Hong Kong swimmer and mental health advocate Yvette Kong Man-yi has released a memoir reflecting on her athletic career and personal growth, while exploring broader questions about humanity in the age of artificial intelligence. The book, titled *The Unmeasured Human*, was published recently and coincided with World Mental Health Day.
Kong, 33, recounts the pivotal moment in 2011 when she missed qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics by a mere second. She describes that near miss as both “too small to feel and too large to survive unchanged.” Despite the disappointment, she views the experience as vital to her development, emphasizing the importance of perseverance without guaranteed success. Kong ultimately qualified for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in the 100m breaststroke and 4x100m medley relay, overcoming her earlier setback by an even narrower margin of 0.1 seconds.
Following her athletic career, Kong grappled with the psychological aftermath of competitive swimming. She revealed in her memoir the term “croggling,” coined among swimmers to describe the emotional and physical exhaustion so intense that it causes tears behind their goggles. After retiring in March 2013, she initially struggled with the loss of her athletic identity and experienced unexpected emotional challenges, including episodes during her studies in cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley. A diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder provided clarity, allowing her to confront her past struggles and eventually return to swimming, a sport she has loved since childhood.
Beyond recounting her personal story, Kong uses her memoir to engage with contemporary debates surrounding artificial intelligence and its impact on human identity. She expresses concern that technological advances risk undervaluing the human experience by shifting focus to machine outputs rather than individual worth. “AI gives us an opportunity to relook at what it truly means to be human,” Kong writes, questioning whether society has become too “machine-like” in expectations and values.
Kong’s background includes lecturing in transversial design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), corporate roles at McKinsey & Company and Estée Lauder, and founding the art and innovation studio Transversal Lab. In 2023, she launched Arevly, a startup aimed at equipping individuals with resilience, judgment, ethical clarity, and agency in the face of AI-driven change, representing the culmination of her diverse professional and personal experiences.
Written bilingually in English and Chinese to preserve nuanced expressions lost in translation, the memoir blends prose with short sentences to create an immersive and cinematic reading experience. Kong opted for a self-published route to maintain creative freedom, focusing on the process of sharing her story rather than commercial success.
At the book launch event, Kong announced that a documentary inspired by the memoir, *Still Arriving*, is currently in production. The film will be shot across locations including Hong Kong, Switzerland, Bhutan, and the United States, further exploring her journey and themes of resilience and identity.