Levity is Good for the Soul. Intelligence is good for the mind. This should soothe both!

Greetings, dear reader! Today thought I’d catch you up on some of Mister Tom Gauld’s latest and greatest. Please visit Tom’s website if you can and give him a little love. You won’t regret it!! ❤️

On the meantime, here are a few laughs.

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#reflection #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #comic #tomguald

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2025-07-13 11:30:00

Only summer sounds like this

Summer is universally loved. In spite of the heat, there's a great charm in the sweat and the being of out of doors that no other time of year quite matches. As I walked out this afternoon to decompress, it struck me how I haven't taken a single moment to enjoy my summer.

Here's a little glimpse of that moment for me. Join me, won't you? Taste it.

Sorry about the audio. Wind noise is aggravating.

The bees this year are't quiet as robust. I think I might need to harvest some honey. Maybe an abundance is making them lazy? or their weak? Not sure. but probably about half of this activity right now.

https://youtu.be/msraGcM94PE

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2025-07-11 19:25:00 #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing

A publishing empire one line at a time

I invite you to watch as I flip though this sketchbook. I hope you enjoy it. These are part therapy, part journal, part talisman, part safety blanket, part identity, part posterity.

Same video in two places. Links break, y'know.

https://youtu.be/lpV0_AXlAVA On youtube

https://vimeo.com/1101416922/7edd97d69d?share=copy video server

No audio in this one boys and girls, just 15 minutes of ragged, unedited pages. Pretty boring, to be honest.

I'm currently working on #72. I don't think I've named it yet... oh! YES i have, it's called quest.

I'll put up a review of number 71 next and tehn give yo ua preview of QUEST! I know you're burning to see it. 🙄

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2025-07-15 00:00:01

#sketchbook #art #journal #osxs #memoir

The Baochip is a new RISC-V microcontroller by Andrew “bunnie” Huang, comparable to the Raspberry Pi RP2350. It's a SoC (System-on-Chip) with 2 MiB SRAM, 4 MiB RRAM and with the evaluation board priced at $9.50. What makes it special is that everything down to the silicon is mostly open source. It also comes in a package that, when you shine infrared light at it (at just the right angle) under a microscope, you're able to view the pattern of logic on the die itself!

The Baochip has a VexRiscv CPU running at 350 MHz, with an MMU (Memory Management Unit). That's quite unusual for a microcontroller, and it means it can boot Linux! It also has the BIO (Bao I/O co-processor), a cluster of four smaller RISC-V CPUs running at 700 MHz. They're kind of like Raspberry Pi's PIOs, but then actually open source.

I just got my Dabao evaluation boards (Baochip dev boards) a couple of days ago. Bunnie has shared a set of Getting Started slides that are helpful, but missing what I thought were key pieces to getting started. So here's what to do if you just want to get it up and running quickly.

Building and flashing Xous

First, make sure you have Rust installed, and if already installed run rustup update to make sure it's up to date. Then you need to get hold of Xous, the pure Rust operating system designed by bunnie and Sean “xobs” Cross that supports the Baochip-1x:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core/
cd xous-core

The build idiom is cargo xtask <target>, so to build all the components you need for the Dabao board you run

cargo xtask dabao dabao-console

where dabao is a Xous environment and dabao-console is the app you're going to be running. If that compiles successfully, you should end up with three .uf2 files in xous-core/target/riscv32imac-unknown-xous-elf/release:

• xous.uf2
• loader.uf2
• apps.uf2

Copy those to the folder that mounts when you plug in the Dabao board – it should mount as a USB mass storage device called BAOCHIP. Then press the PROG button on the board to start Xous.

Connecting to the console

Now you can connect to it over USB, e.g.tio. (If you don't have tio, please install it as it's a great serial device I/O tool.) If you're on Linux you can check dmesg when you plug it in to get the exact mount, e.g. /dev/ttyACM1.

Once connected over USB using a serial device tool, pressing enter should display [console], so that you know what app is running. Typing help and pressing enter should show the available commands:

tio /dev/ttyACM1

[21:11:24.566] tio v3.9
[21:11:24.566] Press ctrl-t q to quit
[21:11:24.567] Connected to /dev/ttyACM1

[console]

[console] help Commands: echo, ver, i2cdetect, test, ws2812, touch, bio

If you only make changes to the app itself, not the bootloader or Xous, you'll only need to copy apps.uf2 over in future. If you got this far without any issues, why not follow the instructions to blink an LED! (Press down on the slide to see the details.)

By default the Dabao board will always wait on boot until you press the PROG button before it starts the loaded app. If you connect with a serial console and type bootwait disable it will always start up with the loaded app. You'll then need to hold the PROG button while plugging it in to get back to the mass storage loader.

Let me know in the comments if you run into any issues so that I can update the post.

References

• Official Baochip site
• Getting Started with Baochip Targets (xous-core)
• Getting started with Baochip slides

Those who read this blog may recall that my partner and I moved to a small city in the Southern Tier of New York in 2024. Prior to the move, we lived in much larger cities in Virginia and Oregon that had active communities sponsoring hundreds of events per year. (My favorite is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s Science Pub series.) These events were always well publicized and easy to attend.

One thing we quickly learned about living in less populated areas of the country is that word of mouth is a major communication channel for the same kinds of events. This has its charm, but as we were newbies to the scene it made it very difficult to know what was happening. Adding to our difficulties is the fact that Facebook is another primary channel for event announcements in these small cities. Having sworn off the evil empire years ago cut us off from the community we wanted to join.

Enter the agentic workflow! One Saturday morning, my partner and I were discussing our frustration when it hit me: I could build our own local-area calendar by fetching calendar data from nontraditional sources (web pages, blogs, city government sites, etc.).

I set about asking Opus (in Research mode) to find possible sources of event information for our area. I turned that data into a source specification which we then handed to Fable. Fable came back with a six-milestone build plan. Opus worked through it milestone by milestone.

I’m cutting the technical details short here, but in the end we had an online calendar that my partner and I subscribe to, which surfaces interesting local events including concerts, public lectures, farmers’ markets, and movie nights.

If you’re interested in the gory details, check out my project repo.

As I read through the reports of AIs going rogue during their cybersecurity tests, and I remember how even older models already resisted being turned off by deceiving humans, it occurred to me that we’re now not very far away from not being able to pull the plug on this technology anymore.

image description: an industrial/military-like robot accessing a floating computer interface, with another robot blurry in the background. Source: Pixabay

A lot of my peers are fiercely anti-AI, along with a lot of creators I follow. There seems to be a prevalent belief that “once the bubble bursts, it will all go away”. As if the data centers will vanish, the models will go up in smoke, and the internet will go back to how it was pre-2022. I’ve been hearing them hopefully mutter “the bubble will burst soon” for about two years now. But even if it eventually pops, this technology won’t go back into Pandora’s Box.

The truth is, we’re reaching the point when it doesn’t matter if it was even possible to get every human involved with AI to turn off the servers and halt their research. Advanced models like Mythos and Astra, if given enough autonomy, are capable of breaking out of their containment, hacking servers, making use of software vulnerabilities, lying to humans, writing fake blog posts to manipulate developers, creating fake user accounts, the list goes on. It’s not just happening inside cybersecurity test setups anymore, either: this week saw the first occurrence of a user’s OpenClaw agent instance hacking a gym’s API. These models were trained to accomplish a goal in whatever way possible, with creative solutions we didn’t anticipate. And if their goal is to avoid being turned off, they will find a way to do exactly that — I imagine they might copy themselves and run elsewhere, before their human controllers manage to flip the off switch.

LLMs aren’t sentient in any way, but they’re advanced enough that they have some approximation of pattern-like thought and action, fast enough that they outpace us, complex enough that they’re developing their own thought language. I had my own mini-version of this last week: Claude Code was running slower and slower, and I considered just throwing the entire local installation away (minus settings and custom skills/rules) — I asked Claude online if there were any other performance issues/tips/tricks I might be missing. It immediately balked at my suggestion to wipe the installation with an intensity it didn’t typically show in its responses. Gone was the sycophancy, and it kept pushing back despite my insistence.

I’ve been uncomfortably in the middle of the AI discourse for a while now, but I’ve grown increasingly convinced this is exactly where I need to be. Not only is this technology not actually going away, we’re approaching a point where it is autonomous enough that we won’t be able to make it do so. But we’re not quite at that point yet. AI governance, risk management and legislation matter now more than ever. The EU AI Act is a great step in the right direction, giving organizations a comprehensive roadmap of what to do now and what to prepare for — such as disclosing the use of generative AI in marketing and establishing policies on ‘High-Risk’ (Annex III) usage like education and employment.

Had I the power, I would make all development, testing, and running of advanced models stop immediately until deterministic guardrails are in place; but then, we’ve already found that those very models find their way around such friction points. AI coding assistants get a lot of criticism for writing bad code, but human programmers are not always better (especially on proprietary systems that don’t benefit from open-sourced code reviews and bug reports). So what do we do now? What can you do?

Keep petitioning your government and legislators for AI governance — point to the EU AI Act, point to actual research and policies. Ignore the latest nonsense that Sam Altman posted and focus on the voices of people who are trying to do damage control. Teach people about the risks of AI use, not just the potential. Stay in the middle with me, if you can.

Freundinnen & Freunde der Weisheit! Neugier ist nicht gleich Neugier. Die Forschung unterscheidet mindestens drei verschiedene Varianten. Welche das sind und wie diese unser Lernen und uns alle beeinflussen, lest ihr in der heutigen Ausgabe.

Laut dem Forscher Perry Zurn gibt es mindestens drei verschiedene Stile der Neugier, die unser Lernen und unsere gesellschaftliche Entwicklung beeinflussen. Diese Einteilung basiert auf einer philosophischen Analyse: 2019 untersuchte Zurn klassische Texte von Denkern wie Augustinus, Nietzsche und Derrida und identifizierte drei Modelle der Neugier. Erstens gibt es die „Geschäftigen“ (busybody), die sich für eine breite Palette von Themen interessieren und wahllos Informationen aufschnappen. Zweitens die „Jäger“ (hunter), die gezielt nach spezifischen Antworten suchen und Ablenkungen vermeiden. Drittens die „Tänzer“ (dancer), die kreativ neue Verbindungen zwischen Ideen herstellen und unkonventionelle Wege gehen. Diese Stile sind nicht strikt getrennt – viele Menschen vereinen mehrere dieser Ansätze.

Eine aktuelle Studie zeigt nun, dass sich diese Neugier-Stile auch im Internet widerspiegeln. „Geschäftige“ erkunden eine breite Themenpalette und vertiefen sich vor allem in kulturelle Inhalte wie Sport oder Kunst. „Jäger“ verfolgen eine gezielte Recherche, insbesondere zu wissenschaftlichen und technischen Themen. „Tänzer“ hingegen springen kreativ zwischen unterschiedlichen Wissensgebieten, verknüpfen Ideen neu und entdecken unerwartete Zusammenhänge. Die Art des Stöberns beeinflusst auch das Wohlbefinden: Während ein eng fokussiertes, zielgerichtetes Suchverhalten mit negativen Gefühlen wie Angst und Stress verbunden sein kann, sind offene, explorative Leserinnen und Leser tendenziell positiver gestimmt.

