On being a creature
not a machine
During my final therapy session last week, I told my therapist that “things aren’t great, but I’m okay.” Which might sound to some like a weird conclusion to come to (things aren’t great?), perhaps an indication I’m not ready to discontinue/graduate from therapy, but feels to me like — in some intangible and undeniably human way — I’ve made it. Not that I’ve achieved an ideal life with no problems or worries or real issues with which to contend. Not that I’ve managed to cultivate a complete and miraculously constant state of inner peace. But that I can sit with myself in my big feelings and my grief and my anxiety and my sometimes existential dread without judgment or self-flagellation, without convincing myself any experience I’m having is wrong/inappropriate/too much or that any one emotion I’m feeling could ever become a permanent thing.
I used to carry a lot of shame about my sensitivity, about the intensity of my emotional experience, about the relentless changeability of my internal landscape of feelings. This kind of emotionality was frowned upon in my family of origin and the more I repressed it or hid it away or overcompensated with impressive feats of athletics and academics, the more I was rewarded for my efforts. But these unexpressed feelings were not benign. They festered. The found their way out. They turned into self-harm, self-loathing, persistent suicidal ideation.
What I’ve discovered over the past decade of therapy (and of life) is that the more I allow my feelings, lean into my sensitivity, make space for the full diversity of possible emotions without pathologizing them or creating an entire narrative around what they might mean, the healthier and more at ease I am. I can be anxious and still be okay. I can be grief-stricken and still be okay. I can be angry and still be okay. I can be afraid and still be okay. I can feel lost, confused, untethered and still be surprisingly, fundamentally okay.
A few months ago I watched Don’t Die on Netflix, a documentary about Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur who has spent millions upon millions of dollars attempting to extend his life. Even though he claims this pursuit is about “doing something impactful for the human race,” it strikes me as a profoundly selfish and self-focused endeavor. It also strikes me as a profoundly sad one. Soulless. When your entire existence revolves around optimization and the singular goal of trying not to die, it seems to me you’re missing the whole point. It seems to me you’re becoming less human. It seems to me you’re not actually engaged in the living part of having a life.
The poet, novelist, and environmental activist Wendell Berry once wrote: “It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” I want to live as a creature. In all my messiness and emotionality. In my fallibility and dependence on others. In the uncertainty and unpredictability of the universe. In the impermanence of everything. I want to turn towards the fact of my own inevitable end.
It is no secret amongst my friends and loved ones that I am an AI skeptic and a chatGPT hater. I rail against generative AI for lots of reasons — because it is environmentally destructive and disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, was trained using the work of writers and artists without their permission and often against their wishes, and removes what I believe to be necessary friction and inconvenience from our lives. (Not to mention that one of the cofounders of OpenAI is the top Trump donor of the past six months with a gift of 25 million dollars.) But I also fear the era of social media has already made us less human as a collective and that generative AI is only further blurring the lines between creature and machine.
If a decade of therapy has done anything, it has made me more human. And more appreciative of that humanness. In its inefficiency and inconvenience. In its imperfectability. In its incompatibility with so many of the systems under which we currently live.
I want to live as a creature. Maybe doing so means nothing. Or maybe it's a small act of defiance, a way of holding onto my humanity in a world that feels increasingly devoid of empathy, in which power has so blatantly aligned itself with machines.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
xoxo
❍ plato warned us about chatgpt
❍ In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing — on the necessity of inconvenience and friction in our lives
❍ Males Are the Secondary Sex — this is incredible, I will never stop dreaming of matriarchy
❍ Business Degrowth — Slowing Down & Noticing Patterns with Nic Antoinette — a conversation about enoughness on the Off the Grid podcast with Amelia Hruby (I also highly recommend Nic Antoinette’s newsletter, especially if you’re a small business owner)
❍ What I Learned From My Me Too — an important read by Brooke Nevils about her abusive relationship with Matt Lauer (recommended by Hayley Nahmen in her newsletter Maybe Baby)