A Creative's Rumination on AI
Once upon a time a boy wandered into the woods as he often did. He was enamored by the world around him and enjoyed sketching under the bows of a sprawling live oak teeming with wildlife and dripping with Spanish moss. He would get so involved that at times he couldn’t see the forest but for that tree. On this particular day, a caterpillar dropped onto the end of his pencil and started spinning what seemed like a cocoon around the staff. The boy watched, spellbound by this act. Once the back end was covered, the caterpillar spoke to him. “Turn your writing instrument around and wield it like wand. Only think the idea and it will appear on the page.” Sure enough, the boy waved the modified stick and imagined the caterpillar smiling at him and thus a likeness such as he sought appeared on his page. He then imagined the whole of the grove he sat in and thus a similar image appeared. The caterpillar proceeded back to the tree to form his own chrysalis as the boy joyously ran from the hidden glen clutching his precious gift.
In the days and months that followed, the boy remained inside his abode, harnessing this new skill while neglecting the forest that gave him such a gift and the writing end of his pencil by which he had honed his imagination for so long. On a particularly sunny day when the flowers were in full bloom, a day that would normally have drawn the boy out into the woods, a butterfly fluttered through an open window and landed on the boy’s shoulder. The boy ignored it. The butterfly spoke, “Why is it that you no longer come to the forest, studying, sketching, and sharing in the world?” The boy replied, “It’s you! Such a gift you’ve given me, I no longer need to visit the grove for this tool you’ve given me is sufficient to engage my imagination.” The winged creature in sadness replied, “Child, you may now think you see the forest for the trees, but you are pale, and the depth of your knowledge runs shallow. I fly above the trees and into the trees. You wield a staff with two ends. Sharpen the one as you consider the use of the other. Both provide unique opportunity and perspective.” It then flew out the window and, as the boy watched its brilliantly colored, fluttering wings, it disappeared in the sky. Shading his face from the sun the boy noticed a cloud form. He grabbed his pencil and sketched the cloud and the butterfly, then used the wand to capture fleeting details and help him order his thoughts before returning to his original drawing. That day, the boy returned to the forest and remembered the joy of discovery, armed with both new and old ways to develop his ideas and craft them for sharing with others.
FINE