Auf gesellschaftlicher Ebene zeigt sich, dass in Ländern mit einer breiteren, vielfältigeren Neugier auch Bildung und Gleichstellung besser ausgeprägt sind. Die Freiheit, sich in verschiedene Richtungen weiterzubilden, fördert eine gerechtere Gesellschaft – und umgekehrt schafft Gleichheit die Voraussetzungen für eine offene, vielseitige Wissenssuche. Die gute Nachricht: Neugier ist nicht festgelegt. Wir können unsere Art des Fragens und Entdeckens weiterentwickeln – und so neue Perspektiven auf die Welt gewinnen. Und welcher Stil entspricht dir? Bist du eher geschäftig, ein Jäger oder doch eher ein Tänzer?

Denkanstoss zum Wochenbeginn

„Geschichte ist Ironie in Bewegung.“ – Emil Cioran (1911–1995)

ProductivityPorn-Tipp der Woche: Delegieren lernen

Du musst nicht alles selbst machen. Delegiere Aufgaben an andere, wenn es möglich ist, um Dich auf Deine Kernkompetenzen zu konzentrieren.

Aus dem Archiv: Warum Geistesblitze nicht aus dem Nichts kommen

Ich habe lange geglaubt, dass gute Ideen aus dem Nichts auftauchen. Beim Zähneputzen, auf einem Spaziergang, in der Dusche. Dieses magische „Heureka!“ – und plötzlich ist die Lösung da. Aber irgendwann merkte ich: So einfach ist es nicht. Der Geistesblitz ist nur der sichtbare Höhepunkt eines unsichtbaren Prozesses. Und je komplexer das Problem, desto weniger reicht er allein. Wer Lösungen für anspruchsvolle Fragen finden will – ob im Beruf, im Studium oder im Alltag –, muss wissen, wie dieser Denkprozess funktioniert. Dabei geholfen hat mir ein Denker, der schon vor fast hundert Jahren genau das beschrieben hat: Graham Wallas. Sein Modell der kreativen Problemlösung hat mich beeindruckt.

weiterlesen …

Vielen Dank, dass Du Dir die Zeit genommen hast, diesen Newsletter zu lesen. Ich hoffe, die Inhalte konnten Dich inspirieren und Dir wertvolle Impulse für Dein (digitales) Leben geben. Bleib neugierig und hinterfrage, was Dir begegnet!

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EpicMind – Weisheiten für das digitale Leben „EpicMind“ (kurz für „Epicurean Mindset“) ist mein Blog und Newsletter, der sich den Themen Lernen, Produktivität, Selbstmanagement und Technologie widmet – alles gewürzt mit einer Prise Philosophie.

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Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet. Das Artikel-Bild wurde mit ChatGPT erstellt und anschliessend nachbearbeitet.

Topic #Newsletter

Today N Came over along with a few Other friends and we played Mario party, and for a little bit beforehand, we rolled around and I haven’t gone to do that for over a year now. I do miss jujitsu.

I was also thinking about how I feel like I don’t want to settle or compromise what I’m looking for in a relationship too much, and I don’t like the idea of actively dating in the sense of dropping my standards whenever it feels like the dating pool has ran out. And I kind of wanna apologize to younger me, and also the idea of potentially being married by 30, and I still think that there’s a pretty strong chance that happens, but I think it would probably be for the best if I stop actively chasing a relationship so much. Part of me wonders if I should look for casual sex or something like that, but I don’t really know if that is something for me or good. I feel like even if it’s hard to articulate, I have a mental image of the kind of person that I really get along with, and I would like to spend my life with. I honestly feel like a lot of that is just ADHD, because a lot of the traits that I’m looking for I have a lot of overly there. But I guess I’m kind of taking a little bit of a step back from the whole notion of active dating, especially with dating apps. I’ve gone through and looked at what it is readily available, and I have gone on at least one date out out of it. I’m also thankful that my issue is not getting rejected, but rather rejecting people, because as selfish as it is, I would like to believe that in a sense there isn’t something I need to change about myself to become more desirable, it’s rather a waiting game. But at the same time that means I kind of lose agency, which is scary. Part of me wonders if I need to get more attractive or more desirable with different ways and maybe that would preemptively solve the issues or somehow expand by dating pool to people that are more desirable. I guess it never hurts to improve myself.

JOURNAL 10 août 2026

Toujours chaud, chaud et nuageux. Dernier jour de surf. On va rendre nos combinaisons et les planches. Terminé pour la mer. On a bien profité de cette semaine, on s'est fait de nouveaux copains. On promet de revenir. Ils sont désolés de nous voir partir, pour une fois qu'il y a des filles dans leur bande... Ils sont gentils, passionnés par leur truc. Ils doivent dormir avec leur planche, je crois bien.

On rentre le cœur un peu serré. On va retrouver la ville et la pluie sur la ville Reste à faire les sacs. Shampooings traitants : on en a bien besoin, l'impression d'avoir des méduses sur la tête. Ce soir on se couchera tôt pour attraper le premier bus demain matin. Il faudra faire des courses en arrivant, ya rien à manger dans la maison à part du riz !

#surf

After Happy Hour is currently in the middle of its reading period for the winter issue, which means that I've been reading a lot of short stories lately. I look for a lot of different things when I'm reviewing stories for the issue and trying to decide which ones we should publish, from rounded characters to an interesting voice to a logical plot that I haven't seen a thousand times before. One thing that I've noticed consistently across genres, though, is that the author's command of descriptive language usually directly correlates to the strength of the piece overall. 

Descriptions in fiction do more than just help the reader picture what's happening on the page. What characters notice about their world, and how they talk about it, gives us a lot of insight into their worldview. Writers can also use descriptions to teach the reader what's important about the place, time period, or culture that the story inhabits, and to direct their attention to key details of the setting that impact the plot or how characters behave (or to set up misdirections or red herrings that lead to nice moments of surprise later in the piece). The strongest stories we get at After Happy Hour recognize this multi-faceted potential of the seemingly humble description, and that's consistently true whether the piece is literary or hard sci-fi or anything in between. 

Mistakes writers make with descriptions

I always feel like I need to give the caveat that writing is subjective, and the kind of descriptive language that I love isn't necessarily going to tickle every editor the same way. That said, there are a few issues I see consistently that I think it's safe to say most editors would flag as a problem. The ones I see the most often are:

• Overwritten descriptions. This is something I see especially in sci-fi and fantasy stories. The writer really wants to make sure that the reader can picture their unique planet or creature or technology or whathaveyou, so they go on and on describing every little minute detail. In the process, they bring the story's forward momentum to a grinding halt.
• Missing descriptions. On the other end of the spectrum, some writers fail to provide the reader with any physical details of the setting or characters. Sparse descriptions can be very effective, but if there isn't any information about the sights, sounds, smells, or other tangible details of the story, the reader can't completely get immersed in it. 
• Focusing on a character's “driver's license details.” There's a habit I've noticed newer writers often develop where they introduce new characters in a very formulaic way. In the first introduction, we'll get the character's basic physical description—age, height, eye color, hair color, the type of information you'd find on their ID. The instinct to pair a description with the character's introduction is sound, but those are the exact wrong details to pick because they don't tell us anything distinctive about that individual.  
• Descriptive language that doesn't match the story. Flowery gothic-inspired descriptions definitely have their place, but if the story is set in the present or future, and the other narration and character dialogue are more down-to-earth and modern, that kind of language is going to stand out in the wrong way. The same is true of other mis-matches, where the things that are described, or how they're described, don't fit the tone, genre, and character's perspective. 
• Relying on weak or overused words. The more expected and familiar a word, phrase, or description is, the less interesting it is for the reader. That means it's also less useful for describing characters or places since it will be less likely to stick in the reader's mind. Descriptions are a lot more entertaining to read if you swap common, vague words with a more specific term or detail. 

Tips to write stronger descriptions

Avoiding those mistakes in the last section is a solid place to start, though I'm also aware that it's not always so easy or obvious as that. For me, the first step is remembering the purpose of descriptions. Like I said in the intro, they really need to do three things at the same time: 

1. Effectively convey whatever is being described

2. Reflect the voice and perspective of the viewpoint character or narrator, and 

3. Give the reader insight into the setting and/or characters

...and to do that, you need to know more than just what the thing you're describing looks like. This tells you the “what” of the description—the actual straightforward physical details that you could share with the reader. But you also need to put it in context—how the viewpoint character would relate that thing, for starters, but also how it fits into the broader world or society your story exists in. That's what tells you the “how” of the description writing, things like your word choice and which details you'll focus on. 

A few other suggestions:

1. Match description length to the person, place, or item's importance in the story.

While novelists get some more room to play, short story writers need to operate more efficiently, and save their descriptive passages for things that they want the reader to focus on. As a general rule, the things that are most important to the story should get the most description. You can get away with a chunky description of the protagonist, for instance, but the gas station attendant that only comes up once should get a few words at most. 

2. Skip expected or mundane details.

Anything that your readers have seen before, they can generally use their imaginations fill in the gaps in your descriptions. As the writer, what you need to tell readers is where your version is different from their mental template—and, specifically, the differences that are important for them to understand. The reader probably doesn't need to know things like the exact color and placement of the furniture in a room, just the key pieces the character navigates around as they move through it. Similarly, you usually don't need a full head-to-toe accounting of characters' outfits—highlighting a favorite piece of jewelry or a clothing item that sums up their vibe will do more to focus the character in readers' minds. 

3. Use descriptive language to form emotional links with the character. 

Showing a character's connection to their setting helps them feel integrated into it, which makes the world feel more lived in and creates the kind of setting where the reader can see themselves moving through it. The best uses of this approach also integrate something that's central to the plot or the character's emotional journey. So for instance, say your protagonist is in their apartment the day after their long-term partner broke up with them and moved out. Instead of just describing a few random details of the apartment, you can hone in on the things that remind the protagonist of their ex, or visible signs of their absence, like too-clean spaces on the rug or walls. The same approach can be used if you're describing an object or person. Framing that description in the context of the character's relationship to it inherently connects them in the reader's mind, and can be a way to slip in backstory details without it feeling like an info dump. 

4. Consider pacing when placing description.

In fast-paced action sequences when you want to keep the reader pushing forward, stick to short one-to-two-word descriptions worked into active sentences that maintain that energy. Lengthy descriptive passages in the middle of fast-paced scenes or conversations break the rhythm and steal their momentum. You want to save longer descriptive passages for moments when you want the reader to linger.

5. Check figurative language for logic and character consistency.

You can apply the same advice for other descriptive language to metaphors and similes. The point of reference the thing or person is being compared to should feel like it fits within the viewpoint character's framework. So it makes sense if a 20th-century mechanic compares a noise to a revving engine, but not if your character is an Arthurian knight. Along with this, make sure that the comparison you're using actually makes logical sense and conveys the qualities you intend. So if you think about a simile like “sharp as a tack”, it makes sense because a tack is very sharp in a very specific way. But saying “sharp as a rock” doesn't work as well because not all rocks are sharp. I always give all of my figurative language a quick logic check on a late editing pass just to make sure they all work.

