Writing, drawing, thinking

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Writing is thinking. So is drawing.

To think clearly, come up with new ideas, make and truly understand things, we need to put marks on the blank page ourselves, and not only repeat what teachers or textbooks tell us like the majority of students Richard Feynman had during his time in Brazil.

Large language models or AIs are useful to help us get farther, faster, like witty, skilled, intelligent friends who sometimes take too many magic mushrooms during conversations.

But leaving everything to AIs, teachers, or leaders, and forgetting about our own agency and individuality is bad for us, and dangerous for society.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will.

—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.

―Primo Levi, If This is A Man

To create and be free like an animal outside a cage, ask, write, and draw your own questions. Look, and find out for yourself, rather than blindly believing what others tell you.

Three useful books I return to regularly:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

The Hand - How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture by Frank R. Wilson.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Scientific and spiritual wisdom about living in harmony with the natural world:

We may not have wings or leaves, but we humans do have words. Language is our gift and our responsibility. I’ve come to think of writing as an act of reciprocity with the living land. Words to remember old stories, words to tell new ones, stories that bring science and spirit back together to nurture our becoming people made of corn.


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