Read time: 3 min 39 sec
Whatup Reader!
Happy almost end of March!
I think we continue to be in a time where celebrating things and expressing happiness feels, dare I say it, weird. Yes, we all know that hiding or reducing our own happiness will objectively do nothing to change the hardship and suffering experienced by others, but nonetheless it can still make you feel some kind of way to be outwardly celebratory and joyful when there's just so much shit going on and people are so visibly hurting.
Which brings me to the main point of today's email: Not every fight is your fight.
As per always, this is not an absolution of any sort or a blanket statement giving us an out to bury our heads in the sand and care about nothing. I say that last sentence more out of habit (I share content in a lot of spaces where I can never be 100% certain who the audience is) as opposed to believing that any of you who chose to subscribe to this newsletter actually need to hear it.
One of those aforementioned spaces with unknown audiences is obviously social media (read: Instagram and Threads), and the reality is that every time you sign on, it feels like there's a new cause to stand up for, a new boycott to take part in, and a new horrendousness to make yourself aware of but not actually be able to do anything about.
While I do believe there is tremendous value in staying informed, action is what is most near and dear to my heart. To once again quote the great DMX, "Talk is cheap motherfucker."
That in mind I think it's quite prudent for each of us to remember that not every fight is our fight. Our individual efforts absolutely matter and can absolutely impact things, but if we're so overwhelmed that we take no action at all, then we impact nothing and we change nothing.
Speaking of change, I opened last week's email by stating that I had been deep in the computer for a few weeks rebranding my second podcast, now called "Prompting Curiosity." I'm incredibly proud of how the new site came out, and of all of the visual assets, and I would love nothing more than for all of you fine folks to go check it out. If you want the deep dive as to why I rebranded and moved away from the original name, ChatGPT Curious, you can click here to listen to the episode, or click here to check out the blog post if you ain’t about that podcast life.
The TL;DR for said rebrand: I could no longer ignore the bad behavior of OpenAI, given that AI is one of the worlds I live in, and thus that fight was absolutely mine to do something about.
I share this not to shame any of you into leaving ChatGPT, but rather to hopefully inspire you to take action in the areas that you most care about, and are most directly involved in and impacted by.
I don't care which LLM you use. I honestly don't care if you use AI at all. I made that second podcast for folks who, like me, are curious about the technology and want to understand it and approach it with nuance that also considers humanity.
Like I said many times before, I left the business of convincing many, many years ago, not too long after becoming a physical therapist. The business of convincing is a terrible one, and, in my humble opinion, if your goal is actually to recruit people for something, trying to convince them is the worst way of going about it.
Instead, build something that's worth joining.
To quote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
I realize that there's a lot to care about right now and it can also feel like your efforts don't matter. I'm writing today to encourage you to resist the overwhelm of what I will call "varied resistance." There are so many things to fight for and care about, and the fact that we have the technology to be able to hear about any and every occurrence literally two seconds after it occurs is a recipe for systemic overwhelm.
Resist the overwhelm and remember that not every fight is your fight.
Again, that's not an invitation to bury your head in the sand, because the reality is participatory democracy requires participation and the world that you want to live in does require that you build it and contribute to it in some way shape or form.
I don't know what things you care about and which topics impact you and affect you in such a way that they spur action, but I encourage you to lean into those things and remember that individual efforts do matter.
Not every fight is your fight, but the ones that are, make sure you fight like hell.
Happy Tuesday, Reader.
Maestro out.
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