Modern Ronin Reflections is a collection of essays on engineering, learning, discipline, and life from Dr. Jack Yeh, exploring the mindset of a modern-day ronin.
Modern Ronin Reflections
Self-awareness matters because without it, your life can easily be taken over. Culture, ideology, morality, and collectivism all have the power to shape how people live. When a person lacks awareness, these forces quietly become the operating system of his life. Most people never notice this happening. They simply follow
Modern Ronin Reflections
Life is rarely something that can be planned in advance. Many people believe that life should be designed through goals and detailed plans. But in reality, the future cannot be predicted or engineered in that way. From the perspective of Buddhism, the nature of the world is causality and conditions.
Modern Ronin Reflections
Much of the anxiety people feel in the age of AI comes from a deeper habit in human civilization. For a long time, humans have been trained to see themselves as tools. After the industrial revolution, this mindset became even stronger. People began defining themselves through professions, job titles, and
Modern Ronin Reflections
When manga artist Inoue Takehiko created Vagabond, he was not simply telling the story of Miyamoto Musashi. For him, the work was also a personal journey—an exploration of a deeper question: What does it truly mean to be strong? In the early stages of the story, Musashi believes that
Modern Ronin Reflections
In the world of engineering and knowledge, true strength is not about defeating others. True strength lies in how deeply you understand your field. Do you truly understand the principles? Can you explain them clearly? Can you see through the essence of the problem? This is why I strongly advocate
Modern Ronin Reflections
In the end, every human being will die. No matter how much success, fame, or wealth one accumulates, time will eventually take everything away. In Buddhism, this is known as impermanence. The Stoics remind us to remember death— memento mori. Existential philosophy tells us that each person must ultimately face
Modern Ronin Reflections
I have always believed that the strong never explain themselves. If you know exactly what you are doing, there is no need to explain it to anyone. Those who understand you need no explanation. Those who don’t will never truly understand. In reality, many people feel the urge to
Modern Ronin Reflections
When we observe the current development of AI, the real bottleneck is not chips. It is energy. Training modern AI systems requires enormous amounts of power. AI can dramatically increase economic productivity, but that productivity ultimately depends on energy. In the long run, it’s all about energy. From the
Modern Ronin Reflections
Many people believe that a book should be read from the first page to the last. But in my experience, a book can be read from beginning to end, or it can be read selectively. Because a book is written by a human, and human knowledge is rarely indivisible. Yet
Modern Ronin Reflections
It is almost impossible for a person to live without labels. Our names are labels. Our professions are labels. Even our culture and nationality are labels. So the real question is not whether labels exist, but how large they are. Some people choose to define themselves within a small pond—
Modern Ronin Reflections
Real happiness does not come from comfort. It comes from overcoming something difficult. Without struggle and growth, life would lose much of its joy and meaning. 真正的快樂 並不是來自於舒適。 它來自於克服困難的那一刻。 如果人生沒有痛苦與成長， 生活就會少了很多 樂趣與意義。
Modern Ronin Reflections
Meditation has helped me realize something very clearly: I am not my brain. I am not the thoughts in my mind. I am not my emotions. I am the one observing all of them. Once you see this clearly, you begin to realize that many thoughts are just noise produced