In Nordic Lore, Thor has a hammer named Mjölnir that comes to his beck and call.
It is worn as a pendant, and a sign of worthy-ness to wield the hammer of the god Thor.
It isn’t the only hammer of lore though.
In fact, in American folklore John Henry heaved a hammer in contest between himself and a steam powered jackhammer.
Over the course of the competition, Henry, driven by willpower and perseverance to stand against the industrial tide, wins the race only to fall as Sampson upon the completion of his task.
We are, all of us, on the cusp of an industrial tide.
And while many of us don’t want to fight the inevitability of what is to come, we have caved without protest.
We aren’t at the dawn of AI, we are in the heat of it.
And with it come rising production costs, a threat to rivers and streams to accommodate cooling costs for data facilities, and a shocking inability to stretch our own imaginations.
That’s a high price to pay for the cost of doing business…isn’t it?
Show me an art form that’s better because of cut corners.
Show me the honed craft that is worthy of attention, when the person performing it doesn’t actually know what they are doing.
Our negligence comes in the form of magic beans.
What can any of us hope to accomplish if our collective force of willpower amounts to, “well, I guess it saves me time from thinking…and this way at least the well that little Timmy falls into will be dry…so he won’t have to suffer.”
What we are lazily accommodating today is causing serious damage to whoever comes after us.
René Descartes was the French polymath who wrote, “I think, therefore I am.” Or “Cogito, ergo sum” if you’re French like he was.
The idea being that doing something as simple as thinking proves your humanity.
Of all the things that we have done as humans, both good and bad…why is getting rid of our ability to think…to create ideas of our own…what we want to fast track?
In the scope of history, we have seen incredible feats of innovation.
Deeds that inspire awe and wonder.
Music that captivates across generations and culminating scopes of work that are by others called an opus.
For us though, what will we claim authorship to other than, “Ope-us”.
Yeah…that one’s on us.
I don’t expect sympathy.
More than anything, I expect others to try to justify their lack of action.
But for me, I guess I’ll pick out the spot on the hill with the best view.
I’ll take a stand against plagiarism.
I’ll pick fights against the progression of work that isn’t shown.
I won’t falsely innovate so that the river runs dry from my vanity.
John Henry, I am here.
Let me stand as you did.