Superheroing One's Way

I just woke up at 2am in the morning. It is pouring outside and this would be condition that most would like to have a good sleep. Me, having tons on my mind, decided to stay up and work. Yesterday, I had only one hour of sleep to complete the marking of a huge pile of exam scripts that a colleague requested that be returned to him in the morning. After my class yesterday, I went back home straight to have an hour nap as I was feeling groggy (my fear has always been the moments of micro-sleep while I was on the highway). This morning, I'm doing much the same thing, to finish off one bundle of scripts that another colleague wanted in the morning. I'm also having an 8am replacement lecture this morning and I doubt that I will return to bed at all. Besides this, I am just a day away from travelling to Krabi to attend SQST2024 and I have not quite prepared my slides just yet (though ideas have been brewing in my head). This is what my working corner floor looks like, not knowing what to focus on and hence the desire to blog.

It was during these conditions that I conjure up the thought of that one needs to be somewhat of a superhero to make it through life successfully, bearing all the struggles and pains. Holding these thoughts, I asked ChatGPT to picture me as an Asian superhero and it produces the following photo.

I thought 'I' looked too much like a Korean in this pic. So I added the phrase that I am a Malay and wear glasses and this is what it produced next.

This is just for fun. I guess one could use ChatGPT for better (scientific) purposes but for these, I tend to prefer my own creativity than ones which is assisted by AI (perhaps it is my ego in the way).

The superhero image is also the image that I thought many would like to conjure up in social media, showing one has better abilities than others, hiding away weaknesses and failures (more appropriately, the unsuccessful features of one's life). It is mainly a pretense to make oneself feel better, which on its own is fine for one to soldier on. Without control, it leads to arrogance, failing to recognise one's own fragility and limitedness. Right now, my concern is that my ageing has led me to be weaker in may sense of the word, at least physically, I'm no longer capable of working continuously as I wanted or even needed. In these thoughts, I can only pray that I will be given just enough strength for me to continue and wishing for a good ending.