Map to Enlightenment
We find what we were looking for. Was it worth what we left behind?
She drew him a map to enlightenment, but he was never one to follow directions. He had to discover himself first, so he left through a crack in the window as the sun rose quietly and her heart sank slowly. He found the elegance of mathematics and limits of physics, mountains ablaze and snow in the desert, but he never found himself among the wonders. She scanned her windshield when she searched for him (she searched for him), driving through the rain until she found him (she never found him). But when he finally did come back, he was more empty than when he had left.
This wasn’t the discovery he had hoped for.
She wrote him a bible on how to be free, but faith stopped meaning something to him the day he reasoned he was only meant to be anchored to science. He dove head-first into chemicals and sand, danced down stretches of sun-scorched highway, but with the moon hung low like ripe fruit on a late summer night, she stopped trying to find him. He made his way through the familiar dead of the night as she plucked the stars from the sky.
This wasn’t the homecoming he expected.
She gave him the world through her eyes, a new sense of wonder, the feeling of home, but he brushed it away like salt in his hair. He held conversations with himself, baking beneath the Mediterranean sun, painting his face with hieroglyphics to pass the time, collecting stories the way other people collected stamps. He came home to find out: she’s gone now, she’s strong now, she’s got kids of her own now.
This wasn’t the ending he had planned on.
What is Gained, What is Lost
We have more tech, tools, and toys than ever; more speed, convenience, and options at our fingertips than any prior generation. DoorDash gave us restaurants on demand; Robinhood pioneered zero-commission trades, then the 24-hour market, so we could transact overnight and on weekends. Instagram monetized our attention with free, infinite-scroll content; Facebook discovered enragement drives engagement. Now, zero-click search is collapsing the incentives for content on the free and open web. Soon, proprietary data (unique insight) will be the only moat—and it won’t be public.
No matter. Our AIs will help us create more AI.
We’re also becoming more secular than ever.
In 1670, French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal wrote a defense of the Christian religion, Pensées (Thoughts). In it, he most famously described a God-shaped hole in the heart of every man. Can adventure, fame, or fortune fill it?
In 1990, some three centuries later, American author Neil Postman observed:
“Technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.”
Meaning does not exist in a vacuum: it needs a witness, a counterpart, a home. My AI can’t simply talk to your AI in our brave new API-first world: a story needs a teller and a listener to come alive. We were never meant to make sense of the world alone.
We’ve already made the bargain. Was it worth what we left behind?