{"id":590,"date":"2024-02-18T22:05:59","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T03:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=590"},"modified":"2024-02-18T22:05:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T03:05:59","slug":"why-humans-compose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=590","title":{"rendered":"Why Humans Compose"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>What I most appreciate about desk drawers is their essential eclecticism. That would be their absolute devotion to EDI. They don\u2019t discriminate. They offer shelter to anything and everything. Can\u2019t quite recall what I went in search of at the start of this day\u2019s rummage . . . but I did find lots of interesting stuff \u2014 including my old Waterman fountain pen. And so down another rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

A good friend, sadly now passed, was passionate about more than a few rituals of relationship. Small, but significant practices that defined both her and the connections she honoured throughout her long life. The \u2018thank you\u2019 note ranked very highly amongst these traditions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After an animated evening of conversation, and likely a few too many Scotches, we\u2019d invariably find an envelope tucked in mail box the morning following \u2014 always hand-delivered and handwritten, always in fountain pen. And always penned in a card of some unique provenance, highlighting what she\u2019d most appreciated about our time together on this (or that) particular occasion. These evenings were not infrequent nor particularly noteworthy \u2014 but they were<\/i> special or, more properly made<\/i> special by this small bit of effort and acknowledgement our friend added to the mix.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Leafing through the digital pages of this week\u2019s New Yorker<\/i>, I happened on a piece with the rather chilling header: When AI Can Make a Movie, What Does \u2018Video\u2019 Even Mean? <\/i>A little more surfing and I was at another article with the equally disturbing title: What\u2019s The Point of Reading Writing by Humans?\u2019. <\/i>These are not stand alone fissures in the foundation of creativity \u2014 or even esoteric musings for a phil 101 class. AI \u2018product\u2019 has stirred a very large pot of angst on fronts ranging from quicky emails to bogus social media postings, from \u2018fake Drake\u2019 to algorithm authored college essays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I like to write and I like to take pictures. I have no illusions that I\u2019ll one day write publishable stuff or take widely viewed photographs. What I do know is that both of these endeavours are executed to far superior levels by other humans and, increasingly it seems, by \u2018synthetic\u2019 means. In truth, much of the output I write will likely be read by an extraordinarily small audience \u2014 often of one, whom I happily live with, and is of late (and under some protest) a Facebook Friend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our long-established practice has been to craft our own reflections on various occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, and all the customary \u2018Hallmark dates\u2019 \u2014 always eschewing the prefab verse, opting for the \u2018blank inside\u2019 card. The \u2018value\u2019, while a bit hard to define but as the saying so frequently reminds us, is \u2018in the thought\u2019. And by extension, the effort and \u2018thought-fulness\u2019 trump the \u2018product\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As is my wont, haiku is a favourite form and, as such, can be a wee bit inscrutable to the recipient. I have a particular tic when it comes to reconciling the seemingly unreconcilable. Jamming two, diverse ideas together, shrunk to a very few syllables \u2014 to see what comes out the other side of the \u2018concept accelerator\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day seemed a suitable candidate. Casting around for some strange bedfellows (that seemed inappropriate already!), our newly installed heat pump had just kicked into gear, coincident with me sitting down to \u2018think\u2019. (The thump<\/i> that accompanies both was not lost on me.) And so the project became the creative collision of something akin to \u2018The mechanics of relationship\u2019 (??) \u2014 hopefully producing something less than an atomic meltdown (in either me or the pump).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heart: emotion\u2019s seat,<\/p>\n

body\u2019s pump. Life\u2019s Chi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Flowing through time and season.<\/td>\n

In hearts’ embrace, warmth,<\/p>\n

Love’s currents like a pump’s flow,<\/p>\n

Heat exchanged, souls glow.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The process, start to finish took perhaps an hour or so. But sixty minutes well spent (I hoped) and hatching a reasonably crafted, \u2018heart felt\u2019 few lines to commemorate the occasion. Having just previously depressed myself with the New Yorker articles, I thought I\u2019d risk a little conversation with Ms. ChatGPT. Prompting my synthetic muse with \u2018Haiku comparing romantic love to the action of a heat pump\u2019. In something less than a second\u2019s time, out pops one of the above \u2014 I\u2019ll leave it to the reader (if indeed there is one. . . or two) to decide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Which begs the question: if it\u2019s as \u2018good\u2019 or better, faster, and ticks all the boxes, why bother? I\u2019ll return to our old friend\u2019s ritual for an answer. We still have many of her cards, stuck in various books as markers, re-read when we want to bring her to mind, treasured these ten years since her death. I\u2019d be hard pressed to find a dashed off text message or recall a \u2018thanks for the grub\u2019 voicemail that enjoys anything close to that kind of durability or is more deeply appreciated. Effort and consideration matter. Thus far humans still need to draft the \u2018prompts\u2019 in answer to Ms. C\u2019s query of \u2018How can I help you today?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0What I most appreciate about desk drawers is their essential eclecticism. That would be their absolute devotion to EDI. They don\u2019t discriminate. They offer shelter to anything and everything. Can\u2019t quite recall what I went in search of at the start of this day\u2019s rummage . . . but I did find lots of interesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}