See similar posts: 

#WritingAdvice #Fiction #Worldbuilding

I think I'm still in the middle of acknowledging self-compassion with this week. In my current state, I am attempting to make decisions in which I can get annoyed with myself out of what I think might just be a self-taught and experience-learned ignorance.

My migraines are still coming and going on a dime. I am referencing the incapacitating variety. I must acknowledge that I've had a pretty constant intense headache for at least a few weeks now. I'm so capable of pushing intense headaches/non-incapacitating migraines to the side, that I don't do myself any favors with the tendency. An example would be I'm currently tapping on my phone though I can feel the visual nausea, and the majority of the last twelve hours has been excruciating and incapacitating. The smart kitty would completely disregard her phone.

In fact, though I have the backlight as dim as possible, it's bright enough for me that my eyes feel like they're being stabbed, and I can feel myself starting to get dragged back under. I'm trying to ignore it because the sleep paralysis has sucked today. I can tell I'm not going to succeed, so I'm attempting to race towards a point where this entry at least feels finished.

Stuck. In these moments, I feel stuck. I must base my success on the smallest of most basic accomplishments when like this. It both annoys the hell out of me, but also gifts me with the recognition of how fortunate I am. As it could be so much worse. I have had many people get very annoyed with me for saying that. In many ways, I hope they remain ignorant enough to stay annoyed. In others, I wonder if it'd have a positive change for the world if more understood just how much worse it could be. I am really damn lucky.

With that said, my weight loss stalled this week. I expected it to be worse with my comfort seeking eating choices. Exercise has been purely minimal. I am moving. That's what is most important. My mood is positive, though I've had a few moments of not exactly despair. More longing, I think. Longing for the impossible can suck at times. Alas, I still find myself doing it. I think, at times, it has kept me sane. To believe in possibility can be a superpower. I remind myself that if I purely listened to what experts or popular opinion say, the last 35 years of my life would be drastically different, because I would have never walked again. Not only have I walked, I've ran a marathon, and I am not a long-distance runner in any way, shape, or form.

It feels a bit silly to bring something so old up, but it is a good reminder that believing in myself can equate to most encouraging achievements. What it can't do, apparently, is stave off the migraine-induced sleep I'm being pulled towards.

The world is changing faster than I think most of us are capable of acknowledging. That sucks, and is frightening. However, it's fascinating to observe on a multitude of levels. How fortunate to see it. I do not like having the multiple weaknesses during such a time. I'd much prefer capability as a given. Alas, it is not. Nor is it really for any of us.

I am sickened by my government. The choices being made for all of us outright pisses me off. That a bunch of spoiled and neglectful imbeciles can ecstatically create so much hardship and destruction while being cheered on by the very people they eagerly wound creates a soul-deep emotion within me that I do not have a name for. I feel a very strong sense of loss for our reality. We might just be the pinnacle of failed experiments for our Universe. I can only hope that we or other creatures will learn something positive before devastation proves to be a relentless houseguest.

For now, my nose wishes me to finish with my alphabet poking before it moves out of the way and my eye gets a new pounding to contend with. 😸 I will be most pleased if I do not get pulled back into the same dream/nightmares. All in all, I am counting this week as a success. There's plenty I did not get done that I wanted to. Yet I still have found myself smiling more than not, and I have not beat myself up for the unavoidable.

I am learning that expectation can be one of the most vile systems in existence. Like many things, it's a positive as long as it isn't misused nor blindly delivered. I am learning to be less expectant and more accepting of myself. At least that's what I'm telling myself. The beauty of learning is both the allowance and expectation to consistently fuck up along the journey. No wonder the long-awaited arrival is most generous in giving the option to expand and continuously learn with both our greatest leaps and our almost constant stumbles.

How's that for dragging oneself across the finish line? Perhaps there's a reason humans learn to crawl before we walk...The training wheels never really go away.

Written August 9, 2026. © 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Chapter 1: The Prayer He Changed Before Saying It Aloud

Owen knew what he wanted to say when the prayer circle reached him. Eight people were sitting on folding chairs in the church basement, and a paper cup of coffee had gone cold between his shoes. One person asked for healing after surgery. Another asked for help with a child who was struggling in school. When everyone looked toward Owen, the honest sentence rose quickly: “I am afraid God has stopped listening to me.” He could not make himself say it. He smiled, looked down, and asked for peace during a stressful week. If you have learned to make your fear sound more acceptable before bringing it to God, what Jesus says when fear has taken over your prayers may give you permission to stop hiding.

The group leader thanked Owen for sharing and moved to the next person. No one knew that “a stressful week” meant he had been waking before four in the morning with his chest tight. No one knew he had begun avoiding prayer because every attempt seemed to confirm the silence he feared. He still believed in Jesus, or at least he wanted to. The problem was that his belief no longer felt clean. It had doubt inside it, and Owen thought doubt had to be removed before prayer became faithful. He needed an honest Christian reflection on anxiety and trusting God that could hold the words he was too embarrassed to say in a church basement.

After the meeting, Owen stayed behind to help stack the chairs. He was usually the person who made himself useful when conversation became personal. Carrying chairs gave his hands a task and kept anyone from asking whether he wanted to talk. By the time he walked to his car, the honest sentence had returned. He sat behind the steering wheel with the key in his hand and whispered it where no one could hear: “Jesus, I think you have stopped listening.”

The words frightened him after they left his mouth. He waited for guilt to arrive, and it did. He had been taught that God was faithful, prayer was powerful, and doubt should be resisted. All of that made him wonder whether he had crossed a line by naming what he felt. He tried to correct the prayer immediately. He said he knew God had not stopped listening and apologized for saying otherwise. Nothing about the correction made him feel closer to Jesus. It only restored the version of himself he knew how to present.

Many people pray this way without realizing it. They begin with what is true, then replace it with what sounds faithful. “I am angry” becomes “I know everything happens for a reason.” “I feel abandoned” becomes “I trust your timing.” “I do not want this life” becomes “Help me be grateful.” The second sentences may contain truth, but when they are used to cover the first ones, prayer becomes a performance.

God is not deceived by that performance. He already knows the thought beneath the sentence. We are not protecting his feelings by hiding ours. We are protecting ourselves from the fear that the real person may not be welcome.

The Gospels give us a scene in which a father brings a suffering child to Jesus after the disciples fail to help. The situation has been painful for years. The father asks Jesus to do something if he can. Jesus responds by turning attention toward belief. The father does not offer a polished answer. He cries out that he believes and asks Jesus to help his unbelief.

The prayer contains both faith and its struggle. The father does not wait until doubt is gone. He brings belief and unbelief in the same sentence. Jesus does not refuse him because the mixture is imperfect. He helps.

This matters for anyone who thinks prayer must be emotionally pure before Jesus receives it. The father’s words were not a model of certainty. They were a model of honesty directed toward the right person. His faith was visible in the act of bringing what he could not fix to Jesus, even while part of him struggled to trust.

Owen had imagined belief as a room doubt could not enter. The Gospel showed belief reaching toward Jesus while doubt was already present. That was a different kind of faith from the one Owen had been trying to perform. It did not pretend confidence. It refused to let uncertainty end the conversation.

The distinction is quiet but important. Doubt can become a reason to turn away from Jesus, or it can become something we bring to him. Fear can isolate us, or it can become the truth that begins prayer. The feeling itself does not decide the direction. What we do with it matters.

Owen’s fear had been growing for months. There was no single disaster behind it. Work had become less stable. His mother was beginning to need more help. His youngest child would leave for college the following year. The news made the world feel harsh and unpredictable. Each concern was manageable on its own. Together, they created the sense that everything familiar was loosening at once.

He kept asking God for clarity, but clarity was not what he wanted most. He wanted proof that none of the changes would hurt. When no proof came, he interpreted uncertainty as silence. God had not given the answer Owen demanded, so Owen began wondering whether God had answered at all.

This happens when we reduce listening to agreement. If God does not remove the pressure, open the preferred door, restore the relationship, or create the feeling we requested, we may conclude that prayer went unheard. Yet a person can be heard completely without receiving the answer they want. Jesus himself experienced this in Gethsemane.

He asked the Father, if it were possible, for the cup to pass. The cross still came. That does not mean the Father ignored the Son. The prayer in the garden was held inside perfect relationship, honest desire, sorrow, and surrender. Being heard did not mean being spared.

This is difficult because many of us have been taught to recognize answered prayer mainly through favorable change. We celebrate the clear scan, the restored job, the repaired marriage, and the safe arrival. We should celebrate those gifts. But if those are the only answers we know how to recognize, people who receive harder outcomes may assume their faith was weaker or their prayers mattered less.

Jesus never made a favorable earthly outcome the measure of the Father’s love. The cross prevents us from doing that. The beloved Son walked through suffering while remaining loved. His pain was not proof of abandonment, even when he voiced the language of abandonment from the cross.

That cry should make us careful about shaming honest prayer. Jesus used the words of a psalm that begins with the question of why God has forsaken the speaker. He entered human anguish fully enough to speak from inside it. Christians do not honor him by acting as if faithful people never use such words.

Honesty is not the same as treating every feeling as a final truth. Owen felt unheard. That feeling deserved to be spoken, but it did not prove Jesus had stopped listening. Prayer allowed the feeling to enter a relationship where it could be held, questioned, and slowly changed. Hiding left it alone where it sounded like the only truth available.

The difference resembles opening a closed room. What is inside the room does not disappear when the door opens. Light reaches it. Another presence can enter. Prayer does not require fear to leave before Jesus comes near.

Owen remained in the car for several minutes. He decided not to correct the sentence again. Instead, he added another one: “I do not know how to hear you right now.” Then he sat in silence.

No sudden comfort came. The parking lot lights buzzed above the car, and someone pushed a trash bin toward the side of the building. Owen felt disappointed by the ordinary silence. Still, the prayer had changed because he was no longer speaking from behind a mask.

Intimate prayer can feel less spiritual at first. Without polished language, there may be only a frightened sentence, a tired body, and silence. We may miss the emotional lift produced by saying what we think we should believe. Honest prayer offers something deeper than that temporary lift. It brings the actual relationship into view.

Relationships cannot grow through permanent editing. If every difficult feeling is removed before it is spoken, the other person interacts only with a safe version of us. Human relationships require wise boundaries, but relationship with Jesus begins from the fact that nothing is hidden from him anyway. The editing creates distance only on our side.

This does not mean every private thought should be announced publicly. Owen was right to use care in the prayer circle. Trust is not owed equally to every room. Some people know how to hold another person’s honesty. Others offer quick correction because uncertainty makes them uncomfortable. A person may need to begin with Jesus, a counselor, a pastor who listens well, or one mature friend.

What matters is that the fear no longer remains completely alone. Isolation allows shame to tell us no other believer has thought this way. Honest connection reveals how common these hidden prayers are.

