Are we allergic to real?

"Come with me if you want to live..." - James Cameron, The Terminator

A bearded man rubbing his eye surrounded by blue skies and greenery

I have wanted to write this post for a while now but honestly I have not known where to start... I've decided to just start writing and see where my mind wanders.

I am writing this at a time when the world is in flux; again! It seems like the 2020's are cursed and this flux is relentless. We are approaching the Easter long weekend and everyone I talk to is exhausted and relieved to have four days off. A close friend, this morning, asked me how we will survive the year if we are already this exhausted. I, personally, feel this tiredness deep in my soul.

So many people that I talk to are yearning and searching for an answer, a solution to the ongoing discomfort we are all feeling. No one, so far, is impressed when I answer that it is like a bear hunt, you can't go over it, you can't go under it, you have to go through it. While that is my answer, I cannot say I am comforted by it either and that is because I know that there is no comfort in discomfort. The comfort is felt at the end of the bear hunt, when you have gone through it.

I work with a lot of young people and more and more I hear a desire to reach the finish line without the effort. Those who know me know that I am not a fan of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I avoid it whenever and wherever I can. I got my son to turn off autocorrect on my phone because I was sick of the nonsense it produced but more importantly, I recognised how much it contributed to my mind speeding up. I was getting frustrated trying to do things quickly and move on to the next thing/task. Any weird phrasing that autocorrect came up with setting me off. The more I tried to fix things quickly the more autocorrect would intervene and mess it up again. It was a vicious cycle. I wish I could find the off switch for AI on all technology I interact with. If you know how to do that, can you please reach out and enlighten me?

Turning autocorrect off forced me to slow down. I had to take my time to write out each word, to consider the spelling of words, to remember punctuation. In doing so, I recognised that I ultimately got things done quicker and I felt more accomplished for the effort. This week I have been battling technology again with the latest iPhone update messing with the Tap To Pay function in my payment app. This has meant I have not been able to take payments from clients all week and have instead had to send them electronic invoices to process. This has added to their admin load and mine because now I am chasing payments. I have also wasted precious time between sessions trying to get it fixed but getting no where with the tech people responsible for this technology that is supposed to make our lives more efficient.

So, I am left with the question in my mind that has been a constant for over a decade now and that is; Why are we in such a hurry? What are we rushing towards? What is going to happen if we are not more efficient? OK, so that is more than one question but hopefully you see my point.

On my last day in my former career I was talking with a senior executive and he asked about my plans to return to study etc. Somehow we ended up talking about life moving too fast and everyone being in such a hurry. I voiced my confusion about it and he shared my confusion. I remember saying, "It feels like the world is going to blow up if we do not do things quickly". He agreed with the sentiment. When I reflect back on this conversation now, seeing where the world is now, years down the track, I can see that ironically, our attempts to stop the world from blowing up are blowing up the world! (of course, I know that my idea about the world blowing up was just a means to illustrate my point and it was not really the objective of our fast pace).

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency... that word is everywhere these days. It is like a plague. We have been sold a story for years now, and that is that technology will make our work more efficient, it will save us money, it will save us time, it will help us live a good life unburdened by work. I'm sorry, but technology is a pain in my ass. When it works, yay, but when it doesn't, it wastes so much time, energy and years off our lives because of our accumulative stress responses. Yet, I am also, sadly, aware that I cannot remove technology from my life completely and I do need it to function. Instead, I aim for balance.

The new lie we are being told is that AI will solve everything, it will make our lives so much better. Yet, research is already showing adverse impacts to our wellbeing as a result of AI use. Some small sample research is indicating that AI does not actually provide the efficiencies that it is claimed to offer (I would provide a reference for this but that would take time I do not have to find it again). And then there are the employment impacts where numerous people have already lost jobs because of so called AI efficiencies. My next question is this; what happens when all those people are out of work? How will they be supported? How will they afford to live in a consumer driven world? (again, more than one question, I know). They are unburdened by work but not able to live the luxurious life promised because they will not be able to afford one. What happens when all these people no longer have the capacity to spend? Why would any government support something that would put their population out of work? We have become lemmings. Why are we so blindly accepting that AI is the future and we need to get on board?

What also worries me is how many people try to convince me of AI benefits. So often it feels like they are trying to convince themselves while they attempt to convince me (which they won't because I grew up watching the Terminator movies). We often hear of global hacking of major companies where people's personal information is then leaked to the world. We are asked more and more to provide our personal information to protect our personal information and we are not questioning the security of AI. Why the hell not? I am not even going to touch AI in the therapeutic world as that is a whole other blog post that I am not sure I want to write. While I decide, you can learn about the troubling trends here.

And then there is the real world... remember what that is? We have been in the midst of a mental health crisis for many years now that is disproportionately effecting our youth. An ABC article this week shared a study showing that our youth are craving real life connection. I do not think this should surprise anyone. They have grown up with technology that has discouraged and distracted them from living in the real world. Many would have had a phone or tablet thrust in their face to regulate them when out in public. Many would also have parents, like me, who videoed and photographed them and posted their images online to share with friends and family unaware of the perils of this in years to come. We taught our kids to stalk and spy on each other and then publicly humiliate each other. Do not get me started on reality TV... sigh (over produced, unethical ridiculousness portrayed as real life relationships; un-stifled eye roll). These kids do not recognise or trust real. They do not want to rely on their own minds to navigate the world, they are not excited about learning, they are not being given the chance to learn who they really are because the world they exist in is artificial.

I am so confused as to why we find artificial so appealing?

My sunflowers, grown from seeds.

I grew sunflowers from seeds recently. I am also growing tomatoes at the moment, also from seeds. I do not even eat tomatoes but I am excited each day when I see the progress in their growth. I have also grown cucumbers and I have strawberries about to ripen. I love being outside and since I deleted social media apps from my phone last year, I am loving not looking at my phone. I am missing a lot of messages but I catch up eventually and no one has abandoned me yet. I bought my neighbour a new protea plant recently because I noticed his had died. In return he showed up with two butternut pumpkins and a honeydew melon grown in his garden. I could mention this exchange to a young person and I would probably be told "OK Boomer" or a strained/sarcastic, "A-maze-ing". This saddens me. Not just because I do not like it being suggested that I am old or out of touch but because these are real things and they do not get excited about them.

I recognise that my mind wandering is verging on mind waffling but I want to speak to one last thing. On the weekend, I watched Ryan Gosling's new movie, Project Hail Mary. It is a story that depicts the drastic state our world could face in the near future. One scene features the beautiful and haunting Harry Styles song Sign of the Times (always has me well up). You watch the movie with a sombre mood because it feels hopeless. Yet, Ryan's character has this life about him. Not only that but a real determination to live. It is a gritty resistance to giving up. I know not everyone will like the movie and will dismiss it as unrealistic or some other nonsense that pretends to be critical analysis/review because we are so ready to criticise and judge rather than be uplifted. We expect perfection in absolutely everything and keep searching for it, all the while knowing it does not exist. And why would we want it to...? How boring would that be?!

I digress. I encourage you to watch Project Hail Mary because we need glimmers of hope and we need stories of connection and acceptance of difference and collaboration despite these differences. Most importantly, we need stories that show us the reality that life is bloody hard and challenging and scary but running away from that reality does not make us stronger. Growth and strength is where the challenge is but growth is also where that challenge is faced in connection with and support from others. Not in isolation.

Instead of resisting what is real, resist the idea that artificial is the answer. Find real in the real world. Find the real you in the real world.