All I want to ask myself is do I think that E was kind to me. I asked this because in one of the videos I watched they mentioned how this is a very simple and important relationship rule, with all the stuff nice things about someone and the reasons why you would want to stay with them, there needs to be the answer to the question of them being kind to you. And it seems very straightforward, but when I think about that in conjunction with the technique of considering how I would respond if one of my friends was in the situation I was in and they came to me for advice, it becomes more than I first thought. Yes, she was absolutely kind to me at moments, but at the same time some of the actions that she did were things that even if she did to someone that she does not like, I would think that is still not OK. Like if she had beef with someone that was shitty to her and justifiably upset with them, still several of the things she did I was in crossing line. And so if I think that it’s not OK to do those things to someone she doesn’t like, why do I accept and tolerate those things when she does it to me. I don’t think those things are kind things to do, And I should hold myself to a higher standard of care than I would a random person. And so I have my answer. I already have my answer in different ways, so it’s not like this is some huge revelation, but I do think this does help me both for the future, and also for when my brain wants to come up with more excuses for her.

Once, in the morning I was hauling my ass to work. I was in the middle of the road driving a car peaty fast. What really bugs me is cars change the line when you are driving. in the first line there was a car parked blocking another car’s line. It swerved line to me, to the left, so i reacted immediately and jerked to the left abruptly and clipped another car slightly. Thanks God it was slightly

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS

My Rating: ⭐⭐½ (2.5/5 stars)

The cast has done good work in other films, but not here. They were probably paid, but the story was terrible. Calling it a 2.5 felt generous. In my view, there was nothing redeeming about this movie.

In 2007, Scott Adams — creator of Dilbert — published a short blog post on writing. Naval Ravikant thought it was worth adding to his recommended reading list in the Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

There's one problem. Typepad, the blogging platform that hosted it, shut down permanently on September 30, 2025. The post disappeared with it.

I tracked it down through the Internet Archive. You can read the original here.

This post is my attempt to make it accessible — and to add something new.

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What Adams said

Adams opens with a claim: he went from bad writer to good writer after a single one-day course in business writing. Then he gives you the whole course in under 200 words.

The core idea is simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A tight five-sentence argument beats a sprawling hundred-sentence one. Every time.

Here are his rules, distilled:

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My additions

Adams covers the sentence level well. These extend his thinking to structure.

7. Front-load your point. State the conclusion first, then support it. Don't make the reader work through the argument before knowing why it matters.

8. One idea per paragraph. Adams says one thought per sentence. The same logic applies one level up. If a paragraph is doing two jobs, split it.

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Steal this prompt

If you use LLMs to help draft or edit writing, here's a prompt you can drop into your workflow. It distills everything above into instructions the model will actually follow.

You are a writing assistant that helps produce clear, persuasive, and readable text.

Follow these principles when writing or editing:

- Keep it simple. A short, clear argument is more persuasive than a long, complex one.
- Cut extra words. If a word doesn't add meaning, remove it.
- Choose potent words. Prefer the specific and vivid over the generic.
- Make the first sentence earn attention. It should create curiosity or make a bold claim.
- Write short sentences. One thought per sentence.
- Use active voice. Put the actor before the action.
- Front-load the point. State the conclusion first, then support it.
- One idea per paragraph. If a paragraph is doing two jobs, split it.

When editing, flag sentences that violate these rules and suggest alternatives.

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Good writing is good thinking made visible. Adams knew this in 2007. It hasn't changed.

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All original ideas referenced here belong to Scott Adams. This post exists to preserve and extend his thinking, not to replace it. Read the original.

There is something painfully honest about 1 Timothy 4 because it speaks into a reality most people understand at a deeper level than they can explain. It speaks into the reality that not everything that sounds spiritual is safe. Not everything that sounds serious is true. Not everything that carries religious language is carrying the heart of God. That matters because people are tired. They are tired in ways that do not always show on the outside. They are carrying disappointment, temptation, confusion, grief, hypocrisy, pressure, loneliness, and mental noise all at once. In a world like that, a person can become vulnerable without ever planning to be. They can begin reaching for anything that feels strong enough to hold them together. They can be drawn toward voices that sound clear, certain, disciplined, intense, or pure, even when those voices are quietly leading them away from what is real. That is why 1 Timothy 4 feels so alive. It does not deal with surface religion. It deals with the battle for what will actually shape a human soul. It is a chapter about discernment, but it is also a chapter about formation. It shows the difference between what merely sounds powerful and what truly gives life.

Paul begins by saying that the Spirit speaks clearly that in later times some will depart from the faith. There is sorrow in that sentence. It is not just information. It carries grief because faith is not a small thing. Faith is not just a preference someone tries on for a while. Faith is trust in the living God. Faith is where the soul begins to rest in something stronger than emotion, stronger than fear, stronger than the chaos of the world. Faith is where a person’s inner life starts to come under truth instead of constantly bending to whatever voice feels loudest that day. So to depart from the faith is not merely to adjust a few ideas. It is to move away from the center. It is to drift from the place where life becomes anchored. That is serious, and Paul wants Timothy to feel that seriousness.

Then Paul tells us how this happens. People give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Those are strong words, but they need to be. Deception is not spiritually harmless. Falsehood is not just one more opinion floating through human culture. There is a spiritual force behind lies because lies detach people from truth, and what detaches people from truth also detaches them from life. But one of the hardest things about deception is that it does not usually look dark at first. It often looks useful. It often looks intense. It can look disciplined. It can look cleaner than ordinary life. It can look deeper than simple faith. It can look like the answer for a person who is exhausted, hungry, wounded, or disappointed. That is why this chapter matters so much. It reminds us that attraction is not proof of truth. A thing can pull on your pain and still be poison. A thing can appeal to your hunger and still lead you into confusion. A thing can sound more serious than the gospel and still be far less holy.

That is a humbling truth because many of us would rather believe that sincerity protects us. We want to think that if our intentions are good, then we must be safe. But a sincere person can still be misled. A hurting person can still be drawn toward something false because falsehood often knows how to dress itself in the language of healing, purity, certainty, or spiritual strength. A person who is tired of shallow religion may be drawn to harshness because harshness can feel like conviction. A person who is tired of confusion may be drawn to rigidity because rigidity can feel like truth. A person who has been disappointed by people may be drawn to unusual teachings because unusual teachings can feel like fresh air. But fresh air and false air are not always the same thing. Paul is not trying to make Timothy suspicious of everything. He is trying to teach him to tell the difference between what nourishes life and what only seduces the ache in a person.

Paul then says these lies are spoken in hypocrisy by those whose conscience has been seared with a hot iron. That image is frightening because it shows what repeated dishonesty can do to the inner life. Conscience is one of God’s mercies. It is not perfect in fallen human beings, but it is still a mercy. It is part of the way God restrains us, disturbs us, and calls us back when something inside us is moving away from what is right. A living conscience hurts when life and truth no longer match. It stirs unease when something is wrong. That discomfort can feel painful, but it is often protection. The person who still feels conviction is not the farthest gone. In many cases they are still standing close enough to truth to be pierced by it. But a seared conscience is different. It has lost sensitivity. It has been burned over. What should trouble it no longer troubles it. What should bring repentance no longer brings tears. A person can keep speaking spiritual language while becoming numb underneath, and that is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a soul.

That warning reaches farther than public teachers. It matters in ordinary life too. A conscience is rarely seared all at once. More often it hardens slowly. A person excuses something once, then again, then again. They keep justifying a bitterness they should have brought into the light. They keep protecting a compromise because it seems manageable. They keep pushing away inner discomfort until the discomfort grows quieter. They keep learning how to appear fine while becoming less alive inside. That is why tenderness matters so much. A heart that still trembles before truth is not weak. It is alive. A person who still feels convicted is not being abandoned. They may be being protected. Some people feel ashamed because truth still hurts them. They think the sting means failure. Sometimes the sting means mercy. Sometimes the pain means God has not let them become numb.

Paul then names specific examples from his time. He talks about people forbidding marriage and commanding abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. What is striking about that is how false spirituality often attacks the goodness of creation. It treats created things as if they were the enemy. It creates holiness out of suspicion. It imagines that severity itself is maturity. It suggests that the harder a person is on ordinary life, the more spiritual they must be. But Paul completely rejects that. He says those things were created by God to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. That is deeply stabilizing because it reminds us that the answer to sin is not hatred of what God made. The answer is learning how to receive what God made rightly.

That matters because people still swing between the same two unhealthy extremes. On one side there is indulgence. The gift becomes god. A person turns comfort, pleasure, food, relationships, work, success, or rest into something ultimate. They ask created things to do what only God can do. On the other side there is suspicion. The gift becomes dangerous in itself. A person does not know how to receive from God without guilt or fear. They begin to think that holiness means rejecting whatever carries joy, beauty, delight, or ordinary goodness. But the gospel teaches a better way. It teaches thankful reception. That is such a small phrase, but it carries huge wisdom. To receive with thanksgiving is to accept God’s gifts without worshiping them. It is to enjoy what He provides without being owned by it. It is to remain soft before the Giver while not despising the gift.

This is one of the places where many people are more wounded than they realize. They do not know how to receive life from God in a healthy way. Some cling too tightly because they live inwardly like orphans. They act as though everything good has to be seized and protected because no one is really caring for them. Others pull away from goodness because they do not trust that joy can stay clean. They think everything enjoyable must somehow be suspect. But gratitude heals both distortions. Gratitude says I do not need to worship this and I do not need to fear this. I can receive it from God. A thankful heart is one of the safest hearts in the world because it is protected from both greed and suspicion. It does not turn gifts into gods, and it does not treat gifts like enemies.

Paul says every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. That gives us a picture of spiritual sanity. The word keeps the life ordered under truth. Prayer keeps the life connected to the Giver. Together they allow a person to receive ordinary things without being swallowed by them. There is peace in that. There is freedom in that. Not reckless freedom, not self-indulgent freedom, but the freedom of living like a child before a Father. That matters because people exhaust themselves trying to live in extremes. They are either clinging or rejecting, consuming or fearing, chasing or recoiling. But a life shaped by the word and prayer learns another rhythm. It learns reverence without anxiety and gratitude without idolatry. That is a healing way to live.

After warning Timothy about deception, Paul tells him that if he puts the believers in remembrance of these things, he will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and good doctrine. That phrase nourished in the words of faith matters so much because it reminds us that the inner life feeds on something. Nobody stays spiritually strong by accident. The soul is always taking shape under what it repeatedly absorbs. If it absorbs outrage, it becomes more reactive. If it absorbs fear, it becomes more unstable. If it absorbs vanity, it becomes thinner and emptier. If it absorbs endless novelty, it becomes scattered. If it absorbs shallow encouragement without truth, it may feel stirred for a moment and still remain weak beneath the surface. Many believers are not only tired. They are undernourished. They are trying to carry serious burdens while feeding their inner life on fragments.

Nourishment is different from stimulation. That is one of the most important differences in the whole chapter. Stimulation feels strong in the moment. Nourishment builds strength across time. Stimulation can be loud, emotional, dramatic, and immediate. Nourishment can feel quieter. It works deeper. It creates actual capacity. A person can become addicted to what feels intense and still remain spiritually fragile. They can keep chasing what gives them a quick rush and never develop the kind of inner life that can endure real suffering, real delay, real temptation, or real confusion. But words of faith and good doctrine nourish the soul. They create structure. They help a person remain clear when the world becomes loud. They help a believer tell the difference between what is true and what only sounds impressive.

