Grist for the Mill

I’m so glad I did my bachelors and masters when there was no AI. I’m grateful for the struggle and endless late nights studying. The confusion, preserving and dedication was grist for the mill for development of my patience and discipline. As I witness the massive adoption of LLM’s and Agentic AI in the workforce and everyday life I grow increasingly concerned for the collective human knowledge bank. 

Don’t get me wrong, in the last 2 years I have been using Claude and ChatGPT to help me do all sorts of things. From applying for work, writing blog posts, creating images and short videos to using it as a search tool. But I am hesitant to have it make decisions for me lest I lose my critical thinking skills. AI is here and the pandoras box is open. Yet, I still firmly believe a lot of the AI hype is just that, hype. Now, as it always has been, is the time for perseverance and discipline. Those who work towards quality instead of quantity will come out ahead.

As I am studying for the AAISM I am once again humbled by the speed of the human mind. And by humbled I mean incredibly irritated and often upset. What Chat can do in 30 seconds takes me 4 hours to learn (like AI frameworks in the EU and USA). What Chat can edit in 30 seconds takes me at least 1 hour to write. 

Here’s a prediction that I’ve been writing and speaking about for quite some time. Those who invest in their expertise by doing difficult things will be shielded from the inevitable critical thinking decrease that we are allowing ourselves to experience through over reliance on AI. Beauty, discernment and quality are still only available to use through continual persistent struggle. 

AI artists are an example of this. One of my favourite AI artists Ari Kushner from LA creates AI videos that are focused on and inspired by a more beautiful world. Ari’s videos are only ever 30 seconds long but his process and workflow may require days of prompting and video editing to get it right. Even though AI has sped up the process , the quality and discernment is still done by the creative mind. 

I was at my Massage clinic this weekend and was talking to the front desk lady. She told me that her friend’s boyfriend had broken up with her over text. Worst of all? It was very obvious that the entire text was written with ChatGPT. It’s funny, men offloading emotional work is not new. But offloading it to a AI is just a new type of twisted humour that we are going to see more of. 

I am forcing myself to slow down more, to pause and to reflect. This blog post was written with my voice and no Claude. And I will admit that the slog of drafting, editing and editing again and again was tedious and annoying. At times, I thought about using Claude “just to edit” this post, after all, would the reader really know? Its little decisions like that that which over time cause atrophy in critical thinking. So I persist. Increasing or improving my ability to type and create sentences is worth the fuss.  

I think the idea of using struggle as grist for the mill should be talked about more. honestly, everyday we should all do 1 thing that is explicitly grist for our mills. In my case I try to do 1-2 hours of Vipassna meditation a day. During my meditation which is strictly 1 hour long (at least) I take a strong adhhitthana (vow of determination) to not open my eyes, not move, not change my posture or position. Often during the first 10 seconds of my meditation I think “crap my nose itches or my posture is a bit off” and work for the next 20-30 minutes on accepting my condition. Often, finally around 45-50 minutes my mind is at rest and calm but only for about 5-10 minutes and only after I have spend the better part of the hour berating myself or chasing the monkey mind. 

I know I’m entering deeper meditation when I feel this specific pain in my leg. It’s a burning pain like really on fire. The viscera of my tissue are expanding and my leg feels like it’s going to fall off. This pain is not real, I know this because in my earlier days meditating I would move or stand and the pain would literally evaporate immediately. The leg pain represents my reluctance to face difficult or annoying things. And to me - many things are annoying. I am sensitive to smells, to bright lights, to tight clothes, to dust in the air. These things and more make me very irritated and sometimes difficult to work with. 

Oftentimes the leg pain becomes so intense and so fiery hot I think that my leg really will fall off. That is when I know I am entering the best and most gritty grit for the mill. It’s at this point that I lean into the pain and scream (internally) for the leg to fall off. Just do it. Becoming fully aware of the pain, and not allowing it to leave, eventually the awareness of the pain arising finally allows it to pass away (annicca).

The first time I experienced this during Vipassna (10day course) it took me 4 days. The first 3 days (11hour meditation each day) I swayed back and forth, side to side. If I could moan and wail I would have, but our meditation cushions were right next to each other (bless the women who sat beside me because I acted possessed). So there I suffered silently until finally, on the fourth day I experienced the searing pain I described earlier and witnessed it arise and fall away. Ever since then I have not moved during meditation, not if there’s pain, not if there’s itchiness, not for anything. 

When I tell people this story their faces are often a mix of shock and horror. “I would never be able to do that” they say. But why not? I think everyone should do it, just once at least. See for yourself, once you face irritation, once you really look at it, it’s a lot more manageable and no longer scary. 

Stages of meditation are just a reflection of the same pattens that we face when doing anything difficult of new. For me, learning new things is my grist for the mill. For others it can be sports or physical activities. Our world seems faster because have a new tool (AI) but the reality of our physical experience has not changed, nor has time, nor have the things that make life beautiful. 

Just like the introduction of the printing press allowed us to create and read faster, AI allows us to create and automate faster. But the core of quality does not change - this means that AI is not a tool to escape struggle or discipline. Nothing can do that for us, that is a gift we do only for ourselves.