"I didn’t feel ready to live in a world where others are bullied into silence by a techno culture that characterizes our singular voices as inferior to all voices at once. Once we’re seduced into silence, we have nothing left but the words of others."
I wonder what shifts if you change the verb tense in the first sentence.
I've read this a couple of times, hearing my own sense of righteousness as I struggle to respond. I do hope you shared your feedback with the author, as written - because I see it as you sharing your belief in them as a human being and as a writer.
"If you have a heartbeat, you have a few true words that are your own.
By all means, read, study, converse, research, experiment, explore every corner of the world of knowledge—but then stand on your own and speak."
Thank you for this encouragement Nica. Yes, I've shared these thoughts with the author, but this is all a tricky balance, to tease apart the genuine concern and belief in the voice and expression of others from my own "stuff". The exercise of this whole scenario and telling the stories, for myself as much as for others, is my way of working through the layers. And good call on the verb tense shift. I made the edit.
What comes to mind is meditation and mindfulness. Being present and bearing witness. Both for the writer asking you for feedback, of course, and also for yourself. Holding them as separate is hard to recognize and harder to do. Kudos for sharing your work with this, as it certainly helps me.
Yes. The root of mindfulness and presence being the admission that I don't have the answer to circumstance or situation and being open to direction and guidance arising from the moment itself rather than preconceptions about what's right/wrong, good/bad, etc
I feel like mindfulness and presence is just sitting with it. Not looking for answers or guidance or direction, not hearing (or giving in to) preconceptions or judgement. Almost an acknowledgement, a curiosity. Oh, there you are. Hmm.
Thank Rick for writing such a thoughtful piece. I'm glad you did not rage against the machine (the literal machine in this case) and instead dug deep and came up with a story that clearly resonates with so many. I did a double-take when someone on twitter mentioned that conflicts are what builds friendships, but in this case I can see why it is true.
It's certainly an amazing feeling to form friendships that can't be derailed by belief systems. Seems like the same principles are needed for strong marriages. In the end, both parties need to be willing to change themselves as much as they want to change the other for the relationship to thrive.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
― Gospel of Thomas
Wow, I'd never come across this before. This quote will stay with me.
I thought this was already a well-known over-circulated quote. Glad to hear that including it landed freshly and usefully. It's one that sits at the top of the thought food chain for me with respect to communication and self expression. So powerful.
This one hit me on a deep level for a few reasons. First, the retelling of the story with the bullies was so visceral and raw - I felt the fear you felt, the powerlessness. Then, your well-founded, impassioned, and beautifully articulated tirade against AI. And finally, the self-awareness to see what was underneath your indignation and allow that to deepen and round out your perspective from a place of honesty and compassion.
Thank you Alex. Tirade is a good word, that's what it feels like internally, but a tirade never causes a change of heart in anyone I'm tirading toward. It's good for preaching to the choir who will cheer it on, but to connect with anyone who has a different perspective a tirade is not much of an invitation to a conversation. And an arising tirade seems more of a signal that I haven't taken full inventory of my own inner landscape.
I've read and then re-read your post 5 times now (that in and of itself is a compliment -- after all, the fact that it was that provacative and evocative is rather remarkable).
Your story of being bullied -- so sadly true for so many of us -- was powerful and palpably relatable. I really appreciate your sharing that experience. Rough and traumatic as it was, it demonstrated for me the power of our human connection -- and how a story well told can bring us together.
I was also moved by the connection you made to being bullied and how you feel about AI.
What's most challenging about AI's entrance into the creative realm, I believe, is that we fear we run the risk of surrendering that unique form of human creativity to an algorithmically driven creativty.
These fears are not entirely unfounded because the emergence of AI into these realms appears to be threatening something very dear to us--something we've always considered to be uniquely human. The enticement of AI, if we allow it, could lure us into abandoning our own connection to the depths of our imagination.
AI may have been fine when it did spell check for us or helped refine our searches on Google or laid out directions for us in our various mapping apps. It may now be arguably appreciated when it manages a smart home, crunches complex calcuations in hours that advance our understanding of physics or biology (calculations that would take normal mathematicians months if not years to complete). It can pick up anamolies in DNA sequencing and dramatically improve the time frame for phenomenal cures or guide a surgeon to successfully complete what previously would have been an impossible life-saving surgery.
But when it was programmed to intrude into our creative realm -- writing songs, creating images, "scholarly" papers, articles, making movies, and beyond -- it was a bridge to far.
Why? (There's more below, if the post allows it. If not, let me and I'll post it separately.)
For me, I think it gets to the core of what we believe makes us human -- our native creativity -- our ability to dance with the muse, to interface with the Universal Slipstream of ideas, to innovate, dream, and share -- however eloquently or clumsily -- the feelings that rise up within us.
So what do we do now?
AI is here . . . and it's not going anywhere unless there's a global catclysm that wipes out the "cloud" and disables the massive computing power needed for AI to function. That might happen. But until then, what?
Perhaps this is analogous to what occurred with one of our earliest forms of creativity -- storytelling -- when we humans passed along our thoughts and encounters orally.
Could returning to this early form -- whether in person or online be healing in some way -- perhaps even curative on some level?
Maybe "writing" itself was one of the earliest forms of "AI" in that it limited our expression; forcing us to translate feelings and the depth of our experiences into letters and words which can never adaquately convey the splendor of the human journey.
After all, when oral storytelling was the primary, if not only mode of creatively for sharing an experience, stories were not only merely "told," they were performed, and emotions were powerfully emulated so that those to whom the experience was shared felt that they were right there in the moment (movies may be on of our closet connections to that early form). In such times, people likely experienced what we now call "entrainment" or "heart-brain coherence" on a one-to-one or group level.
As soon as writing emerged, even gifted writers wrestled with ways to infuse their words with the depth of meaning they wished to convey. And at every stage we humans have wrestled with the intrusion of a new "technology" that has threatened (and perhaps rightly so) the pure spark of our human ingenuity.
Growing up in a family -- where, at a young age we were taught telepathy (since it was a long held tradition in my mother's family) -- we were taught that it was the original language (before the burden or words was thrust upon us) because this soul-to-soul communication carried with it the ability to transmit experiences -- infused and laden with images, feelings, and a host of other important elements that speaking could never convey.
