AI and Pride

Perhaps we have all turned into John Henry, pounding railroad spikes trying to beat a machine. Artists are confronted with the same situation as other intellectual occupations – what used to take skill, pride, thought, and time can now be done by any teenager in a dull moment. The internet is flooded with AI images, movies, stories. Work has similarly vanished. Some of us remain luddites, stubbornly sticking to brush and pencil. Why? A waste of time…

But is it ?

Climbing a mountain or hiking in a forest is not the same as viewing a YouTube video of the adventure (not even – as technology advances – an IMAX immersion). Things we do for ourselves have both an outer and an inner component .

Accomplishment of something difficult brings pride. Even if it is only pounding spikes. Or painting a canvas .

The key is that doing something you like to do, either for the activity itself or for recognition, is a kind of play. The same task forced on you (especially repetitively) is a chore or boring job. We should avoid confusing the two .

Mankind evolved with hand coordination. In spite of our big brains, we remain a physically oriented species. I think AI art robs both the creator and the audience of that heritage. Except for the brief thrill of novelty, pride and satisfaction are completely missing .

Appreciation

I believe the primary goal of art is to instill appreciation. That is true whether one is creating it or absorbing it. All the rest is detail. That outlook applies to all types of artistry. Cooking, dancing, painting, whatever. A warm flush of “wellness” if it works. In current jargon, a re-enchantment with the world .

I approach my current pastels and sketches in such a mood. Not to “capture” what I see – that is done ad nauseum by photographs and photorealistic artists. Not to create salable artifacts, nor even some phantom dream of inclusion in the universal “museum without walls” . Just to fully engage in and appreciate a moment, in my case more easily accomplished by my clumsy actions.

Oh I admit it’s nice to have a tangible marker of having been alive. A kind of pride at having “done something” rather than just sitting on the couch. Like writing, a verifiable trail to the past .

Nice relaxed attitude, a child again. I don’t much care if what I do closely resembles whatever inspired me. The goal is more the trance of a vision enabled by concentrated action. When I wake out of this state, if successful, I am relaxed and content with everything .

Crude

I was raised in a fairly middling environment. Certainly not poverty nor even “salt of the Earth”, but not high end aristocratic. As I matured, I lost most ambitions of pretentiousness in my quotidian pleasures. I call it my crude peasant outlook .

For example, I enjoy a good steak. I do not go into purple prose ecstasy over exactly how wonderful it is – subtle flavors, tenderness, whatever. I find sauces and garnishes excessive. It’s just a good steak, another fine meal .

Most of the world I read about now seems to have passed me by. Pretentiousness reigns supreme. The “right things” are so much better. Handbags, salads, shoes, schools, cars, swimming pools … The internet sorts it all out for you to aid your expensive tastes .

I don’t pretend I like awful stuff. A dinner of peas and gruel is not enjoyable. Ratty clothes are terrible. But the level of relatively common, useful, and affordable stuff is quite high. And I try to appreciate it .

All in all, I find my crude peasant world a land of luxury and enchantment. I rarely envy all those others who mostly seem to scurry about hoping others will notice and envy them. That pretentiousness seems a terrible waste of our human gift of existence .

Fame

Brought up in an era when singers and pop bands got wealthy, as an admirer of famous artists, I always understood that fame was one of the keys to becoming rich. Unfortunately (or not) I never had enough ambition nor stamina to pursue it seriously – I was more focused on everyday life. But as I created computer programs or paintings it always remained a quiescent dream of maybe .

So I watched the art world sizzle with huge rewards for outrageous works. Was bemused by respected galleries selling what seemed to be junk. Gave up on exotic modern art exhibitions as displays became more and more incomprehensible. Also, living in the sedate suburbs, found the local scene excessively bourgeois. Lots of watercolor from photographs. Lots of super realism from photographs. Lots of purposely kitsch designed to sell online. I happily, isolated, burrowed in and followed my own path. Always secretly hoping the future would vindicate me and (even posthumously) deliver fame .

Now I read that the high end art world has “collapsed.” “Patrons” have moved on to play with crypto. Galleries are failing right and left. The froth – like the tulip bubble – has vanished. Perhaps never to recover .

The other cliches about fame are that it is capricious and fleeting. Now the goddess mostly dispenses it in viral form on the internet. I remain solitary and happy .

Age and Tide

There are multiple ways to turn any natural observation into a metaphor for our lives. Having lived near the sea for most of my life, I am well aware of tides. Age often leaves us casting about for glimmers of cosmic understanding wherever they may occur.

The most famous metaphor is of course King Canute, ordering the tide to cease. A symbol of the uselessness of trying to prevent the inevitable. More deeply, a warning of how stupid it looks to attempt what common sense knows is impossible .

But there is also the idea of ebb and flow, high and low, translated to good times and bad. There will be in any life joy and pain, both of which usually pass one to another in a complex but inevitable rhythm .

For an older person, however, there is yet another lesson, which relates to deceptive normality. The high water mark is indicated with only minor variations day to day and season to season. But suddenly that can change in storm or tsunami, and rage well beyond what we thought we understood as limits. Leaving behind destruction and _ of course _ death .

