To listen now: Claire de Lune, Debussy

It's easy to forget we are human.

Every day, in fact, I feel as though we lose a bit of what it means to be human. We are, as individuals, continually distanced through social media. We are dehumanized and robbed of creativity by Artificial Intelligence. Doesn't it, at some point, become easy to forget ourselves, and forget we are human?

During my first several weeks at Ramp, I worked with AI a lot. I work with it to write code, brainstorm problems, search topics, and so many more things. My job has shifted a lot, and it's hard -- hard when, in a tech bubble, to not be completely engulfed a new, humanless digital world. It can really take it's toll on you.

But, as life works, there's a time to be pulled back into reality: we're humans.

I had to come back from New York City for a few reasons: family, health issues (I need to get screened for relapsed cancer every few months at the time of writing. The frequency of scans will drop if subsequent scans are negative), and seeing my girlfriend, Nicole.

Within just hours of landing back in Los Angeles, I was swiftly and aggressively pulled back into the reality of being a human. Without going into details, I experienced all sorts of human-unique things that one might not consider good. Grief, anger, extreme guilt, anxiety, regret, loneliness, shame, and fear. At other times, I felt warmth, love, thrill, and excitement. What a crazy weekend.

I can't look back and say this was a good weekend, by any metric really (my recent blood pressure reading supported this, at 168/132). Regardless, I can confidently say it was a human weekend. But, maybe this is what it's about? Making do with weekends like this and learning to be better? Prevent it next time? Maybe these goals are unrealistic?

My take: being human is, at times, terrible, and, at times, beautiful. Much of the beauty should come from taking weekends like this and learning to make lemonade. Improve, grow, think, make ourselves better. That's something that no one else can do, not even AI (yes, it will be able to become more intelligent by itself, but a better human? you need humans for that).