I don't pretend to know the answer to AI's emergence into the creative world, but perhaps there comes with this new technology a challenge and an opportunity for us to deepen our humanity, to return -- more than ever -- to the heart of our being -- our soul, and what comes from it purely -- not in protest to the ineviatble march of technological "progress," but as way of reclaiming and owning once again those aspects of our humanness that have preceeded all of the "advances" that have come before.
Ultimately, I suppose how we respond to this new cunundrum, like all else that lies before us -- is, as it has always been -- up to each of us to decide.
Wow, thanks Chris for these useful additional reflections.
The importance of preserving each of our independent responses to the challenges currently posed cannot be understated, and I have to remind myself of this when I think I should be general manager of the universe and dictate all of human behavior. The main need for independent thought and responses is the very fact that all of human and universal evolution depends upon diversity. Having a range of approaches taken and experiments undertaken is the best shot we have of evolving forward successfully.
I like the idea that the faster and more exaggerated the "forward" technological progress becomes the more we'll be forced to re-invest in our roots, reclaiming and owning the humanness as you say. Digging deep for the heart of being. What if all these destabilizing forces are actually designed to quicken and accelerate our return to those roots?
Amazing you were introduced to the subtle communication realms when you were a kid. I'm sure that made for a very unique childhood.
Interesting the idea that the written word was the first form of AI, the first departure from the original medium of human transmission.
I ascribe to the Universal Slipstream idea, if by that you mean there is a subtle communication that is always being made by Reality that a human being alone is capable of receiving as a signal, and that "slipping" into it for the purposes of retrieving revelatory broadcasts of creativity, knowledge, and wisdom is the function of human life.
You clearly have a great deal to share on this subject. Perhaps we'll see your own piece on this subject at some point.
Thanks, Rick... and yes, the term, the Universal Slipstream, was introduced to me by a life-long mentor of mine, a brilliant physicist and laser chemist who used to lead retreats to show creatives and innovators how to access that Reality real-time and on-demand. It's a resource (and Source) that society taught us to cut off so what we would stay separated from or in denital of that connection. But gratefully that connection can be established (re-established) any time we are willing to take that Journey.
Chris, I really like how you point out the clear advantages of AI in this day and age: managing a smart home, performing complex calculations that promote scientific research, picking up potentially lifesaving cues to help surgeons etc. – but you draw the line at creativity.
And you astutely note how the advent of written language itself may be considered an early, crude form of AI, that writing may, by it's very nature, remove the emotional immediacy of oral communication. There's a clear upside to written language, but it apparently came at a cost.
But did it cost us our very humanity? AI may be doing just that as we debate this very topic.
I think we can all agree on one thing: There’s no clear answer, at least for the time being.
Thanks for your additional thoughts on this, Larry. And as you've indicated , the big concern with AI is, at what cost are we turning our creativity over to AI?
There are those who argue that it is merely a new form of collaboration. And there are certainly aspects for which that is true. The question is, do we know where the line is between useful collaboration in certain areas and the surrendering of our own intellectual capacity and creativity. I agree with you. I don't think we know the answer to this yet, but we are going to be forced to come to deep terms with it soon, especially since it's a tsunami that has already landed on the shore and is sweeping through the creative fields even as we speak.
"The question is, do we know where the line is between useful collaboration in certain areas and the surrendering of our own intellectual capacity and creativity." Yup. A seemingly insolvable question at the moment, in theory. In practice, it seems there is guidance available in the moment if we're paying attention to the voices within and willing to trust those instincts.
"... a tsunami that has already landed on the shore and is sweeping through the creative fields even as we speak."
That – right there – gives me hope.
While AI may improve or edit or alter those words you just used, I don't think a goddamn line of code will ever be able to *create* anything like this, in any *original* form, on its own.
Rick, your story hit me right in the gut. It’s amazing how childhood moments can echo so loudly in our adult lives. I love how you turned that memory into a reflection on voice, authenticity, and the courage it takes to keep speaking. This was both powerful and deeply human to read.
Thank you George. The human stuff is just going to be messy, murky, and mixed isn't it? Strange how embracing all of those elements leads to some inexplicable emerging magic.
Thank you. I understand. I won’t tell stories to your readers now. I love how you liberate the writer in us to have the courage to write our stories. Thank you.
I in sorting through my boxes and separating keepers from trash found something I write in 2011. I hope to post it soon. It’s fiction prose. Even then we had homeless. It’s called Pieces.
Love this quote: If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
I need to read this post again... but I'm not sure what being bullied by a small band of sociopaths has got to with standing up against the outsourcing or our creativity. The AI assault is is too hideous a development to try to respond with tact and politeness. But then maybe that's the diff between me and you, Rick... you've got a larger worldview than I have... so excuse my tunnel vision fury in the face of all this Artificial (so-called) intelligence. Ooohmmm....
I like that this piece of writing inspired some solid feelings to come out. I’ve been writing, and not doing much with it for about four years now, only less than a year ago would I say that I found my voice. In a world where we can have fast food decisions, and get satisfaction in seconds rather than years, what would inspire somebody to take the long journey of actually showing up enough for themselves to cultivate something that is authentic to themselves and sounds the way that they hope it would? Inspires them to keep going because they’re blown away by the words that leak from their fingertips onto the page.
Can we really blame people as well? We are in a culture of instant gratification, brains getting washed in dopamine of the satisfaction of completing something whether we did it or not. It’s addictive, we have created a culture that is preprogrammed to search satisfaction and gratification. The cherry on top is the prize, the credential “I am a writer”, and a sense of accomplishment.
All of that said, and I don’t want to shame people who use AI, for years as somebody with dyslexia I’ve always known that editing has been a weak pointed out my in comprehensible emails in my youth to avoiding writing at all costs. Later on, as I became an executive. I used to hire editors to review really important documents, I would have two or three that I could call at any moment to see if somebody could take a quick pass over things. If chatGPT was around in those days, I don’t doubt that I would’ve used it. And even now being an entrepreneur, I use this tool to explain to me things that I haven’t come across, concepts that need me to dig deeper into.
But this is it, I believe that we should teach people to use it as a tool, but not a substitute, thinking partner, as opposed to a brain, as a teacher, as opposed to the kid that we paid to do our homework. To also teach people the difference between happiness and pleasure, because it’s the same as short-term gratification versus the satisfaction that comes with genuine accomplishment, the difference between dopamine and serotonin. Once we experience the reward of “time served” and knowing that we are capable, there is no world where the shortcut could ever satisfy more than the authentic achievement.
