There must be a word for what happens when you’re thinking about something and then seemingly randomly you stumble across other people talking about that thing in a way that adds a whole new dimension. Serendipity is sort of what I mean, but there should be something more specific?
When I went to take a shower this morning, I did my usual thing and put on a podcast.
Digression: I ‘follow’ many podcasts and yet I often find myself in that weird paralysis that also should have a name specific to what happens when one opens Netflix or any other app with a bunch of options without having something in mind, and then faces the existential crisis of “what exactly am I feeling, wanting, going to be compelled by at this moment?” There’s often this feeling of “why do I follow all these things I have no interest in actually listening to?” except that obviously there are times I want to listen to them, or wanted to. On the other hand, there are a number of options that feel kind of aspirational, like they are smart and interesting but more of a commitment than what I can reasonably listen to in a shower/getting ready timeframe, though most of my podcast listening has to work in exactly that context. I sometimes end up listening to one podcast broken up into several showers, which explains why I saw there was a new episode of EconTalk and I hit play.
In this most recent podcast, host Russ Roberts talks to Ian Leslie (for the third time), in this case about AI and being human. In the first part of the podcast, the two discuss ChatGPT, as in nearly every podcast I’ve heard recently, but instead of “what cool things can we do with this tech” or “how will this lead to the apocalypse,” Roberts and Leslie were talking about something more interesting, namely that this kind of technology means that our own unique mode of expression will be more important now, since the nature of ChatGPT (at least in near-future incarnations) is to sort of average everything, to be competent but not revolutionary, to pull from different sources but not in the same way one individual with one’s own experiences, education, and personality might synthesize ideas.
When I am thinking about writing every day, I know what I’m producing isn’t my “best work;” everything is essentially a first draft. But I don’t want to write something generic, and when it comes to writing about ideas, it seems I may fall into that trap. Most of the things I think about on a given day are interesting to me because I don’t have a full grasp of them; I am trying to understand them myself, think through how the perspectives I encounter match up or upend what I’ve already processed.
What I’m starting to appreciate more and more is that I do have an unusual level of curiosity, and as a result, a fairly unique set of experiences. At the same time, I find at this stage of my life, I am also compelled by ideas that seem to be more universal, patterns I have seen in the myriad contexts in which I’ve explored. Then again, I also think there’s some interesting ways in which I find myself in contradiction.
I’m curious if I can find ways to tease out how my experiences lend new ways of thinking about a given subject. Trying to remove the evaluation of whether what I’m writing is ‘good’ and going a layer down into where some of my reactions and ideas come from. I’m not sure if it’s interesting to talk about this tangle of experiences I’ve had. Is writing ultimately a way for me to make sense of my life, my self, the world around me? Am I on the hook to entertain anyone who comes across my words? To give you a huge set of possible inputs that could explain how I see things? Mostly, I am guessing it only matters how you see things, and not so much whether what I’ve experienced has any bearing on our level of congruence.
What this inquiry boils down to for me is whether I can write about ideas without boring myself, without erasing myself in some “how you write an essay” generic mode of expression. What happens when I am more present, when I am visible? I will be vulnerable, or whatever the right word is to say, I’ll probably say something stupid or that I’ll disagree with myself soon, and I’ll be OK, the only real danger is wanting to appear instead of just appearing.