10 Sep 2025

Fiction and Friction

I just spent some time getting my writing projects back online over at the Midnight Island Café. All active patrons can find the password in the latest post. Once I start sharing new content the password will only be available to paid patrons but for now it’s available to all free subscribers.

I’ve been neglecting my notes blog. Sharing short form content has never been my strong suit and I think friction is part of the problem. I believe friction is part of why more people don’t blog or host their own websites. Social media is just easier. Click a button, post a thing. Everything else is done for you. And better yet: you get instant feedback.

I’m currently reading: AI will never be a shortcut to wisdom:

⁠Studies on cognitive flexibility, coupled with anecdotal observations about the death of long-form journalism and the slow drift of reader attention, suggest something dire: We are growing unable to sit still with ambiguity. We no longer walk through the fog of a complex question — we skip across it, like stones. Our thoughts sprint, but the world is a marathon. And so, we are left with answers to the wrong questions.

Perusing Twitter these days half the comments to posts invoke the powers of Grok with questions like “is this real?” or “what does this mean?” It concerns me how willing people are to outsource their thinking and how ready they are to trust anything AI says. Asking AI “is this real?” is such a wild concept to me.

I watched a video from Dan Koe a few weeks ago called “You Have About 36 Months To Make It” and took the following note:

“In a world where information is overflowing & anyone can create anything, choosing what ideas deserve to be executed deserves the first seat at the table.” — Dan Koe

I thought it was interesting because it’s not the first time I see curation mentioned with regards to AI:

“As AI reshapes creative work, many worry it will diminish the artist’s role. I think pretty much the opposite. The artist’s purpose becomes more vital. As new tools unleash boundless streams of imagery, scripts, sounds, & concepts, the critical human skill shifts from the craft of making each element by hand to the art of curation & refinement: curation… creativity is shifting from production to taste-making at scale.” — Cristóbal Valenzuela

People who use AI to supercharge their thinking rather than replace it will likely come out on top.

And that brings me back to my original point: friction. Which, interestingly enough, came up at the end of the article:

This is not to say AI has no place. I use it. I respect it. It can amplify intelligence. But it cannot replace wisdom. And wisdom is forged in friction – in living, in suffering, in waiting, in seeing how a thing fits with another thing, and another, until the world begins to reveal not only what it is, but it what it means.

(Emphasis mine).

All of that to say: I mean to get better at updating my notes blog.