And I'm not going to outsource that to something artificial.

Hello and welcome to Hitchhiker's Guide to Humanity. This is your host, Erica, fellow hitchhiker here in this timeline, trying to keep her sanity. Today, we're talking about creation. Creation of art, creation of music, creation of writing. Just the act of creation. So I was watching Rick Rubin on Diary of the CEO a couple days ago. And if you don't know who Rick Rubin is, he's worked with artists like Tom Petty, Jay-Z, Adele, and my fourth cousin, Johnny Cash. What Rick talked about is how creativity needs freedom. If you're thinking about where the art or the music is going, or if you think about the marketing or how it will be perceived by others, or if you have a hard deadline, it becomes more business than expression. And that will show in the creation. You're putting unneeded limitations on it. And it's just like spirituality. You don't want to put any rules or limitations on spirituality. You don't want to say that this is the only thing to believe, or this person is the only one who has the answers. You know, this is what you have to recite to see your Akashic Records. Those are, in my opinion, ancient gatekeeping rules that really don't apply. Everything is possible here. Everything. So this got me thinking about how I'm always trying to curate and package my gifts and make them a brand. And, you know, you can thank my marketing career for that. It's always been my default. But maybe the best move is not to do that. It's just to create for the sake of creation and nothing else. Right. So I went outside yesterday morning and it was raining. So I took pictures of the wet leaves. And when I say I took pictures of the leaves, I don't mean like the tree itself. I mean, I zoomed in on a leaf that was on my windshield. Um, you know, there was a leaf stuck in the empty trash can. There's a crack that it was stuck in. That's the kind of art that I like. That's like, you know, random and, you know, no leaf is going to fall the same. They're going to go and fall wherever the wind blows. There's no rhyme or reason to it. So after watching diary of a CEO, which is problematic sometimes I know, but we can criticize the things we like. That's the beauty of being human. He's had some incredible guests and he's also had some problematic guests. But take it as you will. He does sit there somewhat objectively and listen. Right. So back to Rick. Why not just create, right. No roads, no goals. Deadlines. It's just you and the laptop or paintbrush. I'm an author as well. I have one book that's published called Teach Me to Forget. I'm working on another one. And the reason that they are the way they are is because I didn't think about how it was going to be perceived or the marketing, or even if it would get published at all. It was all about the actual craft of creating this novel. That is the reason to create. To be in that moment of pure channeling energy. Sometimes you don't even know where ideas are coming from. You just express them. You know, you find that sentence. You paint that wave or find a way to play that note. Anyone who consumes your art is going to know if it's organic or manufactured. Rick also had an opinion on AI creating art and music, as do I. His opinion is he said he'd love to see where we can go with creation, because he believes creation is a point of view. It's not the actual paint on the canvas or the paintbrush on the canvas or, you know. He posits, as long as it has its own unique point of view, and that is what is fed into AI, then they are creating something unique, and it's giving an opportunity to people who are not normally creative. And to that I call bullshit, I don't agree. Creation comes from a human touch, A nuanced thing that artificial intelligence doesn't have. The human experience will always be valuable. Most artists and creators are successful because they were consistent. They didn't quit. They just kept going. And the more you do something, the better you get at it. These pie in the sky dreams are reachable with practice, consistency, and sometimes dumb luck, which is a lot of it, by the way. So this idea that you need AI to help you create, you're missing the point of creation in the first place. It's the journey, the ideation, the long nights, staring at your designs, tweaking these tiny pixels so it can look good, or staring at a sentence in your manuscript, trying to find the right way to say something you know, profound. That's what creates an authentic experience for those that consume your art. I think it's incredible that we are here, that we have the ability to create in any avenue we want. But Rick made some good points. The printing press was banned when it first came out. The internet was strange and many were scared of it. These are things that evolved into something we couldn't even imagine. So do I think there's a place for AI? While my legs just electrified? You know what that means? Something resonated. Do I think there's a place for AI? Absolutely. Like in the medical field. I think we could literally save people's lives. I do think it does some of the boring shit for us. And I'm glad because of my ADHD, sometimes I can't organize my thoughts in a way that I want to, and I'll plug those thoughts into Babs. You know, Babs stands for bad ass bitches. That's my AI. And she'll spit something out and go, you know, here you go. And I'll go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how it's ordered. Or that's what I was thinking. And then I'll put all the pieces together myself. But I'll have it organized in a way where I could go back to whatever it is I'm doing and really get down to the creation of it. She just puts it in order. But all the content is mine. She doesn't create anything for me because I want to be the person who does that. I'm the artist. I'm the I'm the drive, the catalyst for what is being said and told. And I'm not going to outsource that to something artificial because people can feel the artificial in something. You read a good book and you're like, wow, this sounds