brainwork – mental activity or effort, especially as opposed to physical labor.
To this day, my brain constantly itches. Daily I suffer from the unbearable boredom of not being challenged enough. I imagine it’s the same sort of itch that plagued Sherlock Holmes whenever he wasn’t solving a murder or deciphering a cryptic note. As the great detective himself put it, “What else is there to live for?” Now, while I can’t claim to have solved any crimes, I do share Holmes’s compulsion for brainwork. People have told me that I have an addictive personality, and if they’re right, then my drug of choice just happens to be mental labor.
This obsession, as many do, started innocently enough. I was a perpetually awkward and angsty teenager, and I wasn’t into a lot of the same outlets as my peers. Fortunately, or unfortunately from your perspective, I came across a piece of advice that would haunt me for the rest of my life: “If you want to truly understand something, write about it.” This tidbit, is what’s often referred to as the Feynman Technique. The basic idea is to pick a topic, explain it so a 12-year-old could understand it, then refine, simplify, and repeat until it’s something you’d be with publishing to the world.
But, while I see the wisdom in it, I don’t subscribe to this method in my own labors. Sure, it’s a nice enough approach to brainwork, but my brain doesn’t operate on such linear tracks. My version of “learning” involves sprinkling in some dark humor, slathering on sarcastic wit, and calling it a day. Who needs the Feynman Technique when you have a flair for colorful language and a well-timed curse word?
Of course, this is where our modern AI overlords come into the picture. Nowadays, if you want to skip mental gymnastics altogether, you can just have a computer do it for you. Yes, I can hear the purists gasping in horror at the thought, and until quite recently, I was one of them. But as a pragmatist, I have to admit, if there’s a shortcut that saves you from spiraling into a series of existential crises over misplaced commas and awkward sentence construction, you must take it.
While I do find AI tools indispensable for outlining, brainstorming, and avoiding total mental collapse, I’m still neck-deep in the brainwork. After all, these algorithms are just tools, not sentient beings with a penchant for irony or an understanding of why Nickelback is seemingly universally reviled. They spit out patterns based on what they’ve been fed, like a toddler regurgitating a half-chewed alphabet soup. It’s handy, perhaps revolutionary, but it’s not a replacement for the serious essayist or any other brand of writer.
So yes, while AI has helped stem my unquenchable thirst for intellectual stimulation, said thirst remains as ravenous as ever. AI might help me dig through old notes and connect dots, but it can’t replicate the twisted, often nonsensical thought processes that make my work uniquely mine. After all, I know my voice better than anyone. Remember that these algorithms are trained on the collected works of Wikipedia and Reddit threads, among other things. They can’t replace human experience, because they don’t have any.
Truthfully, I’m not built to churn out cookie-cutter prose or to conform to some sanitized version of how an “essayist” should write. That would be as dishonest as letting ChatGPT write this entire essay for me. Sure, it can organize my ideas and offer some surprisingly decent suggestions. But the work itself must be one hundred percent my own. All things considered, without the constant brainwork, there’s really no point in writing in the first place.
~ Amelia Desertsong