That kid is me, except without a bike, whose mom was divorced, the daughter of Italian immigrants, and whose youngest brother had a different dad. My classmates had strength in numbers, and chased me around the schoolyard.
That was 60 years ago. Until I read your entry here, I never made the connection with our shared aversion to AI. I buried myself in books. At age 12, I somehow found Doctor Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, by Philip K Dick. The die was cast. My dad, who we saw every summer, was a poet, classical pianist, and English teacher. I wanted to be like him. Not a teacher though, that was too scary. I started writing poems and song lyrics and designing my own record labels at around 14 or 15. Nobody saw them. Started "playing" borrowed guitars a little later. In the early 70s I got serious about singing and playing and writing songs worth sharing. I've been in a few bands, played weddings, open mic nights, and local gigs, even started recording an album. In 50 years never had the drive (courage?) to make the thing my profession. But I'll be damned if I ever depend on machine learning to make it happen. I started writing haiku a few months before the love of my life gained her wings, and began sharing them on Facebook soon after. Now I'm here on Substack to tell the stories. Share the poems and the songs. Join the community. 86 the bullies.
Liam, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you and hear a bit of your real flesh and blood journey and story. Welcome to Substack. I'll head over and check out your stories.
Thank you Ted. It seems everyone has a different idea of what it means to use this as a tool and when we've crossed the line into being used BY the tool. The tail wagging the dog so to speak. How do you go about making that distinction in a practical way?
Thank you Ted. It seems everyone has a different idea of what it means to use this as a tool and when we've crossed the line into being used BY the tool. The tail wagging the dog so to speak. How do you go about making that distinction in a practical way?
As I’m sitting here, thinking about how I would answer your question, it occurs to me that I am actually having a more difficult time trying to find a situation where the tail does not wag the dog.
Perhaps you’ve caught me in a pragmatic mood, because oddly, I’m OK with this. I suspect it’s just part of being human.
I think the distinction that I’m looking for May be a difference between reacting and responding. Most situations in life we are faced with, we have to make distinctions, and then choices, so to my mind, only an individual using the tool of AI could be able to answer that question in any given moment.
Right now we are still relatively lucky. As good as AI is, most of us can tell when ChatGPT has written something. I do not believe that will always be the case.
The one thing that we may be able to rely on, is that when we look at, read, or listen to an inspired piece of art it provokes something within us.
I believe it was Tom Robbins, who said “The reason AI is not human. Humour, imagination, erotasisim, rebelliousness ascetic, an appreciation of beauty for its own sake.” Forgive me if I am misquoting, but it was a few years ago that I read this.
When I think about this quote, I actually think about artists like Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip, a writer, a poet, a musician, and I think that there is no way that AI could ever truly replicate him. The reason I like him as an example is because he is an outlier. So sure, we may be able to train AI one day to choose the next most likely word, to be able to write songs in the way that he did. But it will never be the same. AI won’t have read as much, Canadian literature, Canadian history, and had the same life experience as that human had. So even if it were to be able to write something that was reasonably good, what actually goes into it, the magic that flows from the fingertips will not be the same, and I believe people will know, we will feel it.
Now, if you wanted something useful in my answer, I would if we read something, and we are not talking about AI being used as a tool, then chances are that tool is being used very well, or not at all.
I guess for me the greatest concern isn't whether someone else can tell the difference between what we have created with the seed and spark of our humanity or a tool, it's whether we ourselves can feel the difference between what is produced by our own spiritual musculature and something that is produced for us. If we lose track of the sense of becoming that accompanies doing the Work, then all bets are off and we're truly slip-sliding away.
I honestly think that that is fair enough. In a world ruled by anxiety, that sees far too many of us using electronic tools to tap out from the human experience you may be right.
I do think that life in years lived gives us the ability to make the distinction about whether something we are reading, watching or looking at resonates with us in a way that I am not sure AI ever will.
When I work with young people, I often talk about intention. The reason why this is important, is that the same action coming from two different places can create a completely different result. To me with the cultivation of even a tiny amount of basic human maturity, we start being able to make these distinctions.
Just as the first time when we see a masters painting, we might find some things about it that resonate with us. But maybe not, maybe we just consider it an interesting picture. But eventually, perhaps years later we see that same painting again and this time there is a world inside of it that was open to us previously.
I don’t think that that is too far of a journey. As long as people are willing to put time into their craft, to dare to become good at something, I think it will speak to that desire within other people, who will be able to identify something true versus something generated. Perhaps now I’m in an optimistic mood.
"fear of living in a world of suppressed song. Dread that it might become fashionable to outsource the effort of one’s thinking. Alarm that access to more data would become an acceptable proxy for truth." I guess for me, Rick, there will always be something/someone that will try to suppress our song, be it on purpose or out of fear for themselves. What I like about you is that you are willing to ask the question "why am I afraid?" And to honestly explore and dig deep for that answer.
I am on the fence a bit when it comes to AI. I can see why a person uses AI to try and express what they themselves feel/are unable to do. I have worn make up and shaved various body parts and plucked my eyebrows and dyed my hair all my life. Was this to conform to beauty norms, to hide who I was/am, to express a side of me that I couldn't do "naturally " or to cover up what shamed me? I'm not sure but all I know is that now that I'm a grown-ass woman, these things no longer plague me (except dying the hair. I'll ALWAYS be a blond!)
As a massage therapist, I use various pieces of equipment that have research evidence of enhancing what my hands do. Does that mean I'm a subpar therapist? No, way, because my training was solid and excellent and I have a natural talent for it. But I can see someone using the machines out of fear they are not very good or as a crutch to a deeper connection with the client or because they simply do not want to make the effort to study more and have a firm grasp of their profession.
So I guess for it depends on why you're using AI. The other can of worms is this idea of perfection. Maybe AI is like photoshop for pictures. Or porn for sexual performance. Everyone will get used to things looking /sounding perfect and thus skew the reality of raw reality.
If AI does for writing what photoshop did for photos , I'd be a bit pissed off, tbh.
Excellent thoughts in the development of this conversation Dana. Thank you.
My takeaway from your perspectives here, as well as those offered by others, and on top of the experience that inspired this essay, is that life is not as reduce-able or box-able as we'd like it to be.