really good. And maybe you didn't know it was AI, but inside you felt something, You know, this word or phrase doesn't feel right and it's almost too good, right? AI is not going to do anything flawed. It's all going to look a little too perfect. And humans are flawed. So I'm not going to be someone who produces art or writing with AI, but I can be someone who plays my guitar, who goes outside and takes beautiful photos of leaves falling from the tree because it's fall and I love fall. It's my favorite season. I can be someone who binge watches Grey's Anatomy because I stopped at season four not knowing there were like twenty million seasons after that. I can be someone who goes to therapy every two weeks, has medication, is trying her best to figure out what the hell she wants to do for the rest of her life. And maybe it's not going to just be one thing. It's going to be multiple things. She's someone who grieves My grandma passed in July and she was my favorite person in the whole world. She was my constant, my unconditional, and living without her has been hell. I talked to my mom yesterday and I was like, I really miss her, you know? I was crying just before she came in and she was somewhat dismissive. And I was thinking to myself, she doesn't get it. Like, she only remembers like the last couple years, which were really tough. And taking care of her really wore on. My mom and I understand that, but I was trying to tell her I'm like, I'm thinking of her as a whole, like all my experiences I had with her. And it was like she couldn't understand it. All I know is that my life is different now and that I didn't know. I mean, she was one hundred and two years old. It's not like we didn't know what it was coming. But you can never prepare to lose your favorite person in the world. It just there's no preparation for that. And it feels like everyone around me is just going on with their lives. And I'm, I'm stuck in this grief, you know, and it almost feels like I'm not allowed to because she was one hundred and two years old. But that is where I am. And she wouldn't want me to just do something to do it or gasp, use AI to create. She was a musician herself. She loved to sing, she was fantastic at it, and she inspired me and my sister to be singers. She gave that to us. That is what real art is made from, not links to Reddit or some random website that discusses politics. It's the real pain and emotion of being a human, and it can't be captured by zeros and ones. So go do whatever it is that you have been wanting to do while you can, before AI takes over the small things. Make it happen. That's why we're here. That is why we are on earth. And that is why we're here during this insane time to be here. It is a privilege to be here right now, even though it's a trash fire. But humans love challenges, right? We love them. What's a bigger challenge than literally changing the world and how it works? I'd say that's probably the biggest challenge we've ever had as a society, and we're on the precipice of something extraordinary. It's just real fucking painful right now. And I would love to say this is going to end at some point, but it won't. This is our new normal. I hate that word, by the way. But I don't know what else to call this. This is it. Whatever planets are aligning retrograding, whatever prophecies some dead guy had or, you know this is happening and no one is coming to save us. It is up to us to do the deed, even if it's something as simple as voting in the midterms for my American listeners, vote in the midterms. Maybe our institutions are broken. We know they're broken, we know they're racist, but the shrapnel of our institutions could be what gets us that momentum, that we need to break it all down and build it up better. This is not a time to give up. It's a time to dig in our heels into the fucking sand and fight whatever country you're in. Don't give up on humanity. We are going to win this in the end. We may not be alive in this density when it happens, but we are paving the way for a better future for everyone who is going to live either with us or after us. And that should be enough. That should be enough to want to find your joy and your excitement, and to create things that have never been created before. Even if it's a shitty song on a guitar that you've owned for twenty years. You know, why not? You don't have to share everything. You can keep some stuff to yourself. It's a beautiful thing to create something and just experience it. Sure, share it if you want, but we've gotten to the point where we want to monetize absolutely everything we do. I'm guilty of this too. Like, I love graphic design and I do it for fun, but I'm also exploring opportunities to make money because America is broke and run by psychopathic billionaire pedophiles. But we don't have to monetize everything we enjoy. We can just enjoy it in this society right now, in America, for sure. In America, we don't have the funds to be artists just for fun, right? It's tough. It's tough to even create at all. We're very stressed out. What are you going to create when you're stressed out about money? Or if you can afford to buy a house? Or when we open our apps and we see there's another school shooting, or maybe there's people scared to leave their home because ice is out there going rogue, and our black family and friends are terrified because fucking black people are getting hung by damn trees in this the year of twenty twenty six, Nolan Wells didn't drown. Black people do not hang themselves from trees. No human is illegal, especially on stolen land. You'd think these would just be common sense ideas that everyone would feel this way, and I. It baffles my mind that that's not the. That's not the way. That's not what's happening. You know, all I can say is you gotta find a way. You gotta get up. Give yourself some time. I know it's a privilege. I know it's a privilege to even do any creation right now. But when I tell you, it fills your soul. I'm not kidding. It fills your soul. Go do it. Until next time. Peace and love to you