Intermittent AI Head-Up
I was working on one of my shiny, brand new AI workflows yesterday (and the night before) and just was not able to crack the code on why it wasn't working. I took screenshot after screenshot and pasted them into ChatGPT without success. A good estimate is 5 hours that I was working on this.
Then I remembered that Agent rolled out for ChatGPT and I hadn't tried it yet. I typed a detailed 7-sentence prompt into Agent and 8-minutes later, I got the EXACT output I needed - JSON code which absolutely cleared the barrier I kept running into.
8 minutes of independent action from AI that hit the mark on one shot. I am using ChatGPT constantly in my work and am building a business around it. But there is a looming concern that Agent will just eventually take over this new service I am building and people will be able to get the outputs I am building for $20/month.
"This has nothing to do with Stoicism."
A quote from Marcus that is not below is "no role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now." Translation: You can use philosophy in everything you do and every situation you are in.
The barriers I was running into in my work -- I am not getting frustrated and angry it didn't work out. I learned another tool that I was able to use to get it done. But there will come a time when we will be faced by a major shifting in needs, demand, value, scarcity, and purpose.
As I said in my DisruptHR talk, we need to embrace AI, find out how we can use it for good and to further our interests. We should not be surprised when 'the worst' happens. Premeditatio Malorum -- pre-consider those undesirable externalities which may come to fruition. Or as I tried to say at the end of the talk at Camden Yards:
"Change is inevitable. The future is certainly unknown. Plan accordingly."
Do not allow action and impulse to be without a purpose. Be directed towards a goal.
— – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Birth and death are the portals through which we come and go out of this physical form, but life is independent of all that physical. Life observes the physical. It resides outside of it, where there is no before or after.
— – Mo Gawdat, Solve for Happy
See through the negative, past its underside, and into its corollary: the positive.
— – Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way
Rads Take
Quote 1 speaks to intentionality in action. Quote 3 speaks to intentionality in thought. But actions start with thoughts. Thoughts are the words that we tell ourselves and can choose to believe.
But the words inside our head are not necessarily 'us'. Those thoughts may be influences that we hear but don't want to believe, they may be fears that we have which will hold us back from achieving success, or they may be our body telling us the couch is better than the elliptical.
In each of those scenarios, it is 'us' who chooses which thought to believe. It is us who chooses with our actions if we are going to work toward our goal or not. "If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable."
Where are you going? What are you doing to get there?
In quote 3, "See" is a key word.
"See is key? Really?"
The perspective that we choose to view the world from is absolutely everything. As humans, our sense of vision is of course most dominant. Stoicism draws a clear demarcation between our mind and externalities. That which we control and that which we do not. But our dominant way of sensing the world never ever will see our mind. We only see that which is outside of our mind.
We don't see our thoughts (unless we write them down...like I am doing right now! But even then, I am seeing the words that I have chosen to filter to put on this absolutely sick newsletter you are reading). So if we only see externalities, our perspective in which light we choose to see them is crucial. The Stoics have the phrase 'amor fati.'
Love Your Fate.
See the things around you as exclusively good. See the things that happen as exclusively good. Everything is opportunity. Everything is love. Jim Murphy of Inner Excellence fame (AJ Brown of the Eagles made him that much more famous) highlights the importance of love. Mo Gawdat speaks to unconditional love being the "only emotion that's not generated by a thought in your head." It is naturally occurring.
I don't love unconditionally the dog pooping on my lawn and the fact that I am behind on accounting stuff for my business but I can choose to see the positives or even just choose to not be affected by these externalities. Like many things with this philosophy - easier said than done. But we need to at least be aware there is an option other than anger or disgust.
Speaking of Mo, quote 2. With all that we know, we don't know a lot. Billions of people have come and gone. Someone I am close to that is getting up there in years told me recently "I am absolutely terrified of dying."
There needs to be some temperance and awareness of the fact that we had a beginning and will have an end. We have pre-considered that eventuality. Not possibility but, of course, a certainty. The temperance comes in where we don't want to look forward to death as something that we are excited about nor something that we are dreading. It is just a fact. It is what is. Mo says that your birth and your death are like the front and back cover of a book. They do not define the book - the pages within do.
So while we are enjoying this physical form in these dog days of summer going to the pool, the beach, the lake, or just working your buns off trying to get people to buy your shit (let's go!!!), consider what you are putting on the pages of your own book. What purpose are you driving toward? What perspective are you employing?
Also, the Eagles won the Super Bowl. And they gon' getit again!