I don’t know. I never know. My brain runs like a browser with 57 tabs open, and I can tell you about three. Which three do you want to know about?

 

My mom tried to teach me meditation for years. It was a disaster because I physically could not stop my mind from having new thoughts every 2 seconds. Close your eyes. Imagine a candle in the darkness. Think of nothing else. Okay. Candle. Warm glow. Peaceful— birthday cake! No, come back. Candle. Flame flickering— a moth flying at it! No, come back! Candle. Shadows dancing, a face behind the candle — why does this feel like a horror movie? And just like that, I’ve mentally written an entire psychological thriller instead of meditating. The moment my mind returns to the candle scene is when it leaves again.

 

I might have been a crazy kid 20 years ago—and I’m still crazy now—because my mind has wandered off 10 thousand miles, and it will take a little while if anyone wants to catch up. The more you tell me to focus, the further my mind sprints away in the grassland. In kindergarten, I never fell asleep during nap time. While the other kids in neighboring beds were deep in their little slumbers, I slipped back into my alternate realities — yes, plural. My favorite was one where all my fuzzy toy animals came to life, and we lived together on a tiny island. Not just any island—Hainan, a place I’d visited twice in real life but had since hijacked in my imagination because why not. Hainan was just another industrialized city in southern China in reality. But in my world? A tiny, rainforest-covered paradise with white sand beaches, where my stuffed animals and I could take new adventures and organize fun games. Mentally, I was always on vacation.

 

Even outside my imaginary worlds, my mind refused to stay still. I wasn’t just lost in made-up islands — I was lost in real places too, constantly searching for meaning. When I traveled, I kept wondering: Will I ever come back here? Has someone else stood in this exact spot thinking the same thing? Can they sense my presence? What would it be like to grow up in that building across the river? I felt strangely connected to people I had never met. In primary school, this deep sense of connection turned into something more mystical. I started believing in a fictional “religion” called StarClan, inspired by the book Warriors, where the spirits of dead cats supposedly watched over the world. While my parents wondered why I was staring off into space instead of finishing my math and piano assignments, I was probably talking to StarClan, since they were giving me permission to skip them.

 

Even my subconscious mind refuses to rest. I dream every single night — vivid, cinematic dreams that feel just as real as waking life. I’ve had adventures with people I know, and when I wake up, I feel like we’re actually friends. So if I’ve ever acted strangely around you, it’s probably because, in my head, we already climbed a misty mountain together last Saturday night to find a shiny blue crystal that has the magic to save an animal. Sorry, but you’re officially part of my world-building now!

 

Even today, I still don’t know what I’m thinking most of the time. But I can tell you it’s probably not something of practical importance. I’ll look at campus buildings and think: Isn’t it weird that humans created this world? Perfectly shaped stones containing quartz and feldspar, people gathering here to take classes on things as random as Renaissance paintings or how to train a computer to learn? I feel both distant from and connected to everything. I let my mind wander through entire lectures, not hearing a word the professor says, only to study the material later when my brain decides it’s ready. I think about things that haven’t happened yet — where I’ll be in the future, what that stranger over there is thinking, what any of this means in the grand scheme of things. Anything except what’s happening right now.

 

And it didn’t take long for me to realize that this might be a problem in a few decades. When brain-computer interfaces become commercialized, I won’t be able to hide my thoughts from the world. Remember how I failed at meditation? Now imagine my mind on display, playing like a chaotic, unfiltered movie — random half-formed ideas, unfinished conversations with myself, and sudden memories of things I said awkwardly five years ago. It would be a privacy disaster! Harry Potter failed to learn Occlumency (the magic of blocking people from reading his thoughts), and after years of trying, I’ve failed too.

 

So when you ask me, “What are you thinking?” I’ll probably just smile and say, “Nothing.” Please accept my effort to appear socially normal. I can’t focus on one thing at a time, but I’m still glad I’m living in the same world with you and we are sharing some experiences and perceptions.

 

And if we ever know each other well enough, maybe I’ll tell you a story from my imagination. You can tell me one too.