Between waking & dreaming

From Here On

A terminal procrastinator has finally decided to start writing. I am planting a flag: eight hundred words a day. May I keep at it. The idea of returning to writing began on sleepless nights. When thoughts came rushing in, I wanted desperately to record what was passing through my mind. By the time I woke, only scattered fragments remained, and most of the inspiration had already vanished—but the impulse was still there. Up to this point in my life, I seem to have been like the bear in the old tale, breaking off one ear of corn only to drop it for the next; there has not been a single thing I have managed to sustain over time. So let it begin here. There is another reason I want to start writing: the arrival of the AI age. The internet is filling with more and more AI-generated content. When AI can produce an assigned essay both quickly and well, what is the point of human beings continuing to write? I think perhaps the point lies precisely in the fact that we do it neither quickly nor perfectly. For carbon-based creatures, putting words on the page is always labor. Take this moment, for instance: every character has to be typed out one by one; what I want to say has to be considered, revised, and polished. Even after careful carving and sanding, whatever I write will inevitably have flaws. With luck, perhaps one out of every hundred pieces will turn out vivid and interesting. But the writer has the pleasure of creation, and the reader gets a glimpse into the thoughts or fragments of life of another carbon-based being.