The Human Premium in the Silicon Age: Why the Art of Inefficiency is the Ultimate Luxury

Have you noticed that we are living in an eerily surreal era? With a few keywords, AI can render a masterpiece oil painting in three seconds, draft a logically rigorous analysis report in a minute, or even simulate the voice of your closest loved one. In a world where efficiency is pushed to its absolute limit, speed has become the sole benchmark. But let me ask you: when everything can be instantaneously replicated and infinitely accelerated, what actually retains value?

In truth, in an age obsessed with efficiency, the clumsy stretches of time that cannot be accelerated become the rarest assets of all.

I want to introduce a concept today: Slow Assets. In the financial world, if your portfolio consists only of highly liquid, short-term notes, you can cash out quickly, but you have no foundation to withstand a market crash. A Slow Asset, by contrast, is like a tree you planted by hand or a family craft polished over decades. It yields no short-term returns and may even appear wildly inefficient, but it provides something AI can never simulate: the Human Premium.

You might ask, “Old Soldier, I am nearing retirement or already in mid-life. Isn’t learning woodworking, calligraphy, or bonsai pruning a waste of time? Even writing is handled by AI now; why should I spend three months under a midnight lamp practicing a single, simple brushstroke?”

It is precisely because of this that I urge you to do it. In a future where silicon-based compute crushes everything, efficiency will become a commodity—cheap and abundant.

Imagine if every painting were AI-generated. A perfect digital image would lose all value. But if you told me that a painting was sketched stroke by stroke over an entire year by an eighty-year-old man with trembling hands in the dawn light, its value would skyrocket—even if it were flawed, even if it lacked symmetry. Why? Because it contains the one thing AI can never possess: Time.

In this process, time is no longer a cost to be compressed, but an energy to be infused. This energy is our strongest moat against the void of nihilism.

I have handled numerous corporate restructurings and seen too many factories chasing absolute efficiency. From my risk-control perspective, companies that digitize and automate every link to the extreme may show high profits on the surface, but they are perilously fragile. They lack redundancy; they lack those seemingly useless “slow links.” The moment a base algorithm fails or the external environment shifts violently, the entire system collapses. Conversely, enterprises that retain a touch of artisanal craftsmanship—those with non-standard characteristics—often survive crises because they possess an irreplaceable resilience.

This leads to my second core point: Non-Standard Assets.

What does “non-standard” mean? In finance, standardized assets are easy to trade, but non-standard assets are what generate alpha—the excess returns. In life, every answer AI gives you is a standardized answer. Ask it how to succeed, and it gives you the optimal path; ask it about health, and it provides a precise plan. But a standardized life is essentially a cognitive cage.

When you pick up a plane and feel the grain of the wood, or face a sheet of rice paper and witness the ink bleeding into the fibers, you enter a completely non-standard world. Wood has its temperament; paper has its breath. You cannot command a piece of timber to instantly become a table through a prompt; you must converse with it patiently, endure the wretched first drafts, and suffer countless failed cuts.

In this process, you are performing a spiritual deleveraging.

Much of the anxiety in mid-life stems from a habit of living on leverage: power leverage in the workplace, debt leverage in finances, and even logical leverage in cognition. We are addicted to rapid results, fast promotions, and quick monetization. Consequently, we have lost the “tactile feel” of the real world.

In my work on the “Compute Curtain,” I explored how the loss of perception is the first casualty when algorithms take over our decision-making. If you are used to getting answers with a click, you will feel a profound helplessness when facing complex human nature, broken relationships, or deep loneliness. These things have no standard answers; they cannot be optimized by an algorithm.

Learning a clumsy craft is an exercise in reclaiming that tactile feel. It forces you to slow down, shifting your attention from the flickering screen back to your fingertips and into the physical world.

Twenty years ago, when I served as the General Manager of the Credit Department at the head office, I dealt with thousands of corporate applications. I was used to looking at data, balance sheets, and cold indicators. But I eventually discovered that what truly determined a company’s survival was often not the numbers, but the owner’s clumsy obsession with the product.

I knew a producer of traditional silks who, during the height of the digital transformation craze, insisted on spending four hours a day manually inspecting the warp and weft of every bolt of fabric. To many analysts, this was a catastrophic waste of efficiency. Yet it was this very clumsiness that allowed him to detect minute quality fluctuations in raw materials, enabling him to capture the high-end market through superior quality during a massive industry collapse.

He built a cliff that AI could not scale, and he did it in the slowest way possible.

Therefore, I advise you—in your later years, or while you still have the power to choose—find something “clumsy” to do.

Do not ask if it can make money, if it has utilitarian value, or if it is a waste of time. Realize that the moment something is defined as “utilitarian,” it enters the fast lane toward replacement. Only when something is defined as pure passion—as an inefficient persistence—does it truly become your private asset.

Psychologically, this is a deep form of self-repair.