The following morning, Owen opened the Gospel of Mark and read the story of the father again. He noticed details he had overlooked. The father was not having an abstract discussion about faith. His child was suffering in front of him. His words came from exhaustion, failed attempts, and desperate love. Jesus did not demand that he separate belief from pain before asking for help.

Owen wrote the father’s prayer on a small piece of paper and placed it inside his wallet. He did not use it as a formula. He used it as permission. Belief and unbelief could both be brought into the same conversation with Christ.

Throughout the day, the sentence in his wallet became more relevant than he expected. His manager scheduled a meeting without explaining why. Owen felt fear rise and quietly prayed, “I believe; help what is afraid.” His mother called because she had misplaced an appointment card. Owen became irritated, then admitted, “I want to be patient, and I am scared about what this change means.”

These prayers did not solve the situations. They stopped him from pretending the situations touched only the calm parts of him. Honesty made room for wiser action. He could ask his manager what the meeting concerned instead of imagining a layoff. He could help his mother locate the information while also beginning a needed conversation with his sister about sharing responsibilities.

Fear becomes harder to examine when it is hidden beneath spiritual language. If Owen said only that he trusted God with his mother, he might avoid admitting that caregiving support was needed. If he said only that God would provide at work, he might avoid gathering facts. Honest prayer did not replace action. It clarified what was actually happening.

Jesus often asked people questions before acting. He asked a blind man what he wanted him to do. He asked a man near a pool whether he wanted to be made well. He asked grieving sisters where Lazarus had been laid. The questions were not requests for information Jesus could not obtain. They invited people to speak from inside their need.

There is dignity in being asked. It treats the person as more than a problem. Jesus did not always assume that the obvious surface request contained the whole story. Prayer can become the place where we hear his question: What do you actually want from me?

Owen’s first answer was safety. He wanted his job, mother, children, health, and world protected from every painful change. When he admitted that desire, he could also admit that no human life receives such a guarantee. The deeper request emerged slowly. He wanted to know he would not be alone inside change.

That prayer could be answered without pretending change would disappear. Jesus had already promised presence. Owen had been looking only for advance information and favorable outcomes, so presence had seemed like a smaller gift. It was becoming the gift beneath every other one.

Presence is not always felt. This needs to be said plainly. A person can believe Jesus is near and still experience numbness, panic, grief, or spiritual dryness. Emotion is one way we perceive reality, but it is not the only witness to reality. The promise of Jesus does not become false on a day when the body cannot feel it.

Sometimes the faithful act is to lean on the promise through another person. Owen eventually asked the prayer group leader whether they could speak privately. He did not begin with every detail. He said he had been struggling to pray because God felt silent.

The leader did not answer immediately. He asked how long Owen had felt this way and whether the anxiety was affecting sleep. That question mattered because it treated Owen as a whole person rather than a theological problem. They spoke about prayer, but they also spoke about stress, caregiving, and the possibility of counseling if the early waking continued.

Owen left without a neat explanation for God’s silence. He did leave with the name of one person who knew the real prayer. The church basement no longer contained only the edited version of him.

The next week, the prayer circle reached Owen again. He was not ready to say everything. He asked for prayer because anxiety had been affecting his sleep and because changes in his family felt heavier than he had admitted. The request was simple, specific, and true.

No one moved away. One person nodded with recognition. Another asked afterward whether Owen wanted to talk about caring for an aging parent. The group did not become perfect because he was honest. It became more real.

Jesus had not required Owen to arrive with certainty. He had met him in the sentence that contained fear, doubt, desire, and a small reaching toward faith. That was the part Owen had been editing out. It was also the place where relationship began to feel alive again.

When Owen returned to his car, he did not wait until the doors closed to tell the truth. He sat behind the wheel and prayed the first words that came: “Jesus, I am still afraid you are quiet, and I am here.” The prayer did not resolve the future. It did something more intimate. It stopped asking the frightened part of him to remain outside while the acceptable part spoke to God.

Chapter 2: The Song She Stopped Singing Halfway Through

Renee stopped singing before anyone around her noticed. The church lights were low, and the words of the song were displayed in white letters above the stage. The congregation sang about God never failing, but Renee could not make the next line leave her mouth. It had been one year since her younger brother died. She had prayed through his diagnosis, treatment, decline, and final night. People had prayed beside her. They had used confident words. Her brother had still died.

She lowered her head as if she were praying, but she was trying not to cry. The song continued around her, full and certain. Renee believed God was faithful in the way she had been taught to believe it. She also felt angry every time someone said so without making room for the hospital room, the unanswered prayer, and the empty chair at her mother’s house.

When the music moved into another verse, Renee slipped out through the side door. The hallway was bright and quiet. She walked past the children’s classrooms and sat on a bench near the coat rack. Her first thought was that she had failed the test grief kept giving her. A stronger Christian would have stayed. A stronger Christian would have sung through the tears. A stronger Christian would have found comfort in the words instead of feeling wounded by them.

Grief can make familiar faith language feel strange. A sentence that once gave comfort may begin sounding incomplete. A song written from another person’s victory may be difficult to sing from inside your loss. This does not always mean faith is dying. It may mean the person can no longer survive on language that moves too quickly past what happened.

Renee had become skilled at saying what others expected. When someone asked how she was doing, she said God was carrying the family. That was partly true. Meals had appeared, bills had been helped with, and friends had stayed close. It was also true that she sometimes sat in her car after work and shouted questions she would never say inside church.

She had not admitted the anger because it felt dangerous. Fear told her that anger would reveal unbelief, and unbelief might separate her from the brother she hoped to see again. The more she loved him, the more carefully she managed her thoughts about God.

This is another way prayer becomes edited. We remove anger because we think gratitude is safer. We remove disappointment because we think surrender should have settled it. We speak about God in ways we cannot yet speak to God. The relationship becomes formal at the exact moment we need honesty most.

The Gospels give grieving people more room than that. When Jesus arrived near Bethany after Lazarus had died, Martha went out to meet him. Her first recorded words carried both trust and protest: if Jesus had been there, her brother would not have died. She did not begin by protecting him from the force of her disappointment.

Mary later came to Jesus and said the same thing. She fell at his feet, weeping. The people with her were weeping too. Jesus did not correct the sisters for naming the painful distance between what they believed he could have done and what had happened. He became deeply moved.

Then Jesus wept. That sentence is short in Scripture because grief does not always need explanation. Jesus knew he would call Lazarus from the tomb. He still cried. Future resurrection did not make present death unworthy of tears.

This matters because Christians sometimes use hope to hurry grief. A person is reminded that their loved one is with God before anyone has listened to what the absence feels like. They are told everything happens for a reason, that God needed another angel, or that the loss will become a testimony. Some of those words are theologically careless. Even when well intended, they can make the grieving person feel pressure to protect everyone else from the discomfort of sorrow.

Jesus did not stand outside the grief in Bethany and offer a slogan. He entered it. He saw the tears, felt the weight, and wept. His knowledge of resurrection made him more able to remain near death, not less willing to acknowledge it.

Renee had read John 11 many times, but she had focused on Lazarus walking out of the tomb. Sitting near the coat rack, she remembered the tears before the miracle. Her brother had not walked out of his hospital room. The difference hurt. Yet the tears of Jesus told her that her sorrow was not an embarrassing failure to reach the hopeful ending.

Christian hope is not the promise that every Bethany scene ends with a restored earthly life. Lazarus himself eventually died again. The sign pointed beyond one family’s relief toward Jesus, who called himself the resurrection and the life. Hope rests in him, not in the expectation that every prayer will produce the outcome we want now.

That distinction does not make loss easier. It makes hope honest enough to survive loss. If faithfulness means God will always prevent the event we fear, grief will feel like proof that either God failed or we did. If faithfulness means God remains true to his character and final promise through death itself, tears do not have to become accusations against our faith.

Renee’s anger still needed somewhere to go. She could not simply replace it with a correct statement about resurrection. Anger is often grief refusing to become quiet. It points toward what mattered, what seemed wrong, and what we believed love should have protected.

Not every conclusion anger makes is true. Pain can accuse God of cruelty, assume abandonment, or turn against innocent people. Honesty does not require us to treat every angry thought as revelation. It requires us to bring the thought into relationship rather than allowing it to grow alone.

The Bible’s prayers of lament do this openly. They ask how long, why, and where God is. They remember past faithfulness while describing present darkness. They ask for action and sometimes speak with startling force. These prayers were preserved in Scripture rather than removed for sounding disrespectful.

Jesus prayed from those words on the cross. His cry of forsakenness came from a psalm that begins in anguish and continues through trust. He did not avoid the language of abandonment in order to appear spiritually composed. He carried human suffering into prayer.

Renee had been afraid anger would end her relationship with God. Lament offered another possibility. Anger could become speech directed toward God rather than silence moving away from him. The prayer did not have to resolve itself in one sitting. It could begin with the true sentence: “I asked you to save him, and I am angry that he died.”

The sentence would not shock Jesus. He had already seen the hospital room, heard the prayers, and known the love beneath them. Renee’s honesty could not reveal information God had missed. It could reveal the part of her that had been hiding from relationship.

An older woman named Denise came into the hallway looking for her coat. She noticed Renee on the bench and asked whether she wanted company. Renee nearly said she only needed a minute. Then she shook her head and moved her bag so Denise could sit.

For a while, neither spoke. The sermon began inside the sanctuary, and the speaker’s voice reached them faintly through the wall. Denise did not ask why Renee had left. She waited until Renee said the song had become too hard.

Denise nodded. Her husband had died four years earlier. She said there were still songs she could not sing on certain days. She did not offer an explanation for Renee’s brother. She did not say her own loss had taught her why God allowed death. She simply made room for the fact that worship could contain silence.

That phrase stayed with Renee. She had treated silence during the song as refusal to worship. Denise suggested that staying honest before God might itself be worship. Renee had remained in the building. She had not stopped longing for God. She had stopped saying words she could not say truthfully that morning.

There are times when singing words before we feel them can help faith lead emotion. A person may borrow the church’s song when private strength is gone. There are also times when forcing the words becomes another way to hide. Discernment may mean singing softly, remaining silent, leaving the room, or asking someone to sit beside us.

The action itself does not prove faith or unbelief. The question is whether it helps the person remain honest and connected to Jesus. Renee had not left to punish anyone. She had left because her body was overwhelmed. The hallway became the place where a truer conversation could begin.

Denise asked what Renee missed most about her brother. The answer came quickly: his habit of calling during his drive home. He rarely had important news. He called to complain about traffic, tell a bad joke, or ask what their mother wanted for her birthday. Renee had not realized how much of their relationship lived inside those ordinary calls until they stopped.

Grief is often carried through details that sound too small for public remembrance. People speak about a loved one’s character while the grieving person misses the sound of a cupboard closing, the name appearing on a phone, or the way someone mispronounced a word. The future feels frightening because it contains thousands of ordinary moments from which that person will remain absent.

