October 11 in Scott

I realized a very sad thing today: when I see an image or a piece of art, I can no longer trust it to be real. Often when I see a photograph, I do not trust it. There is so much bakery so much use of special effects and AI. It’s always been common to use some filters and mild special effects with photography, but it was easy to see and know there was a bit of magic thrown in. But the art of the photo was still that of someone with a Good eye for photography.

I was recently going through Facebook posts and I wanted to believe the landscape is so beautiful so colorful presented was a human making a photograph or a human that had stood at an easel for a long time, painting something brilliant. I felt it some absurd joke that in these times what is presented as beauty is a lie. Yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder, whether it is created by machine by software or human.

I feel there is so much deception.

Is that a van Gogh?
Or is it artificial intelligence creating something in his style?

Because I cannot trust what is shown or presented as art anymore I trust myself to appreciate other forms of beauty.

There are genuine, authentic pieces of classical music that have not been corrupted by AI.

There is the beauty of a face, smiling. The beauty of loving emotion of acts of kindness and goodness. There is great beauty in acts of compassion. I see great beauty in humorous things and to me there is beauty in humor. There is beauty in the lives of others that they are alive. A loved one a pet some random animal we encounter. Today I saw the morning sun touching fall leaves at the top of a tree. There is so much beauty in nature far more beautiful than that corrupted by AI created landscapes.

Tonight I was thinking or daydreaming about how wonderful it would be to have a superpower of sending love into a passing stranger. Just giving them that feeling that they are loved. Unconditionally. To see a sad person or even an angry person, a fearful person, and give them an inner hug and lift them up for a moment or the rest of their life. What a wonderful power that would be to be able to do that to people. But not be known to have done it. To filonely people and those feeling unloved or cared about and to give them a positive feeling that fills them and makes them feel complete and healed.

I am in no way a religious person. I am an atheist, but let’s just say I like to dream about such things think of them and feel them because that makes me feel good. Maybe it’s a selfish thing to imagine being able to do that but how wonderful it would be to encounter those traumatized by something and give them a feeling to smile about it again.