Did I Write This? §§§

Devotion, Dedication, and Artificiality

Devotion

I’ve often felt that my best writing comes through me. It’s dictated, duly noted, one word at a time. I’m on a ride that I don’t know where we’re headed. But I’m on it, by God. I’ve got faith that we’re going somewhere and I’m here for it.

“Trust in God, but tie up your camel,” the desert mystics counsel. “When you pray, move your feet,” goes the West African proverb.

I’m praying with my pen. Moving across the page with curiosity (where is this going?) and love for it all.

Writing, in other words, is a devotional practice. I get out of the way, show up to the page.

“It wasn’t me,” I might say, but it was. The writing does feel like me. I can feel my surprise, my pain, my humor. Just like I am “in real life,” it’s me coming through.

Tom Waits has likened inspiration to effervescent insects that alight on your shoulders only when you’re sensitive enough to hear them . . . and then you better have your pen ready, pull off the highway if you’re driving. They’ve got some words for you — lyrical ones — and they’ll soon fly away.

Keeping your songwriter’s notebook in the console; pulling off the highway at a moment’s notice: that’s devotion. That’s trusting in God but typing up your camel first.

Dedication

I’m writing in my 246th Cranberry Red Pocket Moleskin Notebook. 11 Years of daily Morning Pages. (I can teach you to write every day, too). So, it’s not just the current me writing this.

It’s the summer-of-your-32nd-year-me, too. And the dedication to that decision to keep going. The choice to remake that choice until it becomes automatic.

You read. You write. You repeat. “Boom, bap, beam, bop, boom, bop, bam,” Kendrick croons, “the kind of sh*t I’m on / you wouldn’t understand.” He’s dedicated and it shows. Brilliant, innovative, collaborative, dedicated. In “Heart Pt. 6,” you hear it for the crew: a dedication to seeing with the heart.

I know a feeling like this. I don’t care if this song takes off, but boy do I want to be a part of a crew. Where I contribute to the success of someone I work with, someone I care about.

Dedicated. To the game (infinite). To my friends. To my students. To my team.

This isn’t accountability, thought that can help at the outset. This isn’t even commitment. It’s dedication.

Dedicating the merits of this writing practice to those who need it most. Giving up the gift. Keeping the cup empty and the well full. Well-full. I like that. Cheers.

Artificiality

Here’s where sh*t gets interesting!

So far, on paper, I have not used any predictive language models to write this piece. But I might, at some point down the line, feed this into a project folder in Notebook LM and ask questions. I may also copy some of that text into a word pool document (well-full, mutha-lovers!). I may then copy-and-paste some of that text into an essay with my name on it.

I will edit that essay again and again. I will turn it, over and over, until it sings.

And I’ll probably still be asking:

Did I write this?

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If you’re a devoted, dedicated human being who writes, creates, or leads learning spaces (or wants to), we might be future friends! I want to see the soul of what you’re building. Schedule time with me or enroll in the next live workshop on writing the good life:

Answer: I wrote this! This was, to borrow steal a phrase from

Austin Kleon

, a 100% hand-rolled edition of the newsletter. No gigabits were processed in the turning of these phrases.

P.S. I love you