The Beauty Of Contradiction: Staying Human In The Age Of AI

We are walking contradictions.

We are the mess as well as the masterpiece,

And that might be the most sacred thing there is about being human.

So I teach people how to drop into stillness,

How to connect with their higher self through sound,

Through meditation,

Through altered states,

But I also used to be a music journalist.

I love loud music and concerts.

I can be really inappropriate and weirdly funny,

And yet I'm socially awkward while being deeply spiritual,

Quiet,

Reserved,

Almost conservative,

And I've studied consciousness for years and also built websites,

Studied technology,

And now I'm really fascinated by AI.

So we're all contradictions,

And not just the opposites attract type of contradictions.

We are full-spectrum beings trying to hold all of it,

The sacred and the funny or inappropriate,

The mindful and the messy,

The cosmic and the technology.

I create things that help people remember themselves,

But I also spend hours testing AI tools.

I make meditations to open the heart,

And then I'll turn around and laugh at something completely inappropriate that I said in private.

I've come to realize that this isn't hypocrisy,

It's humanity.

The human experience was always about creating and consuming,

About laughing at the wrong things.

It's imperfect.

It's emotional.

It's alive.

But here's the concern.

We are at a crossroads now with AI,

With algorithms,

With technology,

With automation,

And it's not that AI is evil,

Or maybe it is or could be,

But it's efficient,

And efficiency doesn't care if you're moved by it.

It doesn't care if you feel more you.

It doesn't care.

It just wants to optimize.

So if we're not awake,

If we don't choose to stay weird and poetic and full of contradiction,

We actually risk becoming just another optimized thing in the system,

Some kind of product,

Data,

A pattern that becomes predictable enough to sell to,

Which is what a lot of people want to do,

Is sell to us.

We lose touch with the mystery,

But here's the thing,

Too.

We've always done this.

Every major technology has offered the same invitation.

You can use this to remember who you are or to forget.

So right now,

AI is mimicking our art,

Our voice,

Our purpose,

And if we're not careful,

It will seduce us into thinking it is our voice,

That it can replace what only a human soul knows how to say,

So this is my plea.

Don't forget to feel.

Don't forget to make something pointless and beautiful.

Don't stop contradicting yourself.

Don't outsource your humanity.

Stay strange,

Soulful,

Inconsistent,

And contradict yourself.

None of us knows for sure what is to come,

But that's how we'll stay human.