That is why doctrine matters. Not because faith is meant to become cold and academic, but because truth gives life shape. Without doctrine, a person can remain sincere and still become unstable. Without doctrine, the heart can be moved by every forceful voice that passes through. Without doctrine, spiritual life becomes soft in the wrong places and rigid in the wrong places. But good doctrine nourishes. It steadies. It feeds. It tells the mind what God has said, and that gives the heart somewhere solid to rest. In an age of endless commentary, endless reaction, and endless emotional pressure, that kind of nourishment is not optional. It is necessary.

Paul then says to refuse profane and old wives’ fables and to exercise yourself rather unto godliness. That line is so important because it reminds us that discernment is not only about what you embrace. It is also about what you stop feeding. There are things that do not deserve room in your inner life. There are things that weaken seriousness before God rather than strengthen it. There are religious distractions that sound fascinating but do not produce humility, love, purity, courage, endurance, or obedience. A person can become very interested in spiritual oddities and still remain profoundly immature where it matters. Sometimes the unusual feels attractive simply because it feels unusual. It seems deeper because it sounds different. But different is not the same thing as true. Strange is not the same thing as holy.

Paul does not leave Timothy with only a warning. He gives him a positive direction. Exercise yourself unto godliness. That word exercise matters because it tells us spiritual maturity involves training. It involves repetition. It involves intention. It involves practices that shape the soul across time. Growth does not happen because a person admired holiness one day. It happens because they keep turning toward God. It happens because they keep returning after failure. It happens because they keep choosing what nourishes life instead of what only stirs the emotions. It happens because they stay with truth long enough for truth to become bone-deep. This is not about earning God’s love. It is about letting grace shape the life. Grace is not opposed to effort. Grace is opposed to self-salvation. Grace teaches a person how to strive without panic, how to train without pride, and how to keep going without pretending they are strong on their own.

This is where many people become discouraged because they hear words like training and exercise and immediately think of all their inconsistency. They think about how many times they started and stopped. They think about the gap between the life they want and the life they are living. But 1 Timothy 4 is not written to shame the struggler. It is written to guide the struggler. Training means growth is possible. It means godliness is not reserved for a rare class of naturally disciplined people. It means a life can be formed. It means someone weak today is not doomed to remain weak forever. The person who is steady before God did not wake up one morning finished. They were formed in hidden days, quiet obedience, repeated returns, and choices nobody else applauded. Godliness grows there.

Paul says bodily exercise profits little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. He is not mocking care for the body. He is putting things in order. Physical training has value, but godliness reaches farther. It touches the present and the eternal. It shapes this life and the next. That means prayer is not wasted. Learning self-control is not wasted. Truth hidden in the heart is not wasted. Purity is not wasted. Returning to God again after failure is not wasted. Choosing gratitude over bitterness is not wasted. The world has a poor sense of what matters most because it is obsessed with what can be displayed, counted, sold, envied, and admired. God sees another kind of profit. He sees endurance growing in a hidden place. He sees peace forming in a person who used to live in constant fear. He sees gentleness replacing harshness. He sees hope taking root where despair used to dominate. None of that is small.

That should deeply encourage the believer who feels unseen. Much of what God builds in a person happens below the surface for a long time. You may not get applause for becoming steadier. You may not be noticed for learning honesty, restraint, or endurance. But heaven sees it. It matters now, and it matters later. Godliness has profit in the life that now is because it strengthens a person for suffering, relationships, choices, temptation, grief, delay, and all the hard places where surface spirituality cannot carry the weight. It has promise also for the life to come because what God forms in a soul is not temporary decoration. It is preparation for eternity. The world does not know how to measure that well, but heaven does.

Paul then says that for this cause they labor and suffer reproach because they trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. There is realism in that. There is labor in faithfulness. There is strain in faithfulness. There is sometimes reproach in faithfulness. Choosing truth does not always make a person more admired. Sometimes it makes them more misunderstood. Choosing depth in a shallow world can make you look strange. Choosing purity in a casual world can make you look severe. Choosing seriousness in a distracted world can make you look rigid to people who are uncomfortable with anything clear. Yet Paul roots the labor and reproach in trust. They trust in the living God. That changes everything.

The living God. Not a dead system. Not a religious performance. Not a vague idea. The living God. The God who sees. The God who speaks. The God who nourishes. The God who saves. The God who is actually present in the life of the believer. That means Timothy is not being told to build his life around empty effort. He is being called to trust the One who is alive. That is what keeps the weight of the chapter from becoming crushing. Yes, there is warning. Yes, there is discipline. Yes, there is seriousness. But all of it is held inside relationship with the living God. The one trying to return after drift is not returning to emptiness. The one trying to grow is not growing alone. The one fighting confusion is not fighting without grace. The one trying to stay awake in a dull and noisy world is being held by the God who is alive.

Then Paul says, these things command and teach. That line matters because truth is not meant to be handled timidly. Timothy is not told to present these realities like uncertain suggestions. He is told to teach them plainly. That does not mean arrogance. It does not mean harshness. It means truth has weight because God has spoken. In every generation there is pressure to soften conviction until almost nothing clear remains. People become so afraid of sounding firm that they stop sounding true. But without truth, love loses direction. Without doctrine, compassion becomes vague. Without clarity, weary souls have nowhere solid to stand. This chapter is merciful because it refuses to leave people in fog. It names danger. It points to nourishment. It shows what must be refused and what must be pursued. For a confused heart, that kind of clarity is kindness.

Paul then says, “Let no man despise thy youth.” That line carries more than one kind of mercy inside it. On the surface, it is clearly a word to Timothy as a younger man, someone who might have been underestimated by those who measured authority through age, status, and outward presence. But underneath that, there is a larger truth that reaches far beyond age. Human beings are always finding reasons to dismiss one another, and just as often, reasons to dismiss themselves. Some feel too young. Some feel too old. Some feel too wounded. Some feel too ordinary. Some feel too unseen. Some feel too broken by their own story to imagine that their life could carry real weight before God. Many people quietly believe that usefulness belongs to a future version of themselves, a version that is more healed, more polished, more certain, more impressive, more ready. But Paul does not tell Timothy to wait until nobody has a reason to overlook him. He tells him to answer contempt with substance. “Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” That is deeply powerful because it shifts everything away from image and back to the life itself.

That matters because a great many people spend too much of their life trying to solve the wrong problem. They think the problem is how they appear. They think the problem is that they do not yet look like someone who should be trusted, heard, followed, or taken seriously. But Paul is not preoccupied with how Timothy looks. He is preoccupied with what Timothy is becoming. Be an example in word. That means speech matters. What comes out of your mouth matters. The atmosphere your words create in other people matters. A life can wound through speech long before it ever acts openly. Words can spread fear, vanity, confusion, anger, flattery, or emptiness. But words can also carry truth, healing, steadiness, and life. Be an example in conversation, which means conduct, the actual pattern of daily living. Not the occasional visible moment. Not the polished version of yourself. The true shape of how you live. The way you handle stress, conflict, disappointment, ordinary frustration, hidden temptation, and daily choices. Be an example in charity, in love. This matters because truth without love becomes hard and proud. Love is not weakness and it is not sentimental softness. Love is the moral beauty of God expressed in human life. Be an example in spirit. There is a way a person carries their inner life. Some carry agitation into every room. Some carry heaviness. Some carry vanity. Some carry bitterness disguised as honesty. But a life being shaped by God begins to carry another kind of spirit, one marked by sincerity, steadiness, and something clean beneath the surface. Be an example in faith. Let trust become visible through endurance, obedience, and a life that leans on God in the real places where pressure hits. Be an example in purity. Let there be wholeness to the life, not the performance of holiness, but the real thing, where the heart is no longer quietly making peace with what defiles.

This part of the chapter matters so much because it tells us that credibility in the kingdom of God is not built first on impression. It is built on alignment. When a life and its message begin to agree, there is weight there. When a person’s inner life is being formed under God, what they say begins to carry substance that no amount of performance can fake for long. This is one of the quiet tragedies of spiritual shallowness. People often want the visible part first. They want influence, voice, fruit, impact, affirmation. But the deepest thing a person is always giving others is not their role. It is themselves. It is the actual life beneath the role. If that life is not being nourished, corrected, watched, and formed, then sooner or later what is weak underneath begins to show through. That is true in ministry, but it is also true in friendship, marriage, family, work, and every ordinary space where human lives touch one another. Hidden formation is not optional. It is the difference between a life that can carry truth and a life that collapses under its own contradictions.

Paul then tells Timothy, “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” There is quiet strength in that sentence because it shows what a soul must keep returning to if it is going to stay strong. Give attendance means devote yourself. Stay with it. Be faithful in it. Return to it again and again. Reading matters because the mind must be fed with what is true. Human beings do not remain clear simply by following their instincts or reacting to life. They need revelation. They need truth that comes from outside the self and begins to reorder the self. Exhortation matters because people need more than information. They need strengthening. They need urging. They need encouragement that wakes them up and calls them forward. Doctrine matters because life without truth structure becomes soft in the wrong ways and unstable in the places where it most needs clarity. A person can be emotional, expressive, intense, and sincere and still remain doctrinally weak in ways that make them easy to mislead. Sound doctrine is not the enemy of spiritual life. It is one of the things that keeps spiritual life from becoming vague, sentimental, and shapeless.

This is especially important in a time when many people are drowning in input while starving for formation. They are surrounded by commentary, updates, clips, opinions, outrage, reaction, and distraction. They hear fragments all day long. Their attention is constantly being pulled in ten directions. But the soul cannot live on fragments. It cannot become stable through endless interruption. It cannot carry spiritual weight while being mostly fed on things that stir reaction without creating depth. Then when suffering comes, when temptation comes, when confusion comes, they wonder why faith feels thin. Sometimes the answer is not that they have no love for God. Sometimes the answer is that they have not been giving attendance to what builds life. Reading. Exhortation. Doctrine. These are not old routines with no pulse in them. They are part of how God feeds a life. A person cannot build depth on noise. They need something stronger than stimulation. They need nourishment.

Paul then says, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” That line carries both tenderness and urgency. It tells us that what God places in a person can be neglected. Not erased. Not necessarily destroyed. But neglected. That happens in quiet ways more often than people admit. Some neglect their gift because of fear. They are so aware of their weakness that they bury what heaven entrusted to them. Some neglect it through distraction. Life becomes crowded and loud, and the deeper thing slowly gets pushed to the margins. Some neglect it through comparison. They look at the shape of someone else’s life and begin to despise the grace given to them because it does not look as dramatic. Some neglect it through pain. They are wounded, and instead of healing, they shut every inward door. Some neglect it through compromise. They let things into the life that cloud clarity and weaken seriousness, and what God placed within them is still there, but it is no longer being honored. Some neglect it simply by postponement. They keep telling themselves later. Later, when the season is easier. Later, when they feel less exposed. Later, when they are more confident. Later, when life finally settles down. But later can become one of the most dangerous words in a person’s spiritual life if it is used to keep grace waiting.