There are hundreds of identified cognitive biases that govern our thinking and perception, and they're all designed to help us survive and make decisions without expending the entirety of our cognitive energy on each move we make in life. We love easy answers, sound bites, black and white scenarios, good guys and bad guys. But in truth, we make all of those up in an effort to function in an ever-changing, multi-layered, mysterious, and dynamically evolving reality.
Re your experience with using tools as a massage therapist, one could make the argument that it's those who have mastered the basics that should be granted access to the power tools.
Letting someone who has never held a handsaw use a table saw risks arming them with a device they don't understand the destructive power of. Maybe being able to ride a bicycle and becoming familiar with the physics of propelling one's own body through space, developing spatial awareness, and experiencing the potential for an accident, should be a prerequisite for driving a car. A basic photography class a prerequisite for using Photoshop or Midjourney. An English class or basic writing course a prerequisite for using AI to write.
Sadly, it seems AI is appealing to our lazier nature, promising the opportunity to skip steps on the path to mastery rather than motivate love for the basics that allows tools to be our servants instead of our masters.
Rick, I'm impressed with your very insightful connection – one that relates an abusive experience when you lost your voice to your desire to promote that voice in so many – and I admire your willingness to share something so very, very raw. That deep, burning desire seems to be one way you're working through such a horrific experience.
And, as noted in so many other comments here, the quote from the Gospel of Thomas is so applicable. Maybe the use of machine learning will rob us of our ability to bring forth the stories from within our souls. Or perhaps, for others, it will assist in that very process.
Bottom line: I’d rather read an essay produced not from the collective machine learning based on a million prompts, but from one heart, one soul.
"Maybe the use of machine learning will rob us of our ability to bring forth the stories from within our souls." That is precisely my biggest fear. But as you say, could it be an assistance for others?
What a lovely reflection — thank you for your humble willingness to look within, really see, and share it all. Your deep exploration and honesty feel inspiring.
Reading your story brought back my own memories of a banana-seat, high-rise-handlebar Schwinn — my brother's — learning to pop wheelies in our cul-de-sac, falling flat on my back on the asphalt until I finally mastered it. I sometimes wonder if I could still do it, though after a serious concussion years ago (six months of dizziness), I know better than to try.
Your description of how the embarrassment about not speaking up still lingers also resonated. From what I’ve learned, our protection systems can bypass conscious will to keep us safe faster than we can think or choose — a kind of ancient reflex.
I can’t know if that was true for you, but I know the kind of inability you spoke of. In my case it stemmed from a parental warning at age two: “Never tell anybody or you could lose everything.” Therapy helped me loosen that grip, but for years even everyday writing felt blocked.
Oddly enough, partnering with AI as a sort of “organizer” for the massive brain dumps that were all I could manage helped me reclaim my voice. It gave shape to what trauma had scattered, and let me see gains and understandings I couldn’t have noticed otherwise.
These days I’m grateful that words flow more freely. I sit, and sometimes pages appear. Your essay reminded me how precious that freedom is — and how our voices can return, sometimes by unexpected routes.
Thank you again for sharing. Your invitation to keep bringing forth what’s within feels powerful.
Oh thank you Lisa for this encouragement and expressed resonance. ". . . how precious that freedom is — and how our voices can return, sometimes by unexpected routes." We could go a long way and solve many problems and head off many conflicts if we could train ourselves to expect the unexpected in all the best ways.
Yes — beautifully said. Expecting the unexpected in the best ways feels like such a gentle re-homing of the nervous system — from bracing for what could go wrong, to being open to what might arrive with grace. Like most of us may first arrive in the world. It’s a lesson that’s taken me a lifetime to relearn, and one I now get to watch unfolding in others — I’m so very grateful.
This to me describes the need for intentional communities right now, sanctuaries of human friends who want and need to hold this perspective for and with each other, to admit and recall the miracle of, as you say, our first arrival in the world. I wonder what will happen next? : )
I love your thinking. For me, though, I don’t think I’d have ever come to this point if I’d been held inside an intentional community (humans are just too frail). It may have been the long struggle and solitary letting go, but — in the end — the shift came for me through a kind of coaching that supported my unconscious intelligence — so it could heal and restore what I’d once had. I’m convinced that release gave me a self I couldn’t have reached through even the most expert or gentle external help.
As I read this on a slow day in the shade I thank you. On my gravel road in my thousand acre woods on a river that ran through it. Duffy was a sick bastard who was in his late teens as I was in my tweens. Mother treated my wounds after Duffy threw a rock into the spokes of mu small bike. And I tumbled into the ditch. Mother died in 2018. I never talked to any siblings about the continuation of abuse by Duffy nor of what he and his demented freinds did to me in the woods one day. No it wasn’t rape but something almost as bad.
Opening up to my older sisters in recent conversations was a relief. I have tried to factionalize this into a readable story. I’m still working on it.
God bless you and Duffy and your mom and your siblings and the traumas and the wrongs and the resilience of your spirit and your writing and this great and mysterious process of rising from the challenges into humanness.
Thanks Rick. Amongst other concerns. Youth is filled with hurdles and challenges. It is easy to think it’s all about oneself. Bully’s and hazing is what my story was about. Not sexual abuse. I think but don’t except it as healthy but it happens. Duffy apparently turned out as an adult to be quite strange. Pissed off the wrong people. He was found years later tied to train tracks, dead, in california.
Aldous Huxley in Brave New World describes a society where people don’t need to be silenced by an external force—instead we silence ourselves through conditioning and distraction and perhaps easy access to a magic self-generating textbox...
Wow Rick. The first sentence of this piece immediately captured me as a reader, and I'm so moved by your message and outcry for vulnerability and authenticity in a world that demands perfection. Keep telling human stories. You are doing something right.
Ha, thanks. Funny how tolerant the universe is of our mucking around trying a lot of things in order to find the "something right." Thank god we seem to exist in a generous and forgiving paradigm.
"I didn’t feel ready to live in a world where others are bullied into silence by a techno culture that characterizes our singular voices as inferior to all voices at once. Once we’re seduced into silence, we have nothing left but the words of others."
I wonder what shifts if you change the verb tense in the first sentence.
I've read this a couple of times, hearing my own sense of righteousness as I struggle to respond. I do hope you shared your feedback with the author, as written - because I see it as you sharing your belief in them as a human being and as a writer.
"If you have a heartbeat, you have a few true words that are your own.
By all means, read, study, converse, research, experiment, explore every corner of the world of knowledge—but then stand on your own and speak."