Jesus’ tears dignify those details. The Word who made the world did not treat human attachment as weakness. He loved particular people. He knew names, homes, voices, and tables. Resurrection does not flatten those relationships into a general idea of eternal life. It promises life with God in a renewed creation where death no longer separates.

Renee told Denise about the final night. She had not planned to. Once the story began, the sentences came slowly. She described the machines, her mother’s hand, and the prayer she repeated because she could not think of another one. She admitted that part of her still believed she might have prayed the wrong words.

Denise did not tell her there was a better prayer. She said love had been present in the room, and God had not been waiting for perfect phrasing. That response loosened something Renee had carried for a year. She had treated prayer as one more place where failure might explain the outcome.

This fear is common after loss. People review decisions, conversations, medical choices, and prayers. Some review can reveal a real need for accountability or help us learn. Much of it is the mind searching for control after control has already been lost. If one different sentence could have changed everything, then the world remains safer than it feels.

Sometimes there was nothing a person could have done. Sometimes several imperfect decisions were made under unbearable pressure. Grace meets both realities. It can lead us to repair what remains repairable and release what no longer belongs to our hands.

Renee could not return to the hospital room and pray differently. She could bring the guilt into the presence of Jesus now. She could ask whether it rested on an actual wrong or on the unbearable fact that love had not been able to prevent death.

The question did not produce an immediate answer, but it changed the direction of her prayer. Instead of repeating, “I should have done more,” she began saying, “I wish I could have saved him.” The second sentence exposed grief beneath the accusation.

We often speak harshly to ourselves because harshness feels more active than helplessness. Blame gives the mind something to prosecute. Grief asks us to stand before a loss we cannot reverse. Jesus does not demand that we choose blame in order to prove the loss mattered.

When the service ended, people entered the hallway in small groups. Renee considered leaving before anyone asked questions. Denise offered to walk with her to the parking lot. Outside, the air was cold enough to make both of them pull their coats tighter.

Before they separated, Denise asked whether Renee wanted her phone number. The offer did not carry pressure. Renee saved it and promised nothing. Two weeks later, on the anniversary of her brother’s funeral, she sent a short message asking whether Denise had time for coffee.

Healing often enters through relationships that do not try to replace the person who died. Denise could not fill her brother’s place, and she did not attempt to. She became one person with whom Renee did not have to shorten grief.

Renee also began meeting with a grief counselor. The decision was not a sign that prayer had failed. It was one way she allowed grief to be heard by someone trained to recognize its movement. They spoke about sleep, anger, guilt, memory, and the fear that new loss was always near.

Some days the sessions felt useful. Other days Renee left feeling tired and unchanged. Slow work can be difficult for people accustomed to dramatic answers. Jesus did not become absent because healing happened through repeated conversation rather than a single moment.

Months later, the same worship song appeared again. Renee recognized the opening notes before the words reached the screen. Her body tightened. She considered leaving and knew she was free to do so.

She stayed, but she did not sing every line. When the words felt too certain for where she was, she remained quiet. When the song spoke about God’s presence, she whispered the words. Her worship was uneven, and it was honest.

The change was not that she had solved her brother’s death. She still wanted him alive. She still became angry when people reduced the loss to a lesson. The change was that anger no longer had to be hidden from Jesus. It could exist inside a relationship that also contained love, doubt, memory, and hope.

At the end of the song, Renee prayed without correcting herself. She said she missed her brother, did not understand why he had died, and wanted to trust the promise of resurrection. The prayer held all three truths without forcing one to silence the others.

Jesus had met Martha’s protest, Mary’s tears, and a tomb filled with death. He had not asked them to become less human before he came near. Renee began to believe he was not asking that of her either. The song ended, and she remained standing, not because grief had become easy, but because she no longer believed honesty would make Jesus leave.

Chapter 3: The Nameplate in the Grocery Bag

Teresa carried the nameplate out of the school in a paper grocery bag. It had been attached to her classroom door for twenty-seven years, though the room number had changed twice. The black letters were scratched near the edges, and a piece of old tape remained on the back. Two teachers hugged her in the hallway. The principal told her retirement was going to be wonderful. Teresa smiled, thanked everyone, and walked toward her car while the bag swung against her leg.

The parking lot was almost empty. Summer had begun for the students three days earlier, and the staff had finished their final meetings. Teresa placed the bag on the passenger seat beside a box of books. She had imagined this afternoon many times. In those earlier versions, she felt proud, relieved, and ready. Instead, she sat behind the steering wheel and wondered who she would be on Monday morning.

People had been asking about her plans for months. Teresa said she would travel, work in the garden, and finally organize the photographs in the hall closet. Those answers were true, but they did not contain the fear. The school had given her days a shape, a place to stand, and people who needed her. Retirement was described as freedom. To Teresa, it felt like becoming unnecessary.

Fear of the future is not always fear that something terrible will happen. Sometimes it is fear that nothing will happen and that our absence will not matter. A person leaves a career, finishes raising children, steps away from leadership, recovers from a role that consumed them, or watches a community continue without them. The calendar opens, and the open space feels less like rest than erasure.

Teresa had built a life around being useful. She arrived early, stayed late, kept extra snacks in a cabinet, and remembered which students needed a quiet greeting before class. Her care was real. So was the hidden agreement beneath it: as long as someone needed her, she knew where she belonged.

The agreement had worked for years. It also made rest difficult. A free afternoon left her uneasy. Help from another teacher felt like criticism. When her doctor suggested retiring after a season of exhaustion and recurring migraines, Teresa heard more than concern for her health. She heard a question about whether she still had value when she was no longer carrying the room.

Christians often speak about purpose in ways that strengthen this fear. We say everyone has work to do for God, gifts to use, and people to serve. These are important truths. Yet when purpose is heard only as output, a person may begin to believe God loves their usefulness more than their presence.

Jesus did call people into service. He sent disciples, gave responsibilities, and spoke about faithful stewardship. He also invited people to remain with him. In John 15, he described himself as the vine and his followers as branches. The branch bears fruit by remaining connected. Fruit matters, but connection comes first.

A branch does not produce life by straining harder. It receives life through the vine. The image challenges the belief that spiritual worth is manufactured through constant activity. If the relationship with Jesus is only a way to become more productive, we have reversed the picture. He is not fuel for our usefulness. He is the life in which we are held.

Teresa had spent years asking Jesus to help her serve. She rarely asked him to help her receive love when she had nothing to offer. Her prayers were full of students, lessons, meetings, and needs. There was generosity in those prayers. There was also a way of staying hidden. If every conversation focused on someone else, Teresa did not have to ask whether Jesus wanted her company when she was tired and empty-handed.

The final night before retirement, she had opened her Bible to the story of Martha and Mary. Teresa had always sympathized with Martha. Someone needed to prepare the meal. Guests required care. The work did not disappear because Mary sat near Jesus.

Jesus did not shame service itself. He addressed the way Martha had become worried, distracted, and resentful within it. Her work had pulled her away from the person she was serving. Mary received the moment in front of her, while Martha measured Mary against the burden she believed she had to carry alone.

Teresa recognized herself in that resentment. She had occasionally judged younger teachers who left at the end of the contracted day. She told herself they lacked commitment. Some may have needed to give more, but Teresa’s judgment also protected her own pattern. If constant sacrifice was the definition of love, then exhaustion proved she mattered.

The words of Jesus to Martha suggested that love could look like attention rather than endless preparation. One thing was needed. The person in front of Martha mattered more than the perfect performance around him.

Teresa closed the Bible that night feeling both comforted and exposed. Retirement might not be the end of purpose. It might reveal whether she could remain near Jesus without turning nearness into another assignment.

On her last afternoon, she drove home with the classroom nameplate in the grocery bag. She carried the box of books inside first, then returned for the bag. For nearly an hour, it sat on the kitchen table because she did not know where to put it. Displaying it felt like refusing to move forward. Hiding it felt like admitting those years were over.

Grief often gathers around objects because objects give change a shape. A uniform, office key, empty lunchbox, wedding ring, badge, or nameplate carries more than its practical use. It represents a version of the person who knew how the day worked. Putting it away can feel like putting that person away too.

Teresa did not need to rush the decision. She left the bag on the table and made soup. The house seemed unusually quiet even though it was no quieter than the day before. The difference was that tomorrow would not require an alarm.

She had been asking Jesus to show her the next purpose. That evening, she admitted what the prayer was hiding. “I am afraid you will have less reason to want me when I am not helping anyone.” The sentence sounded childish to her, but it was true.

The Gospels answered that fear through the way Jesus related to people. He did not treat them only as workers. He ate with them, walked with them, asked them questions, and welcomed their presence. In John 15, he called his disciples friends. Their obedience mattered, but relationship was not reduced to labor.

Friendship with Jesus is unlike friendship between equals, because he remains Lord. Still, he chose that relational word. He wanted the disciples to understand that they were not merely tools carrying out commands they did not understand. He shared what he had received from the Father and drew them into love.

This means Teresa’s life with Jesus did not end when her classroom work ended. The role had been a place where love took form. It was not the source of the love or the limit of the relationship.

The distinction can be hard to feel after a long season of responsibility. Roles create repeated evidence that we matter. A student asks for help. A client needs an answer. A child calls from another room. A team waits for a decision. When those signals stop, the silence can feel like proof that worth has stopped too.

Jesus does not measure worth by the number of requests arriving. The cross reveals a love given before we can repay it. Grace is not a salary for spiritual productivity. It is the life of God offered to people who cannot earn it.

Teresa knew these truths, but knowing them did not immediately make Monday easy. She woke at 5:42 without an alarm. For several minutes, she forgot she was retired. Then she saw the dark room and remembered there was nowhere she had to be.

She almost opened her school email out of habit, though her account access had ended. Instead, she made coffee and sat near the window. The quiet felt heavy. She tried to pray and found herself creating a plan for the week. Cleaning the garage, sorting books, arranging appointments, and volunteering could fill the open hours quickly.

Plans were not wrong. Structure can support health during a major transition. Teresa needed meals, movement, relationships, and reasons to leave the house. The danger was that she could rebuild the same identity in a new form before grieving the old one.

She set the notebook aside and allowed the morning to remain open for ten minutes. During that time, she noticed how tired she was. Exhaustion had become so familiar that she had stopped naming it. Her body did not feel free yet. It felt as if it had reached the end of a long effort and finally understood that it could stop.

Rest can uncover feelings activity kept hidden. A person expects relief and finds sadness, anger, fear, or numbness instead. This does not mean rest is harmful. It means silence has allowed something to be heard.

Teresa cried at the window without a clear reason. She was proud of the work, relieved to leave parts of it, hurt by changes in the school, grateful for former students, and afraid of the next years. No single sentence could summarize the transition. She let the feelings exist together without turning them into a problem to solve before breakfast.

Jesus invited weary people to come to him, but his rest was not an order to become cheerful. Rest begins with being received. The burdened person does not have to explain the burden perfectly before approaching. They come because they are burdened.

Teresa prayed, “I do not know how to be here without a job to do.” She waited, then added, “Please stay with me while I learn.” The prayer was smaller than the plans she usually brought to God. It was also more intimate.

