AI and artificial sweeteners, our inability to find fullness physically and emotionally.
Almost nauseating - so much discussion about artificial intelligence and what that will bring to our lives – making insights and consolidated information as easy to access as search functionality was with google at the turn of the century. Sure, AI and slick chatbots which are getting a lot of current day attention will add to our society in some ways as we further go down the digital rabbit hole a la Ready Player 1 and other sci-fi premonitory movies. But where I land on this is we are further enamored by shiny objects and cannot lose sight of our core, what’s behind the curtain and what’s inside of us that no chip, computer or algorithm can deduce. AI is surely to go the way of off-label use that ends up being disastrous, that is my biggest fear – generations of the educated riding straight A’s based on their ability to commit 21st century plagiarism.
Artificial intelligence, just as artificial sweeteners will ultimately have a negative impact on our lives and the world we live in. No calories and tastes great sure, just don’t look at the impacts to changing our collective metabolism. AI will end up driving the need for more synthetic knowledge to satiate our appetite, sure to cause us to need more drugs and fixes such as the latest drug crazes for weight-loss management (when intended for type 2 diabetes glucose management) in the glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists such as Trulicity, Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy. I also think about another famous AI, Allen Iverson, the supernova from my hometown, another cautionary tale and rabbit hole for another day.
These GLP-1 drugs mimic the action of a hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1, activating GLP-1 receptors inside of the pancreas and producing more insulin in the body. In more simple terms, when blood sugar levels start to rise after someone eats, these drugs stimulate the body to produce more insulin. The extra insulin helps lower blood sugar levels which manages type 2 diabetes and makes you feel full more quickly, slow the movement of food from the stomach into the small intestine. As a result, you are likely to eat less. Unfortunately, so many of us will think a once-daily or weekly shot will be the way to become healthier and lighter on its own, and we should heed caution here just as we do with AI use. GLP-1s are only one tool in an overall toolbox to fight obesity and metabolic health, not the tool. Also, there are side effects and unintended consequences to reliance on a magic pill or injection. Liver and kidney function, the yo-yo or spring effect upon stopping treatment are just a few to consider. There is so much more to it than feeling full, and feeling full on its own is a much trickier proposition which the physical manifestation is such a slivery small slice of the bigger pie. I would wager that sending thousands of placebo doses of GLP-1s out to those hoping to capitalize on the cheat code to slimmer living would be just as effective - as the mental component of weight loss would be fully intact.
I thought a lot about feeling full today, getting blended up with the AI caution, the GLP-1 craze and my own battles where I believe feeling full is a key to my mental sanity. Dissolving the disease of more, purging the feeling of having something to prove, alienating the sense of inadequacy. Unfortunately feeling full when looking at my life has been more elusive than Leonardo DiCaprio playing Frank Abagnale Jr and Ben Allen (the Flash) in the 2002 feature film Catch Me if You Can. I was happy initially today, to have a day off from work today and Catch Me if You Can showed up on HBO. And as one of my favorites, I watched lazily on the sofa unknowing where I would go in the process. I feel today just as Leo did sitting all alone in the lavish hotel suite so appropriately in room 3113 on Christmas eve, anywhere from full and on the run. Today is another day for me to be Frank about my life, where I sit and how I feel, am I making progress or continuing to run and play seek and go hide, more of the same, once a crook always a crook, living the ease of lies and deception vs the difficulty of facing reality. Heck, even the story behind Catch Me if You Can is that of a real-life conman who over the years has admitted that many of his overexaggerated cons and travels in the process were just more of the same – embellished by a conman, a lower-grade ordinary crook who was damaged goods. In fact, over the years of his life at the ages of 16 to 21 that the movie focuses on, Frank Abagnale Jr. was in prison for most of the time, much less elusive and easily caught for far lesser crimes. So perhaps Frankie Jr. just had a wild imagination and voracious appetite to feel full, seemingly caused by the separation of his parents at a young age, but of course there must be more to his genesis. And unlike the happy ending of Hollywood where Abagnale spent many years working in the FBI to identify and bring justice to like-minded criminals, in reality he stumbled around from place to place and job to job getting fired, caught in other minor crimes before settling down to be nothing more than a consultant of sorts for secure documents, or that is what he claimed to be. He and his wife filed for bankruptcy in Oklahoma as well. Sure, Abagnale swindled many small companies or families over the years but he is another case of media-driven and self-proclaimed embellishment where the gap between reality and story is larger than the grand canyon. A simple imposter and liar - Abagnale is indeed a convicted confidence artist. But he is finding willing believers as he promotes and invents a more varied criminal past, perhaps his next step from consultancy is to become a televangelist man of the cloth, that wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
So unfortunately, I have a kindred spirit in Frank and frankly, I live in a fog of constant doubt and pessimism about myself knowing that no matter what positive steps I take, I am still the same fake, damaged, searching, selfish, mentally ill-equipped B-grade actor trying to smile. I feel much of a fraud to myself and those around me.
Where pressure multiplied by volume is proportional to temperature. Where if the pressure I put on myself and the sheer number of thoughts and wild fallacies that create more pressure goes up and up in the constant volume of my head, the temperature is then constantly rising - eventually boiling over. I am perhaps nothing but full of gas, definitely non-ideal, and surely to rupture whether I hold things in or not. I remember specifically making fun of someone for applying that universal law incorrectly, but here I am.
Perhaps all I have learned is just more artificial intelligence, my head becoming its own chat bot telling me what I want to hear and using background algorithms to create the narrative I desire only to end up killing this rat that I am with artificial sweeteners.
But then the bipolarity pendulum swings more and more and I think of what is truly valuable and who I truly am or could be – that regardless of gaining 40 pounds of fat over the last year, I have also layered in wisdom and tools to set a new course. I possess at least a shred of organic intelligence, grown from all my mistakes, experiences and finally learning to love myself and understand myself. I do truly love the term organic intelligence over the artificial one. Organic intelligence as a concept we should all digest, is something else taking hold in this mental health forward world and mental health awareness month of May as it comes to a close.
So, whether its AI as in artificial intelligence or artificial sweeteners, use with caution and only in small packets. Stay natural and true, let organic intelligence reign supreme - the theory and clinical practice of human empowerment, resiliency, and compassion to resolve trauma and be our best selves, do our best work in a green way will yield much more progress.
Time to clean house and do laundry – straighten up, wash away the stains. Maybe a nap as well. At least writing is a healthy release for me, no drugs needed.
Organicintelligence.org