Great post. I was in a mental hospital in Missouri two years back (a museum). The patients cooked their own meals and built their own furniture. The image of a human having a meal arrive at their front door and IKEA furniture to “build” haunts me. Mental patients 100 years ago could build furniture and now I can vibecode a website. I’ve been thinking about technology a lot this year. I started the year thinking tech was value neutral and AI was just a tool, but the longer I stare (and the more it stares back)… the more I have come to believe you are correct with the story of selling a birthright.
Something has been lost in the last seventy years. I do not think it is just a generational divide. The digital forms us and I have yet to meet someone that has been formed by and in the digital that I would hold up as an exemplar. The people that I treat as shining stars on the horizon to move towards are all incredibly physical human beings.
Wow! Thank you for the deep comment. Yes, I think there is a pervasive idealogy pushed by the tech evangelists that LLMs are just another tool, but we keep losing what it means to create which only furthers the meaning crisis.
I believe it was BB King who said, "the thrill is gone!"
Great essay Zeke! Of course I am very partial to the subject. Table Rock and Stool Mountain, you say? It’s as if people have been invited to commune in a way that doesn’t abdicate their birthright. That’s what Esau did, he willingly abdicated, for appetite. Symbolism happens.
( The term abdication is reserved primarily for those given divine responsibilities)
Wow that was a great way to bring it all together! Thank you so much, Shari and I fully agree about abdication. The Bible is full of stories - cautionary tales even - of abdicating that I feel we can apply to our present.
I like what you said about asking others for information rather than asking online sources. That is one area I have become aware of recently, where I was “trading my birthright.” Somewhere along the line, we re-conceived knowledge as information acquisition rather than training in wisdom. Information acquisition doesn’t require a relationship. For example, why go to school in person and be in a shared space of inquiry together when I can attend online from the comfort of my own home? Better yet, why attend school at all and answer discussion posts when I can watch videos for free on YouTube? It’s the same thing, right? If knowledge is information, then sure. Faster, inexpensive, more efficient knowledge always seems better. Information acquisition doesn’t require a relationship. Wisdom, however, does.
To gain wisdom, I need to experience the person I am talking to, get to know them, and see what is happening inside their mind. I have to be attentive to their wants, needs, the question behind the question they are asking, the deep-rooted “what’s really going on?” that our attempts at gaining information so often hide. I have to be open to the serendipitous moment of a conversation at 2 am when we should be in bed, but someone just said something really insightful, and we need to explore that. I have to learn and practice intellectual humility and charity that comes with in-person ideas exchanges, for poor behavior costs the relationship, and I can’t simply hop discord channels or mute others when I want someone else to talk to. And as you said in your post, I don’t have the stress of always needing to be right. Instead, I have permission to be wrong. Because of the blessing and providence of God, I am forced to inhabit space with others, and through that, I gain wisdom. The question is, will we realize what we have lost before it is too late?
This was beautiful to read, thank you so much for sharing, Taryn! Yes, I think COVID accelerated this shift in normalizing disembodied learning/working/communing. I say that because I had my senior year in college during COVID and while I was blessed to share it in person with a great group of friends, online class quickly became a joke in terms of rigor.
I could have stayed at home with parents and saved a lot of money, but I chose to live with my friends in downtown Charleston and I think (while it cost me a lot $$$) that was a major key in the development of me as a person. To think that so many people are missing out on developing themselves for the sake of efficiency is absolutely terrifying.
Great post. I was in a mental hospital in Missouri two years back (a museum). The patients cooked their own meals and built their own furniture. The image of a human having a meal arrive at their front door and IKEA furniture to “build” haunts me. Mental patients 100 years ago could build furniture and now I can vibecode a website. I’ve been thinking about technology a lot this year. I started the year thinking tech was value neutral and AI was just a tool, but the longer I stare (and the more it stares back)… the more I have come to believe you are correct with the story of selling a birthright.
Something has been lost in the last seventy years. I do not think it is just a generational divide. The digital forms us and I have yet to meet someone that has been formed by and in the digital that I would hold up as an exemplar. The people that I treat as shining stars on the horizon to move towards are all incredibly physical human beings.
I think you’re onto something.
Wow! Thank you for the deep comment. Yes, I think there is a pervasive idealogy pushed by the tech evangelists that LLMs are just another tool, but we keep losing what it means to create which only furthers the meaning crisis.
I believe it was BB King who said, "the thrill is gone!"
Great essay Zeke! Of course I am very partial to the subject. Table Rock and Stool Mountain, you say? It’s as if people have been invited to commune in a way that doesn’t abdicate their birthright. That’s what Esau did, he willingly abdicated, for appetite. Symbolism happens.
( The term abdication is reserved primarily for those given divine responsibilities)
Keep those eyes open! Great work.
Wow that was a great way to bring it all together! Thank you so much, Shari and I fully agree about abdication. The Bible is full of stories - cautionary tales even - of abdicating that I feel we can apply to our present.
I like what you said about asking others for information rather than asking online sources. That is one area I have become aware of recently, where I was “trading my birthright.” Somewhere along the line, we re-conceived knowledge as information acquisition rather than training in wisdom. Information acquisition doesn’t require a relationship. For example, why go to school in person and be in a shared space of inquiry together when I can attend online from the comfort of my own home? Better yet, why attend school at all and answer discussion posts when I can watch videos for free on YouTube? It’s the same thing, right? If knowledge is information, then sure. Faster, inexpensive, more efficient knowledge always seems better. Information acquisition doesn’t require a relationship. Wisdom, however, does.
To gain wisdom, I need to experience the person I am talking to, get to know them, and see what is happening inside their mind. I have to be attentive to their wants, needs, the question behind the question they are asking, the deep-rooted “what’s really going on?” that our attempts at gaining information so often hide. I have to be open to the serendipitous moment of a conversation at 2 am when we should be in bed, but someone just said something really insightful, and we need to explore that. I have to learn and practice intellectual humility and charity that comes with in-person ideas exchanges, for poor behavior costs the relationship, and I can’t simply hop discord channels or mute others when I want someone else to talk to. And as you said in your post, I don’t have the stress of always needing to be right. Instead, I have permission to be wrong. Because of the blessing and providence of God, I am forced to inhabit space with others, and through that, I gain wisdom. The question is, will we realize what we have lost before it is too late?
This was beautiful to read, thank you so much for sharing, Taryn! Yes, I think COVID accelerated this shift in normalizing disembodied learning/working/communing. I say that because I had my senior year in college during COVID and while I was blessed to share it in person with a great group of friends, online class quickly became a joke in terms of rigor.
I could have stayed at home with parents and saved a lot of money, but I chose to live with my friends in downtown Charleston and I think (while it cost me a lot $$$) that was a major key in the development of me as a person. To think that so many people are missing out on developing themselves for the sake of efficiency is absolutely terrifying.