OH, NO. STILL TALKING ABOUT AI

DH, one of the original techies (he designed both hardware and software when few knew what those “wares” were) mocks the big to-do about AI. He maintains it isn’t different from the digital tools we have been using for forty years, only more sophisticated and functional, but not fundamentally a new species of “ware.”

 

I tend to agree, and I’m no techie. Digital tools have been with us since the mid-20^th century, and in our homes since the late part of the same. They just keep getting more able and their functionality is replacing an increasing number of functions that once required living breathing individual beings to operate.

 

Digital tools are just that, TOOLS.

 

Cars replaced horses, typewriters replaced pencils. Spellcheckers replaced thumbing through printed dictionaries, and printed dictionaries were replaced with ones brought to light on screens.

 

Now AI tools also manage technical writing once done by hardworking humans with the job title “Tech Writer,” and genre fiction can be spewed in minutes by the same tools. Echoes of the assembly line workers being replaced by machines? You bet.

 

It is uncomfortable to be replaced. It is both exhilarating and uncomfortable to adjust to most changes.

 

It’s also pointless to whine or rail against it. Digital tools are here, and they keep getting better in the sense of becoming more precise.

 

But the point where we give up on meaning in our creative lives is nowhere here and never will be. I’m reminded of chapter 23 in The Little Prince, where he comes to a train station and someone is selling “water pills.” The salesperson promises it would save the buyer some minutes they would otherwise have to waste drinking water. The Little Prince is baffled, as he’d rather take the few minutes saved and go to the nearest brook or water well and take in the fresh drink of water.

 

If you want to churn a novel, AI is a (still mediocre) tool, but it will do, and it will keep getting better at it. If you want to grow through the journey of creating a novel with all the amazing insights and emotional experiences it will provide you, the creator, you will write it, every word of it, as it flows out of the fountain of your God-given creative stream.

PEOPLE WHO AVOID THEIR OWN FEELINGS WILL NEGLECT YOURS

There’s a much-used axiom that starts with “There are two kinds of people. The first… .”

One can replace the “two” with any number. The point? Classifying humankind into simplistic categories.

It sounds like a version of folk wisdom. In a way, it is. Of course, all simplifications miss the gray zone most inhabit.

 

I’m about to reflect on one such and give it credence because I noticed that in life and also in literature there are two sorts of people. Those who talk about their feelings, sometimes ad nauseam, and those who never talk about feelings (theirs or others’) and view feelings as indulgent and ultimately pointless.

 

In between lies the vast majority of humanity. But I was thinking about one of the extremes today after reading a full bestselling novel from a writer who has written many like it (a popular one that shall remain unnamed here) where feelings or reflections on such were utterly missing. Not the sort where the reader/listener (audio version is also selling well) can surmise the emotional landscape from the actions, but where the main characters neither reveal nor discuss how anything makes them feel, and their audience is going on a wild action ride with nary any emotion beside excitement generated by action.

 

Some writers of commercial fiction write this way. Some people live this way. From life experience I also know that those who dismiss feelings as “messy” don’t stop with their own. Regardless of whether the underlying reason is early trauma or sociopathy, they will make no room for your feelings either.

 

If you write, think about the emotional landscape. For the rest who just “live,” consider how barren your lay of the land is and how much more alive you could be if you notice and acknowledge feelings as you go about busily doing this, that, and the other.

 

MARKING THE FIRST MONTH AND THE NEW CAT

 

a.k.a ROMI PROGRESS REPORT

You might recall we adopted a new cat. DH named her Romi.

Romi spent the first six days hiding under a bed in her dedicated room.

On day seven, she came out, looked at me, and sat at the window making sure I stayed far away.

On day eight, she came and sat next to me.

Day nine was a watershed moment: Romi came for pets and even let me pet her belly. She has been doing this every day since.

Day sixteen was the first day I let her begin exploring the rest of the house. For the next six days, this was always while my two resident cats were safely closed off in my room.

From the second week on, I have been doing the “scent swapping” thing with towels and grooming brushes changing places, so all three could experience each other’s smell. Day twenty-three was the first day they saw each other.

 

Only a couple of days later, and Romi was playing well with my orange cat, Nougat.

 And a few days ago, day thirty-three, all three played together and then got rewarded with a tiny snack, per cat experts’ advice to associate good, friendly play with good, tasty things. They've been playing daily together ever since.

Patience pays. Here’s to happy homes, y’all.

GOOD CONVERSATIONS HAVE LOTS OF DOORKNOBS

 

In my growing up years I observed how the adults in my life would get together with friends to have “coffee & Cake” and good conversation. If these conversations sometimes sounded like arguments, it was because they were. Sort of. Someone would posit, someone would give their sharp observation, someone would object.

 

But these weren’t fights. They were stimulating arguments. Often, one of the adults would concede they hadn’t thought about all the ramifications and will reconsider their position. Even when they agreed to disagree, it was not unusual for the next gathering to bring reconsidered concessions.

 

My parents and their friends thought folks who got together to talk about the weather and comment about the nice refreshments were dull and not worth inviting over again. Inane conversation was not conversation, but polite banter appropriate for quick passersby. Friends and relations worth engaging with had real conversations and many times challenged each other.

 

That was the world I grew up in.

 

Imagine my surprise to find the norms were different in the USA and polite company never brought up religion, politics, or anything that might have a whiff of differences. The ethos of my new country required a major cultural shift.

 

Today, many in the USA lament that they can no longer talk to members of their family or people who they once considered friends. In truth, I suspect this is because Americans had no training in real conversations of substance. How to walk away from an exchange that shed light on different values or perceptions and come back open-hearted to engage again or even see another’s point of view? This requires training.

 

A good conversation has lots of doorknobs. It also requires the interest in twisting the knobs to peek at the other side of the door.

 

I have recently lost an Israeli friend (at her choosing) over differences, but it stands as an anomaly in my relationships there. Over many years, I have lost a few American friends for just such. I accept this is a cultural limitation and, in some ways, also my inability to fully integrate.

I don't want to over-idealize this. I dislike yelling, which was sometimes part of these interesting conversations of my childhood. To this day, I shudder when the volume/decibel goes up. But even loudness did not indicate a future break in relations and calling others by names of historic mega-villains was something I didn't hear back then.

 

I was born a dual citizen and have lived all of my adult life in the USA. But we’re always from where we grew up, aren’t we? I cherish the Israeli me and the training it gave me.