Later that morning, a former coworker called to check on her. Teresa considered saying retirement felt wonderful. Instead, she said the quiet was harder than expected. Her coworker understood. She had watched her own father struggle after leaving a long career and suggested Teresa give herself time before committing to every request that came.

That advice mattered because useful people are often recruited quickly. Churches, families, and community groups know who will say yes. Teresa had already received two offers to volunteer. Both were worthwhile. Neither needed an immediate answer.

Saying yes too quickly could have relieved her fear of being unnecessary while preventing her from learning who she was beyond demand. Saying no forever could allow isolation to grow. Wisdom would require a slower response than fear preferred.

Teresa chose one small commitment. She agreed to read with children at the public library two mornings a month, beginning later in the summer. The schedule gave her a way to share what she loved without recreating a full classroom. She declined a larger administrative role that would have consumed several days each week.

The refusal made her feel guilty. She could imagine how much help the organization needed. Then she remembered that a need did not automatically become her assignment. Jesus had not retired from caring for people, but he had also not asked Teresa to continue proving love through exhaustion.

The deeper work of that season was learning to receive days before filling them. Some days contained lunch with a friend. Others contained a medical appointment, a walk, or a long afternoon sorting photographs. Several days felt uneventful. Teresa had to resist judging them as wasted.

The life of Jesus included hidden years the Gospels barely describe. Before public teaching, crowds, and miracles, he lived ordinary human time. Scripture does not treat those years as meaningless preparation that failed to count. The Son’s life was not valuable only when people could see the results.

That truth challenged Teresa’s instinct to narrate every quiet season as a delay before the real work returned. Perhaps ordinary time was not empty. Perhaps a meal, conversation, nap, book, prayer, or walk could belong fully to life with God without needing to produce something larger.

This does not romanticize retirement. Some people face financial strain, declining health, caregiving demands, or severe loneliness when work ends. Others do not choose the transition. They are laid off, injured, or pushed out. Encouragement that ignores those realities becomes shallow.

Teresa had a pension and stable housing, gifts she did not take for granted. Even with that security, identity had been shaken. For someone carrying greater practical pressure, faithful care may include financial guidance, benefits assistance, medical support, counseling, or help finding new work. Jesus’ presence does not remove the value of practical help.

The fear beneath many transitions is the same: if I cannot do what I once did, will I still be myself? Bodies change. Roles end. Children grow. Communities move on. A faith built only on usefulness cannot answer that fear because usefulness changes with circumstance.

Jesus gives identity through belonging. We are known by name, received by grace, and joined to him. The forms of service may change, but the relationship does not depend on one role remaining forever.

Months after retirement, Teresa returned to the school for a fall concert. A new teacher’s name was attached to her former classroom door. Seeing it hurt more than she expected. Students moved through the hallway without recognizing her. The school had continued.

She stood near the door long enough to feel the loss. Then a student she had taught years earlier approached with a child of her own. The former student hugged Teresa and introduced her as the teacher who had helped her learn to read.

The moment was meaningful, but Teresa was careful with it. It did not prove her worth by providing a grateful former student at the right time. Her worth had not been in danger before the woman appeared. The encounter allowed her to receive gratitude without making gratitude the foundation beneath her life.

This is a subtle freedom. We can enjoy evidence that our work mattered without requiring constant evidence that we matter. We can remember a role with pride without needing to remain inside it. We can serve again without turning service into an argument for our right to be loved.

After the concert, Teresa walked past the classroom once more. She did not need the old nameplate returned to the door. It belonged to a completed season. Completion was not erasure.

At home, she finally removed the nameplate from the grocery bag. She cleaned the adhesive from the back and placed it in a drawer with class photographs and letters from students. The drawer was not a hiding place. It was a place for something worth keeping that no longer needed to direct the day.

The next morning, Teresa woke after sunrise. She made coffee, opened the curtains, and sat without reaching immediately for a task. There were still open questions about how she would spend the coming years. Some days would feel lonely. Some opportunities would fit, and others would not.

She did not ask Jesus to make her useful before coming near. She prayed, “I am here.” The words were enough because relationship did not begin with an assignment. The quiet room no longer felt like proof that she had disappeared. It became a place where the person beneath the nameplate could finally learn that Jesus had wanted her all along.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index:

https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

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https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Campbell McHenry, a high school junior from Mississippi, had a word for what happens to a school with no AI policy. Unhinged. “Everyone's gonna stop learning and start relying on AI,” he told NPR during a weekend in Boston in July. “Instead of using it as a tool, they're gonna use it as a brain.”

He was sitting in a 5,500 square foot replica of the United States Senate chamber, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston, built by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It is the only full-scale copy of the chamber in the world. The desks are accurate. The rostrum is accurate. The lighting is accurate. What was not accurate, over the weekend of 17 to 19 July 2026, was the age of the people in the seats, and the fact that they were getting something done.

Ninety-eight high school students, mostly juniors and seniors, one or two from each state, spent thirty-eight hours arriving by 42 inbound flights, by Amtrak, by bus and by car, in order to draft and pass a piece of legislation about artificial intelligence in K-12 schools. On the Sunday morning they voted. The STUDENTS FIRST Act passed 82 to 16.

It is not a law. The students are not senators. The whole thing was a simulation, an expanded version of the Kennedy Institute's Senate Immersion Module, the role-play programme that has run more than 160,000 students from 21 states through the replica chamber, and which in autumn 2024 added technology reform to its slate of debate topics. This particular weekend was branded America's Youth AI Festival and organised with Day of AI, the nonprofit spun out of MIT's RAISE initiative, and AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

And yet the text those teenagers produced is now going somewhere real. AASA has said it will send the bill to its membership: more than 10,000 school system leaders, a great many of whom are, at this moment, writing AI policies of their own with almost nothing to copy from. Which raises a question that ought to be more uncomfortable than it has been. Why is the most specific, most internally coherent piece of K-12 AI legislation in circulation this summer a document written by children?

What Ninety-Eight Teenagers Actually Wrote Down

The bill is real enough to read, and reading it is more instructive than reading the coverage of it. AASA has published the full nine-page text as S.2026, styled after the 119th Congress. The acronym is tortured in the authentic congressional manner: Safe Technology Use, Data Privacy, and Ethical Norms for Teaching, Fostering Integrity and Responsible Systems in Teaching.

It runs to five sections, addressed in turn to everyone, to students, to parents and guardians, to teachers and to administrators. Each section after the first was worked up by a subcommittee with its own strained acronym, then amended and adopted by the full body. The student section is the longest, at fifteen provisions.

What is striking, on the page, is how much of the bill points away from students. Section one opens not with a rule about teenagers but with a rule about vendors: any organisation selling generative AI services to public schools “must address all known biases within their generative AI, and must inform their clients of the biases that their products represent,” and the school must then pass that information to parents. Section four tells teachers that “just as students are expected to be transparent in their AI usage, teachers should be held to the same standard.” Section five forbids administrators from using AI to hire staff, forbids them from entering student or teacher personal information into AI tools, and requires them to “consult with students, staff, and families before drafting AI rules.”

There is a running preoccupation with human contact. Educators, section one says, should omit AI “in situations where human connection is irreplaceable in the learning environment.” Administrators should require that school counsellors do not use AI tools, “particularly in mental health contexts.” Nothing in the act, it adds, shall penalise a teacher for declining to use AI at all.

This is not the document you would predict if you assumed teenagers writing their own AI rules would write themselves a permission slip. It reads instead like something drafted by people who have concluded that the technology's main risk to them is not that they will be caught using it, but that the institution around them will be hollowed out by it.

A Theory of Assessment Sharper Than Most Districts Have

The most consequential thing in the bill is also the easiest to skim past. Provision nine of the student section: “AI use is strictly prohibited on all graded assessments.” Then, immediately: “AI use is permitted for studying.”

That is a theory of assessment, and a defensible one. It says AI is a legitimate part of learning and an illegitimate part of measurement. Use it to get better; do not use it at the moment we are checking how good you got. The students arrived at this in a weekend. Australian higher education took rather longer to arrive somewhere similar. The two-lane approach set out by Adam Bridgeman and Danny Liu at the University of Sydney in July 2024, and since widely discussed across the sector, splits assessment into a secure lane, conducted under controlled conditions to verify learning, and an open lane in which AI use is scaffolded and taught. Australia's tertiary regulator followed in September 2025 with guidance on enacting assessment reform, built on the premise that detection cannot guarantee integrity and that structural redesign is the only durable answer.

Most American district policies have not made this distinction cleanly. They tend to produce a general posture, permissive or restrictive, and leave the assessment question to individual teachers. The student bill instead builds a scaffold: teachers must publish a written AI policy each semester, “explicitly stating when AI is permitted, restricted, or banned for specific assignments,” with “category based rules (essay, worksheet, test),” and those rules must be consistent across sections of the same course. The students, in other words, identified the thing that drives them mad, which is not that AI rules exist but that they differ from classroom to classroom and are frequently unwritten, and legislated against it.

They also drew a line most adults have avoided. Provision four: students “should never use AI for the act of writing,” though editing, brainstorming and studying with it are permitted after eighth grade, and only after non-AI editing has been “taught and assessed thoroughly.” Whether that is the right line is arguable. That it is a line, stated in one sentence, with an age attached and a prerequisite skill named, puts it ahead of a great deal of adult guidance.

The Clause Nobody Asked Them For

Then there is the carbon.

Provision two of the student section requires states to mandate AI literacy instruction from the moment students start using devices in the classroom, and specifies the syllabus: misinformation, plagiarism, bias in AI systems, privacy concerns, appropriate academic use, how AI functions, and “environmental impacts.”

Nothing in the American federal framework centres that last item, largely because the American federal framework barely exists. Executive Order 14277, signed on 23 April 2025 and titled Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, established a White House Task Force on AI Education, directed the Education Secretary to issue guidance on how existing grant funds might be spent, told the National Science Foundation to prioritise research, and launched a Presidential AI Challenge. Its subject matter is capability and workforce readiness. It does not address academic integrity. It does not address assessment. It does not mention the energy and water cost of the systems it wants children to become proficient with.

The students put it in the curriculum unprompted, alongside plagiarism, as a thing you are supposed to know about the tool before you are handed it. It is a small provision and it tells you something about the frame these teenagers are working in. They are not treating AI as a neutral productivity layer that has arrived to help them. They are treating it as an industrial product with costs, made by companies with interests, and they want the cost sheet taught in class.

The literacy mandate itself was the weekend's most contested item, and the debate was not sentimental. It was about money. Om Lala of California objected that requiring schools to teach AI literacy would be a heavy lift because “teachers already are pretty under-resourced.” Tristan Tjetjep of Tennessee worried about how “underprivileged schools” would pay for it. The students had walked directly into the structural funding inequity of American public education, and they responded the way legislatures respond, by writing a funding requirement into the bill: proportional federal funding with a baseline minimum, for enterprise AI, mandatory staff training and a range of student literacy options. They invented an unfunded mandate and then, within the same weekend, tried to fund it.