Thank you for this encouragement Nica. Yes, I've shared these thoughts with the author, but this is all a tricky balance, to tease apart the genuine concern and belief in the voice and expression of others from my own "stuff". The exercise of this whole scenario and telling the stories, for myself as much as for others, is my way of working through the layers. And good call on the verb tense shift. I made the edit.
What comes to mind is meditation and mindfulness. Being present and bearing witness. Both for the writer asking you for feedback, of course, and also for yourself. Holding them as separate is hard to recognize and harder to do. Kudos for sharing your work with this, as it certainly helps me.
Yes. The root of mindfulness and presence being the admission that I don't have the answer to circumstance or situation and being open to direction and guidance arising from the moment itself rather than preconceptions about what's right/wrong, good/bad, etc
I feel like mindfulness and presence is just sitting with it. Not looking for answers or guidance or direction, not hearing (or giving in to) preconceptions or judgement. Almost an acknowledgement, a curiosity. Oh, there you are. Hmm.
yes : )
Thank Rick for writing such a thoughtful piece. I'm glad you did not rage against the machine (the literal machine in this case) and instead dug deep and came up with a story that clearly resonates with so many. I did a double-take when someone on twitter mentioned that conflicts are what builds friendships, but in this case I can see why it is true.
It's certainly an amazing feeling to form friendships that can't be derailed by belief systems. Seems like the same principles are needed for strong marriages. In the end, both parties need to be willing to change themselves as much as they want to change the other for the relationship to thrive.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
― Gospel of Thomas
Wow, I'd never come across this before. This quote will stay with me.
I thought this was already a well-known over-circulated quote. Glad to hear that including it landed freshly and usefully. It's one that sits at the top of the thought food chain for me with respect to communication and self expression. So powerful.
This one hit me on a deep level for a few reasons. First, the retelling of the story with the bullies was so visceral and raw - I felt the fear you felt, the powerlessness. Then, your well-founded, impassioned, and beautifully articulated tirade against AI. And finally, the self-awareness to see what was underneath your indignation and allow that to deepen and round out your perspective from a place of honesty and compassion.
Wonderful stuff as always, my friend.
Thank you Alex. Tirade is a good word, that's what it feels like internally, but a tirade never causes a change of heart in anyone I'm tirading toward. It's good for preaching to the choir who will cheer it on, but to connect with anyone who has a different perspective a tirade is not much of an invitation to a conversation. And an arising tirade seems more of a signal that I haven't taken full inventory of my own inner landscape.
I've read and then re-read your post 5 times now (that in and of itself is a compliment -- after all, the fact that it was that provacative and evocative is rather remarkable).
Your story of being bullied -- so sadly true for so many of us -- was powerful and palpably relatable. I really appreciate your sharing that experience. Rough and traumatic as it was, it demonstrated for me the power of our human connection -- and how a story well told can bring us together.
I was also moved by the connection you made to being bullied and how you feel about AI.
What's most challenging about AI's entrance into the creative realm, I believe, is that we fear we run the risk of surrendering that unique form of human creativity to an algorithmically driven creativty.
These fears are not entirely unfounded because the emergence of AI into these realms appears to be threatening something very dear to us--something we've always considered to be uniquely human. The enticement of AI, if we allow it, could lure us into abandoning our own connection to the depths of our imagination.
AI may have been fine when it did spell check for us or helped refine our searches on Google or laid out directions for us in our various mapping apps. It may now be arguably appreciated when it manages a smart home, crunches complex calcuations in hours that advance our understanding of physics or biology (calculations that would take normal mathematicians months if not years to complete). It can pick up anamolies in DNA sequencing and dramatically improve the time frame for phenomenal cures or guide a surgeon to successfully complete what previously would have been an impossible life-saving surgery.
But when it was programmed to intrude into our creative realm -- writing songs, creating images, "scholarly" papers, articles, making movies, and beyond -- it was a bridge to far.
Why? (There's more below, if the post allows it. If not, let me and I'll post it separately.)
For me, I think it gets to the core of what we believe makes us human -- our native creativity -- our ability to dance with the muse, to interface with the Universal Slipstream of ideas, to innovate, dream, and share -- however eloquently or clumsily -- the feelings that rise up within us.
So what do we do now?
AI is here . . . and it's not going anywhere unless there's a global catclysm that wipes out the "cloud" and disables the massive computing power needed for AI to function. That might happen. But until then, what?
Perhaps this is analogous to what occurred with one of our earliest forms of creativity -- storytelling -- when we humans passed along our thoughts and encounters orally.
Could returning to this early form -- whether in person or online be healing in some way -- perhaps even curative on some level?
Maybe "writing" itself was one of the earliest forms of "AI" in that it limited our expression; forcing us to translate feelings and the depth of our experiences into letters and words which can never adaquately convey the splendor of the human journey.
After all, when oral storytelling was the primary, if not only mode of creatively for sharing an experience, stories were not only merely "told," they were performed, and emotions were powerfully emulated so that those to whom the experience was shared felt that they were right there in the moment (movies may be on of our closet connections to that early form). In such times, people likely experienced what we now call "entrainment" or "heart-brain coherence" on a one-to-one or group level.
As soon as writing emerged, even gifted writers wrestled with ways to infuse their words with the depth of meaning they wished to convey. And at every stage we humans have wrestled with the intrusion of a new "technology" that has threatened (and perhaps rightly so) the pure spark of our human ingenuity.
Growing up in a family -- where, at a young age we were taught telepathy (since it was a long held tradition in my mother's family) -- we were taught that it was the original language (before the burden or words was thrust upon us) because this soul-to-soul communication carried with it the ability to transmit experiences -- infused and laden with images, feelings, and a host of other important elements that speaking could never convey.
I don't pretend to know the answer to AI's emergence into the creative world, but perhaps there comes with this new technology a challenge and an opportunity for us to deepen our humanity, to return -- more than ever -- to the heart of our being -- our soul, and what comes from it purely -- not in protest to the ineviatble march of technological "progress," but as way of reclaiming and owning once again those aspects of our humanness that have preceeded all of the "advances" that have come before.
Ultimately, I suppose how we respond to this new cunundrum, like all else that lies before us -- is, as it has always been -- up to each of us to decide.
Wow, thanks Chris for these useful additional reflections.