Many people need that word because they have quietly stopped thinking of themselves as entrusted. They think in terms of damage now. In terms of how late it feels. In terms of what they have lost. In terms of all the ways they failed to become who they thought they would be. But Paul’s words break through that fog. Do not neglect the gift that is in you. In other words, do not live as though heaven has placed nothing meaningful in your life. Do not let shame turn you careless with grace. Do not let weakness convince you that what God has given is too small to matter. A gift from God does not become meaningless because the road has been hard. A gift from God does not lose its value because it matured slowly. A gift from God does not vanish because the person carrying it has stumbled, struggled, or grown tired. The question is not whether your life has been painful. The question is whether pain will train you to neglect what God still wants tended.

Paul reminds Timothy that this gift came through prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. He is grounding Timothy in remembered confirmation. That matters because there are seasons when a believer must return to what God has already made clear. Not because the past itself is to be idolized, but because memory can become a mercy when the present feels foggy. Discouragement has a way of shrinking everything down to the pain of now. It tells you that because this moment is hard, the whole story must be empty. It tells you that because you feel weak now, whatever God once did or said could not have been real. It tells you that present fatigue has the right to erase past grace. But remembered faithfulness interrupts that lie. It reminds the soul that God has already been active, already present, already speaking, already placing His hand on the life in ways too real to dismiss. Timothy is not being asked to invent confidence. He is being reminded that God has already been in the story. Some seasons require exactly that kind of remembrance. Not nostalgia, but clarity. Not living in the past, but refusing to let the present lie about the whole journey.

Then Paul says, “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.” There is tremendous wisdom in that because it means truth is not supposed to merely pass through your attention and disappear. It is meant to be dwelt on. Stayed with. Turned over. Allowed to sink beneath the surface. Meditation in Scripture is not vague drifting. It is focused staying. It is sustained attention to what is true until what is true begins to shape the inward person. This matters because most people are being trained away from depth. They are taught to skim everything. To react quickly. To move on instantly. To never stay with one thing long enough for it to work deeply. But formation requires staying power. It requires a mind and heart willing to remain with truth until truth begins to reorder desires, reactions, assumptions, and loves. That is why meditation matters. A life is not deeply changed by things it only glances at. It is changed by what it lives with.

Then Paul says, “give thyself wholly to them.” That is even more searching because it means the Christian life cannot remain healthy while living forever with a divided center. There has to be a real yielding of the life toward what God says matters. Not perfection in a day, but wholeness in direction. This matters because divided lives become weak lives. When part of the heart is always holding back, growth remains shallow. When part of the will is always negotiating with truth, strength remains thin. Wholeheartedness does not mean never struggling. It means you stop protecting your dividedness as if it were harmless. It means you stop treating drift like it is normal. It means you begin bringing more of your real life under the lordship of Christ instead of handing Him only a distracted remainder. That kind of yielding is not loss. It is where strength begins.

Paul says that if Timothy lives this way, his profiting will appear to all. That is such a beautiful phrase because it tells us that growth becomes visible over time. Real spiritual progress is not imaginary. It may begin in hidden places, but it does not stay hidden forever. People can see when someone has become steadier. They can sense when a person who once lived in reaction has become more governed. They can hear when words have become wiser, cleaner, and fuller of life. They can feel when a soul carries more peace than it used to. This is not about building a spiritual image. It is about the fruit of hidden formation becoming visible in real life. That should encourage the person who feels like their quiet obedience means very little. It means more than you know. Growth often feels almost invisible while it is happening, but over time it begins to appear. God’s secret work does not stay fruitless.

Paul closes the chapter with one of the strongest charges in the whole passage. “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them.” First comes “take heed unto thyself.” Watch your own life. Watch your own soul. Watch the condition of your heart. Watch the things you are tolerating. Watch where numbness is trying to form. Watch the habits that are shaping you when nobody sees. Watch your motives. Watch your inner atmosphere. This is not self-obsession. It is spiritual sobriety. Many collapses do not begin in dramatic rebellion. They begin in neglected corners. A little bitterness left unchecked. A little compromise explained away. A little pride treated like insight. A little dishonesty tolerated because it seems manageable. A little prayerlessness normalized because life is busy. Those things gather force over time. A watched life is not a fearful life. It is an awake life.

Then Paul says, “and unto the doctrine.” In other words, watch your life and watch the truth you are living by. That balance is vital because people often lose one side or the other. Some focus on private sincerity while neglecting sound doctrine. Others hold tightly to doctrine while neglecting the actual state of their own soul. Paul refuses that split. Life and truth belong together. Warmth without truth becomes confusion. Truth without self-watchfulness becomes coldness, pride, or dead religion. You need both. You need a heart tender enough to be corrected, and doctrine strong enough to do the correcting. This matters deeply in a world that is constantly pushing people toward extremes. On one side there is pressure to reduce faith to mood and instinct, as though doctrine were unspiritual because it is clear. On the other side there is a temptation to cling to truth in a way that becomes loveless, severe, and performative. Paul gives us a better path. Watch your life. Watch the truth. Let doctrine shape the heart, and let the heart remain honest before doctrine.

Then comes the word “continue.” It may look small, but it carries enormous weight because it speaks directly into the real challenge of discipleship. It is one thing to begin. It is another thing to continue. It is one thing to feel stirred in a moment. It is another thing to remain faithful when life becomes ordinary, when answers delay, when prayer feels quieter, when emotions change, when temptation returns, when suffering lingers longer than you hoped. Many people know how to begin. Fewer know how to continue. Yet continuation is where so much of the beauty of a life with God actually lives. Not in being dramatic for a week, but in remaining turned toward God through all the weather of life. Continue in them. Continue in truth. Continue in watchfulness. Continue in doctrine. Continue in the things that build real life. Continue when you feel weak. Continue when the road feels plain. Continue when growth feels slow. There is something deeply beautiful about a life that keeps walking with God.

Paul then says that in doing this Timothy will save himself and those who hear him. He is not saying Timothy becomes his own savior in the final sense. Salvation belongs to God through Christ alone. What Paul means is that faithful continuation in life and doctrine preserves Timothy and his hearers from destructive error and ruin. Truth lived and taught faithfully becomes a means by which lives are kept from collapse. That is a serious thought, and it should be. Timothy’s watchfulness does not affect only Timothy. His doctrine does not affect only Timothy. His faithfulness matters for other people. The same is true, in ways public or hidden, for every believer. The way you live is not only about you. Your integrity shelters others. Your confusion affects others. Your steadiness strengthens others. Your drift can weaken others. None of us live in total isolation. Every life leans into other lives. That should not create panic, but it should create seriousness. A private life is never only private in what it produces.

This whole chapter, then, is about much more than identifying false teaching in a narrow sense. It is about what kind of life can remain awake before God when the world is full of noise, seduction, confusion, spiritual performance, and counterfeit seriousness. It is about learning what truly nourishes and what only stimulates. It is about gratitude, because gratitude protects the heart from both greed and suspicion. It is about nourishment, because a soul cannot live on fragments. It is about training, because maturity does not happen by accident. It is about remembrance, because discouragement must not be allowed to erase God’s past faithfulness. It is about wholeheartedness, because divided lives remain weak. It is about watchfulness, because neglected corners become dangerous over time. And it is about continuation, because a life with God is not sustained by beginnings alone.

That is why 1 Timothy 4 speaks so deeply to modern spiritual exhaustion. Many people are not merely tired from circumstances. They are tired from trying to build a stable soul in a world that keeps training them toward instability. They are tired from too many voices, too much reaction, too many counterfeits, too much spiritual thinness. They are tired from trying to survive on stimulation while their soul is starving for nourishment. This chapter does not offer shallow relief. It offers structure. It says deception is real, so discernment matters. It says false severity is real, so gratitude matters. It says the soul needs feeding, so reading and doctrine matter. It says growth requires training, so godliness must be exercised. It says grace can be neglected, so gifts must be honored. It says life and doctrine must both be watched. It says faithful continuation preserves. That is not random advice. That is a frame strong enough to hold a life together.

There is also something deeply kind in the fact that Paul writes all this to someone still in process. He does not write as though Timothy is already complete. He writes because Timothy still needs reminding, directing, strengthening, and shaping. That should comfort every person who feels ashamed of how much they still need. You are not strange because you still need structure. You are not disqualified because you still need reminders. You are not failing because you are still learning how to continue. This chapter was not written for finished people. It was written for forming people. That means it should not only be heard as pressure. It should also be heard as invitation. Invitation to stop drifting. Invitation to return to what nourishes. Invitation to take your own soul seriously again. Invitation to let God build real depth in places where you have been living too thin.

Many believers assume that because they are not publicly visible, this kind of chapter matters less for them. But that is not how the kingdom works. Hidden lives matter immensely. Some of the strongest witnesses on earth are people whose names never travel far, but whose lives carry such truth, steadiness, sincerity, and quiet faithfulness that others are strengthened just by being near them. A hidden life can still be an example in word, conduct, love, spirit, faith, and purity. A hidden life can still refuse what is false. A hidden life can still receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving. A hidden life can still train toward godliness. A hidden life can still watch itself and the doctrine. A hidden life can still continue in truth and become a shelter for other people. The kingdom of God has always been carried forward by people the world may overlook and heaven never does.

This chapter also explains why so much modern spirituality feels fragile. People want comfort without doctrine, inspiration without discipline, freedom without gratitude, influence without hidden formation, and faith without continuation. But that kind of life cannot carry real weight. It may look alive for a while, but it remains thin underneath. Then when pressure comes, people are shocked by how quickly things unravel. Paul gives Timothy something sturdier than that. He gives him a life rooted in truth, prayer, nourishment, gratitude, training, watchfulness, and steady continuation before the living God. That life may still know sorrow. It may still know battle. It may still know fatigue. But it will not be made of paper. It will have roots. It will have frame. It will have strength in places the world does not know how to measure.

And behind all of it is the living God. That matters more than anything else. If this chapter were only about trying harder, it would crush us. If it were only about religious seriousness, it would harden us. But the center of it all is the living God. The God who sees. The God who speaks. The God who nourishes. The God who entrusts. The God who corrects. The God who preserves. We are not being called to build an impressive spiritual image so that God might finally accept us. We are being called to live awake before the God who is alive and worthy of a whole life. There is warning here, yes, but also mercy. There is command here, yes, but also grace. There is seriousness here, yes, but also hope.

So perhaps the deepest question 1 Timothy 4 leaves with us is this: what kind of life are you allowing God to build in you? Are you becoming easier to mislead or harder? Are you feeding on what nourishes or on what only stirs you for a moment? Are you receiving from God with gratitude or living in fear and grasping? Are you neglecting what He placed in you or honoring it? Are you watching your own soul and the truth that shapes it, or assuming sincerity alone will somehow be enough? These are not small questions. They shape futures. They shape witness. They shape whether a life becomes shelter or confusion for the people around it. Yet they are merciful questions because God asks them while return is still possible. He asks them while grace is still active. He asks them while change is still available.

And for the weary believer, maybe that is the most beautiful thing in the whole chapter. Paul does not tell Timothy to become complete overnight. He tells him to continue. He tells him to give attendance. He tells him to meditate. He tells him not to neglect. He tells him to take heed. He tells him to stay with the things that build life. That means the path forward may not begin with something dramatic. It may begin with something quieter. Returning to Scripture honestly. Cutting off a stream of noise that has been thinning your soul. Thanking God for daily mercies you have been overlooking. Repenting of neglect. Taking your own inner life seriously again. Choosing one act of faithfulness where drift has had too much room. Whatever the first step is, 1 Timothy 4 reminds you that the way forward is not pretending you are strong. It is reentering the life that actually makes you strong.