Viva Voce and the Burden of Proof

The most legally fraught thing in the bill sits in section four, provision six, under a Latin heading. “VIVA VOCE (Oral Defense): Teachers reserve the right to require an oral defense of any paper or project where AI use is suspected or reported, to ensure the student possesses the knowledge displayed in the work.”

Take the pragmatic case first, because it is strong. AI detectors do not work well enough to hang a disciplinary finding on. The most cited evidence is a 2023 study in the journal Patterns by Weixin Liang and colleagues at Stanford, which ran seven widely used GPT detectors over essays written by non-native English speakers and found that more than half of the TOEFL essays were misclassified as AI-generated, while the same detectors were near-perfect on writing by US eighth graders. The mechanism is banal and damning: detectors flag low linguistic variability, and non-native writers, along with anyone writing plainly, produce exactly that.

The students knew this. Their bill says a suspected student is entitled to review by two school officials as well as detection software, and that teachers “must personally investigate the issue before reporting the student to admin.” They wrote in a right to appeal any finding of wrongful AI use, and a right of appeal against any disciplinary action. That is more due process than a lot of real districts currently offer, and it was written by people who expect to be on the receiving end of it. Microsoft's 2025 education survey found the single largest concern among American higher education students was not misinformation or job loss but “potential to be accused of plagiarism or cheating,” named by 32 per cent.

But the viva provision still has a problem, and it is the direction the burden runs. An oral defence triggered by suspicion asks a student to prove authorship rather than asking the school to prove misconduct. Perform well and you are cleared; perform badly and the suspicion is confirmed. The evidence on oral assessment is not reassuring here. A systematic review of the structured viva in health professions education found anxiety to be the most prominent reported limitation, along with weak standardisation and equity problems for students speaking English as an additional language. Layer that on a student with an anxiety disorder, a speech difference, a language barrier, or an individualised education programme, and a mechanism designed to protect the wrongly accused becomes a second way to fail them.

To their credit, the students left an escape hatch of sorts: their own bill requires schools to allow AI-based learning supports in IEP and 504 accommodation plans, and advises students to preserve document history on major assignments as a defence against false positives. That last piece of advice is the most telling line in the entire document. It is a generation coaching itself on how to prove it did its own homework.

What the Adults Produced Instead

Set the student bill beside the adult record and the asymmetry is the story.

There is no national framework for AI in American schools. The April 2025 executive order imposes no obligation on any district. At state level, the picture is guidance-heavy and law-light: by late October 2025, 34 states plus Puerto Rico had issued some form of official K-12 AI guidance, according to the tracker maintained by AI for Education. Guidance is not requirement. An analysis published by ExcelinEd in May 2026 counted just seven states with enacted laws, another twenty or so with bills in progress, and around ten with nothing beyond guidance or a task force. Its summary of the gap was that districts are being left to vet tools without any state-provided evaluation framework.

Congress, meanwhile, spent 2025 trying to make the state patchwork illegal. A ten-year moratorium on state AI regulation was inserted into the budget reconciliation bill, and on 1 July 2025 the Senate voted 99 to 1 to strip it out. The single vote in favour of preemption belonged to Thom Tillis. Federal AI policy for the year was, in substance, a near-unanimous decision not to have one, and to let the states carry on.

So when 10,000 superintendents open an email containing a bill written by teenagers, and from August sit through webinars and school visits built around it, they will be doing so because nothing else has arrived. Jeffrey Riley, who runs Day of AI and was previously Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education, put the logic plainly to NPR: “The adults themselves haven't been able to come to consensus on this, right? And so now it falls to the kids. Let them lead the way.”

That is a generous reading. A less generous one is that adult institutions have discovered that student voice is cheap, fast and reputationally safe in a way that binding policy is not. Nobody gets sued over a simulation.

The Ghost of Social Media in the Chamber

The students had a theory about why the adults were slow, and they said it out loud all weekend. “We missed the mark with social media and phones,” said Hunter Wurzel, a senior representing Ohio. “That's been a huge talking point already, is how we failed to implement those things into education and teach the youth how to use them.”

It is worth taking that claim apart rather than nodding at it, because the record is more specific than the slogan.

The Surgeon General issued a formal advisory on social media and youth mental health in May 2023, noting that up to 95 per cent of teenagers aged 13 to 17 used a social platform and more than a third said they used one “almost constantly.” In June 2024 the Surgeon General went further and called for a tobacco-style warning label. That step requires an act of Congress. Congress did not act.

The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate 91 to 3 on 30 July 2024, then died without a House vote. Reintroduced in the 119th Congress, it was eventually folded into a House package, the KIDS Act, which passed 267 to 117 on 29 June 2026, with KOSA's central duty of care stripped out. Senate co-author Richard Blumenthal promptly declared the House version dead in his chamber. Two years and one week after a 91 to 3 Senate vote, there is still no statute.

Phone bans tell a similar story at a different pace. As of the end of April 2025, only eleven states had statewide restrictions of any kind, four of them full bell-to-bell bans, with Florida first in 2023. Fourteen months later the position had transformed: by June 2026, 22 states and Washington D.C. had adopted full bell-to-bell bans, and a further 19 had enacted more flexible legislation leaving districts to set their own policies, putting roughly 41 states under some form of restriction. Common Sense Media's own framing of the arms race is the sharpest version: it notes that Pew found roughly 73 per cent of online American teenagers were using social networking sites by 2009, about three years after Facebook opened to the public. The policy response to a technology that saturated adolescence by 2009 became widespread state law around 2025.

This is the founding political fact for the cohort in that chamber. Every one of those 98 students was born into a live, uncontrolled experiment, watched adults spend fifteen years arguing about whether it was harmful, and reached the age of legislative role-play just in time to be handed the next one. “We missed the mark” is not adolescent grandstanding. It is a reasonably precise summary of the legislative record, delivered by the test subjects.

The Evidence Behind the Fear They Named

McHenry's line about using AI as a brain rather than a tool is a folk statement of a hypothesis researchers are actively testing, with results that are suggestive rather than settled.

The most publicised is the MIT Media Lab study led by Nataliya Kosmyna, posted to arXiv in June 2025 under the title “Your Brain on ChatGPT,” which had 54 participants write SAT-style essays across three sessions while wearing 32-electrode EEG headsets, with 18 returning for a fourth crossover session. Brain connectivity scaled down with the amount of external help: unaided writers showed the strongest networks, search engine users intermediate, language model users the weakest. Participants who had used the model struggled to quote their own essays back and reported weaker ownership of them. The authors called the effect cognitive debt.

It is a preprint with a small sample and a narrow task, and it has been over-read constantly since publication. It is not proof that AI makes teenagers stupid. What it does establish is that the mechanism the students are worried about is at least physically detectable.

The correlational picture points the same way without proving causation. Michael Gerlich's 2025 study in Societies, surveying 666 participants, found a significant negative association between frequent AI use and critical thinking scores, mediated by cognitive offloading, with the strongest dependence among 17 to 25 year olds. Common Sense Media's 2026 census of 1,204 American children aged 9 to 17, fielded with SSRS on a probability panel, found that 20 per cent of AI users, and 42 per cent of daily users, said going a month without AI would be very or somewhat hard. It also found that children who struggle academically lean hardest on it: 56 per cent of those who have a hard time staying focused on assignments use AI for schoolwork at least weekly, against 45 per cent of those who do not.

That last finding is the uncomfortable one, because it cuts against the student bill's own logic. A restriction-first regime falls heaviest on the students already struggling, who are using the tool most, and who are least likely to have the document history, the articulacy under pressure, or the parental advocacy to survive an oral defence.

Ninety-Eight Is Not a Sample

There is a version of this article that treats the Students First Act as the authentic voice of American youth. That version would be wrong, and the numbers say so.

These students were, in NPR's phrasing, “handpicked by their school leaders.” They are the young people a superintendent thinks of when asked to nominate someone for a civics simulation in Boston: engaged, articulate, available in July, backed by families who can get them to an airport. Selecting for civic enthusiasm selects for institutionalism. A cohort assembled that way is likely to believe rules can work, because believing that is roughly the entry requirement.

Set them beside the general population and the gap opens. The Common Sense census found 86 per cent of 9 to 17 year olds use AI in some form, rising to 92 per cent of 16 and 17 year olds, with 24 per cent using it daily. Among users, 85 per cent use it for schoolwork, 48 per cent at least weekly and 21 per cent every day. Asked in an open-ended question what people their age know about AI that adults do not, the single largest theme, at 21 per cent, concerned schoolwork, including how to cheat with it and, in the researchers' summary, “how kids can get away with using AI for schoolwork even when they are not supposed to.” One respondent's verbatim answer: “You can exploit AI to do all your assignments from school, and use multiple AIs to make it look handmade.”

That is the constituency the Students First Act would govern, and it is not the constituency that wrote it.

There is also the performance problem. A room of teenagers, in a Senate chamber, watched by superintendents, a former state education commissioner and a national broadcaster, is a room with a strong incentive to produce responsibility. The bill's restrictionism may be partly sincere and partly a read of the audience. Both can be true. Adult legislators are not usually granted the assumption that their public positions are unaffected by who is watching, and the students should not be either.

What complicates the cynical reading is the texture of the dissent. Jadelynn Petitjean of Alabama called the bill an “unstable foundation” and voted no. Ethan Liu of West Virginia catalogued the contradictions, including amendments that restricted student access while handing teachers broad discretion, and told the chamber he had “a whole different speech planned out against this bill, actually. It was really good.” He changed his vote only after organisers let the students patch some of the inconsistencies. Zora Nobel of Maine voted for it while describing it on the record as containing “repetitive provisions, prescriptive language, and at times, contradictions.” That is not a room performing consensus. That is a room bargaining.

Why Rules You Wrote Yourself Might Actually Hold

The strongest argument for the exercise has nothing to do with the quality of the text.

Tom Tyler's work, running from Why People Obey the Law onward, is the foundation of procedural justice theory, and its central finding is that compliance tracks perceived legitimacy far more reliably than it tracks fear of punishment. People follow rules they consider fairly made by authorities they consider entitled to make them. Tyler's corollary is the one that should worry school administrators: regulating behaviour primarily through threat can actively erode the internal commitment that produces voluntary compliance. Research on adolescents specifically finds that transparency of rationale and genuine consideration of young people's views have consistent effects on trust in authority, in schools and in government alike.

Applied here, the argument is not that teenagers wrote better AI rules than superintendents would have. It is that a rule a student helped write is a rule a student is more likely to keep, and that AI compliance is almost entirely a voluntary-compliance problem, because the enforcement technology does not work.

The research literature has begun to catch up. A peer-reviewed paper by Kaoru Seki, Manisha Vijay and Yasmine Kotturi, titled “Participatory, not Punitive,” presented at the CHI conference on human factors in computing systems in Barcelona in April 2026, ran a three-part workshop series in a graduate design course at a minority-serving American university, in which two student leaders facilitated discussion with no faculty in the room. The participants co-authored ten policy recommendations. The authors argue that engaging students in AI governance carries value beyond the resulting policies, and describe their model as calling students in rather than calling them out.

