Justin Reidy

Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them.

I think that the appearance of generative AI with its seemingly magical abilities to unleash the creative beast lurking inside all of us has broken our brains a little bit and it has become difficult to think straight when it comes to the intersection of the technology and humanity and what being creative involves.

God will not dispense health like a cosmic vendor or be enlisted as a party to our quarrels. The only real promise is presence. What God wants from me is me; from you, you.

"In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts."

When the Seer of Lublin, a great Hasidic master, was a child, he would wander in the forest. His father asked him why, and he said, “I go there to find God.” “That’s beautiful,” his father answered, “but haven’t I taught you that God is the same everywhere?” “God is,” said the boy, “but I’m not.”

For those of us who are not geniuses, it may be tempting to outsource some portion of our creativity to the AI, so we can get past the fact of our non-geniousness, but those barriers and climbing them is the work of creativity. The goal isn’t to become a genius. It’s to do the work.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Putting ideas into words doesn't have to mean writing, of course. You can also do it the old way, by talking. But in my experience, writing is the stricter test. You have to commit to a single, optimal sequence of words. Less can go unsaid when you don't have tone of voice to carry meaning. And you can focus in a way that would seem excessive in co... See more

I think that the appearance of generative AI with its seemingly magical abilities to unleash the creative beast lurking inside all of us has broken our brains a little bit and it has become difficult to think straight when it comes to the intersection of the technology and humanity and what being creative involves.