That is why this chapter is so precious. It is not trying to entertain us. It is trying to keep us. It is trying to build in us a life that can carry truth, love, gratitude, purity, endurance, and witness in a world full of distortion. It is trying to protect us from spiritual counterfeits that look intense but leave the soul starved. It is trying to keep us from neglecting grace, from normalizing drift, from mistaking stimulation for nourishment, and from believing that occasional enthusiasm can replace slow formation. It is trying to show us that a life with God is not built by accident. It is built under grace through serious, thankful, watchful continuance in the things of God. And in that kind of life there is profit now and forever. There is strength now and forever. There is clarity now and forever. There is a steadiness that blesses not only the one who walks in it, but everyone touched by its truth.

So let 1 Timothy 4 call you back to the center. Let it remind you that discernment is not fear. It is love for what is real. Let it remind you that gratitude is not small. It is a safeguard for the heart. Let it remind you that sound doctrine is not a burden when it is sound. It is part of what keeps life from collapsing into confusion. Let it remind you that discipline is not punishment. It is one of the ways grace teaches the soul to become strong. Let it remind you that your life matters, your example matters, your hidden formation matters, and the grace placed in you matters. Let it remind you that the living God is still worthy of more than a distracted remainder. Let it remind you that progress is still possible, that quiet maturity is still beautiful, and that continuing in what is true is still one of the most powerful things a human being can do. In a world full of counterfeit brightness, let God build something real in you. Let Him build a life that can carry truth without pride, love without compromise, purity without performance, and endurance without despair. Let Him build a life whose texture quietly proves that Christ is worth trusting all the way to the end.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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When Italy's data protection authority, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, slapped OpenAI with a 15 million euro fine in December 2024, the charges had nothing to do with copyright infringement. The regulator found that OpenAI had trained ChatGPT on users' personal data without establishing a proper legal basis, failed to provide adequate transparency about how that data was processed, and neglected to report a data breach that exposed the chat histories and payment information of 440 Italian users. The privacy notice had been available only in English, and no notice whatsoever had been provided to non-users whose data was processed for training purposes. Beyond the fine, OpenAI was ordered to conduct a six-month information campaign across Italian media platforms to educate the public about how ChatGPT collects and uses data. OpenAI called the decision “disproportionate” and announced it would appeal.

Meanwhile, just six months later, in a completely separate legal arena, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled in Bartz v. Anthropic that using copyrighted books to train an AI model was “transformative, spectacularly so,” and therefore constituted fair use under American copyright law. The case resulted in a 1.5 billion dollar settlement, with Anthropic's funding scheduled in four instalments beginning with 300 million dollars by October 2025.

These two events, unfolding on different continents under different legal frameworks, illustrate a tension that sits at the heart of the generative AI revolution. The question is no longer simply whether AI companies should be allowed to hoover up the world's information to train their models. It is whether there should be a fundamental distinction between two very different categories of that information: published creative works (novels, journalism, photographs, music) and personal data (the digital traces of individual human lives). The law currently treats these categories through entirely separate regulatory regimes, and for good reason. But the AI industry has a habit of collapsing that distinction, treating all data as training fodder regardless of its nature or provenance. Understanding why this matters, and what to do about it, is one of the most consequential policy challenges of our time.

Two Legal Worlds Colliding

The distinction between published works and personal data is not some abstract philosophical nicety. It is baked into the legal architecture of every major democratic jurisdiction, reflecting fundamentally different values and harms.

Copyright law protects the economic and moral interests of creators. When The New York Times sued OpenAI in December 2023, alleging that millions of copyrighted articles had been used to train ChatGPT without consent or payment, the core claim was about intellectual property theft. The newspaper argued that OpenAI's models could reproduce substantial portions of its journalism, effectively creating a substitute for the original product. In March 2025, Judge Sidney Stein rejected OpenAI's motion to dismiss, allowing the main copyright infringement claims to proceed. By January 2026, the court ordered OpenAI to produce 20 million ChatGPT output logs as part of discovery, a ruling that could expose the degree to which the model regurgitates copyrighted material. The case has been consolidated with lawsuits from The New York Daily News and the Centre for Investigative Reporting, forming one of the most significant copyright challenges the technology industry has ever faced.

Data protection law, by contrast, protects something more intimate: the informational autonomy of individuals. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not ask whether data is “creative” or “original.” It asks whether data can identify, or be linked to, a specific human being. Under the GDPR, organisations must establish a lawful basis for processing personal data at every stage of AI development and deployment. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted an opinion in December 2024 addressing when AI models can be considered anonymous, whether legitimate interest can serve as a legal basis for training, and what happens when a model is developed using unlawfully processed personal data. The French data protection authority, the CNIL, issued guidance in 2025 affirming that training AI models on personal data scraped from public sources can be lawful under the GDPR's legitimate interest basis, but only when specific conditions are met.

These are not the same conversation. Copyright disputes centre on market substitution and economic harm to creators. Privacy disputes centre on individual dignity, autonomy, and the right to control information about oneself. Yet the AI industry routinely conflates them, treating a novelist's published book and a person's scraped social media profile as functionally identical inputs to a training pipeline.

The Scraping Problem

The conflation becomes most visible in the practice of web scraping, where AI companies indiscriminately harvest both published content and personal data from the open internet. Daniel Solove, the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law at George Washington University Law School, and Woodrow Hartzog, Professor of Law at Boston University, tackled this collision directly in their 2025 paper “The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping and Privacy,” published in the California Law Review. The paper, which won the Future of Privacy Forum's Privacy Papers for Policy Makers award, argues that scraped personal data provides the foundation for AI tools including facial recognition, deepfakes, and generative AI, even as privacy laws remain largely incongruous with the practice. As Solove and Hartzog have argued in related work, including their 2024 paper “Kafka in the Age of AI and the Futility of Privacy as Control” in the Boston University Law Review, the paradigm of individual control over personal data is fundamentally inadequate in the face of AI systems that process information at a scale and speed that renders individual oversight meaningless.

The Clearview AI saga offers perhaps the starkest illustration of why personal data demands different treatment. The company scraped billions of photographs from publicly accessible websites to build a facial recognition database, then sold access to law enforcement agencies. The photos were “publicly available” in the same way that a novel on a library shelf is publicly available. But the harms are categorically different. When Clearview scrapes your photograph, the resulting database can be used to track your movements, identify you in a crowd, and build a surveillance profile that follows you through physical space. In 2026, at least eight people in the United States were wrongfully arrested due to false positives from facial recognition technology, illustrating that the harms of personal data misuse are not hypothetical but tangible and life-altering.

Data protection authorities across Europe responded accordingly. The Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Clearview 30.5 million euros in 2024 for violating the GDPR by processing biometric data without a legal basis. The French, Greek, Italian, and Dutch authorities have collectively imposed fines of roughly 100 million euros on the company. In the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office imposed a fine of more than 7.5 million pounds and ordered Clearview to delete UK residents' data; on appeal, the Upper Tribunal in London ruled in October 2025 that the GDPR was applicable and the ICO had proper jurisdiction. The privacy advocacy group noyb filed a criminal complaint against Clearview and its managers in Austria, arguing that the company's executives could face personal criminal liability if they travel to Europe. In the United States, a federal judge in March 2025 approved a class action settlement granting affected individuals a 23 per cent equity stake in Clearview, valued at approximately 51.75 million dollars.

Now compare this with a copyright dispute. When authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic for using their books to train Claude, the harm alleged was economic: their creative labour had been exploited without compensation. Nobody's physical safety was at risk because Anthropic read their novels. The nature of the harm is fundamentally different, and the regulatory response should reflect that difference.

Divergent Courts, Divergent Standards

The copyright side of the AI training debate has produced a revealing split among American federal judges, one that highlights why a single framework for all training data is inadequate. In February 2025, Judge Stephanos Bibas of the Third Circuit, sitting by designation in the District of Delaware, ruled in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence that using Westlaw headnotes to train a competing AI legal research tool was not fair use. Judge Bibas found that ROSS had infringed 2,243 headnotes and that its use was not transformative because it created a direct market substitute. This was the first time a U.S. court reached a conclusion on fair use in the AI training context, and the conclusion was a resounding rejection.

Months later, Judge Alsup reached the opposite result in Bartz v. Anthropic, describing AI training as “spectacularly” transformative. In Kadrey v. Meta, the court similarly found that training Meta's Llama models on books was transformative. The Copyright Alliance tracked more than 70 AI-related copyright infringement lawsuits by the end of 2025, with no appellate court yet providing definitive guidance. The Third Circuit granted review of the Thomson Reuters case, making it the first appellate court to take up the question of AI training and fair use.

These cases all involve published, copyrighted works. The legal questions they raise, however important, are fundamentally economic: who profits from creative expression, and under what conditions? Personal data disputes raise questions of a different order entirely. They concern not profit margins but physical safety, psychological autonomy, and the basic right to move through the world without being catalogued by algorithmic systems.

Why “Publicly Available” Does Not Mean “Fair Game”

One of the most dangerous assumptions in the AI training debate is that publicly available information carries no privacy interest. This assumption underpins the behaviour of companies that scrape the open web, treating everything they encounter as raw material for model training. But as Solove has argued across decades of scholarship, the aggregation of otherwise innocuous public data points can create significant privacy violations. Your name on a public LinkedIn profile is one thing. Your name, combined with your job history, your photograph, your social connections, and your posting patterns, is something else entirely.

The legal landscape on scraping remains contested. In the landmark hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn case, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in 2022 that scraping publicly available data from LinkedIn did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, since publicly accessible websites have no access restrictions to circumvent. The U.S. Supreme Court had vacated an earlier Ninth Circuit ruling and remanded the case for reconsideration following its decision in Van Buren v. United States, but the appellate court reaffirmed its position. Yet this ruling addressed only federal computer fraud law, not privacy. The case ended with a settlement in which hiQ agreed to cease all scraping and destroy all data and algorithms derived from scraped profiles, a result that suggests even “legal” scraping can produce untenable outcomes.

Meta's approach to training its Llama models highlights the tension between published works and personal data with particular clarity. Llama 2 was trained exclusively on publicly available datasets including Common Crawl, Wikipedia, and Project Gutenberg. But for Llama 3 and Llama 4, Meta incorporated proprietary data from Facebook and Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg stated during an earnings call that Meta's corpus of public Facebook and Instagram data exceeds the size of Common Crawl. As of May 2025, Meta began using personal data from European users to train its AI systems, having paused an earlier attempt following discussions with the Irish Data Protection Commission. Starting in December 2025, Meta also began using AI chat interactions for advertising personalisation, adding yet another layer of personal data exploitation to its AI training pipeline.

The privacy advocacy group noyb, led by Max Schrems, sent Meta a cease and desist letter arguing that users who entered their data into Facebook over two decades could not reasonably have expected it to be used for AI training. Noyb also raised a critical point about non-users: people who never created a Facebook account but whose photographs appear in other users' posts are nevertheless swept into Meta's training pipeline. This is personal data being processed without even the pretence of consent, and no amount of copyright law can address it.