Most of our brains have become high-efficiency processors, handling massive amounts of fragmented information in a state of high entropy. Simply put, the inner mind becomes cluttered, like a room that is never cleaned—filled with things, yet unable to find anything meaningful.

Engaging in a slow craft is like a deep cleaning of the soul. When you immerse yourself in a concrete, physical object, your brain enters a state of flow. In this state, anxieties about KPIs, the fear of aging, and the uncertainty of the future slowly dissipate amidst the falling wood shavings and the fragrance of ink.

This is the highest form of anti-fragility.

Anti-fragility does not mean being so strong that you cannot be hurt; it means building a system where stress and volatility actually make you better. If your entire value is anchored to a job title, wealth, or a specific technical skill, you are fragile, because these depreciate over time or are displaced by AI. But when you anchor your value in a personal capability independent of external evaluation—the ability to hand-craft a chair, write beautiful calligraphy, or arrange a Zen rock garden—you possess a spiritual sanctuary.

Regardless of how compute iterates or how the logic of social power shifts, as long as you sit at your workbench, you are the sovereign of this micro-world. This sense of control is the highest form of pride one can carry into old age.

To my friends anxious about their mid-life crisis or planning their retirement: stop chasing “cognitive upgrade” courses and stop trying to race young people on the AI track. You do not need to be the next algorithm expert; you need to be a true artisan.

This craftsmanship is not necessarily a professional skill, but an attitude toward life. It requires you to accept imperfection, slowness, and even failure. It teaches you that the most enchanting parts of life are often hidden in the gaps that efficiency failed to cover.

I recall many successful people from my past. At their peak, they were used to commanding the world, but what kept them radiant in old age were often their “useless” hobbies. Some studied ancient texts, some practiced calligraphy, some devoted themselves to carving. They felt no need to prove their value to anyone because, in every moment they slowed down, they achieved a reconciliation with themselves.

The essence of Slow Assets is a reverence for life.

It allows us to admit that humans are not simple calculating machines; we are creatures of flesh and blood. Our value lies not in the speed at which we produce a result, but in the state of mind with which we experience the process.

In our youth, for the sake of survival, we were driven by the force of expansion to accelerate relentlessly, like a machine that never stops. But having walked half a lifetime and witnessed both prosperity and desolation, I realize that true freedom is the power to allow oneself to slow down.

In an era of algorithmic supremacy, inefficiency is actually a privilege.

When you are willing to spend three months learning a simple woodworking joint, or a year practicing the brushstroke of a flying swallow, you are declaring war on this impatient era. You are telling the world with your time: my value is not defined by compute; my pride comes from my insistence on the tactile.

So, how do we specifically build these Slow Assets?

My suggestion is to start with something you have always wanted to do but felt was “useless.”

If you love nature, learn bonsai and feel the growth logic of plants in space. If you long for tranquility, learn calligraphy and experience the synchronization of breath and brush. If you love creation, learn woodworking and feel the deformation of material under pressure.

Remember: do not bring a utilitarian mind to this process. The moment you try to turn it into a side hustle or film short videos to monetize it, the Slow Asset is contaminated. It reverts to a problem of efficiency and loses its healing power.

Treat it as a secret garden, a sanctuary known only to you. In there, there are no KPIs, no competition, no version updates—only you and your authentic self.

This is a point I repeatedly emphasize in “The Economics of Life”: the highest quality assets are often not the financial assets that generate interest, but the life assets that generate meaning.

As we enter our later years and look back, we will find that the “masterpieces” generated in three seconds are like the wind—gone as soon as they blow. But a chair, however rough, built by one’s own hands, or a calligraphy scroll, however naive, recording countless hours of practice, becomes the true anchor of our lives.

They remind us: I lived with such intention; I treated time with such patience.

This is the most dignified pride one can possess in the silicon age.

The ancients said that “great skill appears clumsy.” The most sophisticated technique often looks like simplicity. True wisdom is not about defeating others in competition, but about maintaining one’s own slow rhythm amidst the torrent of a fast-paced world.

In this race of speed, the true finish line is the place where you can stop and feel content.

I believe this is the ultimate meaning of learning a clumsy craft. It is not to fight AI, but to rediscover human dignity and warmth while surrounded by AI.

I am the financial veteran from finsages.org. In an era where algorithms take over everything, I am here to accompany you in searching for those Slow Assets that can house the soul, beyond the fast-paced world of business.

If you are tired of being kidnapped by efficiency and seek cognitive certainty for your future life, please follow me. Let us be the ones holding the torches, watching over and helping each other in the cold wilderness of data.

The world is magnificent; I will see you at the summit.

May you have the courage to sprint through the storm and the foundation to slow down in the stillness.

As the old saying goes: nurture the heart through stillness, and achieve truth through clumsiness. May you encounter your truest self in every inefficient moment.