No rest for the weary, AI sucks up all, the reality of our paths

I got a lot of time to clean the house while the kids were out.

Now that they’re back, it’s been relatively straightforward to keep them from trashing the house within the first 24 hours. It’s just a matter of staying on top of whatever they get into…hopefully I can maintain that for at least a week or two before it all falls apart again.

Being alone in a house built for families isn’t exactly fun, and I was reminded of that for the better part of the week they were out. When I was a bachelor, most of the first house I bought went unfurnished.

It was good practice, and it was a test to see if I could maintain my graduate student lifestyle without falling prey to the spending creep. Thankfully, I passed that test because these kids will definitely eat me out of house and home as they get older!

Here’s what I’ve come across this week:

BlueSky Bit - This should’ve been me this week, but…

Medium Moment - If you write long enough, AI will hoover up your style

Substack Sampling - In the end, this journey is more of a LHC-sized loop

Prismatic Progress:

Wow, four days into 2026…and the last one of these was four days left.

As you have noticed up top, I haven’t updated the banner yet or pushed it all out to the other two platforms. That’s still a work-in-progress. While I’ve enjoyed toying with AI-generated art, I also kinda miss using real photography and my drawing for that purpose. When I look back in the history of all the stuff that’s up here, I realize that I don’t exactly like the stuff that I tacked on from Leonardo.AI.

There are better ways to use AI as I’ve already shared earlier, and I’m a bit more reluctant to use it this way because…well…something doesn’t feel right about the offload.

Yes, the old ways are slower and may be more archaic, but they also last longer and endure within your body in ways that topical and instant gratification don’t. When you work at it and put in the effort, it becomes a part of you the way treading the same trail wears down into a nice path; the way you become proficient at something; the way execution becomes second-nature.

You don’t get that if you rely on AI. Each time is the first time. It’s like the MIB. When you see it, it’s deja vu, but it’s dismissed almost immediately as well.

I know I’ll share more of how my perspective evolves as the year progresses, and I still use it for feedback. It’s not the arbiter of good and bad, just what is generally compiled from the internet.

It spits out consensus, and I don’t want to become part of the collective.

Anyway, I’ll tinker with the banner and all the brand stuff some more. You’ll see it when it’s ready — and it WON’T be AI generated.