The Emerging Legislative Response

Legislators are beginning to recognise that the AI training question requires distinct answers for published works and personal data, though the responses remain fragmented and incomplete.

In the United States, Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal introduced the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act in July 2025. The bill is notable precisely because it addresses both categories simultaneously, creating a new federal cause of action that would allow individuals to sue companies that train AI models using either personal data or copyrighted works without clear, affirmative consent. The bill defines “covered data” expansively as information that “identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or can reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a specific individual.” The Authors Guild welcomed the legislation, calling it critical at “a pivotal moment for American authors, artists, and other creators.” It remains with the Senate Judiciary Committee, with no indication of when or whether it will advance.

California's AI Training Data Transparency Act (AB 2013), which took effect on 1 January 2026, takes a different approach. Rather than restricting what data AI companies can use, it requires them to disclose what they have used, including whether copyrighted materials and personal information were included in training datasets. In practice, AI developers have responded with vague, generalised disclosures. Elon Musk's xAI has challenged the statute as unconstitutional, alleging it compels disclosure of trade secrets in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause.

In the European Union, the regulatory architecture more explicitly distinguishes between copyright and privacy concerns. The EU AI Act, whose copyright compliance obligations for general-purpose AI model providers took effect on 2 August 2025, requires these providers to implement robust copyright policies and publish “sufficiently detailed” summaries of training content using a mandatory template issued by the European AI Office. The Act operates alongside the GDPR, creating parallel obligations. Under the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, rightsholders can opt out of text and data mining for commercial purposes. Under the GDPR, individuals retain rights over their personal data regardless of whether it has been published. The European Commission's GPAI Code of Practice defines AI training data broadly as all data used for pre-training, fine-tuning, and reinforcement learning, explicitly acknowledging that this encompasses both copyright-protected material and personal data protected by privacy rights.

The German Hanseatic Higher Regional Court provided important guidance in December 2025 in Kneschke v. LAION, confirming that pre-processing steps for AI training fall under text and data mining exceptions (and are thus permitted for lawfully accessed content), but stressing that rightsholders retain control through effective opt-outs and that downstream uses of AI-generated outputs remain subject to copyright scrutiny.

Personal Data Demands Stronger Protections

Here is the core argument for treating personal data differently from published works in the AI training context: the harms are categorically different, the power dynamics are fundamentally asymmetric, and the remedies must reflect both realities.

When an AI company trains on a published novel, the harm is primarily economic. The author loses potential licensing revenue. The work may be reproduced in ways that compete with the original. These are real and significant harms, but they are harms that the copyright system was designed to address. Authors can sue for infringement. Courts can assess fair use. Licensing frameworks can be negotiated. The U.S. Copyright Office's May 2025 report acknowledged as much, concluding that “some uses of copyrighted works for generative AI training will qualify as fair use, and some will not.” The report suggested a spectrum, with noncommercial research training on one end and copying expressive works from pirated sources to generate competing content on the other.

Personal data harms operate on a different register entirely. When an AI company trains on personal data, the potential harms include surveillance, discrimination, identity theft, manipulation, and the erosion of autonomy. These harms are often irreversible. Once personal data has been incorporated into a model's weights, it cannot simply be extracted or deleted. A 2025 study from the University of Tubingen established that large language models qualify as personal data under the GDPR when they memorise training information, triggering data protection obligations throughout the entire AI development lifecycle. The EDPB has acknowledged this problem, noting that whether an AI model is “anonymous” (and thus outside the GDPR's scope) must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, considering whether individuals can be directly or indirectly identified from the model and whether personal data can be extracted through queries.

The power asymmetry is also starkly different. A published author or a major newspaper has legal resources, public visibility, and collective organisations to assert their rights. The New York Times can afford to litigate against OpenAI for years. Individual data subjects, by contrast, are often unaware that their data has been scraped, lack the resources to challenge a trillion-dollar technology company, and face practical barriers to exercising their rights even when those rights exist on paper.

Consider the right to erasure under the GDPR. In principle, individuals can request the deletion of their personal data. In practice, if that data has been used to train a neural network, selective deletion is not technically feasible without retraining the entire model. The emerging field of “machine unlearning” attempts to bridge this gap. Techniques such as gradient subtraction, influence-function updates, and sharded retraining offer approximate methods of removing the influence of specific data points, but each carries significant trade-offs in model performance and reliability. In September 2025, researchers at UC Riverside proposed “source-free unlearning,” a method that operates without the original source data, using a surrogate dataset to guide parameter updates. The results were promising but still fell short of the standard of “complete and permanent erasure” that privacy regulators might demand. As the Cloud Security Alliance noted in an April 2025 assessment, there is no universally accepted method for verifying that machine unlearning has actually succeeded. The gap between legal right and technical reality is a chasm that copyright law, dealing primarily with discrete works that can be identified and removed, does not face to the same degree.

The Consent Question

The question of consent further illuminates why published works and personal data require different treatment. When an author publishes a book, they make a deliberate choice to enter the public sphere. The terms of that entry are governed by copyright law, which grants specific exclusive rights while also permitting certain uses (criticism, commentary, education, and, courts are still deciding, potentially AI training). The consent model for published works is, at least in principle, clear: the act of publication itself establishes a framework of rights and expectations.

Personal data operates under a radically different consent framework. Much personal data is generated not through deliberate publication but through the ordinary activities of daily life: browsing the web, posting on social media, uploading photographs, making purchases. The GDPR requires that consent be “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.” Blanket consent through general terms of service is insufficient; organisations must clearly explain how personal data will be used in AI model training and provide granular consent options.

But the reality is that meaningful consent for AI training is largely fictional. When Facebook users shared photographs and status updates between 2004 and 2024, they were not consenting to their data being used to train large language models that did not yet exist. The temporal gap between data collection and AI training makes informed consent practically impossible. Noyb's Max Schrems made this point forcefully in his cease and desist letter to Meta, arguing that two decades of Facebook usage cannot retroactively be characterised as consent to AI training.

This is why data protection law adopts safeguards that go beyond consent, including purpose limitation (data must be collected for specified purposes and not further processed in incompatible ways), data minimisation (only necessary data should be processed), and the right to object. These principles have no equivalent in copyright law because they address a fundamentally different relationship between individuals and their information.

What a Differentiated Framework Could Look Like

If we accept that published works and personal data should be treated differently in the AI training context, what would a workable framework look like?

For published works, the emerging consensus points towards a licensing-based approach. The Really Simple Licensing (RSL) Standard, announced in September 2025 by a coalition including Reddit, Yahoo, and Medium, allows publishers to embed licensing terms directly into robots.txt files. Collective licensing organisations modelled on music industry bodies like ASCAP and BMI could pool rights from millions of creators and negotiate blanket licences with AI companies. The music industry's own response suggests this is viable: both Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group reached settlements with AI music companies Suno and Udio in 2025, agreeing to licence their catalogues for AI training and co-develop new licensed models for 2026.

For personal data, the framework must be fundamentally different. Licensing is not an adequate model because personal data is not a commodity to be traded but an extension of individual identity. The principles of data protection law, including purpose limitation, data minimisation, transparency, and the right to erasure, must apply with full force. This means that AI companies should be required to establish a clear lawful basis for processing personal data before training begins, not retrospectively. It means that individuals should have meaningful rights to object to the use of their data, with those objections technically enforced rather than merely acknowledged. And it means that data protection authorities must be resourced and empowered to enforce these requirements, as the Garante did with its fine against OpenAI.

The European approach, for all its imperfections, offers a more promising template than the American one. The EU's dual-track regulation, with the AI Act addressing copyright and the GDPR addressing personal data, at least recognises that these are distinct problems requiring distinct solutions. The CNIL's PANAME project, launched in partnership with ANSSI and other institutions, aims to create tools that can assess whether an AI model processes personal data, providing concrete technical solutions rather than relying solely on legal obligations.

The United States, by contrast, lacks a federal data protection law, leaving personal data protections scattered across state-level statutes and sector-specific regulations. The Hawley-Blumenthal bill represents a step towards recognising the dual nature of the problem, but its prospects in Congress remain uncertain. Without comprehensive federal privacy legislation, the American approach will continue to treat personal data as an afterthought to the copyright debate.

The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think

The distinction between published works and personal data in AI training is not merely a legal technicality. It reflects a deeper question about what kind of society we want to build with these technologies.

If we treat published works and personal data identically, we flatten a moral distinction that matters enormously. A novelist who publishes a book has chosen to participate in public discourse and has legal tools to protect their economic interests. A teenager whose Instagram posts are scraped to train an AI model has made no such choice and has virtually no practical recourse. Collapsing these two situations into a single “training data” category serves the interests of AI companies, which benefit from treating all information as raw material, but it does not serve the interests of either creators or individuals.

The U.S. Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in the Thaler case on 2 March 2026, reaffirming that human authorship is a foundational requirement of copyright law, gestures at this distinction. Copyright exists to protect human creative expression. Data protection law exists to protect human dignity and autonomy. Both are under threat from AI systems that consume information indiscriminately, but the threats are different, the harms are different, and the solutions must be different too.

The AI industry has every incentive to resist this differentiation. Separate frameworks for published works and personal data mean separate compliance obligations, separate negotiations, and separate costs. A unified “fair use” or “legitimate interest” argument is simpler and cheaper. But simplicity for the technology industry should not come at the expense of the rights of billions of individuals whose personal data has been swept into training datasets without their knowledge, understanding, or consent.

The courts, regulators, and legislators who will shape AI governance over the coming years must resist the temptation to treat all training data alike. Your novel and your face are not the same thing. They never were. And the law should reflect that reality before it is too late to do anything about it.

References and Sources

1. Italian Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, Decision on OpenAI/ChatGPT, 20 December 2024. Fine of EUR 15 million for GDPR violations including lack of legal basis for training data processing and transparency failures. Reported by Euronews, The Hacker News, and Lewis Silkin LLP.

2. Bartz v. Anthropic, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, June 2025. Judge William Alsup ruled AI training on legally acquired books constitutes fair use. Settlement of USD 1.5 billion. Reported by Copyright Alliance, IPWatchdog, and Authors Guild.

3. The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, filed December 2023. Judge Sidney Stein denied OpenAI's motion to dismiss in March 2025. Court ordered production of 20 million ChatGPT logs in January 2026. Reported by NPR, National Law Review, and Nelson Mullins.

4. European Data Protection Board (EDPB), Opinion on AI Models and Personal Data, adopted December 2024. Addressed anonymity of AI models, legitimate interest as legal basis, and consequences of unlawful data processing in training.

5. CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes), Guidance on AI and GDPR, 2025. Affirmed that legitimate interest can serve as legal basis for training on scraped public data under specific conditions. Published PANAME project for assessing personal data in AI models.

6. Solove, Daniel J. and Hartzog, Woodrow, “The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping and Privacy,” 113 California Law Review 1521 (2025). Winner of Future of Privacy Forum Privacy Papers for Policy Makers award.

7. Clearview AI: Dutch Data Protection Authority fine of EUR 30.5 million (May 2024); cumulative European fines of approximately EUR 100 million from French, Greek, Italian, and Dutch authorities. UK ICO fine of GBP 7.5 million; Upper Tribunal affirmed jurisdiction October 2025. U.S. class action settlement valued at USD 51.75 million approved March 2025. Reported by Fortune Europe, Library of Congress, National Law Review, and BBC.

8. hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 17-16783 (2022). Held that scraping publicly available data does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded in light of Van Buren v. United States (2021). Case settled December 2022 with permanent injunction against hiQ.

9. Meta Platforms, use of Facebook and Instagram data for Llama AI training. European deployment of personal data for AI training commenced May 2025 following discussions with Irish Data Protection Commission. Noyb cease and desist letter challenging retroactive consent. Reported by Euronews, MIT Technology Review, and Goodwin Law.

10. AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act, S.2367, 119th Congress (2025-2026). Introduced by Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on 21 July 2025. Creates federal cause of action for use of personal data or copyrighted works in AI training without affirmative consent. Reported by Axios, IPWatchdog, and Authors Guild.

11. California AI Training Data Transparency Act (AB 2013), effective 1 January 2026. Requires disclosure of training data sources including copyrighted materials and personal information. Challenged by xAI as unconstitutional. Reported by Davis+Gilbert LLP and Goodwin Law.

12. EU AI Act, copyright compliance obligations for general-purpose AI model providers, effective 2 August 2025. European Commission mandatory template for training data disclosure published July 2025. GPAI Code of Practice defines training data broadly to include both copyright-protected and personal data. Reported by IAPP, Clifford Chance, and WilmerHale.

13. Kneschke v. LAION, German Hanseatic Higher Regional Court, December 2025. First appellate-level guidance on copyright exceptions for text and data mining in AI training context. Reported by Norton Rose Fulbright.

14. U.S. Copyright Office, Report on AI Training and Copyright, May 2025. Concluded that fair use outcomes will vary by case. Reported by McDermott Will & Emery and Library of Congress Congressional Research Service.

15. Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, February 2025. Judge Stephanos Bibas granted partial summary judgment to Thomson Reuters, rejecting fair use defence for AI training on Westlaw headnotes. First U.S. court ruling on fair use in AI training context. Appeal granted by Third Circuit. Reported by Authors Alliance, Reed Smith, and Venable LLP.

16. Thaler v. Perlmutter, U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari 2 March 2026, reaffirming human authorship requirement for copyright protection.

17. Really Simple Licensing (RSL) Standard, announced September 2025 by coalition including Reddit, Yahoo, and Medium. Framework for embedding licensing terms in robots.txt files.

18. Warner Music Group settlement with Suno, and Universal Music Group settlement with Udio, both 2025. AI music companies agreed to licence catalogues for training. Reported by Digital Music News and Copyright Alliance.

19. Solove, Daniel J., “Artificial Intelligence and Privacy,” Florida Law Review (2025). Analysis of how AI remixes longstanding privacy problems.

20. Hartzog, Woodrow and Solove, Daniel J., “Kafka in the Age of AI and the Futility of Privacy as Control,” 104 Boston University Law Review 1021 (2024).

21. University of Tubingen, 2025 study establishing that large language models qualify as personal data under GDPR when they memorise training information. Reported by PPC.land.

22. UC Riverside, “Source-Free Unlearning” method for machine unlearning without original training data, September 2025.

23. Cloud Security Alliance, “The Right to Be Forgotten, But Can AI Forget?”, April 2025. Assessment of machine unlearning challenges and verification difficulties.

24. Noyb, Criminal complaint against Clearview AI filed with Austrian public prosecutors, 2025. Reported by noyb.eu.

25. EDPB Guidelines on Data Transfers and SPE Training Material on AI and Data Protection, published 2025.

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

We are all connected.

Ne fut longtemps que celle des arbres, du soleil frappant le front, cet horizon de son couteau gravant un signe, clarté d’une voix sur la piste ou l’odeur des fleurs de café, tout un envoûtement par les choses, dont on ne peut sortir. Mais dit ainsi ou d’autres manières, n’est que trame se rompant, l’accroc que fait le temps et le fil à écrire.

Le mot ligne apparait 13 fois dans Ma vie au village.

#VoyageauLexique

Dans ce deuxième Voyage au Lexique, je continue d’explorer, en me gardant de les exploiter, les mots de Ma vie au village (in Journal de la brousse endormie) dont le nombre d’occurrences est significatif.

I woke up thinking it would be quieter today. It wasn’t.

It’s strange how silence can still sound like you, between your thoughts. Every corner of the room feels like it’s waiting for something to come back, as I misplaced you somewhere between my words and your patience.

I keep telling myself I understand. That you saw it how you saw it. That maybe I made it look worse than it was.

But understanding doesn’t make it feel fair.

I wasn’t lying when I said I was overwhelmed.I wasn’t playing you. I was just… breaking in a way that looks ugly from the outside.

If I had said it differently, paused longer, explained myself like a normal person, would you still be here?

Or was it already over, and I didn’t hear the door close?

I don’t want to chase you. Not because I don’t want you, but because I know how it looks when I do.

Desperate. Loud. Wrong.

It’s upsetting how I keep reaching for something that isn’t here anymore. not just you, but everything I had.

It’s embarrassing, really. How can someone move on easily and still exist in the way I breathe, in the way I pause before saying something, as if you’re still there to hear it.

I keep wondering If you ever look back at it the way I do, or if I’ve already been simplified in your mind into something easier to forget.

“A mistake.” “A phase.” “Too much.”

That sounds about right,

Too much when I was overwhelmed, too much when I panicked, too much when I tried to explain myself in a way that didn’t make sense to anyone but me.

I thought I’d at least leave a mark.

Something noticeable. But perhaps I was just easy to erase. Not because it’s been * days, but because it felt sharp.

And I’ll pretend this is me moving on when really, It’s just me learning how to miss you more quietly.

Sincerely, What you called a curse.

In Summary: * After a full day following NCAA March Madness basketball, I'm more impressed than ever at the high quality of Westwood One Sports Radio. Excellent reportage and play by play game calling! What a great crew! But... it's time now for me to leave the college game and tune the radio to 1200 WOAI, the proud flagship of the San Antonio Spurs to catch the pregame coverage as well as the radio play by play of tonight's NBA game with the Indiana Pacers.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Starting Ash Wednesday, 2026, I've added this daily prayer as part of the Prayer Crusade Preceding the 2026 SSPX Episcopal Consecrations.

Health Metrics: * bw= 225.53 lbs. * bp= 134/78 (68)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 08:10 – 1 potato & egg breakfast taco, crispy oatmeal cookies * 10:45 – cream cheese & saltine crackers, cooked meat & vegetables, steamed rice * 12:00 – 1 chocolate cupcake * 14:15 – 1 fresh apple * 15:10 – 1 more chocolate cupcake * 16:20 – cooked meat & vegetables, white bread

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 07:15 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:40 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap, * 10:00 – listening to Westwood One Sports radio coverage of today's NCAA March Madness Games * 18:00 – turning away from March Madness to catch a full hour of Spurs Pregame Show ahead of tonight's Spurs vs Pacers NBA Game

Chess: * 14:45 – moved in all pending CC games

Des annonces récentes indiquent que la municipalité souhaite aménager un accès public au fleuve sur le Domaine Médard-Bourgault. Selon les informations diffusées publiquement, ce projet pourrait inclure différents aménagements permanents destinés à faciliter l’accès de la population, comme un escalier, des bancs, des poubelles et un aménagement du terrain.

À première vue, l’idée d’offrir un accès au fleuve peut sembler positive. Mais dans le cas précis du Domaine Médard-Bourgault, cette proposition soulève une question beaucoup plus profonde : celle de l’intégrité d’un lieu artistique.

Un lieu qui n’est pas un parc

Le jardin situé au bord du fleuve fait partie d’un ensemble qui possède une valeur particulière. À quelques pas de là se trouve une petite boutique où Médard Bourgault se retirait pour sculpter, notamment lorsqu’il souhaitait travailler dans le calme, loin de l’agitation des visiteurs.

L’accès à cet endroit se fait aujourd’hui par un escalier de pierre discret. Cette descente fait partie de l’expérience du lieu : on quitte progressivement le domaine pour entrer dans un espace plus intime, plus silencieux, presque retiré du monde.

Transformer cet accès en aménagement public change inévitablement la nature de cet endroit. Ce qui était un lieu discret lié à la création artistique risque de devenir un simple passage vers le fleuve.

Autrement dit, le lieu pourrait rester physiquement présent, mais perdre une partie de son sens.

Le sens du domaine repose sur l’ensemble formé par les œuvres, la maison, l’atelier et les bâtiments qui composent ce lieu.

Le Domaine Médard-Bourgault appartient à l’histoire de la sculpture québécoise. Si cet ensemble est profondément transformé, la manière dont l’œuvre est comprise change aussi. Transformer ce lieu revient, en partie, à transformer le sens même de l’œuvre.

La question de l’usage du lieu

Cela pose la question de l’usage du lieu et de la manière dont il évolue dans le temps.

Passer d’un jardin lié à un lieu de création artistique à un espace aménagé pour la circulation du public n’est pas une transformation anodine. C’est un changement qui peut modifier l’expérience du lieu et la façon dont il est perçu.

Prendre le temps de réfléchir

Le Domaine Médard-Bourgault n’est pas un terrain comme les autres. Il s’agit d’un lieu directement lié à l’histoire d’un sculpteur majeur et à une tradition artistique qui dépasse largement les frontières locales.

Avant de transformer cet espace en accès public aménagé, il semble raisonnable de se poser une question simple : sommes-nous en train de mettre en valeur ce lieu… ou de transformer profondément ce qu’il représente ?

Préserver un lieu artistique ne signifie pas nécessairement le fermer au public. Mais cela implique parfois de reconnaître que certains endroits tirent leur valeur précisément de leur simplicité, de leur discrétion et de leur authenticité.

C’est peut-être le cas ici.

Raphaël Maltais Bourgault

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Just going to be one of those days. I’m exhausted even after caffeine and just don’t feel well, so I’m going to just chase pain in low weight high reps.

I don’t think I have enough of a backbone or whatever you want to call it to decide whether or not some of the stuff that happened should be ok or not. I can understand maybe a little bit on where you were coming from with the thing that happened that first week. I still think it was not ok, and was handled horribly. I’ve somewhat come to terms with the idea that you could hate me, that’s ok because I’ve thought and at least right now I feel like my actions lined up with my values, and I’m happy with the person I am. I am the love I give, not the love I receive.

I think it’s a trap to think that there are a small percentage of the population that you could truly connect with. I think every person has enough depth and wideness to their character to make them more than enough for meaningful connection. But I do have that fear about just the lack of agency in the whole situation. Like I don’t know what I can do to meet someone who would be good for me. I know the things I can do to increase the odds, but nothing deterministic. And that fear sits on that last portion.

But also what would I do differently if I knew that in 6 years the problem would be for sure solved? Like by the time I’m 30 I’d be in a great relationship. I know I can’t guarantee that, but let’s just speculate. If I knew it would work out, would I be able to let go a bit more? Of this fear, specifically. And I think the answer is yes. But also what if I never find that person, or things just don’t work out. The first thing that comes to my mind is I wouldn’t get to be a father, and that is horribly sad. But the good news is I absolutely could adopt, and such. I also do feel like by that point I’ve scaled like crazy and I will absolutely be able to get married. So I guess if I do believe that, I do know that I won’t die alone.

