2023-10-09 08:53:27
Por Francesc Miralles, scientific popularizer.
The career of one of the most famous science fiction authors allows us to draw very useful lessons to guide oneself in uncertain times.
A few months ago, the posthumous autobiography I, Asimov, by the author who anticipated many of the situations we are experiencing today, was republished in Spanish. Beyond his achievements in the field of science fiction and popularization, from the career of this visionary we can extract very human lessons for our daily lives, in a world that increasingly resembles that of his novels.
The only way to change an adverse destiny is to rebel against it. Isaac Asimov emigrated from Russia to New York at the age of three. His condition as a foreigner and Jew, with parents who, without fluent English, ran a candy store, seemed to condemn him to low-ranking jobs. Ridiculed and ignored by his classmates, he set out to surpass them all. When others played, he read and trained incessantly. Becoming a bookworm, he managed to be the best student at his school.
No matter how good you are, others will always surpass you. After his school success, in high school he was no longer the best, but he was among the 10 most outstanding students. At the university he was passing the grade, becoming one of them. This gave him humility, as well as the ability to admire and learn from authors he considered better than himself. Only if you know you have surpassed yourself can you surpass yourself.
Losing teaches more than winning. Asimov says that he only once put aside his aversion to gambling to join a poker game with some college classmates, after promising that the stakes would be very low. When he confessed to his father what he had done, he asked him: “How was it?”, to which he replied: “I lost 15 cents.” His father, knowing the addictive power of the game, then declared: “Thank God. Imagine if you had won them!”
Friends are your crew to reach other worlds. After a childhood and adolescence of loneliness, his life changed radically when he joined the Futurians, a circle of science fiction fans, some of whom became renowned writers. This group supported and empowered him to write and publish his first stories in specialized magazines. In turn, finding like-minded people turned him into an outgoing man who, in his own words, when allowed to lead the conversation, “didn’t allow anyone to be shy.” He would maintain contact with these friends until his death in 1992.
Help those who are less lucky or talented than you. After the encouragement he received in his early days from aspiring writers like him, Asimov was well aware that his achievements had placed him in a privileged situation. For this reason, whenever he received letters from friends in difficulty he sent them small sums so they could get by. In addition to having a good income from his works — he would go on to publish more than 500 books — Asimov attributed his good financial health to the fact that he did not gamble, smoke or drink. In his opinion: “If you don’t have vices, there will always be money in your pocket.”
A person is worth the use they make of their time. To help his parents, Asimov had combined his studies with long hours of work in the family business. Being a renowned author, he continued to maintain that schedule throughout his life, as he relates in his autobiography: “I wake up at five in the morning. I get to work as soon and as much as I can. I do this every day of the week, including holidays (…). In other words, I’m still always in the candy store.” Since he squeezed the hours to do the things he liked most, for him it was not sacrifice, but “overflowing happiness.”
There is no more joyful journey than reading. The author of I, Asimov says: “If I want to evoke peace, serenity and pleasure, I think of myself during those lazy summer afternoons, with the chair leaning against the wall, the book in my lap and turning the pages gently. ”. Despite all the honors received throughout his life, which forced him to travel often and meet great personalities, he always related “calm and restful happiness” with the act of reading. Whoever made us dream of prodigious intergalactic ships knew that there is no more powerful vehicle than a book that comes to life thanks to the human mind.
Humans and robots
— The author of I, Robot (1950) applied three laws of robotics to his works on the subject. 1. A robot will not harm a human being, nor by inaction will it allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must carry out orders given by human beings, except for those that conflict with the first law. 3. A robot must protect its very existence to the extent that this protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
—What would Asimov have thought of the emergence of ChatGPT and the like? In one story, the author states that a machine does not turn against its creator if it is well designed.
— Always positive about everything that has to do with technology, Asimov predicted a humanity freed from all jobs with sophisticated machines as servants, which would lead to a new Renaissance.
#art #living #Asimov #Health #Medicine