The human is the algorithm

Any one who has ever tried to create something has felt this. A feeling of anxiety of being “too inspired”, of “sounding like someone else”. I have felt this a lot, especially when I am trying to create “art” or whatever passes as art in my head. A large part of what we value in the times we live in, about creativity is the fact that there is something uniquely “you” about the things that you make and only you can make it. So it stands to reason that I evaluate everything I make from that lens.

I want to be uniquely me. I dont want to be someone else. Because that is what my culture has told me is the most important thing to be. And so I worry, I stress, I wonder if influence is inspiration or if it is pollution. Ideas from others worming their way in my head like parasites do, making me hollow from the inside, just a shell of what I am.

What am I though?

In a very interesting conversation I had with the amazing Rosebridges where she shared some of her wisdom with me, has been rolling in my head for a while. She asked me a very simple question “who are you? Are you your body? Your cells? those change every 7 years or so. Are you your thoughts? your mind? What happens when you learn new things?” I did not have an answer to the question, because who am I is a question that is like a specter always at the edge of my vision but when I turn to look at it, it vanishes. A truly existential question.

And then she answered “I believe the human is the algorithm”.

In a world that does not make space for context and softer signals, and where we have become hard materialists, only believing in things we can quantify, acknowledging that my sense of me-ness comes from something that is neither outside of me nor inside of me, but in the manner that “I” interact with the world around me, is beautiful and simple.

When seen through that lens, the anxiety of being influenced, becoming less of myself is lessened. Not eliminated because can these things ever be eliminated?

Can I ever be anyone else? Even if I try to sound like others. I can’t help but be me, the slivers of my own algorithm seeping in. The creation of interesting things happening at the space where “I” interact with the “other”. It has become even more visible as I think about AI.

For the last month or so, Kahran and I have been working on a poetry project and I’ve been using Claude code to code it. It is incredible. I recently made a projection mapping tool, did a detailed analysis of a product I am working on, made my website, and so many more amazing things. A whole world of ideas that I never thought I could make without a developer are now possible for me to make. Interesting things are happening when “I” interface with the “other”.