Learning to write (again)
I saw a post on twitter/X that had a screenshot of a prompt that they gave to Claude. The prompt was something like "If you were a human, what is some small thing you will do daily to get ahead of most of other people." I don't remember the answer that the Claude in the screenshot had given but I liked the idea enough to try it with my Claude and ChatGPT. I gave it the prompt and ChatGPT answered with something quite high-level like "Do some amount of deep/focused work everyday." Albeit relevant, it appeared trivially true and was not the answer I was looking for from these super intelligent ghosts. Claude gave me something that I liked more. It said that a focused time (no matter how short), to capture some learnings from the day in your own word without the flair and crutch of generative AI could probably go a long way.
I liked that answer better and it resonated with something that I have been feeling as well. I used to be someone who wrote a lot more than I do now. That habit has waned with the advent of AI and AI tools that can write what I generally think about more coherently and at a faster clip than I am able to. That is a great thing when I want to convert rough ideas to something more coherent but I have begun to rely on it too much to the point of my writing skills atrophying. Due to this, I have a growing feeling that what was once my voice, what is my voice in this short piece of writing, is slowly disappearing away as echoes of a past, pre Chatgpt 3.5.
I haven't stopped consuming. I alway numb myself with some informative podcasts, youtube videos, lectures, as much as I can, from the moment I wake up until I sleep. But rarely do I sit down within myself and my thoughts to synthesize them. Rarely do I take the time nowadays to write what I think, what I feel, and what I have learnt. The spirit needs that. Therefore I hope this endeavor in some small way helps me learn, and to write again.
P.S: I can't help but notice the irony of Claude kickstarting this but such is life!