ai winter

not making a whole lot of progress

Hey. I got sick (mostly in the body, a little in the head) and missed last month's post. This is the first time that’s happened in this blog’s three-year history, which I’m attempting to interpret as a sign that a gentle, non-critical period would be good for me — not that I've lapsed on the only project that means something to me, thereby signaling an irreversible decline in my self-discipline, competence, and ability to assert personhood.

Speaking of changes, in tonally similar news, Luke and I broke up (more on that at some later point, in softer language). This has been suboptimal, even if ultimately wise. One silver lining is that the predominant feeling between us is still love, so give him a hug if you see him — he deserves one.

After the official separation, I spent a few weeks convincing myself that the high-level components of my life were in need of correction (because why else was I failing in so many regards?), which led to a parade of needlessly time-intensive processes like seeking redemption via my job market value and researching containers, both literal and figurative, where my only obligation would be to sit (e.g., overnight Amtrak journeys, Vipassana). Most aspects of my life currently mirror the structure of these last few sentences (hard to explain concisely, requiring parenthetical supplementation).

My original January blog idea (the one I failed to write) was to publish my 2025 bucket list and invite the whole internet to check off the boxes with me. But then I became melancholic and began to doubt whether I’d be able to mount the sufficient bubbliness needed to field acceptances with the gratitude they deserve, which made asking in the first place moot. So instead of writing, I spent the month prone and pining, pretending that sending screenshots of my NYT Mini solution times is an appropriate substitute for actual human connection.

For three consecutive weekends spanning January and February, I occupied myself by going on hikes, one of which was a 15-mile trek across SF on the Double Cross Trail. These were bright spots; moving through space toward a destination is one of the only forms of leisure that feels productive enough to not induce guilt. When I wasn’t tending to my step count, I was performing lies of omission, giving in to wiles, and oscillating between feeling nonchalant and shattered. For the first time in my life, despite being immediately adjacent to doomers for more than a year, I was moved to take seriously the line of reasoning that AI might end in catastrophe, and — even worse — that I might have a role to play in preventing it. This happened because I finally forced myself to read arguments. Unsurprisingly, believing a crazy conclusion is easier when you’ve read the preceding 10,000 words of reasoning that led to it. Speaking as someone who loves the world and hates responsibility, both possibilities (extinction, obligation) are awful if true, and contending with this new game state has not been a boon to my sense of optimism.

Rejection has also been on my mind more than usual, probably because I’ve experienced a lot of it recently — both getting rejected and doing the rejecting. “No” is a tough concept, especially when you really want something, or have already conceived a whole future around “yes.” It feels cosmically unfair that upendings can happen in just a minute or two, especially juxtaposed with the otherwise eternal state of continuity. And even when it’s not divinely terrible, it’s still pretty bad: awkward, embarrassing, pathetic, tense — the sort of oof that makes me fold inward. I’m a “rip the bandaid off” type of girl (and have no doubt I will bully myself back to a high-valence state soon), but I’m trying to be patient while a scab forms.

On the bright side, I remain a simple and easy-to-please person (or at least that’s the story I’m choosing to tell). On the dark side, that means that things being mildly complicated and unsatisfying upsets me more than most — not only does everything suck, so do I for believing they do! Though many a neospiritual friend has reminded me that sitting with emotions tends to go over better than banishing them to a shadowy reservoir of unmanaged pain, I am icked by sadness and self-pity and eagerly want to rid myself of these features. I wish that we could all just get exactly what we want, and feel really bad when I am a limiting factor in reaching that end state. For now, though, the best I can do is stave off the urge to lop my hair into a bob. For now, this is enough.