💎 Friday Gems (The Side Door,Reader Bot, You are here)
What do we risk losing when reading becomes increasingly mediated by machines?
Hello dearest reader,
My last post was announcing the new series The Way of the Baker, in which I explore my journey in baking. I struggled to start the series because initially I felt it wasn’t what the you the reader signed up for and wouldn’t be interested in but as I thought about it I realized that it is a natural extension of the Low Fidelity newsletter because one of my core beliefs that how we do one thing is how we do anything and baking is no exception. Baking is an activity that helps us practice mindfulness by being present in the moment instead of being lost in thought. Baking helps me be a better designer, dad, and human and vice versa, those roles help me be a better baker because I can bring creativity, responsibility, and care into my baking practice. I hope you will join me and share your experiences as well.
Introducing, The Way of The Baker, a new series
Like many people during the pandemic, I turned to baking to stay sane through those difficult times.
No worries if baking is not your cup of tea. You can always opt out of receiving The Way of the Baker posts by going to your account settings and toggling the notification for this series. See
On to the this week’s gems!
Today's Gems
The Mind: The Side Door Has No Bouncer
The Mindful Designer: Reading in the Age of AI
Mindfulness: You are here
The Mind
The Side Door Has No Bouncer
You have been turning it over for weeks. The thing that is stuck. You have defined it, you have broken it into parts, you have made the list and worked the list, and it has not moved, or it moved an inch and came back, and you are starting to wonder what is wrong with you that you cannot solve a thing you can see this clearly.
Do you remember the last time you solved a problem you were stuck with? How did the solution come to you? Most likely it wasn’t by staring the problem down and forcing the solution instead the solution may have come to you as you were doing something completely unrelated such as while walking or running (my favorite approach) or you were doing the dishes or read a passage in a book that reminded you of an approach you can try to solve the problem. That Aha! moment came during a totally unrelated activity. Those moments of Zen when the weight of the problem drops and you instantly feel light and can’t wait to work through the solutions
This experience is what Anna means by the “side door has no bouncer”. When we are gripped by a problem and force a solution head on our minds shut down and go into protective mode to keep things as they are because for our minds change is risky and bad so it is protecting us for danger. When we approach the problem obliquely by not even thinking about it and going on with our lives, the guard/bouncer of the mind relaxes and a side door opens to possible solutions.
This is a good question to sit with next time you’re struggling with a problem:
What if, for a while, you stopped trying to answer the question and lived inside it instead?
Source: Anna | BACK TO SENSES
The Mindful Designer
Reading in the Age of AI
Reading is becoming less often a solitary exchange between reader and text. As artificial intelligence is increasingly stepping in to summarize, interpret, and even “read” on our behalf. What does this shift mean for how we learn and engage with the world?
This post is a conversation with Naomi Baron, author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why it Matters and the main question asked was what do we risk losing when we rely on AI to do read for us?
AI is everywhere, in every company, in every app, wherever you look AI is there. For students and workers alike. It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. If you don’t use AI and resist it or deny it, you will be out of a job, if you do use AI the downsides are many. That is unless we understand exactly how AI affects us negatively we won’t be able to prevent or even undo the damage it has already done.
“If we take away the impetus for doing things like reading to relax, escape, empathize, or analyze by letting AI do it for us, then we undermine our motivations as well,” said Naomi “And we end up weakening our analytical skills.”
Reading is a skill that helps us make sense of our world and is an activity that brings us joy and helps us experience new ideas, make connections, and understand our world.
Naomi’s guidance is to use AI in ways that support rather than replace active reading and use AI for what it is good at while keeping the deeply human activity or reading for ourselves. Naomi recommends
Using AI as a Co-reading tool to navigate complex novels
Simplifying texts for younger or non-native speakers
Providing overviews of technical or informational texts before diving into the content yourself.
Actively reading and engaging with text either digital or online
Using AI to support understanding and accessing information that otherwise would be challenging
Think, analyze, and make meaning independently from AI
Preserving the depth and richness of human reading is not about resisting technological change, but about making deliberate choices that keep readers actively engaged with ideas, texts, and the world around them
The key thing to remember is that yes, AI is great at summarizing text and bringing insights to us, it doesn’t have the context we have so reading is still a critical skill we cannot afford to hand over.
Reading is human. ✊🏽
Source: The University of Chicago - Graham School
Mindfulness
You are here
Oof! This distraction is something I need to be reminded of every single moment because thinking about the past or future creeps up in subtle ways and by the time you realize it you’re deep in overthinking with stress and worry.
Text from the image above:
“Here’ is wherever you are. Helpful maps in big parks and gardens inform you, with an arrow, that “You are here”.
But when I say ‘here’ in the context of meditation, I don’t mean only your physical location. I mean whatever situation you are in: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. Much of the trouble we bring on ourselves is caused by being somehow distracted or absent from our real-life situation.
We tend to think more about what we haven’t than about what we have, more about where we aren’t than about where we are; more about the past and future than about the present... This is normal enough, even though we know it can be a bit crazy and self-defeating.
We have to keep on coming back to ourselves - to ‘here’ - every day, because we become so easily distracted. *I’m not myself at all today,” the old people used to say.
They were right: if you are not mentally where you really are, you are not yourself.
Timely words by Donagh O’Shea, Irish Dominican friar, writer & potter.
Source: MyMind Newsletter
An all too familiar experience at work but nature is there to remind us that we will get through challenging times.
Did one of the Friday Gems resonate with you? Please consider commenting, restacking, or sharing it with a friend. This is the simplest and most generous ways to support creative work.
It only takes a moment, but it makes a real difference.❤️
That’s it for this week’s Friday Gems.
In stillness, find your next step.✊🏽