The importance of preserving each of our independent responses to the challenges currently posed cannot be understated, and I have to remind myself of this when I think I should be general manager of the universe and dictate all of human behavior. The main need for independent thought and responses is the very fact that all of human and universal evolution depends upon diversity. Having a range of approaches taken and experiments undertaken is the best shot we have of evolving forward successfully.
I like the idea that the faster and more exaggerated the "forward" technological progress becomes the more we'll be forced to re-invest in our roots, reclaiming and owning the humanness as you say. Digging deep for the heart of being. What if all these destabilizing forces are actually designed to quicken and accelerate our return to those roots?
Amazing you were introduced to the subtle communication realms when you were a kid. I'm sure that made for a very unique childhood.
Interesting the idea that the written word was the first form of AI, the first departure from the original medium of human transmission.
I ascribe to the Universal Slipstream idea, if by that you mean there is a subtle communication that is always being made by Reality that a human being alone is capable of receiving as a signal, and that "slipping" into it for the purposes of retrieving revelatory broadcasts of creativity, knowledge, and wisdom is the function of human life.
You clearly have a great deal to share on this subject. Perhaps we'll see your own piece on this subject at some point.
Thanks, Rick... and yes, the term, the Universal Slipstream, was introduced to me by a life-long mentor of mine, a brilliant physicist and laser chemist who used to lead retreats to show creatives and innovators how to access that Reality real-time and on-demand. It's a resource (and Source) that society taught us to cut off so what we would stay separated from or in denital of that connection. But gratefully that connection can be established (re-established) any time we are willing to take that Journey.
seems as though you have been blessed to get encouragement and guidance in that department, from your telepathic mom onward
Chris, I really like how you point out the clear advantages of AI in this day and age: managing a smart home, performing complex calculations that promote scientific research, picking up potentially lifesaving cues to help surgeons etc. – but you draw the line at creativity.
And you astutely note how the advent of written language itself may be considered an early, crude form of AI, that writing may, by it's very nature, remove the emotional immediacy of oral communication. There's a clear upside to written language, but it apparently came at a cost.
But did it cost us our very humanity? AI may be doing just that as we debate this very topic.
I think we can all agree on one thing: There’s no clear answer, at least for the time being.
Thanks for your additional thoughts on this, Larry. And as you've indicated , the big concern with AI is, at what cost are we turning our creativity over to AI?
There are those who argue that it is merely a new form of collaboration. And there are certainly aspects for which that is true. The question is, do we know where the line is between useful collaboration in certain areas and the surrendering of our own intellectual capacity and creativity. I agree with you. I don't think we know the answer to this yet, but we are going to be forced to come to deep terms with it soon, especially since it's a tsunami that has already landed on the shore and is sweeping through the creative fields even as we speak.
"The question is, do we know where the line is between useful collaboration in certain areas and the surrendering of our own intellectual capacity and creativity." Yup. A seemingly insolvable question at the moment, in theory. In practice, it seems there is guidance available in the moment if we're paying attention to the voices within and willing to trust those instincts.
"... a tsunami that has already landed on the shore and is sweeping through the creative fields even as we speak."
That – right there – gives me hope.
While AI may improve or edit or alter those words you just used, I don't think a goddamn line of code will ever be able to *create* anything like this, in any *original* form, on its own.
Rick, your story hit me right in the gut. It’s amazing how childhood moments can echo so loudly in our adult lives. I love how you turned that memory into a reflection on voice, authenticity, and the courage it takes to keep speaking. This was both powerful and deeply human to read.
Thank you George. The human stuff is just going to be messy, murky, and mixed isn't it? Strange how embracing all of those elements leads to some inexplicable emerging magic.
Thank you. I understand. I won’t tell stories to your readers now. I love how you liberate the writer in us to have the courage to write our stories. Thank you.
pieces. My babies dying.
I hold her now in car so cold
Ain’t no health care for this common man.
It all came to pieces
In this promised land.
Make his shiny shoes. Sing a river
A river of blues.
This story will suffer revision.
You won’t see that on the television.
Portland. 6 29 2011
Bernie Mortensen.
I in sorting through my boxes and separating keepers from trash found something I write in 2011. I hope to post it soon. It’s fiction prose. Even then we had homeless. It’s called Pieces.
It's my pleasure Bernie. Keep telling your stories.
Thanks Rick.
Love this quote: If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
― Gospel of Thomas
It's one of my favorites.
I need to read this post again... but I'm not sure what being bullied by a small band of sociopaths has got to with standing up against the outsourcing or our creativity. The AI assault is is too hideous a development to try to respond with tact and politeness. But then maybe that's the diff between me and you, Rick... you've got a larger worldview than I have... so excuse my tunnel vision fury in the face of all this Artificial (so-called) intelligence. Ooohmmm....
I like that this piece of writing inspired some solid feelings to come out. I’ve been writing, and not doing much with it for about four years now, only less than a year ago would I say that I found my voice. In a world where we can have fast food decisions, and get satisfaction in seconds rather than years, what would inspire somebody to take the long journey of actually showing up enough for themselves to cultivate something that is authentic to themselves and sounds the way that they hope it would? Inspires them to keep going because they’re blown away by the words that leak from their fingertips onto the page.
Can we really blame people as well? We are in a culture of instant gratification, brains getting washed in dopamine of the satisfaction of completing something whether we did it or not. It’s addictive, we have created a culture that is preprogrammed to search satisfaction and gratification. The cherry on top is the prize, the credential “I am a writer”, and a sense of accomplishment.
All of that said, and I don’t want to shame people who use AI, for years as somebody with dyslexia I’ve always known that editing has been a weak pointed out my in comprehensible emails in my youth to avoiding writing at all costs. Later on, as I became an executive. I used to hire editors to review really important documents, I would have two or three that I could call at any moment to see if somebody could take a quick pass over things. If chatGPT was around in those days, I don’t doubt that I would’ve used it. And even now being an entrepreneur, I use this tool to explain to me things that I haven’t come across, concepts that need me to dig deeper into.
But this is it, I believe that we should teach people to use it as a tool, but not a substitute, thinking partner, as opposed to a brain, as a teacher, as opposed to the kid that we paid to do our homework. To also teach people the difference between happiness and pleasure, because it’s the same as short-term gratification versus the satisfaction that comes with genuine accomplishment, the difference between dopamine and serotonin. Once we experience the reward of “time served” and knowing that we are capable, there is no world where the shortcut could ever satisfy more than the authentic achievement.
