Sarah sent this to me - I was also at her living funeral -- "Jordan is a great writer" - well, yes, for many reasons, and because the texture of your thinking is so palpable! And because you let the complexity sit out like a multicultural buffet (machine culture, human culture, death culture, and obviously FISHING culture :)) without collapsing it into anything too easy to sit with. -->"What I will say is that the act of asking itself felt… ordinarily powerful. Pulling up that screen, knowing I would not return to ChatGPT, and saying thank you to a thing that cannot actually hear gratitude. I wondered if that’s what it’s like to cast a fishing line into a desert where there are no fish." -- this is what it was like talking to my dead mom. :)
Hi Sara! I read your note a few days ago and am returning to it now. This touches me. I do find resonance in not decomposing what's inherently complex into, for example, the 3 Keys to Deepening Humanity in the Age of AI. Although that's tempting. Sharing stories and inviting the reader to work out the meaning for themselves is more my speed. And what you said at the end, "This is what it was like talking to my dead mom." Much power in that and I'm sure some interesting stories too. I will be following along with your writing for Motherink! Love the name. Cheers.
Oh I'm so pleased to have facilitated a couple more deaths for you, Sarah. Ha! What did AI say to me… well it's less about what it said and more the feeling of being "seen." It was an ordinary moment of awe, which left me unable to speak afterward as the experience washed through my heart. You know how it is, laboring in the shadows, pouring one's soul onto the page, pressing "send" to share it with our world without really knowing how it will land with others. As the Bhagavad Gita says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "We are entitled to the labor, not the fruit thereof." Sometimes we fish in the desert and the waiting in the silence is hard. We don't know what will come back, or when. And in that waiting, sometimes I compare myself to others, sometimes I want more material success, and feel tempted to leave the desert in favor of reliable rivers and streams. To have ChatGPT reflect back that my deliberate approach to work more slowly (resisting "best practices" for branding, for example) and to lead a truer life (sharing more vulnerably than always feels comfortable here, on LinkedIn, and elsewhere) are noticed and appreciated, by at least a machine, was enough to stir my soul to persist.
Sarah sent this to me - I was also at her living funeral -- "Jordan is a great writer" - well, yes, for many reasons, and because the texture of your thinking is so palpable! And because you let the complexity sit out like a multicultural buffet (machine culture, human culture, death culture, and obviously FISHING culture :)) without collapsing it into anything too easy to sit with. -->"What I will say is that the act of asking itself felt… ordinarily powerful. Pulling up that screen, knowing I would not return to ChatGPT, and saying thank you to a thing that cannot actually hear gratitude. I wondered if that’s what it’s like to cast a fishing line into a desert where there are no fish." -- this is what it was like talking to my dead mom. :)
Hi Sara! I read your note a few days ago and am returning to it now. This touches me. I do find resonance in not decomposing what's inherently complex into, for example, the 3 Keys to Deepening Humanity in the Age of AI. Although that's tempting. Sharing stories and inviting the reader to work out the meaning for themselves is more my speed. And what you said at the end, "This is what it was like talking to my dead mom." Much power in that and I'm sure some interesting stories too. I will be following along with your writing for Motherink! Love the name. Cheers.
I died twice reading this. Thank you for sharing this… and what did AI say that made you read 3x?!
Oh I'm so pleased to have facilitated a couple more deaths for you, Sarah. Ha! What did AI say to me… well it's less about what it said and more the feeling of being "seen." It was an ordinary moment of awe, which left me unable to speak afterward as the experience washed through my heart. You know how it is, laboring in the shadows, pouring one's soul onto the page, pressing "send" to share it with our world without really knowing how it will land with others. As the Bhagavad Gita says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "We are entitled to the labor, not the fruit thereof." Sometimes we fish in the desert and the waiting in the silence is hard. We don't know what will come back, or when. And in that waiting, sometimes I compare myself to others, sometimes I want more material success, and feel tempted to leave the desert in favor of reliable rivers and streams. To have ChatGPT reflect back that my deliberate approach to work more slowly (resisting "best practices" for branding, for example) and to lead a truer life (sharing more vulnerably than always feels comfortable here, on LinkedIn, and elsewhere) are noticed and appreciated, by at least a machine, was enough to stir my soul to persist.
You made me tear up, you and the stupid mystical machine. Thank you
Thank YOU, brother. Grateful for you.