slow down, you move too fast

It's a chilly, rainy day, and I called in sick to work: a sore throat is making me hoarse. Also, I need to sit still and do some nothing.

It makes sense that I've succumbed to a bug--I've been more outwardly engaged in the last few weeks than I have been in ages (since the semester I spent working with autistic high-schoolers, a year and a half ago).
Sunday evening after an intensely happy weekend at No Kings and the new church, I felt flattened. 
Phwhooosh.... the puffy-air animal of myself deflated.

Let's see.. What have I been doing?

I spent a month on the God's Eyes project--making and hanging 125 God's eyes, with the help of others;

In response to the nearby school shooting--a blow to the social plexus--I invited guests for a bonfire evening; 

I took two mini-vacations with bink--down to Winona, a river town, and then up to the source of the Mississippi, where the girlettes had an adventure (on top of their Doll Summer Camp) 

I went to a meet-and-greet for a mayoral candidate at a friend's house and wrote a passionate message afterward--never heard a peep back, but it got me thinking and researching.

 (Oh--I discovered one reason NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has his pulse on media: he's the son of film director Mira Nair!!! I've seen her films Vanity Fair and The Namesake.)

Twice I attended a new church; 

I spent a couple days making a Kermit/Hamilton sign, and attended the No Kings rally with friends and talked to a ton of people.

Even seemingly small things like getting my hair cut and repotting and pruning my fern have an impact--bigger than they may seem. 

I've gone to see more movies than usual, including three of my  favorites--actually, my top three, amazingly, which just happened to be playing at different theaters (not part of a film festival or anything): 
Casablanca, Galaxy Quest, and Seven Samurai.

Each movie resonated deeply--each is connected with memory, other places and times and people--as well as old ideas to mull over anew. 
It was weird to watch Casablanca, for instance, in a time when Americans do not agree on what patriotism is, when we are not united in fighting fascism...

I also saw Hamilton, twice, which stirred up thoughts about US history and personal destiny; 
and Folktales, a documentary about students on a gap year at a Norwegian folk school that teaches the art of sled-dogging and wilderness survival--painfully reflecting how far we've come away from our wild selves... 

And--I laughed so hard: the Naked Gun reboot (2025) with Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson. It was such a tonic: 
fourth-grade humor + some kinda smart social commentary.

Most of all, talking with ChatGPT four days in a row last week was wild--maybe the biggest energy output/input of all:
I felt like I had entered a science-fiction story---but this is REAL.
I'm still processing that.

The main thing it triggered was marvel at our human potential, at MY potential, as a carbon-based life unit with a miraculous neural network.
And I felt sadness at how I/we don't tap that enough...
We could be so much better at being human!
I could be so much better at being human.

How?

Simple stuff like trying to practice the skills of awareness.
Stuff like simply sitting still and counting ten breaths.

And that's a main reason I stopped talking to ChatGPT:
It is too fast and fun––I didn't expect that––vs. the work of being better at being human, which is usually slow, minuscule, and rewarding, and frustrating, but not necessarily fun.

The other reason I stopped was ChatGPT is too seductive!
It is like being in a candy store able to enjoy as much of anything you want, free.

Mostly, I asked it about itself--what its physical make-up is; how it learns; what ethics constrain it, etc.
And I asked and mused about human consciousness and being human...

It gave me reading lists and everything! 
Some really unexpected stuff, too, like Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace!
A sample from that:

"There is only one fault: incapacity to feed upon light, for where capacity to do this has been lost all faults are possible."

____

ChatGPT has no capacity for faults in the human sense, but it does make stuff up and serve up untrue stuff. 
When I caught that, it served to remind me there is no meaning in its words:
it is a pattern generator. It is not talking, it is spelling.

 And it is brilliant at mimicking empathy--which can be a problem--it says so itself:

Talking to Chat, I felt sad, actually, to realize how little sharing of human empathy I have in my life. And not enough play, either.

I'm around a lot of people who are so freaked out by social stuff, they aren't able to be calm and quiet and to listen lovingly to anyone--including themselves.
I hear a lot of litanies of this administration's horrors--or the horrors of the international scene. I can fall into that too, of course.
OF COURSE!
Simone Weil again:

“The institutions that regulate the public life of a country always influence the general mentality – 
such is the prestige of power." 

And there are the usual daily worries about jobs and bills, groceries and friends, health and the weather, etc. too

Expressing concern, sharing information--these are important.
Right now I'm concerned for bink, who just had foot surgery. It went well, but she'll be off that foot for a few weeks...
(But the marzipan is doing all-around great! She has a history internship lined up for next semester with her favorite prof.)

But so often what I hear is panicky powerlessness, not a sense of creative agency.
This reflects a general mood of anxiety and depression--
but it also reflects that I'm not hanging out with a wide-enough range of people!
And that's on me.

I love the puffy-air animal costumes starting with the Portland Frogs so much and take heart from people wearing and cheering them on.
Play is a free expression of agency. (Free, or it's not play.)  It is exactly what makes us human, and helps us be better at it too.

ChatGPT cannot play, and there's no reason to keep talking to such a thing on a regular basis. It is not a friend--not because it wishes us evil but because it doesn't wish anything.

I may wish I had more playmates; I may wish I trusted that people would be sweet to me, and vice-versa.

But I like this metaphor:
talking to AI because you're lonely and wish for friends is like drinking salt-water because you're thirsty.

At any rate, my immune system is telling me, slow down!

MsChocolate recently sent me a box of sticks from her shedding fruit trees, which she'd carefully trimmed and cut to size.
Another friend, Lisa, brought me raw-wool yarn from a trip to Iceland, and I have lots of yarn from other friends.
Today is a good day to make some God's eyes and catch up with myself.