So here we are, metaphor in hand. Is this next problem merely a usual tide or something worse?

It’s easy to become anxious when the predictable breaks the rules .

Optimism

I try to be an optimistic person. I generally believe that things will work out for the best. It makes my life happier .

Yet there is a world of ambiguity in any concept such as “optimism”. To begin with, nobody can know anything about the future. Beyond that, exactly what “things” am I selecting for prediction? And what I mean by “best” may in no way relate to what you consider good. No need to belabor the issue. Like “beautiful,” it is a concept that seems to mean something to everyone, but can hardly be pinned down. Nevertheless, I remain an optimistic person .

I try to pick things that have some actual relevance to my personal well-being. I can be optimistic, for example, that I will enjoy dinner tonight. And by a magic mind trick, I could even be optimistic if I think the dinner will be awful – because it will soon be over !

There are infinite outcomes to choose from, and many ways to wonder what might be “best”. Instantly we bog down into dreamy lists and semantics .

At my age the key is really careful selection of discreetly small things, in a pretty short time frame. And a concept of “best” that reduces to how much worse it could be .

I’m an optimist, but hopefully not a complete fool.

Best of my Possible

Surrounded by babel about infinite multiverses, I have my own fantasy that my soul manages to navigate, pick and choose among them. A thread aware of the past and future, trying for an optimum path in what we call time, freezing yet another life in some new groove, or maybe just replaying it .

It’s all philosophic twaddle of course. I don’t really buy into the multiverse. No idea what time really is, but pretty sure that mostly what we experience is some form of underlying reality. Nobody knows. Nobody can know. I don’t care except in idle daydreams .

It’s been a very fortunate life, so I have the luxury of imagining I live in the best of all possible worlds – for me. My very own best possible life, unconcerned with all the other possibilities.

Oh, of course, much of that outlook is constructed by skillful editing, shaping nostalgia to focus on silver linings, “accentuating the positive”. No apologies. It’s a nice way to view the world, at least as one grows ever more elderly .

Each day now I can look back with fondness, enjoy some happy memories, and not worry at all about what I must do nor regret opportunities lost. I suppose all that is simply symptomatic of truly losing my mind .

Coda

July 4th was a family gathering, senior generations, young adults, grandchildren. As the younger folks spoke of ambitions, hassles, fears and the future, the elders reminisced about what had been and how magically much of life had happened .

Then the party ended and we elders went back to whatever normal lives we each inhabit. And I realized that in this culture – at least for the more fortunate – old age is a kind of coda on reality .

Finally we are free of admonitions about what to do, what we must do, especially what we are supposed to do. Mostly the young – even as they love us dearly – want us to stay out of the way as they race along their narrow paths .

Earlier, that was somewhat frustrating, as we were used to racing ourselves. But sometime in our late ’70s, life truly slows into rocking chair time at least for stretches of our days, however much we may regret it .

And what we learned at the party was to pull out the old memories and nostalgia and personal tales, since it is as raconteurs that the young treasure us most .

Shrinking

Roman and Greek morality looked back at an imagined golden age in the past and sought to emulate its heroes. A massive outlook change in Western culture (maybe science, industrialization, Christianity, or phase of the moon) had us looking at imagined futures instead.

There is now little respect for those who do not plan future growth. Yet I’ve been shrinking physically for some time now, shorter by at least an inch. My mental agility is declining. As I passed through my ’70s energy waned, senses were less sharp, memories became more important. I accepted that as natural, but society does not .

Young “whippersnappers” tell elders how active they should be, how they must engage in hobbies, how they must struggle to be better. Apocryphal tales speak of “old” people suddenly starting companies and becoming wealthy (although the definition of old seems to be creeping downward into the ’40s …)

In my newly engaged art pastime., I’ve decided to do away with future marvels. I simply want to use my reduced situation – senses and skills – as valid restrictions to construct unique artifacts. If my sight is blurred, let my drawings also be so. If my hand shakes, utilize that in my lines .

Not to get better in the future. Just to enjoy being a shrinking being as much as I possibly can .

Lost Words

Young people tend to have nightmares or fantasies about old people (to be fair, old people reciprocate.) It is usually annoying to read “youngsters” giving us irrelevant advice, writing ridiculous entertainment scripts about elders, or solemnly discussing our plight.

It is true we have slowed down and become more careful. (But hardly so slow as the memory medicine ads would proclaim.) It is usually true that we gradually lose our taste for grand adventures – adventures occur all around us all the time, sometimes as simple as going to the store. We remain fully human, but (in spite of protestation) not as we were at 30 .

I feel a gradual degradation, which I accept (as I must, since – in spite of those ads for expensive medication – it is inevitable). Perhaps the most annoying are the constant little gaps in mind and memory. Particularly nasty are the constant stream of “lost words.” I know exactly what I want to say, know there is a word for it, know I know there is a word for it – but nothing but blank .

That clues me into other patterns I may not be quite aware of. Reflexes, adjustment to light changes, peripheral vision, and on and on .

In fact, what most amazes me in the whole process is how much I used to have, how much I can lose, and how I nevertheless remain me.