As I struggle with fatigue and distraction this morning, I think about how very many human skills and abilities are “use it or lose it”. Walking, reasoning, speaking another language, legible handwriting, cooking a recipe from memory, recalling the route to a place that isn’t visited often: all of these, and many more besides, are the kind of thing that diminish over time without continued practice. We become what we practice, and so conversely, we can expect to be far less of whatever we don’t practice. It makes logical sense, thinking about it, and more importantly experience has proved it to me directly over and over again.
How about a really simple example? I learned French from my mother as a child, Czech in military language school, and German living in Germany for more than six years. I can’t honestly claim that I actually speak any of those languages now with any fluency, at all. I don’t use them enough, and the skill has largely faded away to little more than comfortable familiarity. (Whether immersion would or would not “bring it all back” is a separate question.)
Not enough? How about this one? I write. I write something like 1500-5000 words each day, between personal and professional writing. I used to do that in pen and ink. My handwriting was very specifically my own, easily recognizable, with characteristic flourishes and embellishments developed through frequent loving practice. It was legible and at times visually “beautiful” (to me). I rarely write with a pen on paper anymore. It’s nearly all on a device or keyboard. When I do have occasion to pick up a pen to write, if only to jot down a note, my handwriting is degraded, messy, chaotic, and often completely illegible to anyone else. I don’t write by hand enough to preserve my skill.
Another deeply worrisome example is that of my late Dear Friend, whose weight and health slowly robbed her of her ability to walk, as she aged. When we met, in the mid 90’s, we would go places together as we got to know each other. We walked a lot. We camped. We attended fairs together. An injury some years later put her off her feet for awhile, and after that walking began to become more difficult. The less time she spent on her feet and walking, the more difficult it became, until it was an effort to get from her kitchen to her bedroom. Eventually, any walking at all required assistance of some kind.
Now I’ll tell you that what this is really about is all the many cognitive skills we all so carelessly put at risk every day, now, through excessive reliance on tech devices of various kinds, and… “AI”. We are very much at risk of losing our abilities to think clearly, to remember our experiences, and to socialize harmoniously in accordance with healthy behavior and within agreed upon social norms. I’d like to say maybe I’m exaggerating a bit to make a point, but that wouldn’t be true to my day-to-day experience or observation over time. I see it happening, and I’m clearly not alone; it is a common topic in the essays and thought pieces of others (many with greater relevant expertise). I think it’s something worth taking seriously.
I sigh quietly, as I stop at my halfway point on this trail. It’s still dark, and the autumn fog is thick and getting thicker. It seems a suitable metaphor for humanity allowing itself to become dumber…by choice. What a bummer of an idea. Don’t do it! Preserve your precious abilities! Practice critical thinking skills! Read an actual fucking book. Read several! Learn a new skill. (No, not how to draft a better ChatGPT prompt, that’s not as useful as you may be imagining.) Make something! Have real conversations with live human beings in real life. Walk. Daydream. Use your mind to think deeper thoughts. We become what we practice. For fucks’ sake don’t give up your mind.
…A lot of the world’s petty cruelty and actual evil only thrive because we allow it, or have become distracted. We could do better and choose differently. Don’t let your precious finite lifetime trickle away, the sand in your hourglass slowly running out while you doom scroll through AI slop you don’t even care about (or remember five minutes later). Don’t let an LLM stand in for your own capacity to think, to reason, and to understand. (Trust me, you’re better at all those things than any “AI”!)
I take time to meditate and reflect, as the first hints of daybreak begin to color the sky. I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning is a chilly one. I’m grateful for the warm sweater I chose, and the warmth of my pockets, into which I jam my hands between paragraphs, to warm them again. We have choices. I think about mine and watch dawn becoming a new day. Later I’ll take the truck over to the dealership for a bit of work, and begin my work day there, in the waiting lobby of the service department. After that? I’ll begin again, again, and I’ll keep choosing, and practicing.
Evening Light 