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Fear And Loathing
Feb. 26th, 2025 09:05 am Over at the site where I muck about with AI a popular image maker has announced that he/she (such a sign of the times that one doesn't know which) is giving up doing what we do because of the fear and loathing s/he feels every time s/he logs onto the site.
I suspect everybody who does any kind of creative work- no matter how humble and obscure- feels something of this when faced with the absence out of which one has to conjure some sort of presence. Put into words (inadequate of course) one is thinking "Suppose I can't do it today, suppose I can't do it ever again- and if I do manage to produce something suppose it is hopelessly sub-standard- and I disappoint myself and everybodyelse who makes up my "public?"
If the symptoms get too alarming the sanest thing is to walk away- as the AI artist has done. Or is it? Can a person who has once tasted the sweetness of creative work ever live happily without it?
I suspect everybody who does any kind of creative work- no matter how humble and obscure- feels something of this when faced with the absence out of which one has to conjure some sort of presence. Put into words (inadequate of course) one is thinking "Suppose I can't do it today, suppose I can't do it ever again- and if I do manage to produce something suppose it is hopelessly sub-standard- and I disappoint myself and everybodyelse who makes up my "public?"
If the symptoms get too alarming the sanest thing is to walk away- as the AI artist has done. Or is it? Can a person who has once tasted the sweetness of creative work ever live happily without it?
