ChatGPT = 🛟

I wrote the below in 20 minutes, entirely with ChatGPT.

I did in on a whim. It was something I felt I needed as I was struggling through the aftermath of an episode with my family. I was very depressed and stuck.

The Circle of The Grind

Last night, I went to an event organized by the company I am working for –CASETiFY –a world completely different from my old industries.

These days, my colleagues are all young, 15-20 years younger than me, fresh faces with no connection to where I came from. The work is completely different from my past lives- exhilarating, digital, fresh. So it threw me off when, out of nowhere, I ran into people I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Faces from that past life.

We caught up, talked about our current lives. They updated me on the lives of other old colleagues. Some of these old colleagues were my superiors back then–people filled with promise, ambition, flair. I remember looking up to them, seeing all the energy they brought to the table.

But here they were, still grinding away in the same industry, moving from one company to the next, carrying on in the same big grinder. It’s like they’ve been cycling through it all for 20 years, shifting from one “new opportunity” to another, but the setup, the grind–it’s all the same. The names of the companies may change, but the work doesn’t. They’re just moving from one slightly different role to another, grinding in the same system, now into the sunset of their careers.

Here we are, all getting older, and yet so many of us are still in this grind, still turning the same wheels.I couldn’t help but wonder how our lives might have turned out if we’d been more adventurous, if we’d dared to step off the path more often, to look for something different instead of staying on the same track.

But that’s the thing–most of us don’t. We go through life like this, taking the next job, the next promotion, the next slight shift in role, but all within the same system.

We tell ourselves we’re building something, that it’s leading somewhere, but maybe it’s just easier to keep going than to stop and question it- as if most of us just succumb and compromise to the reality that this is all there is. Along the way, we find ways to rationalize our dreams, our ambitions, our old naivete, telling ourselves we’re making the “smart choice.” This quiet giving-in feels like part of the natural order, like this gradual surrender is just how life shepherds us as we move along.

In that open-air event space last night, I could feel how we’re all bound to this same rhythm, this same quiet momentum that moves us along. Twenty years, just like that–gone. And then, in a single night, it all came rushing back, as if nothing had changed.

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Postmortem:

I wrote this with a lot of help from GPT40. I was down, and wanted a way out. The idea of writing something popped up. I was down and felt difficult to get going. So I asked GPT to help.

I first asked it to study my writing style by going to this website. Then I just prompted it with this:

now use this writer's writing style and write a piece. THe piece is a reflection from last night when the writer when to a company brand activation event and bumped into many acquaintences from his past working lives. he got to know these people 20 years ago. the writer has since left the industry and spent time elsewhere. it was both shocking and disorienting for the writer to reconnect with these folks and to learn more about the lives of them and other related folks. the writer was melanchnic about how all of these old colleagues were almost at retirement age but still were trying to just find a job. it felt strange coz most of these old colleagues and acquaintences were still doing what they were doing, and nothing really changed for them.

Didn’t care about grammar, spelling, nothing. Then after GPT wrote the first draft- a very typical piece of AI writing, I asked it to:

write in simple english. no adjective. no passive voice. use active voice.

Then we went at it 9 more times:

great start. but not exactly what I wanted to say. I was catching up with these poeple and also learned more about lives of common ex-colleagues. Also, the strongest feeling was melanchy, that i am getting old, they are getting old, we are all spinning the same wheels even after 20 years, that most of us just keep going, don't change much, like river, going, going, gone.

okay. in the start, change it. the event it was attending was from a completely different industry. the people that I now work with are all very young and completely disconnected from my past. so it was strange when I bumped into people i knew from 20 years ago

it was an event organized by the company i am working for now.

in the second paragraph, add something more specific. I learned that some of my old colleagues are still working in the same industry, hoping from one company to aonther, grinding away within the same big grinder, moving from one different but same same company to another. 

in the second paragraph, add the fact that some of these old colleagues were my superiors, filled with promise and ambition and flair. and now they are just grinding away into the sunset, grinding in the same grinder, for the last 20 years.

rewrite the last paragraph. i am in this grind and wheel of life too. and talk about how our lives could have been different, if we were all more adventurous. also talk about the fact that so many of us just go through live like this.

edit this line "We tell ourselves we’re building something, that it’s leading somewhere, but maybe it’s just easier to keep going than to stop and question it." and add the fact that it's as if most of us just succumb and compromise to reality. 

add something about how we all find ways to rationalize our dreams ambitions and navitee away, that this compromisation and succuming is part of the natural order.

Then I made a few more edits- added CASETiFY, tweaked the end a bit, it was done.

I then posted it online. The reaction was surprisingly good. It all worked out. So yea, AI helped me deal with my depressive episodes. Wow.