That kid is me, except without a bike, whose mom was divorced, the daughter of Italian immigrants, and whose youngest brother had a different dad. My classmates had strength in numbers, and chased me around the schoolyard.
That was 60 years ago. Until I read your entry here, I never made the connection with our shared aversion to AI. I buried myself in books. At age 12, I somehow found Doctor Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, by Philip K Dick. The die was cast. My dad, who we saw every summer, was a poet, classical pianist, and English teacher. I wanted to be like him. Not a teacher though, that was too scary. I started writing poems and song lyrics and designing my own record labels at around 14 or 15. Nobody saw them. Started "playing" borrowed guitars a little later. In the early 70s I got serious about singing and playing and writing songs worth sharing. I've been in a few bands, played weddings, open mic nights, and local gigs, even started recording an album. In 50 years never had the drive (courage?) to make the thing my profession. But I'll be damned if I ever depend on machine learning to make it happen. I started writing haiku a few months before the love of my life gained her wings, and began sharing them on Facebook soon after. Now I'm here on Substack to tell the stories. Share the poems and the songs. Join the community. 86 the bullies.
Howdy. This is Liam.
Liam, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you and hear a bit of your real flesh and blood journey and story. Welcome to Substack. I'll head over and check out your stories.
Thank you Ted. It seems everyone has a different idea of what it means to use this as a tool and when we've crossed the line into being used BY the tool. The tail wagging the dog so to speak. How do you go about making that distinction in a practical way?
Thank you Ted. It seems everyone has a different idea of what it means to use this as a tool and when we've crossed the line into being used BY the tool. The tail wagging the dog so to speak. How do you go about making that distinction in a practical way?
As I’m sitting here, thinking about how I would answer your question, it occurs to me that I am actually having a more difficult time trying to find a situation where the tail does not wag the dog.
Perhaps you’ve caught me in a pragmatic mood, because oddly, I’m OK with this. I suspect it’s just part of being human.
I think the distinction that I’m looking for May be a difference between reacting and responding. Most situations in life we are faced with, we have to make distinctions, and then choices, so to my mind, only an individual using the tool of AI could be able to answer that question in any given moment.
Right now we are still relatively lucky. As good as AI is, most of us can tell when ChatGPT has written something. I do not believe that will always be the case.
The one thing that we may be able to rely on, is that when we look at, read, or listen to an inspired piece of art it provokes something within us.
I believe it was Tom Robbins, who said “The reason AI is not human. Humour, imagination, erotasisim, rebelliousness ascetic, an appreciation of beauty for its own sake.” Forgive me if I am misquoting, but it was a few years ago that I read this.
When I think about this quote, I actually think about artists like Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip, a writer, a poet, a musician, and I think that there is no way that AI could ever truly replicate him. The reason I like him as an example is because he is an outlier. So sure, we may be able to train AI one day to choose the next most likely word, to be able to write songs in the way that he did. But it will never be the same. AI won’t have read as much, Canadian literature, Canadian history, and had the same life experience as that human had. So even if it were to be able to write something that was reasonably good, what actually goes into it, the magic that flows from the fingertips will not be the same, and I believe people will know, we will feel it.
Now, if you wanted something useful in my answer, I would if we read something, and we are not talking about AI being used as a tool, then chances are that tool is being used very well, or not at all.
I guess for me the greatest concern isn't whether someone else can tell the difference between what we have created with the seed and spark of our humanity or a tool, it's whether we ourselves can feel the difference between what is produced by our own spiritual musculature and something that is produced for us. If we lose track of the sense of becoming that accompanies doing the Work, then all bets are off and we're truly slip-sliding away.
I honestly think that that is fair enough. In a world ruled by anxiety, that sees far too many of us using electronic tools to tap out from the human experience you may be right.
I do think that life in years lived gives us the ability to make the distinction about whether something we are reading, watching or looking at resonates with us in a way that I am not sure AI ever will.
When I work with young people, I often talk about intention. The reason why this is important, is that the same action coming from two different places can create a completely different result. To me with the cultivation of even a tiny amount of basic human maturity, we start being able to make these distinctions.
Just as the first time when we see a masters painting, we might find some things about it that resonate with us. But maybe not, maybe we just consider it an interesting picture. But eventually, perhaps years later we see that same painting again and this time there is a world inside of it that was open to us previously.
I don’t think that that is too far of a journey. As long as people are willing to put time into their craft, to dare to become good at something, I think it will speak to that desire within other people, who will be able to identify something true versus something generated. Perhaps now I’m in an optimistic mood.
well hooray then. a good place to land. : )
Nothing to forgive. I'm with you on the fury, just want to make sure I'm not burning the baby along with the bathwater.
Congratulations on pulling forward that exiled child from your past. That kind of shadow work is so good, Rick!
Thanks Bob.
"fear of living in a world of suppressed song. Dread that it might become fashionable to outsource the effort of one’s thinking. Alarm that access to more data would become an acceptable proxy for truth." I guess for me, Rick, there will always be something/someone that will try to suppress our song, be it on purpose or out of fear for themselves. What I like about you is that you are willing to ask the question "why am I afraid?" And to honestly explore and dig deep for that answer.
I am on the fence a bit when it comes to AI. I can see why a person uses AI to try and express what they themselves feel/are unable to do. I have worn make up and shaved various body parts and plucked my eyebrows and dyed my hair all my life. Was this to conform to beauty norms, to hide who I was/am, to express a side of me that I couldn't do "naturally " or to cover up what shamed me? I'm not sure but all I know is that now that I'm a grown-ass woman, these things no longer plague me (except dying the hair. I'll ALWAYS be a blond!)
As a massage therapist, I use various pieces of equipment that have research evidence of enhancing what my hands do. Does that mean I'm a subpar therapist? No, way, because my training was solid and excellent and I have a natural talent for it. But I can see someone using the machines out of fear they are not very good or as a crutch to a deeper connection with the client or because they simply do not want to make the effort to study more and have a firm grasp of their profession.
So I guess for it depends on why you're using AI. The other can of worms is this idea of perfection. Maybe AI is like photoshop for pictures. Or porn for sexual performance. Everyone will get used to things looking /sounding perfect and thus skew the reality of raw reality.
If AI does for writing what photoshop did for photos , I'd be a bit pissed off, tbh.
