Estimated reading time: 1 minutes

This will be short. I want to explain why I haven’t been writing recently. It’s about AI and it’s a shameful admission.

I started writing (for this site) in early 2022, and put a lot of effort into coming up with 10 or so pieces.

Then I discovered Google Gemini (Bard at the time). I gave it an essay to review it. The feedback was so great! I got it to rewrite it wholesale. The resulting essays were posted here.

I was the original slop writer. I apologize. I really didn’t know any better. It stole the joy of writing and thinking from me. I began to doubt myself. I feared the imagined adversary, armed with AI tools who’d out-write, out-think and out-work me.

I get it now. The point of writing is to clarify your thoughts, practice the actual craft, and learn to communicate. Using AI is like using hook and tackle to lift weights in the gym. Oh well…

Writing and editing sucks. There’s so much self-doubt and uncertainty. So much fear. It’s laborious.

That’s what I used to think about gym workouts too. I’d cheat by rushing through the sets, getting the rep count super high. Them somebody told me the point is not to increase the number. It’s to feel the pain, the pain is what strengthens the muscles.

And so it goes with writing. A good writer I may not be, but a person with a voice, and opinions (ooh so many) I am. I will choose to be myself, to not lose my voice. If it puts me at a disadvantage, so be it.

I’m really enjoying my gym workouts, and as I told my coach, it feels like I’m swelling up literally. 500lb pallets I will never be ever to carry. I’m fine with that.

Ta.

PS: I’m going through older essays and eventually de-slopifying everything. It’s such a fking chore, but you live you learn.