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to speak is human
one of the most defiant ways that we can assert our power—our not-duplicable, non-algorithmic, dangerous, and history-altering power—is to write.
yes you can feed your prompts into a generative AI chatGPT butthole and it will produce a precise and perfect and appropriate piece of text — but that isn't you!
it isn't you to have apple intelligence or google fartelligence rewrite your emails or text messages or essays or love letters
It is you to drag your pen across paper, or cursor blinking on screen—to discover, question, argue alone, to know yourself.
It is you to write what you shouldn't write—what you aren't allowed to say. To consider the impossible, the illegal or immoral, to wrestle with those things that others would censor or suppress.
It is you to yearn, love, grieve through writing: to gift yourself, and maybe others too, that record of your pain and beauty and dynamism.
Oct 5, 2024
Related Recs
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in a world where it's too easy to be told what to think (scrolling) or get automated outputs to prove to others that we have thought (gpt), take some time to really wrestle with yourself! writing is an ongoing but worthy battle. put one thought down, add something contradictory a bit later, then figure out the blend of the two that will convey what you truly believe and mean. write to the bone!!!! it's hard stuff but i really believe we all need to do it....
May 30, 2025
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there is something deeply cleansing about writing in the midst of a psychotic episode. ripping at the frayed seams of my brain feels generative. it is generative—something is created.
tips if you are interested in trying this:
1. do not reread as you go. that is something called ruminating and it is not the same as writing.
2. learn to identify what can be rehabilitated and what should be gratefully acknowledged and then discarded. don’t force your thoughts to stand the test of time.
3. do not write within the horrors if it can be avoided. let them stay beside you. they can watch and listen as you reach for something more.
4. remember to eat periodically.
5. you don’t have to polish to a shine before sharing unless you want to. but know that you are not holding a masterpiece. that is fine. you are holding something, and it fits within your palms.
Jan 15, 2025
Writing… Ideas…
One minute it flows out of you wildly - forcefully vomited thoughts that can’t be contained so they must be spilled. Ink to paper, notes app paragraphs.
Other times it can feel like beating your head against a wall repeatedly and still never breaking through to the other side - blood trickling down your forehead and all.
I truly don’t think there is any solution for this. Whatever your creative pursuit, the process will always feel painstaking until miraculously one day it doesn’t.
Unfortunately you don't get to choose when inspiration hits you like an tonne of bricks and before you know it the feeling is long gone.
Sometimes I like to write all my thoughts down in a stream of consciousness. It doesn't have to make any sense, and it usually doesn’t.
If you’re lucky you may find something in that chain of unfiltered thoughts that makes a lot of sense when recontextualized.
Be messy, because you’re never going to be perfect. It doesn’t always work out, but what else are you going to do about it?
Just write.
May 16, 2025
Top Recs from @mattshawsome
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this is worthy of celebration: the lack of video—autoplay video, noisy inane video, panicky video, algorithmic, dumb video, rabbit hole video, any video—on pi.fyi is a good thing
Oct 5, 2024
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this is going to hurt — A LOT — but it's getting to the point where there's no other option
Mar 11, 2025