Child's smile. Father's tears. Pure love.
May, 2023
Dear Friends
I was recently away camping with my young son, just the two of us. It felt different. This growing boy of eight has claimed more agency in the arrangement — cooking, cleaning, fishing, hiking, swimming — we were together in a new way and the happiness was written all over his face.
We also connected with our neighbours at the camp spot next to us. A father with two kids — a daughter the same age as Jack. It was beautiful watching their friendship blossom as they galavanted around together.
Over a shared meal one night, her father and I began discussing the world. He, a science teacher with a clearly mythological bent, and me, well, whatever I am.
The conversation drifted towards the radical leap we’d both witnessed in AI of late — in particular, it’s ability to wordsmith.
William Faulkner once said that a novelist is a failed short story writer, and a short story writer is a failed poet. Our precision with words has fallen away in modernity — we have become loquacious, verbally obese.
Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged by a group of his fellows to write a complete story in just six words. His efforts not only won him the fabled bet, but created a new short form; the six-word story.
His submission was this: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
You might like to sit with that for a moment.
Back to our conversation. We decided to challenge AI with generating a six-word story. Here are a few notable examples:
Lost key. Found love. Changed locks.
Last human on Earth. Not alone.
Failed class. Found passion. Became successful.
And another:
Child's smile. Father's tears. Pure love.
I was distinctly unsettled by how I felt — an artificial intelligence producing such visceral emotions inside me.
Conversely, holding the widest view, everything seemed wrapped in an abiding sense of awe and wonder. There was I, sitting in communion with good folk well met, under the canvas of a starry sky, and my son’s delighted face at simply being there.
For me, regardless of their origin, those final six words told the story of that moment completely.
We have an array of wonderful people sharing their gifts with our community in May, including storyteller Chaise Levy and poet Thomas R. Smith. I hope you will join us.
P.S. If you are interested in current discussions around AI, I recommend this by Charles Eisenstein. As a less weighty interlude, many moons ago I wrote a poem about ‘loquaciousness’. You can find it here.
Oceans of love.
Asher