Lensa / AI evolution

Sometimes it’s uncomfortable for my hand to write on my paper journal - when part of my hand goes off the edges. Sometimes it’s frustrating when the ink smudges - especially the way my hand naturally holds the pen, inevitably smudging the words I’ve written above. Sometimes I want to be able to type, which is faster than I can write. 

We learned typing in school. They phased out learning to write in cursive. I was one of the last years for that. And before me, they taught calligraphy. My mom wrote in beautiful calligraphy - she hand-wrote every envelope for my bat mitzvah invitations. And I can’t forget typewriters. And then there’s paper… papyrus. Oral storytelling (the invention of spoken words!). Cave walls. At Eisner, we had “bunk notes” to send messages faster than letters.

Rel said that texting / the internet is faster than human speed. 

But what is human speed? It seems that it keeps evolving. The complexity we’re able to hold and create, as humans, also keeps evolving. 

So there’s fast vs slow, and then there’s complex vs simple.

Sometimes I lust for the slow and simple… sometimes for expedience and complexity. For stability, and stimulation. The lullabies that tucked me in to sleep, and the classroom discussions that had me sitting at the edge of my chair, with intellect ecstatically aroused.

And… what is “human”? Is that changing?

A human 500 years ago was the same, and very different, as a human now. 1000 years ago… the same, and very different. 

I suppose there are also different parts of us, that evolve at different rates. Our fight/flight elements and our creativity elements are not the same. “Human” is a system of parts. 

Maybe, then, I can tend to each part differently.

At this time… 

-my nervous system (which I suppose the sacral chakra also represents) wants stability. Fewer people in my life, that I interact with more consistently. Less travel, more sense of home. Morning routine / evening not looking at fast-moving screens. 

-my crown? 

-my third eye?

-my throat?

-my heart?

-my solar plexus?

-my root?

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If I write a book, is that now obsolete? I suppose I could upload the book to kindle, to audiobooks - now on Spotify. I could publish a book with a hundred-year-old publishing company, and only print it electronically. 

Is my bookshelf now just decoration, like old records? 

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Are we going to leave this earth?

I’ve left homes before. I’ve grieved and then let them go.

Are we in the midst of a species shift, within my lifetime? 

All the borders, all the significance of citizenship… will this become as obsolete as indigenous lines in the sand?

All the conversations about anti-racism… will this shift into concerns about the human species versus AI?

As technology rapidly evolves, will we find ways to live feasibly on other planets? To travel between Mars and Earth and easily as we now travel between Taiwan and New York - which I imagine used to seem like planets apart. 

How integral is it, for the human identity and for our well-being, to live on earth? To drink from our own mother’s milk? Formula milk, fed by hired nurses in the night, is getting much more popular these days… 

What does “natural” mean? There are those who say that queerness, that transness, is unnatural. I think that drinking milk made by a mother’s body sounds more beautiful than milk made by a laboratory… and I also think that queerness and transness are beautiful. I also understand that sometimes mothers don’t want to spend hours of every day having their nipples sucked raw with either a baby or a pump, sometimes there isn’t even a mother involved at all, sometimes… so many reasons why the “natural way” no longer applies. 

Still, there are choices that I can understand others making, and then choices that I must make for myself.

What feels the most magical, the most beautiful, the most desirable option for *me.*

Whether it’s a question of engaging with technology to change my birth experience (I’ve already used it to change my birth control experience), my postpartum experience, the way I raise my children, the way I connect with my lovers, the way I age biologically (or don’t), the places I engage with as home… I need to be the one who answers, for myself. Others can make their choices. And the pieces will fall. And the universe will declare what’s next for us all.