Excellent thoughts in the development of this conversation Dana. Thank you.
My takeaway from your perspectives here, as well as those offered by others, and on top of the experience that inspired this essay, is that life is not as reduce-able or box-able as we'd like it to be.
There are hundreds of identified cognitive biases that govern our thinking and perception, and they're all designed to help us survive and make decisions without expending the entirety of our cognitive energy on each move we make in life. We love easy answers, sound bites, black and white scenarios, good guys and bad guys. But in truth, we make all of those up in an effort to function in an ever-changing, multi-layered, mysterious, and dynamically evolving reality.
Re your experience with using tools as a massage therapist, one could make the argument that it's those who have mastered the basics that should be granted access to the power tools.
Letting someone who has never held a handsaw use a table saw risks arming them with a device they don't understand the destructive power of. Maybe being able to ride a bicycle and becoming familiar with the physics of propelling one's own body through space, developing spatial awareness, and experiencing the potential for an accident, should be a prerequisite for driving a car. A basic photography class a prerequisite for using Photoshop or Midjourney. An English class or basic writing course a prerequisite for using AI to write.
Sadly, it seems AI is appealing to our lazier nature, promising the opportunity to skip steps on the path to mastery rather than motivate love for the basics that allows tools to be our servants instead of our masters.
Rick, I'm impressed with your very insightful connection – one that relates an abusive experience when you lost your voice to your desire to promote that voice in so many – and I admire your willingness to share something so very, very raw. That deep, burning desire seems to be one way you're working through such a horrific experience.
And, as noted in so many other comments here, the quote from the Gospel of Thomas is so applicable. Maybe the use of machine learning will rob us of our ability to bring forth the stories from within our souls. Or perhaps, for others, it will assist in that very process.
Bottom line: I’d rather read an essay produced not from the collective machine learning based on a million prompts, but from one heart, one soul.
"Maybe the use of machine learning will rob us of our ability to bring forth the stories from within our souls." That is precisely my biggest fear. But as you say, could it be an assistance for others?
What a lovely reflection — thank you for your humble willingness to look within, really see, and share it all. Your deep exploration and honesty feel inspiring.
Reading your story brought back my own memories of a banana-seat, high-rise-handlebar Schwinn — my brother's — learning to pop wheelies in our cul-de-sac, falling flat on my back on the asphalt until I finally mastered it. I sometimes wonder if I could still do it, though after a serious concussion years ago (six months of dizziness), I know better than to try.
Your description of how the embarrassment about not speaking up still lingers also resonated. From what I’ve learned, our protection systems can bypass conscious will to keep us safe faster than we can think or choose — a kind of ancient reflex.
I can’t know if that was true for you, but I know the kind of inability you spoke of. In my case it stemmed from a parental warning at age two: “Never tell anybody or you could lose everything.” Therapy helped me loosen that grip, but for years even everyday writing felt blocked.
Oddly enough, partnering with AI as a sort of “organizer” for the massive brain dumps that were all I could manage helped me reclaim my voice. It gave shape to what trauma had scattered, and let me see gains and understandings I couldn’t have noticed otherwise.
These days I’m grateful that words flow more freely. I sit, and sometimes pages appear. Your essay reminded me how precious that freedom is — and how our voices can return, sometimes by unexpected routes.
Thank you again for sharing. Your invitation to keep bringing forth what’s within feels powerful.
Oh thank you Lisa for this encouragement and expressed resonance. ". . . how precious that freedom is — and how our voices can return, sometimes by unexpected routes." We could go a long way and solve many problems and head off many conflicts if we could train ourselves to expect the unexpected in all the best ways.
Yes — beautifully said. Expecting the unexpected in the best ways feels like such a gentle re-homing of the nervous system — from bracing for what could go wrong, to being open to what might arrive with grace. Like most of us may first arrive in the world. It’s a lesson that’s taken me a lifetime to relearn, and one I now get to watch unfolding in others — I’m so very grateful.
This to me describes the need for intentional communities right now, sanctuaries of human friends who want and need to hold this perspective for and with each other, to admit and recall the miracle of, as you say, our first arrival in the world. I wonder what will happen next? : )
I love your thinking. For me, though, I don’t think I’d have ever come to this point if I’d been held inside an intentional community (humans are just too frail). It may have been the long struggle and solitary letting go, but — in the end — the shift came for me through a kind of coaching that supported my unconscious intelligence — so it could heal and restore what I’d once had. I’m convinced that release gave me a self I couldn’t have reached through even the most expert or gentle external help.
thank god the process helps us find our own unique way
Yes — and thank goodness God’s view of the future is bigger than any plan we might have made for ourselves. I’d have been a goner for sure!
As I read this on a slow day in the shade I thank you. On my gravel road in my thousand acre woods on a river that ran through it. Duffy was a sick bastard who was in his late teens as I was in my tweens. Mother treated my wounds after Duffy threw a rock into the spokes of mu small bike. And I tumbled into the ditch. Mother died in 2018. I never talked to any siblings about the continuation of abuse by Duffy nor of what he and his demented freinds did to me in the woods one day. No it wasn’t rape but something almost as bad.
Opening up to my older sisters in recent conversations was a relief. I have tried to factionalize this into a readable story. I’m still working on it.
God bless you and Duffy and your mom and your siblings and the traumas and the wrongs and the resilience of your spirit and your writing and this great and mysterious process of rising from the challenges into humanness.
Thanks Rick. Amongst other concerns. Youth is filled with hurdles and challenges. It is easy to think it’s all about oneself. Bully’s and hazing is what my story was about. Not sexual abuse. I think but don’t except it as healthy but it happens. Duffy apparently turned out as an adult to be quite strange. Pissed off the wrong people. He was found years later tied to train tracks, dead, in california.
sorry for him and the history you sustained
It’s over. Dealt with. Done.
Aldous Huxley in Brave New World describes a society where people don’t need to be silenced by an external force—instead we silence ourselves through conditioning and distraction and perhaps easy access to a magic self-generating textbox...
AI certainly has the flavor of soma.
Wow Rick. The first sentence of this piece immediately captured me as a reader, and I'm so moved by your message and outcry for vulnerability and authenticity in a world that demands perfection. Keep telling human stories. You are doing something right.
Ha, thanks. Funny how tolerant the universe is of our mucking around trying a lot of things in order to find the "something right." Thank god we seem to exist in a generous and forgiving paradigm.