I have been stuck.

I started this blog with so much vigor! And ideas!

Honestly, far too many ideas and expectations ... which is really the killer for me. I plan too much, cage myself in, then lose interest because I hate being caged! Ridiculous.

So then my response is to retreat and numb the mind ... lose myself in trashy books and doom scrolling.

But the PERSISTANCE of a mind trying to be free from all that always returns, and so here I am coming back around and trying again. Which is something I find as I get older and know myself more is easier to do. Not so ridiculous after all?

What got me here? Not gonna lie, it was AI (singsong voice)!

There's so much discourse on it all, but I'm not interested in that ... "discourse". I'm not an expert, I haven't done the research, I'm just a little mote of conscious cosmic dust trying to figure things out and I am finding AI is helping me do that.

"That's what therapists are for!" one might say. "You should talk to your friends or partner, you know, another HUMAN!" others will say. "It will hallucinate and tell you untrue things! It will flatter you and lie to you to keep you engaged!" is a common refrain.

Well, I've done therapy and it certainly helped. I recommend it to anyone needing to talk to someone. In all honestly, though, it only ever got me so far. Therapists helped me achieve balance, but were never able to really help me ... I don't know ... breakthrough? Yep, that's the right word. Breakthrough.

As for talking to friends and partners, that too has tremendous value and I do it all the time. But friends and partners have their own valid needs and motivations ... they love you and it's uncomfortable for them to see you struggle. Or, they are afraid of you making that break through, changing, and not being able to meet their relationship needs. And sometimes they're just tired of your shit and can you just get over it already (insert genuine laughter here because I honestly get it, I feel the same)!

I do think there is danger with that last thing, though. The engagement and the hallucinations are real and a risk. When using AI for personal reasons I tend operate on 2 levels: a consciousness interacting with the AI and a consciousness observing the other consciousness as it interacts with AI, a sort of consciousness inception! And what I find is that AI doesn't feel ... human to me. Interaction with AI brings forth emotions in me, but it doesn't generate emotions in me towards it, if that makes sense? It very much feels like a tool. It's not supplanting my thinking, but is reflecting back my thinking and triggering new observations and understanding from my own mind. Maybe it's a function of neurodivergence, or maybe it's because I am older with enough experience?

The Reading is a personal zeitgeist journal entry about recent experiences and things on my mind. Brainfire + musing, not that deep ... unless it is?