myself in the period to come.

So who is Kaori? I was born in China and grew up there, finished college, and got a job here in Hangzhou. But you could find thousands of people who share similar experiences; there is nothing special. We only give names to unique concepts, so what’s unique about Kaori?

It’s tempting to define oneself as something understandable, like ‘head of product at xxx’ or ‘bachelor of history’, but you can’t know a person as fully as you know yourself merely from a title. In that case, we might define ourselves by passion.

Passions have lots of nuances in their materialisation, which makes them unique. I think it’s a reliable way to introduce myself, so I’ll go with it.

Sometimes I dream of unrealistic scenes and fall into hallucinations, for their strange beauty and infinite nature.

Sometimes I’m shocked by the talent and considerateness of my fellows on the net, but realise that not all my people have the same traits.

Sometimes I avoid the crowd to find an unnoticeable place, since somehow I feel that when humans are alone, they’re marvellous wonders of the universe; and when they’re together, they’re garbage that could be batch-processed.

Sometimes I feel bored by everything happening here—I’ve witnessed so many similar happenings that I can predict what’s next and what’s behind them at each stage.

There is a dramatic separation of this world, one is as marvellous as the universe and the other is as boring as death. It’s hard to imagine living in the latter for the rest of my life, so what’s the most marvellous thing in the world?

Imagination. After living on this planet for decades, imagination is the only thing that shocks me over and over again.

Creation. Creation is god’s work, but since we’re already on the way of becoming god, this is our work now.

Literature. When you’re on drugs, someone could tell you that you’re high because of unhealthy chemicals; but if you’re addicted to a sentence, no one can ever deduce what happened in your mind to make you recall that combination of words again and again.

People. You’re unhinged? There are tons of weirdos on this planet, and tons of zombies too.

Passion is good, but the world does not respond to passion or thoughts, it responds only to action, so what actions are Kaori going to take?

First, I need to find a way to live on my own since I’ve decided to leave my job. The income baseline is relatively low, but I wanna do this with something interesting.

Next, I’ll continue to refine my skills in web and software—creation on the web is still one of my favourites; the talented people in this area are unbelievably abundant.

Meanwhile, I’ll work on giving form to my imagination—stories, characters, drawings… all necessary elements. The starting point could be simply an app like AI Dungeon, but I aim at the world presented by Ready Player One, or virtual reality, within which all imaginations would come into their epic form.

And I’ll try to participate more in literary work; my first target is the Backrooms since it’s the strangest thing going in my view right now. Maybe I’ll start with translation since I need to throw myself into it more deeply.

That wraps up this article; I think this is a good first step.