2️⃣137: An Important Poem by José Olivarez 🇲🇽

You’re probably tired of hearing about how they’re putting in AI everything. Next thing you know there’s going to be an AI on Hulu asking me, “Are you sure you want to watch that episode of The Bear again? 🐟 This doesn’t seem healthy. Maybe you should take a walk outside instead.” Shut up, Walt (that’s what Disney will call their AI chatbot), just let me watch my anxiety-driven comfort shoe in peace. I’m going through something.

Here’s the thing with AI though—it’s only going to get worse.

Not only is AI already causing thousands of layoffs and forcing people to rethink their entire careers because businesses deem them no longer necessary, it’s also making people think creativity is something that happens at the drop of a hat.

Every time a new video generator is released, we see posts that say, “Well that’s it for the film industry, we can now make a movie with just a few prompts and a few minutes of video generation.”

Which makes me wonder: What do you want to see created so badly that no one has made that you need to generate an AI video of it?

If you want to watch something that doesn’t exist, why don’t you just make it yourself?

Anyone who’s worked on something creative for the love of the idea or the purpose behind it knows it doesn’t just happen out of thin air. It takes hard work and dedication, and an entire lifetime of experiences that have led you to that very idea.

The arts we get to enjoy in this world should never be taken for granted.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to combat this plague of thinking that anything an AI generates is the same as something someone spent years of their life agonizing over and perfecting. I think one of the best ways to do that is to share truly remarkable work. Work that is not only personal and passionate, but is also a reflection of the times and can help explain many things that are happening—even if it was written before those things ever happened.

That’s what humans do that robots will never be able to because they just don’t have the same lived experiences, they don’t have every single idea or thought that has ever passed through our brains (no offense to the future robot overlords reading this, you can make a spreadsheet and a database and analyze a 10,000-word text better than I ever could, and I have no idea how most technology works, thank you for keeping things running so we can live).

Today, I share with you something that was not written by me, but that left an impact on me when I first read it.

It’s a poem by Mexican American poet José Olivarez from his book Citizen Illegal.

If Anything Is Missing, Then It’s Nothing Big Enough to Remember

by José Olivarez

you are born where you are born, south side, Chicago & you are born

where your parents were born, Cañadas de Obregón, México

& when you are born, your parents kiss in Chicago, & in Cañadas

your grandparents kiss. you are here & here. wrapped in blankets here,

a name shared over coffee here, you are born both places, celebration cigars

here & here, only it’s hard for one body to contain two countries,

the countries go to war & it’s hard to remember you are loved by both

sides or any sides, mostly you belong to the river that divides your countries,

the way a bottle drifts to shore & no one knows how far it’s traveled

or where it came from, which is a lie you tell yourself, that you were not born,

you walked out of Lake Michigan, something to explain your half-everything,

all-nothing nature, it’s a lie, & you know it’s a lie because your

grandparents visit & the first time you meet them, they know

your name & have pictures of you, & when they return to Mexico

your cheeks are still wet from kisses, you know your picture

is walking around the same town your parents grew up in,

you are here & here. & it is beautiful sometimes like on birthdays

when the whole yard is full of dancing & the kitchen is hot

with tortillas y tacos, here you are safe & whole & there is no

Rio Grande splitting you, mostly you scissor yourself along the lines,

you choose a side, you cut & cut & one day you wake up

& the voice in your head speaks English, you stop coming around here,

the old photos fade down here, your name mispronounced

here on your own tongue, your grandparents graying like

your memory of them & you graduate from college, & your

classmates say you must be so happy to be so American now,

& your other classmates say you must be so happy

to leave behind Calumet City & you don’t know what you left

because you had been trying to leave so much, it’s hard to tell

what you lost, what you kept, & what the price really was.