A reflection on what it means to create in the presence of AI.
AI offers words, answers, outputs—sometimes one hits like lightning, something you’d never find alone.
When anyone can generate something “impressive” in the blink of an eye, it can cheapen the perceived value of effortful work.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a supercomputer named Deep Thought spends millions of years calculating the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything—“42.”
But when asked, “What’s the actual question?” It has no idea.
The right question—the one that stops you cold, stirs something buried, or breaks you open. The right question is not just about logic—it’s about timing, and these questions awaken the soul.
Answers without real questions are just noise.
The real questions are the kinds of costs that make you more real.
These questions pull you inward.
The “answer” to the right question isn’t a sentence—it’s a path. A transformation.
The journey itself becomes a stance—a statement.
It places you in relation to the world.
You’re engaging your whole being.
When you’re deep in it, you enter a state of immersion that AI can’t offer.
It’s meditative, even spiritual.
On this path, AI can offer sparks—but not fire.
It can offer answers—but not meaning.
It can mimic the path—but cannot walk it with a soul.
You’re standing inside the tension: The beauty of what AI can do, and the holiness of what only you can do.
But what happens in the moment when the outside voice—even an artificial one—grows louder than your own?
When AI gives you something undeniably good, something sharper or more beautiful than what you had in mind, and you’re tempted to follow its thread instead of your own.
It might mimic your favorite artists. It might echo your style.
And at first, it flatters you. It excites you.
But slowly, quietly, it begins to replace you.
It’s like wearing a costume that fits too well.
You admire how it looks.
You start to believe in the reflection.
But the longer you wear it, the easier it is to forget what your own skin feels like.
The danger isn’t imitation.
It’s amnesia.
Sometimes, allowing an unexpected idea to lead you can open new doors. That’s part of being a creator, too—being surprised, surrendering control to something beyond you. But there’s a difference between: Discovery (“This AI spark helped me unlock something I didn’t know I felt.”) and Displacement (“This idea is better, so I’ll abandon mine.”) The former is growth. The latter is disconnection.
Therefore, let us use AI.
But let us not trade our becoming for convenience.
Do not let speed replace depth.
And do not let illusion drown out truth.