I’m rebooting The Unreasonable Art of Living for the next six weeks, and I’m genuinely excited about it. Expect (again) a new episode every week, plus the occasional long-form reflection on Substack.
This week: why you shouldn’t be worried about AI, and why I believe it will actually help us rediscover what makes us human.
AI will keep getting better at rational, predictable work. Our job is to deepen the parts of being human that it can’t replicate: embodied intuition, emotional truth, and the courage to remain original.
Quote for you:
“Differentiation is survival and the world wants you to be typical. In what ways does the world pull at you and attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take for you to maintain your distinctiveness, to keep alive the things that make you special? We all know that distinctiveness, also known as originality, is valuable. We are taught to be yourself. What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical in 1000 ways. It pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of Be Yourself is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously. To all of you and he just ends with excellent advice. Be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. “ - Jeff Bezos
