Hey. So, uh… here we are. Another blog on the internet. Because clearly, the world was just waiting for more of my thoughts crammed into pixels. But hey, if you’re here—either by accident, morbid curiosity, or some sad algorithmic twist of fate—then buckle up. Or don’t. I’m not your dad.

Look, I don’t know what you’re expecting. Profound insights? Hot takes? Some carefully curated version of a person who’s got their shit together? Nope. This is just me, talking at you, the way I do in my kitchen at 3 AM when even my dogs have stopped pretending to care.

Maybe you’ll relate. Maybe you’ll hate it. Maybe you’ll get halfway through a post and think, ‘Jesus, this guy needs therapy.’ (Spoiler: I’m in therapy.) But if you stick around, who knows? Maybe we’ll both feel a little less alone in this chaotic, nonsensical, apocolyptic, authoritarian hellscape we call existence.

Or maybe you’ll just close the tab and go watch TikToks of dogs skateboarding. Honestly? Fair play. Either way… welcome. Or sorry. Whichever.

So, according to a study at MIT, the use of ChatGPT can harm an individual’s critical thinking skills. Wow. No shit!? I studied AI way back in the early 1990s as part of my degree. We didn’t have the computing power back then to put a lot of the theory into practice. (Hell, we were stoked if our PC running Dos 3.3 had 80Mb of RAM).

Thought experiments such as The Chinese Room still travel with me to this day. The fact that some people are using ChatGPT to create a LinkedIn post is depressing enough, though. AI should be utilised for crunching huge amounts of data. AI is making great strides in medicine and the material sciences. Yet, I know a few people who are using ChatGPT to write a book. I mean, where’s the fun in that? The joy and pain of trying to weave together the words should be the motivation. That’s where the fun is. And don’t we need fun, right about now? Getting into that creative zone, experimenting and learning from what gets created, why would you want to farm that work out to software? Already ChatGPT (other AI platforms are available) are changing everyday language. Already researchers are tracking the decline in usage of such words as ‘nuance’. Which in one way is very fitting for the time we live in.

Then, I read in The Guardian about “microefficiencies”, basically people who are “self-optimisers”. In a nutshell this is the next level of the Cult of Productivity: People who clean their teeth in the shower or lay out their clothes for the day last thing at night. At what point do we stop being human and just become a machine? Can’t you just enjoy the shower? Can’t you just fcous on cleaning your teeth and doing a good job? Now I acknowledge sometimes you need to remove obstacles. Maybe you need to have that yoga mat next to the bed, just to give you no excuse to get into it. But start enjoying life. Find the fun in everything. Stop trying to be a machine. You’re a human, and that can be fun.

Alright… that’s it. That’s all I got. I don’t know, maybe this whole thing was just me working something out in my head, or maybe you got something out of it. Either way, we’re here, we’re doing the thing, and now it’s over. Life’s weird like that. You take the ride, you talk it out, and then you move on to the next weird thing. So… thanks for reading, or skimming, or hate-reading—I don’t know your life. If you wanna yell at me about it, fine, but I probably won’t respond unless it’s funny. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and for the love of god, don’t forget to hydrate (and have some fun). See you next time. Or not. Who knows? If you want to see what I’m up to next, why not subscribe? It’s free and you’ll get a notification when I post something next.