Hey good folks and Thursday! I’m out on vacation this week, and “touching grass,” as they say. So, here’s a bit of a lighter essay this week––less about AI and more…well, inspired by taking time off.

I hope you have some time coming up, too.

What a juxtaposition our world is. The World Cup inspiring a global camaraderie in sport, of sort. Continued violence globally, too. Technology as the defining edge in global economic competition, unless it’s all a bubble.

It’s a lot to keep up with, and keeping up with it certainly feels important. And then, I ran across this in my Substack feed.

For me, this week, I have been reading as much literature as I can possibly fit in between the beach and the pool and two toddlers (3 and 2!). I’m on a Maggie Smith kick, and her writing is such a wonderful departure from the AI content I edit so frequently.

It is sentimental. It doesn’t follow much of a predictable timeline at all. The reader has to do mental work––and she says so several times. It's metaphor after metaphor. Train of thought after train of thoughts. And still, it all comes together and paints a beautiful picture of human experience.

For me, the art of writing and storytelling is why I ever got into this field. I started as a journalist, and then found my way to tech by way of interviewing tech founders. I am grateful that writing has made me a living, and one that is certainly more lucrative than I ever thought possible (without producing a best selling novel, of course).

I, too, am grateful that I like to build systems, and that an AI content production system actually (dare I say it!) interests me. It’s fun. I’m good at it. What luck, what alignment.

And still, I find myself sitting in weekly art classes (charcoal, live model), writing poetry (aiming for 1 poem a day), reading as much as I can (Substack essays, Maggie Smith, Bell Hooks, even GoodReads quotes pages), etc.

The human experience––your human experience––cannot be delegated to the bots. Cannot. Should not. Protect it at all costs. You are the data center. You are the producer, the creator, the artist, the one they modeled their little God machine after.

I hope you, too, indulge in art, and take vacation, and stare at the ocean or the stars or a line of ants for far too long.

A fun fact I learned this week: NASA found raspberry sugar in an interstellar cloud in the Milky Way. Raspberry sugar. I didn’t know the sugar in a raspberry was all that different from, say, any other sugars, but alas. Now, on this vacation, when we can think of nothing else to say, someone goes, “And the universe tastes like raspberries.”

Yes, and the universe could very well taste like raspberries. Doesn’t that make you feel something?

A NOTE ON THIS ADVICE

You do you!

One content marketer’s best practices aren’t always right for another one, though I do try to distill out the main concepts and core practices I believe everyone can benefit from. That said, you must use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice given from folks on the internet. I am an expert, and this advice comes from my direct experience, but I am not smarter than you, and I have nothing to gain or lose because of what you do.

Thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think by replying to this email.

Very excited to be here with y’all. 

Tracey