Why you want to make Exquisite Work
My thesis on how to be a successful (read: fulfilled) creative in the AI era
Nae insaeng-ui uimi in Korean, el propósito de mi vida in Spanish, mon raison d’être in French, ikigai in Japanese, mein Lebenszweck in German, tsél’ moyey zhizni in Russian, wǒ rénshēng de yìyì in Chinese.
Translation: “my life’s work and purpose”. We’ve always known that clarity of purpose is essential to a meaningful life.
For creatives today, it’s more true than ever. Exquisite Work is finely tuned and profoundly human. It has that elusive “it factor”. It resonates in a way AI-generated output can’t.
Why? Exquisite Work is soulful, and you and I have a soul. When you make something from that place, people connect with it. Game recognize game.
So what’s yours? What does it take to play at that level?
Let’s start with this wild paradox:
You are the one and only you. Utterly unique.
You are one drop in the vast ocean of humanity. Immersed, interconnected.
Nobody else has your precise blend of mind-body-spirit, childhood, circumstances, experience, talents, personality, skills, resources, community, gifts and vision.
And they never will. So, what’s yours to do?
yes, totally. AI is good at pattern recognition — but so are some humans, LOL.
in art or any endeavor, really, it's missing the layered and variously knowing* decision making. I look at a painting I love, I can see / taste / feel that each brushstroke is the result of multiple decisions (like, literal choices) though the painter may not hold the decision-making consciously.
thank you for the gift subscription, that is SUPER cool.
*knowing cognitively is closer to AI as more likely to be text based...humans get to know / sense / experience through all their organs, cells, electromagnetic fields, that's pretty different, yes?
Ironically, I’ve found AI to be extremely helpful at crystallizing my raison d’être. Dump it all the data you list, “childhood, circumstances, experience, talents, personality, skills, resources, community, gifts and vision,” then ask it to help articulate the exquisite work you were made to contribute. And keep honing, shaping, crafting that exquisiteness.