Anemic Identity

March 28, 2026

The flatlined soul.

Marathons are being held 140 years since the first car.

Running is human. Bring able to run long distances has had a direct contribution to our survival as a species. I celebrate this fact every time I run. The modern world does not demand much running from us, yet I find running to be a wonderful thing to do.

The modern world offers a seductive shortcut for almost every human struggle: the ✨ button. I am averse to outsourcing my most personal and intellectual labor to algorithms. This was out of fear. Fear that a machine would put words in my mouth, sometimes more eloquently, at all times faster. Fear that my own mind can output no more than a statistical prediction of my next word. I believe one should experience this fear. It is a sad thing to concede one’s agency without a fight, which seems to be a trend amongst the mindless adopters of this technology. Face the terror that is accepting your limits and AI is suddenly not so scary.

Detail is not a limit. Because humans are not together, expressing oneself comes with friction, no matter how universal the medium may be. AI, generative or otherwise, is efficient. When we allow this efficiency to replace the often-messy, necessary struggle of genuine expression, we don’t end up with the same result. There is a hidden tax on speed. When the computer cuts corners, eroded away are the pores, leaving a glazed surface that can’t breathe.

Vulnerability is not a limit. Intimacy requires vulnerability. Accepting an anti-aliased version of yourself as your spokesman bypasses the neural encryption that incorporates your distinguishable identity into your words.

Content on sanalog.net is made by me. It does not host any AI-generated content, though it may reference some. Content on sanalog.net meticulously created and constantly iterated. It will have mistakes, but they will be human mistakes.