Another Wednesday slips by.
I've been traveling constantly these past three weeks, which explains my absence here.
Of late, my day job has been pulling me away from writing, which is exactly why I refused to commit to posting schedules long ago. I've tried that gimmick before, and it never works. Better to write what calls to me when it calls, not from narcissism but from human truth.
The writing world feels more opaque than ever—a clubhouse of insiders and calculated pandering. Smug righteousness mixed with unproven, contradictory advice. It mirrors our broader cultural moment: false confidence masquerading as wisdom, emotional immaturity dressed up as authenticity, the relentless hunger for attention disguised as personal connection. A sea of shining, smiling faces all masking their lack of lived experience.
The future gets sacrificed for the present on the altar of commodification. Depth traded for clicks, substance for shares, genuine insight bartered away for algorithmic approval. Everything becomes product: thoughts packaged into threads, wisdom condensed into soundbites, human experience flattened into content designed to be consumed and forgotten. The long arc of meaningful work disappears beneath the relentless demand for views, subscribers, sales, and constant visibility. It's a rat race for metrics that measure everything except what actually matters: what it means to be human and the intrinsic value therein.
What strikes me as particularly absurd, yet not unexpected, is all the handwringing about AI-generated content when the real crisis is the epidemic of inauthenticity among writers themselves and the broader collapse of critical thought across society, which all began long before the advent of GPTs. The tools aren't the problem; the hollowness was already there. A hollowness born of ignorance, arrogance, and indolence, thriving in a culture that has long since abandoned respect for genuine intelligence and hard-won experience. A complete neglect of our humanity.
But who am I to judge?
Does anyone actually read what I write? I don't know. Can't expect it. Shouldn't. Won't. Those expectations carry the very cultural trappings I want to avoid—the ego snares that steal curiosity and cage the mind.
I desire none of that.
What I'm after is simpler: communion through shared experience. To witness this strange human condition through my particular lens, then share what I've seen.
Until then, I write for myself. For the proof that I'm alive, that I exist, that I was here. In an absurd and indifferent universe, that has to be enough.
This update somehow became a pure stream-of-consciousness experience.
Proof that I am, at least, conscious.
Until next time.
Dean Bowman