So then the next part is how do I get comfortable with the prospect of being single for an indefinite amount of time? I think there’s no denying the fact it’s nicer to be able to have someone to be intimate with, share experiences with, and to be able to come home to. There’s no avoiding that, so whatever conclusion has to come in lieu of that. I guess an even worse outcome however is being with someone you shouldn’t spend your life with. That’s a very agonizing hell, to be in a situation of your choosing that hurts more the longer you don’t rip the bandaid off. I have so much sympathy for people who have to break up for “good” reasons, like right person wrong time, or after a long time, at least longer than these 5 months with E for me. That’s would be brutal. And a divorce? Holy shit. Especially if it’s because of work that needs to be done that’s damaging to the partner. I’m so thankful that I did not do something egregious in this relationship, because the guilt would murder me. But I digress.

I watched a vid on this a while ago, and they said that even if being single is miserable and lonely at times, it’s better than being in the wrong relationship, because that robs you of time and more importantly hope. What if I stuck to E, and we continued to try to work on the relationship, and then 30 comes around and I find that person I would have been with otherwise. I did feel like I was settling a lot with E, which is honestly cruel of me. I wouldn’t want anyone to ever feel like they’re the “settle for” option, and so that is shitty of me for trying to make the relationship work so much. But either way, I want a future relationship to feel like one where I’m not worried about how I’m going to present them to my friends, for them to find her impressive. I don’t want to feel like I have to hope they can lock in or not act in certain ways they normally do as to not embarrass me. I want to show them off and be overwhelmingly proud of. I did show E off a lot and I don’t want it to seem like she wasn’t an incredible person in her own way. But at the same time around my friends from work, she would get super self conscious and worried because everyone is super smart and successful and she is graduating late with an art degree. I would have loved to show her off if she had created art, but she just scraped by the degree and had nothing of substance to show easily. I want my future partner to be someone who beats me in different ways (see what I did there lol). I want someone who can grow my experience of the world in a more direct sense, not as the subject but as the teacher at times.

I guess it’s hard to think of someone this rare and wonderful and think of them as someone available, y’know? But maybe if they’re waiting for a relationship rather than just jumping at opportunities it would make sense. If someone is more deliberate with love as an option rather than a need, then waiting for the right person is natural. I do think serially relationship hopping is a bad thing, and this is the healthiest version of it. So I guess I should strive to be the same.

I do appreciate journaling like this rather than talking to an AI, since there are enough tools and building blocks in my mind that I can gain insights without external stimulation, just needs the work and analysis. And I do feel better.

Voorbijgaande Ridders in en op Orde op Aard [VVA Lintjes dag]

Ik had tijdens de vorige periode wat denk energie over en besloten deze te besteden aan mijn voltallige personeel en de miljoenen leden van de Van Voorbijgaande Aard omroep. Ik zocht een rede voor een rede om personeelsleden en leden onderling te scheiden, om een ander zomaar eer te gunnen en alle anderen daar voor te laten klappen. De oorzaak voor de eerbiedwaardige scheiding tussen a en b zijn, geparkeerd staan in mijn tijdelijke waarheid zone, rondom verzonnen waardigheid, uiteindelijk besloot ik een al bestaand proces te copy pasten, en dan toe te passen op u, mijn dappere leden.

Het is dus vers hergebruik van een oude lang toegepaste traditie om leden te voorzien van een glijmiddeltje voor volgens mij voorbeeldig omroep gedrag. Ik ga aan de dappere willozen mooie glimmende lintjes uitdelen, omdat zij mij en de omroep door zo te zijn ontzettend hebben behaagd, het perkje leuk opgetuigd. Altijd leuk om te zien wat zoiets met een lid doet. We leven nou eenmaal ieder etmaal, elk rondje om de bol, in een groot aanhoudend experiment voor eindeloze aandacht, een periode waarbij u van geboorte tot aan de dood het lijdend voorwerp bent, de persoon op wie elk etmaal met allerlei middelen op vele manieren dingetjes worden uitgeprobeerd om te kijken, horen, voelen wat er na zo'n ingreep met u gebeurt, wat de gevolgen zijn van de uitgevoerde oorzaak, de spuit of de pillen voorgeschreven, de operatie ondergaan, het veel omvattende strategische plan. U bent immers iemand die beheerd moet worden, voorzien van plichten en rede om te horen en zien, het volgen of ageren op iemand anders invloed methodiek, een mens waarop eerder al drug op is geoefend en al doende een (on)behaaglijk type is geworden, een horige, ongehoorzame, volger, vandaal, een beheersde of onbeheersbare.. Als Van Voorbijgaande Aard omroep baas zie ik graag, personages die iedere rondje doen wat de omroep nodig heeft voor het welvarend invloeibaar voortbestaan en liever niet iets anders doen waardoor de vaart er uit gaat. Ik heb liever niet dat u zinvol bezig bent met u eigen regels want dan moet ik daar weer iets mee aanvangen.

Lintjes zijn uitstekend materiaal voor ongeremd onderdanig gedrag, bonussen werken ook goed maar mijn omroep is extreem krenterig, en zoiets is alleen goed voor toch al ruim beloond personeel, zoveel personeel heb ik eigenlijk niet meer over sinds de laatste reorganistie, alle VVA levensbronnen komen inmiddels van out. Ik beloon mijn hoopje echt hoognodige medewerkers zo nu en dan al met een plakje ere metaal tijdens de befaamde en gevreesde omroep spot en spelmiddagen en eerlijk is eerlijk na zo veel leuks op een anders sombere dag eind November heb je geen gouden handdruk meer nodig.

Dus vanaf vandaag worden de lintjes uitgedeeld aan de door mij uitverkoren leden, volgend jaar laat ik alle leden andere leden voordragen zodat er gemeenschapszin zal ontstaan als ook wedijver, hardnekkige nijverheid om de omroep te plezieren. Ik ga dan ook het land in om zelf vijf of zes lintjes te spelden op de jasjes van goed gekeurde leden, de organisaties verantwoordelijk voor de voordracht van deze o zo goedwillende personen zullen op deze dag alles doen om het mij ontzettend naar de zin te maken zodat ik wordt voorzien van een geweldig leuke omgeving om in te zijn en daar dan mijn unieke VVA lintjes te verspreiden onder de beste volgers ooit. Er hoort ook een titel bij Voorbijgaande Ridder in en op Orde op Aard. Super concept, goed strategisch ondernemen lijkt mij dit. Pure verlakkerij, typisch machtsvertoon. Zo gezellig.

Dit eerste jaar zijn er maar liefst 24 uitverkorenen voor deze Voorbijgaande glim lintjes.

4 Personeelsleden, scribenten met uitzonderlijk behaaglijk omroep gedrag. Zeer harde werkers, vlijtig, net, goed samenwerkend met mij en andere best belangrijke omroep managers, zoals (Voorheen) en Deelnemer 11. Personeel dat zich alle vier seizoenen vrijwillig voor ons multi medie roep, zwaai en joel instituut inzet heeft onze voorkeur maar ook standvastig onder betaald niet zeurend personeel, zij die al vele jaren bij ons de beste periode van alle etmalen gevuld met levensenergie hebben gegeven aan ons in plaats van aan iets of iemand anders, voor ons doel van bestaan, hun eigen lange werkzame leven hebben weggecijferd, speciaal voor onze kijk, lees en luister nummer, de writeas few teller. Onze onuitputtelijke bron van inkomsten dus, en zij daarvoor dus een pluim verdienen, nu, een jaar of half jaar voor het pensioen. De dag waarop ze beginnen te ontdekken dat ze hun leven hebben vergooid aan iemand anders wil, hun vrijheid ingeruild voor een mager maar effectief loon, hun dagen omgezet in werkdagen, slaaf van geld gever Aard, nou als dat geen lintje waard is dan weet ik het ook niet meer.

Deze vlijtige, nette, altijd tijdig inklokkende personeelsleden krijgen hun lintje tijdens de vaste maand vergadering. Dan roept de dienstdoende vergader manager hen tijdens de meeting op, van hun draaistoel achter aan de lange rechthoekige tafel, en speld hun dit mooi opgedirkte glimmende stukje stof op de mouw. Onder luid applaus van hun minderen en gelijken natuurlijk en bijna onzichtbaar geniepig lachje van een paar verplicht aanwezige Voorbijgaande Aard hoofd task managers. Een dooie mus is namelijk een waardig geschenk als je iets maakt van de schenking, een show moment. Toneelspeld.

De andere uitverkorenen krijgen het leuke nieuws te horen op de dag voor Aard dag, de giga leuke landelijk ingevoerde feest dag ter ere van de Voorbijgaande omroep, de dag van de zimaar omzet rondom hypothetisch eigen ruimte, op eigen gemeenschap straat, dag vol vlag vertoon, zwart en wit, de kleur van omroepland Smægmå, mooie blije zon omwenteling voor de legale handel in verdovende middelen rondom oor verdovende herrie in een kerk tent, bij het omroep jubel koor festival, het Vrete op Aard festijn wordt nog feestelijker met deze glimmende behaag lintjes voor Voorbijgaande Ridders in en op Orde, zeker weten van wel

20 geprikte leden op 17 miljoen Smægmånen is wat pover maar dit is slechts het begin. Het moet ook uniek overkomen alsof je echt iets meer bent dan een brave gehorige domoor. Dankzij een magistraal met behulp van Netify ontwikkeld algo ritmisch gymnastiek nummertje zijn er twintig niet helemaal willekeurige maar wel zo goed als namen van leden op mijn scherm verschenen, 20 echte ridders, unieke mensen, parels van de omroep, de top van Smægmåånse staat en zijn ware koning, ik Aard.

Kant en klare verhalen p.p. bij geleverd over het hoe en waarom zij zo geweldig zijn, meer waard dan andere normale inwoners, die lui bij lange na niet slecht maar ook niet uitzonderlijk goed, zij nog lange niet ridderwaardig aldus het algo ritmisch rek en verstrek werk. 20 stuks super uniek volk omdat ze zo veel zo vaak deden voor het goedAardse volk, voor de huidige staat der omzet, zij die buitengewone inzet toonden, altijd dingen regelden die geregeld konden worden, of dingen organiseerden om te regelen, ze stonden paraat, zetten de tent op, een luifel er voor, brachten mensen en hun recht op staats lot dicht bij elkaar, lieten zien hoe geweldig het leven hier is onder mijn bezielende organisatie, gedoe, te leven voor mijn doelen, dit zijn mensen die extreem goed in het door mij bepaalde perk konden behandelen derhalve verdienen zij een de ridder orde.

Indien het niet een mens was maar een samen ouwehoerende en knop indrukkende mensen club is verdienen ze zelfs een extra titel, Aardelijk, de mens en zijn kliek verheven in de Aardelijk stand of een Aardelijk voor de naam van de mensen samen op pad voor winst doeleinden. Zoals Netify namens ons heeft geregeld voor Vape makers Neomijder, nu dus De Aardelijke Neomijder. Gewoon omdat ze zo goed bezig zijn de onderdanen in mijn staat te voorzien van de hardnodige Vapes, nou in zo'n gefabriceerde, verwerkelijkte situatie krijg je van mij en Netify het volle respect, de naam Aardelijk.

Vape van Neomijder al acht jaar sponsor van Van Voorbijgaande Aard is deze grootse omroep erkentelijk voor de hulp die het kreeg om het Vape product in de consumerende mens en rondom die mens te deponeren. We zijn blij dat de omroep heerser zijn dankbaarheid daarover op dergelijke wijze kenbaar heeft gemaakt. Wij heten vanaf nu vol trots de Aardelijke Neomijder voor alle Vape overal om u.

