So it was a fine evening; I was at my work desk with my coffee, which had just been delivered by a Dasher. I was endlessly scrolling through my X account, taking it slowly sip by sip, enjoying the aroma of the seeds.
Credits – https://twitter.com/awlilnatty for this Meme
And that’s when I stumbled upon this viral meme. It made me question my reality like Westworld bot.
Credits – Westworld, HBO
As a person in a creative profession (at least when I do copywriting), I was just staring into the abyss of my overflowing sink. The dishes have piled up high like the despair in my soul, a veritable Mount Everest of ceramic, metal, and leftover spaghetti. The glint of the silverware was mocking my ambitions, the greasy pots, and pans were whispering my impending doom.
And that’s when I realized, like Madris Lidaka said, the creative battle with AI was raging on, and I might be losing. Fast.
The Problem: The Never-Ending Cycle
Let’s get real. Adulting is hard. Like…real hard.
But, Adulting with a creative soul?
Damn near impossible.
Particularly the relentless Sisyphean task of washing dishes. Just when you think you’ve caught up, the sink laughs in your face and fills up again with one evil laugh. It’s a never-ending cycle, a black hole of mundane tasks that sucks away your precious creative energy.
The Hero’s Journey (Or Not)
Is Frodo giving the looks of “You were supposed to destroy the sith, not join them”
Unlike Frodo from LOTR, who had the singular, epic quest of destroying the One Ring, we creative souls face a far more insidious foe. These greasy plates and stained coffee mugs might as well be indestructible horcruxes, anchoring us to a life of drudgery. Each dish scrubbed feels like another step away from our next masterpiece.
The hero’s journey? More like a tragic tale of defeat. Because it’s a CYCLE!
Stats Time!
Did you know that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes per day on household chores, with a significant chunk devoted to dishwashing? That’s over 9 hours a week, 468 hours a year. Imagine the novels, songs, and artworks lost to the abyss of dirty dishes. Even if we get into “super-procrastination, “ I still think we can get more work done.
The Dark Side of the Dishes
Lightsaber meets dishwashing
Channel your inner Jedi. Feel the Force flow through you. Now, imagine it being choked by a pile of dirty spoons. The lightsaber of your creativity flickers and dims as you scrub away at stubborn stains.
The Dark Side isn’t some far-off galactic evil; it’s right here, in your kitchen sink.
So You Think You Can Be Creative? Wash Those Dishes First… (Or Maybe Not)
Ernest Hemingway didn’t pen “The Old Man and the Sea” while elbow-deep in dishwater. Jane Austen didn’t craft “Pride and Prejudice” between cycles of washing and drying. Of Course, I know they didn’t live during the digital age. But even if they did, what are the chances that we’d have gotten their masterpieces?
Yet here we are, torn from our keyboards and sketchpads, reduced to the banal existence of Home Ec students. The muse of creativity isn’t a fan of dish soap, it seems. No, I am not going to attach photos of my room and trigger your OCD.
No, I didn’t mean it LITERALLY!
We need a hero, and we need it now. Yeah, I know about AI-based dishwashers. They are the knights in shining armor. These machines are the brave knights ready to slay the dragon of dirty dishes. No more pruney fingers, no more lost hours. Just gleaming plates and the sweet, sweet taste of creative freedom.
But I wasn’t just talking about dishwashers, had I?
My point is to look at the bigger picture. It’s a universal struggle, a relatable cry for help from creative people everywhere.
Imagine a world where AI handles the mundane. You wake up, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and head straight to your writing desk. No dishes to distract you, no chores to drain your creativity. In this utopia, you’re free to craft your next novel, compose your next symphony, or paint your next masterpiece. It sounds like something right out of the old cartoon show Richie Rich. Damn, they got everything predicted.
The AI tech in your house can be the unsung hero, working tirelessly behind the scenes. However, our creative juice will be overflowing and we could have more masterpieces.
This could have been me or you… the wrong direction of AI is the excuse we got
So What is the Solution?
The Moral of the Story is to Embrace AI, Unleash Creativity
AI isn’t here to replace you; it’s here to collaborate. Think of AI technology as a tool to empower your creativity, freeing you from the clutches of dirty dishes. There is a thin line where the intersection of technology and creativitylies. It should be a partnership, a symbiotic relationship where both humans and machines thrive.
On the other hand, even if we get Generative AI to do the work for us, I believe that assessing the output would be challenging as creativity is often person-specific or even situation-specific. Here is a research paper from the Journal of Business and Psychology that fully addresses this ambiguity.
So, the next time you find yourself drowning in a sea of dirty dishes and feeling the weight of the mundane threatening to crush your creative spirit, remember: there’s hope.
This isn’t just about conquering the sink; it’s about a future where technology empowers our creativity. It’s about reclaiming those precious stolen hours and letting your creative spirit truly soar. So, fire up your imagination, unleash your artistic talents, and let AI handle the mundane.
The world awaits your next masterpiece, one at a time.
This article was originally published by Anderson on HackerNoon.
