There’s a kind of curiosity you have when you’re young — the kind where you stay up late not because you have to, but because you can’t stop. Everything is a puzzle. Every new thing connects to three more things you want to try.
At some point, without noticing, I drifted away from that. Life got busy. I got good at executing, at being efficient, at knowing what to focus on. And those are fine qualities. But efficiency and curiosity pull in different directions — one narrows, the other wanders. I chose narrowing for a long time.
Then AI happened. Not the buzzword version — the version where you sit down with a tool and realize it fundamentally changes what one person can build. I started tinkering. Small experiments at first. Then staying up late again. Waking up with ideas. Building things on weekends — not for a deadline, not for anyone else, but because I genuinely wanted to see what would happen.
It took me a while to recognize the feeling. It was the same one I had as a kid learning to code. The same one from every time life dropped me into a new environment as an underdog — no reputation, no playbook, just raw curiosity and a willingness to figure things out.
What I think happened is that AI leveled the playing field in a way that gave me permission to be a beginner again. When the tools are this new, nobody has ten years of experience. The people who move fastest are the ones most willing to experiment and fail. That’s the underdog mindset — and I’ve been there before. Every time, I found my way. Not by being the smartest in the room, but by being the most willing to stay in the room.
I’m choosing that again. Not because I have to. Because I remember how alive it feels.
If you’ve been running on autopilot for a while — executing but not exploring, optimizing but not wondering — I’d encourage you to find something that makes you feel like a beginner again. The discomfort of not knowing is where curiosity lives.
I drifted away from it once. I don’t plan to again.
年轻的时候有一种好奇心——那种让你熬夜不是因为必须，而是因为停不下来的好奇心。什么都是谜题，每学一样新东西，就牵出三个更想探索的方向。
不知道从什么时候起，这种感觉慢慢淡了。生活越来越忙，我变得越来越擅长执行、提高效率、抓重点。这些当然都是好事。但效率和好奇心其实是两个方向——一个在收窄，一个在发散。我选择了收窄，一选就是很多年。
后来，AI 来了。不是那个被说烂了的概念，而是你真正坐下来用它、意识到一个人能做的事被彻底改变的那个版本。我开始折腾。一开始是小实验，然后又开始熬夜了，又开始早上醒来满脑子想法了，又开始周末自己造东西了——不是为了交差，不是为了别人，纯粹是想看看会发生什么。
我花了一段时间才意识到这种感觉是什么。它和小时候第一次学编程的感觉一模一样。和每一次被丢进陌生环境、从零开始、没有名声也没有套路、只有好奇心和一股不服输的劲儿的感觉一模一样。
我觉得 AI 做了一件事：它把所有人拉回了同一起跑线，给了我重新当初学者的机会。工具这么新，没人有十年经验。跑得最快的人，是最愿意去试、去错、去学的人。这就是我熟悉的那个”从底层往上爬”的心态——我经历过很多次。每一次，我都找到了自己的路。不是因为我最聪明，而是因为我最愿意留在场上。
我决定再来一次。不是因为不得不，而是因为我记得那种活着的感觉。
如果你也已经在自动驾驶模式上运行了一段时间——只顾执行、不再探索，只顾优化、不再好奇——我建议你去找一件让自己重新变成初学者的事。不知道答案的那种不安感，恰恰是好奇心住的地方。
我曾经丢了它。这次不打算再丢了。