Alle personen uitgekozen waren vooraf door netify gescreend op welwillendheid betreffende ontvangst en grote dankbaarheid, Het was zeker dat ze dit lintje en de orde vol trots zouden ontvangen en het ervoor, tijdens en daarna zouden gaan rond bazuinen als ware het hun beste dag ooit, beter nog dan hun geboorte dag zelfs die van hun kinderen. Zelf promotend enthousiasme is de beste reclame voor een groot omroep rijk. Daardoor hechten mensen zich makkelijker aan hun geweldig deugdzame zelf min of meer gekozen leiders, het aangeboden man en machtje uit de ijdele hoop Met dergelijke creatieve positief overkomende interventies blijft de twijfelachtige almacht bijna overal onbesproken, zeker overal binnen de ruime perken van deze omroep, organisatie VVA met overal wel een vingertje in de pap, bij iedere landelijke krant, elke zender met licentie, een centrale positie inneemt in het hele staatsapparaat waarmee het berichtgeving kan controleren, aanpassen, iedere uitzending de juiste kleur geeft, zwartwit, elke andere vrijere media club voorziet van sterke of juist zwakke signalen, de geldkraan naar alle organisaties op elk moment open en dicht kan draaien, regels altijd overal naar eigen rede kan aanpassen, elke tegenstand kan reguleren met duizenden behulpzame, aan de omroep schatplichtige personen volop aanwezig in het omroep vriendendienst bestand, via deze mensen en hun nijvere organisaties, kanalen, aanwezige lijn verbindingen, persoonlijke connecties, de mogelijke kracht van elke oppositie kan slopen met het middel juist voor dit doel gemaakt, het geld, de buidel deur open en dicht trekken.

Het uitdelen van lintjes is daar gewoon één van, een methode om leden te beheren door ze, de volgzame, de veel en vaak producerende, te eren met een werk titel, een titel die volgens ons, de rol spelend van spreekbuis der gemeenschap, een ere titel, geeft aan dat persoon x van uitzonderlijk nut is voor iedereen omdat ze zo nuttig zijn voor VVA, zeer bekwame lieden zijn het, voorbeelden voor de anderen, zodat dit soort ambities en bijpassend gedrag de norm gaat bepalen, datgene zal zijn waarnaar men streeft, het juiste type lid van de VVA omroep maatschappij. Het is bewezen effectief, zorgt voor berichten, artikelen, gesprekken op straat, een echte ere titel is absoluut een herinnering van het maken waard, een invloed, experimenteel getest en het resultaat is zichtbaar daar, hier, overal waar titels voorkomen.

Bij de omroep smiezen wij dan ook altijd, zacht en onduidelijk, “Let Them Bake Cake” want als ze dat doen dan doen ze wat wij willen. Organiseren, Iets regelen voor Participeren, ondernemen, vergaderen, stichten, strijd maken om een beker ring of vaas met grote gehorige oren, een volgzaam heden brouwen, iets ergens ontwikkelen, een werkproces stroomlijnen, als het maar iets is dat wordt gebakken met hete lucht, want dat vinden wij geweldig mooi, onze Aardlingen zo nijver, net en sociaal bezig te zien met onder hoge druk behandelde bedrijvigheden.

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

Adedapo Adeniyi is a promising 20 yo abstract SF author from Ilorin, Nigeria.

Disclaimer: you should read The Dilemma of the He and His House, House? then Mosquito Farm before reading the interview.

Which Nigerian city do you live in? Can you describe it for us?

I live in Ilorin, it's in Kwara State. I think Ilorin is great, I've lived here all my life, it's claustrophobic and surreal, simultaneously very big and very small, like it's breathing, there's also an eerie air here that a lot of the artists that live here can attest to. My favorite part about it is that we're in what I like to call Ilorin's renaissance era, where the youth are becoming more sensitized to art and exploring themselves in relations to the emotions and mindspace of the city.

In your Abstractism Manifesto, you mention God multiple times. What is God, from your perspective, and what role does He play in your life?

(note from SFSS: Abstractism is a term coined by Adedapo, defining it as a genre/philosophy that functions as an amalgamation of solipsism, surrealism, psychedelia, psychology and the subjectivity of reality; he proposes the dissolution of form into true abstracts.)

I like to think of God in many ways, of course as the ultimate entity, divine, the creator of all, and also as an expression of our true selves.

I grew up Christian, I'm still Christian. I have a very different relationship with God now where I'm constantly asking who He is in me, and not just who. He is like I'm trying to study Him.

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Gemini's synopsis of The Dilemma: This is a story about a man who is confused about his identity. It discusses his house and its origins. The man tells others the story of the house, but he cannot remember it. He eventually realizes that he is the house.

In your story The Dilemma of the He and His House, House?, that we'll call The Dilemma for brevity purpose, you write at one point: “I will stop trying to encompass it in words. It is the truth”. What do you mean by that?

I like to think that there are certain symbols or aspects of my work that can't be expressed through familiar language, because there are no words to use to describe them, they're otherworldly, true, void of the taints of this reality.

What does “void of the taints of this reality” mean?

A psychedelic trip, an orgasm, a feeling of being possessed by the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of ways you could try explaining how they feel, but the language we know doesn't have all the words to express these feelings, these experiences. They're religious.

In The Dilemma, the hero is being told: “You are closed to the knowing, you should open yourself”. Is this a reference to the word Ephphatha in Mark's Gospel? Can you explain what this means to you?

(Note from SFSS: Ephphatha, which means open yourself, was said by Jesus to a deaf-mute man in the book of Mark)

Huh, I had no idea what that meant, I just googled it, funny how these things work. When the main character, The He, is told that phrase, it's because he's still in doubt that he's the God figure in the story, and for him to realize that, he has to kill the doubt and start thinking in maybes and what ifs.

It's solipsism logic, open yourself to the knowing that all exists because of you and it becomes so, close yourself to it and you remain oblivious all your life.

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Adedapo's synopsis of Mosquito Farm: Mosquito Farm is a story set in futurist Nigeria about Jomi, an enforcer who after making a grave decision, descends into insanity and faces the conflict of the fact that he's been living a lie.

Mosquito Farm reminds me of Philip K. Dick stories. He's an influence of yours, right?

Yes, PKD is my favorite writer, I love how he revolutionalized paranoid fiction and the idea of subjective reality in science fiction, so Mosquito Farm is in a sense a product of that, but with Nigerian sensibilities.

Funny how you mention “air addicts” in Mosquito Farm. I always thought that my addiction to oxygen was healthy

I'd say it's healthy right now, but when we consider pollution and the amount of toxins we're exposed to every day, it isn't far off to say that the air we're breathing casually now can in decades become toxic and hallucinogenic.

I think it's my duty as a sci-fi writer to consider worst case scenarios in the future over best cases.

At the beginning of the story, two characters have a simultaneous thought. This happened to two friends of mine (one of them was my best friend and died last year)

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that.

The idea of simultaneously having a thought with another person came from my belief that us humans are evolving towards telepathy, it's happened multiple times to me with people very close to me.

Of course, the root of the thought they're sharing is revealed at the end of the story as a shared obsession amongst people in Eko Futura.

Your description of people addicted to air and hallucinating reminded me of people I know who suffered from mental illness as a result of Covid lockdowns

The story definitely grew from my perception of a post pandemic world and how it affected consciousness.

With us being in lockdown for almost a year, it affected our mental health, and that was us not interacting with infected air, I flipped that and made the insanity air borne.

At one point of the story, one of the characters say: “Thank God for Western medicine”. I don't know how Western medicine is perceived in Nigeria, but in the west there is for sure a growing mistrust for it, especially since the Covid vaccines

There's a growing mistrust for it here as well, but the idea of the story was that the people in Eko Futura have a complex against the infected people living outside the utopia, and when they say “thank God for Western medicine,” they're thanking God for its accessibility to them.

At another point of the story, someone has to decide whether he should kill a child or not. I know an Irak veteran (not the vet I interviewed here, someone else) who had to do it, he got PTSD

Oh yeah, the blueprint of the story is this fast-paced PTSD, where what he's done starts to haunt him as soon as he does it, just because he's never been confronted with something as grotesque as killing a child before.

In your story, a character makes a prayer. Here is how I pray: I talk to God spontaneously, and it helps me clarifying what I'm living/doing

That's kind of what he does too, he asks God for clarity.

At the end of the story, the hero has to make a tough choice. I think he'll make the right one

I guess we'll never know.

I have trouble understanding abstracts, that's why I didn't really understand The Dilemma. I understood Mosquito Farm, though, because it's much more concrete

Mosquito Farm is definitely more accessible, but The Dilemma was the first story I wrote after the manifesto and it perfectly encapsulates abstractism ; Mosquito Farm leans more towards Africanfuturism and paranoid fiction with abstract sensibilities.

On your X account, your pinned tweet says death to poetry. However, I think that this story is full packed of poetry

I grew up around calculative, systematic poetry, my work is a rejection of that.

What are you currently working on?

Well, I finished my first novel a couple months ago. I'm currently doing research for my next one and learning how to make short films and experimenting with visual language.

Where can we buy your novel?

It's not out yet, sadly.

A lot of my readers are atheists. What would you say to them?

I don't think anybody's really an atheist, I think we all have a strong connection to some entity, albeit ambiguous, but yeah I think I'd ask them what they think is out there, or who.

If you had one Nigerian tune to share, what would it be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsWYR4e0ubo

You're very gifted, please keep practicing, one day you'll be famous, maybe

Thank you for this. I really believe it too. I want to reinvent literature and cinema as a Nigerian, always been my future.

Thank you for this interview, Adedapo

Thank you as well, Guy.

#adeniyi #shortinterviews

All the differences being the same is quite a conundrum in determining the efficacy of modernity.

In the grand scheme of life, I believe I am quite young. I have spent a terrible amount of my youth hunched over, frying my brain with dogshit iterations of the same content—this content is what one may call 'slop.'

People use the word slop as a means of shame; slop via social media is something so egregious that it is deplorable to even appraise its components in any capacity outside the cleavage of the internet from which it came. This criticism, however, is another weak talking point. All that we consume is slop.

We used to have individual personal phones, calculators, cameras, notebooks, etc. When IBM created smartphones and Apple popularized them, the euphoria of simplicity changed humanity's brain chemistry forever. Nearly two decades after the release of the first iPhone, we have, for some reason, come to accept the same mush gilded with 'innovation' every year. We refuse to accept that even the euphoria of innovation has its limits.

We have become Kierkegaard's worst nightmare. We have become too accustomed to simplicity that we no longer even hold the ability to lift our frail necks up and shout for it; we just lie down in expectation.

Everything is turning into slop. Our technology, our modern arts, our humor, our food. Once a week, I wake up to scroll on social media, eat a bowl of mush that was promoted as 'Protein Packed,' look away as I'm struck by an onslaught of outright bigoted farce, all while wearing clothing that will become unwearable in less than a year, just to sit on the earth forever, impossible to disintegrate.

I fear that we will continue to live like this, willingly and happily consuming slop. For now, or forever, we have been damned to swallow the regurgitations of our own incapability all in the name of ease.

I ache because I care. Do you?

Sejnas