I Built an AI Chip and Accidentally Understood My Ex

Today felt oddly full — one of those days where a few small, unrelated things end up stitching themselves into something larger without you planning it that way.

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon with Jordan, helping him build a Lego set — an "AI super chip," which is already kind of funny as a concept. So many identical pieces. Repetitive, precise, almost meditative, and without quite deciding to, I ended up doing most of the work. At some point I had this very intrusive thought: wow, I really am the Taiwanese worker assembling chips for my white employer 💀 — which, okay, is not not true in some metaphorical sense. Still, it was nice. Quiet, companionable. The kind of shared activity that doesn't need to say anything to feel complete.

After that we got ice cream — strawberry and pistachio — and just stood there in the cold, existing next to each other. It didn't need to be more than that. 🍦

The more interesting part of today wasn't what I did. It was what I realized.

I'd been thinking about ENFPs — and Bryce specifically — and something clicked that hadn't before. That ENFP way of being isn't just "fun" or "chaotic." It's boundary-pushing, but in a curious way rather than a forceful one: they ask questions, poke at edges, reverse expectations, explore resistance, and then laugh about it — make it playful rather than heavy. And I think that's what Bryce was doing with me. Not testing, exactly. More like opening doors, seeing where I'd walk, seeing where I'd hesitate.

I hesitated a lot. At the time, I think I experienced it as pressure — like I needed to have answers, like I needed to be ready, like I needed to already be someone. But looking back now it's clearer: I wasn't failing anything. I was just unfinished. Still stabilizing, still holding resistance in places I hadn't softened yet. So when he explored, I braced. When he opened, I analyzed. When he played, I tried to get it right. And of course that dynamic couldn't hold, because he was moving outward and I was still trying to hold myself together inward.

What's different now is that I think I actually get it — the ability to sit in curiosity without needing to resolve it immediately, to let a question be play instead of pressure, to answer without needing the answer to be perfect. That version of me feels lighter. More present.

And then I zoom out and think about the whole day — Lego chips, ice cream, emotional realization about my ex — and I kind of have to laugh. Bryce probably wanted me to get here way sooner 😭💀