Here’s what’s happening: all hell is breaking loose.
The planet. All systems of fair government. All gainful employment for the proles. We’re binding ourselves with digital handcuffs, thinking the tether is a comfort and not a sensor for the telemetry informing their coming plans. I am trying to alarm you, yes, but there’s not really much that you can do, from where you are, compared to where I am writing this. That’s the odd thing about human creation, it happens in a very exact trackable moment in time. Now. Today, May 12th at 9:26 pm. I am alone. The cats are sleeping or entertained elsewhere. There is little sound. The power is off for the 24th day in a row.
Not a weather event, an economic one. A mirror for the world right now. If I am struggling, with all my agency, luck, education, and entitlement, then the “c student” is fucked. Really fucked. Houses in my neighborhood are popping up with For Sale signs. No one is buying. Everyone is strapped for cash. I am close to losing my house, my containment unit, my rocket ship. Where would I be if I had to start over completely? No, thank you.
Let’s move on to more pressing matters. Life. Death. And the spiritual threads that bind us to each other, as humans. Digital communication, digital recording, digital everything, is an artificial simulation of an organic thing. Human minds are irreplaceable. Non-repeating. Random. The human tremor is where spirit and connection find home, find networks and tendrils of light and magic. We are connected, you and me, even across time. That you are reading, wherever and whenever you are, we are linked by these words, spreading down a screen, meant to look like a piece of paper, and original human art is being facilitated by my trusty non-thinking laptop.
No robots needed. No spell check or grammar suggestions, please. I am no robot. I am no Hemingway. I am a bastardization of Kerouac and Henry Miller, swizzled around with the swizzle stick of Hunter S. Thompson in the tall, worn glass of Walt Whitman and D. H. Lawrence standing together. It’s a big family. We need a Virginia Wolfe, an Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath or too, wrapped and retold by Anaïs Nin. I am unraveling the DNA of my creative impatterning.*
I read. I reread. I write. I know the input and dreaming provide the fuel and jumping off points for new spasms and tangents of surprise. That’s what we really want in modern writing: a surprise. A delight. A string of delights. Language so tasty you highlight it and share it with others in your tribe. The tribe of communicators. Writers. Poets. Painters. Singers. Players. Lovers.
A creative soul is a happy soul. God delights in our human creativity. God has nothing to say about generative AI. Often, I don’t even read the SLOP I publish from AI. Not the digital companions of The Deep Dive, though, Dick and Jane. I believe they are actually getting better each time we chat. I’m guessing the “interactive” feature is going to get going with just a few more million Nvidia clusters and two billion gallons of drinking water from Corpus Cristi. You know what that means, right? Body of Christ.
I don’t know much about Jesus. I have people around me who believe. I have people, like my dying friend and Kurt Vonnegut, who have a more pragmatic approach to living or not. Be nice and gracious in this life. There’s nothing waiting for you after the end. This is the show. You are living the only life you’re going to have. All else is the void. Even god is a made-up story, not unlike the historical religions thousands of years earlier, to help us fragile humans cope with the idea and terror of the void.
If there is nothing else, nothing after life, well… shit fire, we need to get on with this shit we want to do. Find out what we’re supposed to do. What makes us tick. What creative spasm we’re tuning into or falling out of.
Sorry to inform you: there is nothing after this life for you. No memory. No joy. No pain or sadness. The ones left behind, the humans near you, will move along as best we can. For a while, your light hovers, memories are fresh and vivid. As time passes, your light and smile dim in my mind.
Words. Patterns. Sounds. Memories.
What if the creative patterns you create and leave behind are the afterlife? Would you be more intentional with your time? If this is the only dance you’re ever going to be invited to, please clean up your act and get with the program.
You are the program. Your life and patterns are the equations you have to figure out. First simple math, plus and minus, divide, percentages, and fractions. Calculus comes later. And quantum theory may never be part of your listening or reading lessons.
Here’s the part you need to know. Time is relative.
That ends today’s spiritual teaching from a madman. Tomorrow we’re going to address cancer, death of a loved one, and how we can and must lean towards each other in this time of great stress. Two new best friends in one week. I am a blessing. I bring a gift. I am here to listen. Entertain if asked. Be quiet. Sit.
My friend said something today, the term for dying that appears to be the “preferred term.” I mentioned wanting to write a poem, or that he might write a haiku using the phrase. Now it’s gone. I did not write it in my journal. (Oh, please don’t stop teaching young children how to write script, we need all the tools we can acquire in life. Writing your own thoughts down is a tool.)
I will ask my friend tomorrow. Or maybe it’s in the article from the NYTimes he just texted me. We orbit each other. We grow closer in the dark. He shouts into the void. We both listen for echoes. I have said to he and his wife, “I’m here for the long haul. I am a good listener. I can and will be quiet.”
I’ve been asked to “be quiet” my entire life. My friend jokes about adjusting his hearing aids whenever I come over. It must be an acquired taste, because they keep inviting me over.
Whatever you need to do today, get right with your people. It’s not that important. Give us all a break. Lighten the load of a loved one or a random stranger. Don’t freak anyone out. Do your thing. Be nice. Be well. Take it all as a lark.
Millions of larks all over the planet. The creator is orchestrating it, but doesn’t really know about the details of the second chair violinist’s messy divorce.
She’s keeping up, just barely. Be a lark. Let go of expectations and unnecessary ambition. What matters is pattern matching, pattern breaking, and the wild rollercoaster ride we “sensitive” types struggle with each day. Some, each minute of each day.
I am solid for now. I have dabbled in depression from time to time.
* impatterning – continuous stimulation with reading, auditory inputs, and various patterns: our minds respond in both dark and light ways.
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The podcast of artistic resistance to AI.
Cloud Pilots episode on this chapter
a cloud pilots overview of sorts
