Amidst AI's advancements...

With all of AI’s advancements, many see its potential to enrich life. This may or may not be true.

We forget that AI, at the end of the day, just makes tools. Tools are means for purposes. Well, with all of AI’s advancements, what purposes are they meant to accomplish? Convenience? Getting what you want right away? Immersing yourself deeper in a digital world? 

Millions of humans have tried these purposes, and they’ve been left empty. If this is the case, more effective means of these purposes will just hasten emptiness.

 Desire for certainty makes you anxious. Acceptance of uncertainty makes you less anxious.

Get rid of the certainty, you get rid of the anxiety.

To Control or Not Control

 You may think you want to control 100% of your life. But stop and think of whether you want to control 100% of the stories you read or the movies you watch.

If you controlled 100% of any story/movie, you'll take away the surprising dopamine. The surprising alliances. The surprising identities. The surprising choices. The surprising turn of the tables. The surprising plot twists.

There is an inner war between the desire for control and the desire for surprising dopamine. They come from 2 different parts of you, each with their own motivations.

Movie critics slam "bad movies" for being "predictable". If that is the case, do we really expect the quality of our non-fictional life movie to be "two thumbs up" if it's nothing but "predictable" and completely in our control?

Renditions of Value

When you learn as an individual, your mind composes unique melodies for established lyrics of knowledge. As you express your artistic notes for the world's intellectual verses, your soul gives something valuable to us that no one else can. 

The Price of Idolizing Comfort

If you idolize comfort, you pay a hidden price of anxiously trying to keep life comfortable. You preoccupy yourself with anticipating interruptions of your comfort and preemptively planning to counter them. When the mind is constantly calculating, the heart has no peace.

Better to embrace life's interruptions as invitations to adventure.

Me 3D

The world doesn't have a plan to help men find objectifying women uninteresting.

The Kingdom does though. And those who want it bad enough will discover it.

Mature Childlike Wisdom

Adults adopt predictability to help with responsibility. But predictability cannot coexist with wonder.

Children adopt naivete to help with wonder. But naivete cannot coexist with responsibility. 

Those who aim for the paradox of *Mature Childlike Wisdom must have wonder without naivete & responsibility without idolizing predictability.

*defined as being free from the illusions adults assault themselves with

A Deeper Resonance

Those who listen catch the voice of God in human conversations.

If words of human conversations are violin melodies, the Spirit of God harmonizes certain notes with his divine cello. The resonance reverberates throughout the universe of those listening.

Resistance is a Gift to See the Unseen

 If you want to feel what is invisible (i.e. things of the heart), see what resists it. Resistance intensifies convictions, creating an equal but opposite force that’s palpable. The tension enables you to detect what is not directly seeable.

You feel your group identity more when it is challenged (e.g. protestors vs totalitarian governments).

You feel love for your loved one more when it is challenged (e.g. chick flicks).

You feel the meaning of life more when it is challenged (e.g. protagonists fighting increasingly overwhelming odds to save the world).

You feel your faith in God more when it is challenged (e.g. bigger weights that your faith bench presses enable you to feel those veiny muscles bulge).

Resistance makes the invisible heart palpable. It enlivens cardiac activity in ways otherwise not possible. The friction creates drama, which electrifies the invisible pulse of the heart.

Conviction Gives what Intelligence Cannot

 AI will never have “conviction”. Conviction is not intelligence. In fact, it can sometimes go against intelligence. AI will never, of its own initiative, “come up with its own conscience” against its programmer(s) and say “this programming goes against my personal conscience that isn’t from you, sorry I can’t do it”. In addition to “negative conviction”, it will also never feel the “positive conviction” that Ruth Haley Barton describes: “This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I am unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling”.

“Artificial Conviction” is an oxymoron.

Conviction is connected to our deepest identity, purpose, and signatured individuality.

(Observe anyone who lives with deep, satisfying meaning. It takes place on the conviction level.)