what AI will never do
On Vietnam's 50th reunification anniversary, I'm thinking about what makes us human.
This morning, I stood on my balcony in Saigon and heard fighter jets roaring overhead.
For a split second, my body tensed. Then I remembered: there is no more war.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Vietnam’s reunification.
Or "The Fall of Saigon", as the global news would have it.
I thought of a close family member who was actually here on April 30th, 1975.
Who heard these exact same sounds but understood them as something else entirely.
Different context. Different meaning. Same sound bridging five decades.
What struck me wasn't pride. It was gratitude.
Gratitude that what people were fighting for 50 years ago - something bigger than themselves - led to me standing here, typing to you, with choices they couldn't imagine.
As I shared in this documentary co-made with my Sandbox brother Salem, what we have now is incredibly fragile. Peace is never guaranteed.
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The dance with uncertainty
Like many people, I've been feeling, thinking and responding to a lot of uncertainty lately.
**I think what’s most relevant for all of us now is learning to dance with uncertainty.
Knowing what you can control, what you cannot, but most importantly appreciating that very uncertainty is what makes life alive.
This aliveness, this presence in the face of not knowing, is what makes our relationships, our choices, and our work inherently risky and worthwhile.
I remember sitting in my small apartment during the pandemic, on a Zoom call with Joanna Macy, this 90-year-old environmental activist and Buddhist scholar.
She looked right at me (well, at the camera) and said,
"Uncertainty is what makes life worth living."
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The questions that haunt me lately are deceptively simple:
What truly matters to you?
Who truly matters to you?
What are you fighting for?
These aren’t questions you answer once. They follow you, shape-shifting as you change.
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The lesson I am learning the hard way
Through all of life’s changes and uncertainties, I’ve always tried to follow one simple principle from the late Angeles Arrien, a personal heroine of mine, “pay attention to what has heart and meaning.”
This principle has guided my whole life.
Whenever I don’t honor that, I feel immense pain.
One of my deepest pains in leaving the PhD program in hindsight was that I felt I had forgotten the big picture.
As my dearest supervisor Nettra showed me through her example, I wasn’t supposed to be there just for myself but to be a bridge for the Southeast Asian people in the more Western-centric academic world.
It was deeply painful to realize I had acted from the smallness of my individual self, forgetting the whole.
Because it’s never just about me.
But I forgot.
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AI and the human spirit
I think about those who fought for Vietnam reunification fifty years ago.
They were fighting for and dying something beyond themselves in 1975.
What am I fighting for, in 2025?
For the human spirit?
For a more beautiful, thriving, effective way of working together?
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This makes me reflect on my ongoing concern with AI and people.
What has heart and meaning?
People have heart and meaning.
AI doesn’t.
These genAI can write words that arouse our emotions, make us feel things, create a sense of intimacy. (and many people, including myself, have been talking with genAI in such role)
But genAI will not yet stand up and fight for a country, for principles, for what truly matters.
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The work that matters
“The most important work is the work you do on yourself”, as my mentor Felix Tay said.
For many years, I feel shy about my work with people, culture and leadership.
Who am I to even do this work?
I’m too young.
I have mentors twice my age and 10x my life experiences.
I don’t even have that many leadership experiences.
Or big success to show.
Nor many concrete, measurable results, as the career game would want me to.
—
and I remind myself:
Your work matters.
Show up, be present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
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My real work isn't about frameworks or clever techniques. It's about showing up with humans and seeing all the ways I:
Judge
Close my heart
Dissociate
Settle for surface understanding
Instead of:
Staying open
Remaining present to joy, pain, and everything in between.
Inquiring more deeply
and point that out for other who share similar desire to grow & learn, to be a more sincere person and effective professional.
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Even something as seemingly straightforward as “making money” has deeper meaning: making money to support parents, to pursue the dream, to contribute to others’ growth, to be an example of what’s possible in this world.
There’s always a deeper Why beneath the surface.
AI can help you dig, but you have to dig from the materials of your own life.
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Last note: Today I’m reminded that we all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors who came before us.
Carrying their burdens and baggage, yes, but also their gifts.
Thousands of years of war history in Vietnam gave me the grit and resilience, but also the pain, the numbness, the smallness.
What will I carry forward?
What will I leave behind?
What am I fighting for?
I’d love to hear what resonated with you.
With love,
Khuyen
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