Wax Apples

(prose)

They say I’m overreacting and maybe they’re right.

I have a tendency towards this—towards a way of living and feeling and making that feels a bit brumby. Do you know that word? Down under, it’s what Aussies call a wild horse. And in this instance, I think we all could stand to buck off our bridles. I’m going feral.

I believe that some things in the world cannot be said with a whisper; I MUST SHOUT! I must scream about how you don’t have to give in to technology that promises efficiency but compromises intimacy. I must yell and urge you to remember that curiosity and confusion are all valuable parts of being human and your life will become no richer if you corporatize your communication and curtail your creativity.

Wax apples look beautiful but are not good for eating.

Or as one God-man said, “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”¹

thanks, i hate it!

AI invites you to generate a sympathetic response wishing your friend a speedy recovery in the hospital. It probably will offer you a pretty good paragraph: one that expresses sympathy, shares a thoughtful quote, generates a question or two in order to cover the bases of compassion. But what it cannot offer is your stuttering voice as emotion catches in your throat, briefly rendering you wordless because sometimes the sufferings of this life take your breath away.

AI cannot write a card for you in your in your crappy handwriting that the recipient will save in a Keds shoebox and go back and look at years later as they take a tender trip down memory lane.

AI cannot reach out and hold a friend’s fleshy hand and it cannot double over in overcoming laughter and it cannot make all-knowing eye contact from across the room when something silly or cringy or spectacular happens.

Life is for the living. A computer cannot live for you.

A computer can promise knowledge, progress, efficiency, but it cannot provide empathy, conviction, grace.

It cannot anoint your head with oil and lay hands on you in prayer in the back of a church sanctuary near the coat rack that smells like moth balls.

Its butt cannot go numb while sitting in the bleachers at your track meet in the freezing rain of March and it cannot ladle you a bowl of chicken noodle soup when you get home after you finish that God-forsaken 3200 meter race.

It cannot gasp with delight at the sight of the first crocuses of spring, it cannot smell lilacs, it cannot sweat when it is nervous.

It cannot revel at the size of the full moon or blow iridescent bubbles or roll down a grassy hill covered in puffs of dying dandelions or show up at your doorstep on a Friday night with your favorite takeout in creased, greasy paper bags.

It cannot smell fresh-baked bread, it cannot commune, it cannot desperately kneel on a hardwood floor and scream at God.

It cannot have dreams, cannot grieve, cannot hope.

It cannot have a soul, for it is a machine.

But you are not.

And so when it invites you to opt in, to swear your allegiance to the automation of creation, to become a part of the future, resist. It is not too late. Backslide with me into a way of living and loving and learning that canvasses the corners of our minds and memories, that shares the stories of our ancestors, that chooses the path of most resistance, that becomes like the fox².

Let’s fall behind and never look back; where we’re going is better than becoming a pillar of salt.

1. Matthew 7:17-18

2. The full quote is: “Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.” If you have not read Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” it is as ripe as ever for the harvest.