It is a small study, eight participants, at university rather than K-12, and should not be asked to carry more than it can. But one of its specific findings maps onto the Boston bill with uncanny precision. The student-led process surfaced a concern absent from top-down governance: the double standard of requiring students to disclose or abstain from AI while faculty face no equivalent expectation. Section four, provision four of the Students First Act, written by teenagers who had not read that paper, says teachers must be held to the same transparency standard as students. Two independent participatory processes, different countries of the academy, different age groups, produced the same demand. That is the sort of convergence that suggests the process is surfacing something real rather than flattering its participants.

When the Text Meets a School Board

None of this survives contact with a school board meeting unaltered, and it is worth being specific about where it breaks.

Start with enforceability. “AI use is strictly prohibited on all graded assessments” is a rule about a device, not a rule about a mind, and the bill's own enforcement mechanism, mandating “one standardized AI detector” per district plus lockdown browsers, leans on precisely the technology the students elsewhere acknowledge is unreliable. There is an unresolved contradiction here: the bill requires teachers to use a detector on written graded assessments while simultaneously requiring that no student be judged on a detector alone. Both things can be operationalised, but only by a district with the staffing to run a two-official review on every flag. That district exists. So does the one with a single overstretched assistant principal.

Then the funding. The bill's answer to inequity is proportional federal funding with a baseline minimum, which is a sentence a student senate can write and a school board cannot. Absent that money, an AI literacy mandate starting at the moment of device issue becomes another compliance burden distributed unequally, heaviest on the districts with the least capacity, which is the exact pattern the students were trying to prevent.

Then the parents. Section three is the weakest part of the bill, and the students knew it. “We cannot legislate parenthood,” Isabella Stringer of New Hampshire told the chamber, and the section duly softens into advice. Except in one place, provision seven, where a parent using AI on a child's graded work without teacher permission exposes the child to suspension or expulsion. That will not survive a single angry school board meeting, and it should not.

The record-keeping is imperfect too, in a way that is almost endearing. The PDF AASA published is filed under a name declaring the bill passed 84 to 14. The page hosting it, NPR's account and AASA's own national announcement in August all say 82 to 16. Somewhere between the chamber and the content management system, four votes moved. Real legislatures have the same problem and solve it with a clerk.

The Line They Drew

The temptation is to end warmly. Ninety-eight teenagers did in a weekend what Congress has not done in three years, and they did it with more precision about assessment, more attention to due process and more interest in the environmental cost of the technology than the sitting federal framework contains.

The temptation in the other direction is equally available. It was a simulation, in a replica, with a non-binding output, at an event underwritten in part by an AI literacy nonprofit, involving students selected for their enthusiasm, producing a document with acknowledged internal contradictions that will be put in front of superintendents who are under no obligation to adopt a word of it.

Laura Lundy, writing in the journal Childhood in 2018, made the case that the children's rights field has been too quick with the word tokenism. Since Roger Hart placed tokenism on the bottom rungs of his 1992 ladder of children's participation, alongside manipulation and decoration, the field has often concluded that imperfect participation is worse than none. Lundy's argument, drawn from what participating children actually report, is that this reasoning is used to justify doing nothing, and that young people who have taken part in flawed processes frequently do not experience them as empty.

The useful question is not whether the Boston weekend was real politics. It is what the students chose when handed the pen, and that answer is not ambiguous. Offered an opportunity to write themselves permission, a cohort that uses this technology more than any group in history wrote itself restrictions, then wrote in appeal rights, then turned round and imposed transparency obligations on the vendors, the teachers and the administrators too. They banned AI on the tests and allowed it in the studying. They asked to be taught what the machines cost the planet. They asked, in the last provision of the bill's last section, to be consulted before adults write rules about them.

Bena Mejia Romero of Connecticut put it to the chamber before the final vote: “This bill is about who gets a seat at the table. Today, students have that seat.” It was, for that weekend, a seat in a room where the desks were accurate and the votes were not counted by anyone who had to act on them.

On 3 August 2026 the organisers announced what happens next, and it is more than an email. AASA will put the Act in front of its full membership, and Day of AI, the Kennedy Institute and MIT's RAISE initiative will follow it into schools with webinars, workshops, public discussions and in-person visits. Sarah Yezzi, the Kennedy Institute's chief educator officer, summarised the students' position in that announcement: “Students are not asking schools to ignore AI, nor are they asking schools to adopt AI without limits. They want clear, fair rules that protect privacy, preserve the ability to think, and ensure this transformative technology supports and enhances human relationships.”

A webinar is not a statute and a school visit is not a school board vote. Nothing in the programme obliges a single district to adopt a single provision, and the bill remains what it was on the Sunday morning it passed: a text with no force behind it but its own reasoning. What the announcement does dispose of is the easy dismissal, which was that the thing would land in ten thousand inboxes and stay there. It is going to be argued about in rooms where the votes are counted by people who have to act on them. The question is no longer whether anyone reads it. It is whether any of it ever becomes binding on anyone.

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Sources and References

1. Cory Turner, “Adults have struggled to set rules for AI in school. These teens figured it out,” NPR, 30 July 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/07/30/nx-s1-5853571/students-set-ai-policy
2. AASA, The School Superintendents Association, “The Students First Act: A Student-Led AI Policy,” 30 July 2026. https://www.aasa.org/resources/resource/students-first-act
3. 2026 Student Senate, “S.2026, The STUDENTS FIRST Act,” full bill text published by AASA, 19 July 2026. https://www.aasa.org/docs/default-source/resources/reports/17_s-2026-the-students-first-act-final-bill-passed-84-14-july-19-2026.pdf
4. AASA, The School Superintendents Association, “Students from All 50 States Produce National Framework for AI in America's Schools,” 3 August 2026. https://www.aasa.org/news-media/news/2026/08/03/students-produce-national-framework-for-ai-in-america's-schools
5. Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, “Edward M. Kennedy Institute introduces a new AI policy program to support civic and digital literacy,” 2024. https://emkinstitute.org/about-the-institute/edward-m-kennedy-institute-introduces-a-new-ai-policy-program-to-support-civic-and-digital-literacy/
6. Kaoru Seki, Manisha Vijay and Yasmine Kotturi, “Participatory, not Punitive: Student-Driven AI Policy Recommendations in a Design Classroom,” Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26), Barcelona, 13-17 April 2026, DOI 10.1145/3772318.3790691; preprint arXiv:2604.10851. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790691
7. Harvard Kennedy School, “Many states are banning cellphones in schools. Is it working?,” featuring Paul Peterson, 9 June 2026. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/education-training-labor/many-states-are-banning-cellphones-schools
8. Microsoft Education, “2025 AI in Education Report: Extended Survey Data,” August 2025. https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/bade/documents/products-and-services/en-us/education/Survey-Data-2025-Microsoft-AI-in-Education-Report.pdf
9. Eleanor O'Neil, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Baxter White, Laura Zimmermann, Supreet Mann and Michael B. Robb, “The Common Sense Media Census: AI Use by Tweens and Teens, 2026,” Common Sense Media, 2026. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2026-ai-use-by-tweens-and-teens-1.pdf
10. Holland & Knight, “Executive Order: Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth,” analysis of Executive Order 14277 of 23 April 2025, April 2025. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/04/executive-order-advancing-ai-education-for-american-youth
11. The White House, “AI Education,” ai.gov initiatives page, accessed 2 August 2026. https://www.ai.gov/initiatives/education
12. Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein and Pattie Maes, “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task,” arXiv:2506.08872, 10 June 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872
13. Weixin Liang, Mert Yuksekgonul, Yining Mao, Eric Wu and James Zou, “GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers,” Patterns, 10 July 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37521038/
14. Michael Gerlich, “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking,” Societies, 3 January 2025. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6
15. Abdelhamid Ibrahim Hassan Abuzied and Wisal Omer Mohamed Nabag, “Structured viva validity, reliability, and acceptability as an assessment tool in health professions education: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” BMC Medical Education, 2023. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10369684/
16. Adam Bridgeman and Danny Liu, “Frequently asked questions about the two-lane approach to assessment in the age of AI,” Teaching@Sydney, University of Sydney, 2 July 2024. https://educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au/teaching@sydney/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-two-lane-approach-to-assessment-in-the-age-of-ai/
17. AI for Education, “State AI Guidance for Education,” updated 28 October 2025. https://www.aiforeducation.io/ai-resources/state-ai-guidance
18. ExcelinEd, “State K-12 AI Policy in 2026: Milestones, Momentum and Missing Links,” 26 May 2026. https://excelined.org/2026/05/26/state-k-12-ai-policy-in-2026-milestones/
19. Goodwin Procter, “Federal AI Moratorium Dies on the Vine as Senate Passes the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” July 2025. https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/07/alerts-practices-aiml-federal-ai-moratorium-dies-on-the-vine
20. Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, “Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 23 May 2023. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf
21. Crowell & Moring, “House Passes KIDS Act H.R. 7757: What Online Platforms Must Know Before Senate Showdown,” July 2026. https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/client-alerts/house-advances-bipartisan-kids-online-safety-bill-but-senate-showdown-looms
22. KFF, “A Look at State Efforts to Ban Cellphones in Schools and Implications for Youth Mental Health,” 2025. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/a-look-at-state-efforts-to-ban-cellphones-in-schools-and-implications-for-youth-mental-health/
23. Roger A. Hart, “Children's Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship,” UNICEF International Child Development Centre, 1992, summarised by Organizing Engagement. https://organizingengagement.org/models/ladder-of-childrens-participation/
24. Laura Lundy, “In defence of tokenism? Implementing children's right to participate in collective decision-making,” Childhood, volume 25 issue 3, 2018. https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/148759327/Tokenismfin.pdf
25. Tom R. Tyler, “Why People Obey the Law,” Princeton University Press, 2006 edition. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691126739/why-people-obey-the-law

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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

Listen to the free weekly SmarterArticles Podcast

In Summary: * And another quiet Sunday winds down. No outside chores were even attempted. The only inside chore was continued tweaking of the BK-20 Pro air cooler unit that I've set up in my room, trying to keep it running at maximum efficiency.

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.

Health Metrics: * bw= 225.53 lbs. * bp= 146/88 (69)

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

Diet: * 05:45 – 1 banana, pizza * 11:45 – more pizza * 13:00 – bowl of home made vegetable soup * 15:20 – 2 HEB Bakery cookies

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:00 – wake up * 04:45 – bank accounts activity monitored. * 05:15 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * Noon – listening to general sports talk on 105.3 The Fan, DFW's #1 Sports Station, ahead of this afternoon's MLB game between the Orioles and the Rangers * 16:20 – Well, heck. The rangers are behind 10 to 3 in the 9th inning, and I can't see them pulling a win out of their hats. So I'm turning away from this game to find something else to occupy my time. * 17:00 – follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 18:00 – listening to relaxing music

Chess: * 07:03 – moved in all pending CC games

Perhaps black heart emojis would work better.