Hey everyone! It’s good to be back here with my second blog post. In case you missed my first entry on Medium, be sure to read it here.
It’s been a few weeks since I spoke about my love of music, the power of God, and how my Grandma has been the catalyst in me not only following my musical destiny, but my greater purpose of helping others — a journey that’s filled with love, faith, and hope. And since then, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my larger vision and what it entails. The word that keeps swimming around my head and coming to the front of my mind is ‘disruption’.
With my music, I’ve never gone for the traditional approach but instead wanted to disrupt the boundaries of how music is created by bringing many different elements into one. And in 2012, the theme of my album that year was “disruption” and I remember vividly my music video “Someday I’ll fly” in which I shaved off pretty much one side of my hair. The reason I did that was to say “In order to have a new beginning, you have to be willing to give up the old”.
How about for my fans? When you hear the word ‘disruption’, what emotions does it evoke in you? Does it make you feel upset, disturbed or confused? That is what it means by definition, after all… But when I hear the word ‘disruption’, I immediately think of technology and how it’s changing the world — how the power of the digital age is rising and how we all need to keep up with it if we really want to reach and help more people.
A few days ago, I was sitting on my phone going through my daily ritual of responding to and engaging with my beloved fans when I realized how technology is shaping the world. I mean, the mere fact that I can reach millions of people through a single device like my phone — or an online platform like YouTube — is pretty incredible when you come to think of it. Like, 15 years ago none of that existed.
Thanks to technology, anyone can do anything — it enables us to transform the way things work. Disruptive technologies break open new markets, doing things people didn’t think needed to be done and it makes things possible that we could never have dreamed of — like people being operated on by a doctor that’s in another country thanks to telerobotic surgery, how Artificial Intelligence will eventually impact every industry we know of, or how personalized medicine, thanks to a simple DNA test that can tell you what drugs your body will respond best to.
I believe it’s up to us to bring out the best of what technology does which is to connect people — because when there’s connection, there’s empathy and when there’s empathy we have the ability to change people’s lives. Which is what I want to do, ultimately — to change the world by disrupting boundaries that are blocking our way, a way that leads us to a place that we have never imagined to be.
You are either being a disruptor or being disrupted. Which will you be?
Till next time,
G.E.M.
顛覆
大家好，第二篇分享來了！錯過我上一篇文章的朋友可以點擊這裡訂閱喔！
之前我跟大家分享了我對音樂的熱誠、我的信仰、以及我的外婆對我的影響。因為這一切的啟發，我一直在思考著如何以生命影響生命，而有一個詞語在我腦海中揮之不去 ： 「顛覆」。
做音樂的時後，我喜歡把不同元素放在一起，打破人們對流行音樂的固有印象。記得在2012年，我經歷了一些傷痛後，那年我所發行的專輯《Xposed》就是以「顛覆」作為概念，把我的掙扎與蛻變，化作音樂。我還在《Someday I’ll fly》的 MV裡，當場在鏡頭面前剃掉半邊頭髮，寓意給自己一個重生的機會。
你們呢？聽到「顛覆」一詞時，你們又會想起甚麼？你是否不安或疑惑？始終「顛覆」一詞，本來就牽扯到比較浮動的情緒。但對現在的我來說，「顛覆」一詞也讓我聯想到科技：先進的科技飛速進展，幾乎每分每秒都在顛覆著世界。在這個日新月異的科技變革時代，如果我們真的想幫助更多人，我們必須跟上科技更新的步伐。
這陣子，當我如常用手機上網跟大家交流，看留言，發照片…我不禁感嘆，科技是如此在改變著世界：單靠一部小小的手機，我就可以跟過百萬人聯絡。又或者在 YouTube 按一下「上載」，影片就可以即時讓世界各地這麼多人同時看到。但仔細想一想，我們現在擁有的一切，15 年前根本還只是天方夜譚。就這麼短短 15 年間，科技為世界帶來的變化是如此「顛覆」！
科技的蓬勃發展，不斷在改變著常規，改變著我們的做事方式。新的科技拓展新的市場，開展新的想法，讓我們能做到以往未能做到的事…如今，醫生們雖身處外地，卻能為病人進行遙距手術；AI人工智能漸漸滲入我們的日常生活，驅動及改變著我們所認識的行業；或者一個簡單的基因測試，便能獲得量身定制的藥物處方。
我相信善用科技以拉近人與人之間的距離，互相鼓勵支持去積極面對人生，是我們每個人活在這個時代裡的責任。而我最想做的，就是希望可以顛覆傳統的框架，開發新的道路，讓我們都能通往可能超越我們此刻想像的境地。
在這個時代裡，「是否找個理由隨波逐流，或是勇敢前行掙脫牢籠」？你會如何「存在」？
G.E.M.
