The Agony of Creative Practice

Why I’m not letting AI take the ache away (Plus an Invitation)

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

“Analog” is hip again—have you noticed? For us GenXers, it’s not a trend but a texture we were steeped in.

I grew up with the high pitched whir of the tape rewind, as I replayed my favorite Police song over and over. There was the familiar crackle of the record player, each time it flipped from Side A to Side B. Or the scream of the smoke alarm, which scolded you’ve burned the quiche again because you forgot the battery-operated timer.

This was a world of ticking clocks, quiet evenings and a home mostly free of objects with electrical current. It was a big deal when we acquired new appliances that made our lives easier. So big, that I still remember the exact age I was when they arrived. Each delivery marked a small leap forward—ushering in the relief of convenience and the coolness of modernity. A color TV when I was seven, with its insect antennae and three cartoon channels. The dryer was age eight. Then the biggies, a dishwasher— and, if you can believe it, a shower— appeared when I was eighteen, after I’d moved out.

Analog was the texture of my world. A language of tactile patience that asked for grit and labor, even when life was eased. Before digital, before code, daily life required a sleeves-up exertion. It invited us to work our hands in ways that weren’t just inconvenient, but imaginative.

I’ve been reflecting on the importance of grit when we’re making or creating anything. How we’re surrounded by cultural messages that tell us that everything can be easy or won, if you’ve got a few dollars to spare. Get a VA. Use ChatGPT. Outsource it. Digitize it. It’s enticing, of course. The promise of ease. The ability to direct one’s attention to other things. And why not? Imagine the time and energy you could “save”, they say. Why sweat it, if it’s unnecessary?

Grit is unnecessary, darling. You’re worth it, aren’t you?

This refrain is (part of) the logic of hyper-modernity. Who doesn’t want technology to soften the toil of being human? Move aside dryers, we have driverless cars! Move over Google, we have Claude AI.

We’ve rushed from the mechanistic to the analog—and now to the hyper-digital, with only minor regrets. With the exhilarating arrival of AI, the future barrels toward us at warp speed, and we, incapacitated by its blunt force, stumble forward with a new, strange buoyancy. Who doesn’t delight in the immediacy of a global, electronic consciousness at our fingers? Who doesn’t pine for a life of flow, when life just gets harder by the decade?

I think we’re all secretly hoping that AI might soften the blow of being human. Curated to our exact preferences, we can get therapy advice, exercise schedules, project proposals, fridge analyses- and even medical advice in a pinch. We are one prompt away from relief. Two prompts away from banishing agony entirely. Heck, do we even need to try anymore? mused Joshua Rothman in the New Yorker.

There are many days, I’m like yes, soften the blow. AI, take my frustration.

Over the last five months, I’ve had more rejections, silences and no’s than I thought possible. For my brave and supportive friends asking about my creative work, my typical response has been “agony”. Not all of it, mind you, but the process of writing, and pitching, a book has been harder than I thought. Even though I’ve been writing for many years, synthesizing big ideas while staying true to my own poetic voice is far from easy. It’s glitchy. Analog. Sweat-inducing.

This is especially true as I ‘balance’ my creative work with parenting, leadership coaching, teaching and volunteering.

I admit: it would be easier to have AI do the heavy lifting. AI could erase my agony. Steal my bewilderment. Quell the ache of my uncertainty. It could literally take away the “ugliness of it all”, as Canadian writer and dream-worker Toko-Pa Turner describes the harsh reality of creative work. In a world optimized for quick shares, big audiences and five-step frameworks (even here on Substack), the rigorous and enigmatic work of making is rarely encouraged.

But in the agony of the creative process, I find I’m increasingly grateful for it.

There is no dull ache of convenience. No sweet smell of a perfumed body. No confident sentence when I run into you at the grocery store. In the absence of solidity, though, there’s the earth-musk of my own trying. There’s a sweet surprise everytime my fingers make contact with a pen. The magic of mystery. The experience of being changed through the act of creation.

And there’s pain too. It comes when I have the unbearable intuition that so much inside me cannot be translated; the density of the unknowable.

Poetics is agony. Creating is agony.

But the truth is: agony is deeply satisfying. It’s the ache in the chest that reminds me I’m alive. It’s the relief that we humans are still a messy mystery. That neither of us can pin our words to a page, or a perfect speech, any more than we can pin our souls to the soil. This is the creative life and it does not promise to ease our burden.

So if you’ve been feeling the agony of making, in a world that continues to dish out enticing solutions to take the agony away….here’s some encouragement to not lose sight of it’s relevance.

May we welcome the texture of the analog. The patient grit that it takes to make anything as a vulnerable human. Whether you are researching science, learning a new skill, leading a project, hosting a difficult conversation, or writing a book- the presence of agony is how we know we’re making. There, engaging with the questions. The koans. The dilemmas.

May our tensions never be eased by an AI prompt.
May our aches never be taken away.
May we find a way to bear them—until, until...
the soil of our work breathes life into something new.

Which leads me to….:)

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Announcing Season 4 of Tension of Emergence!

I’m beyond excited to announce that Season 4, my audio-art project, will kick off on Tuesday, May 13th. Please follow here so you never miss an episode.

This season I’m taking you on a journey through a koan, or question, I’m working with. What does it mean to be an engaged citizen in a world that feels like its collapsing? What does action look like when we also need to allow for surrender? How do we integrate both protest and prayer, in ways that are genuine and not performative?

Season 4 dances around the inquiry of my book in progress, as I explore all the ways we try to “save” and fix this world, in one that paradoxically doesn’t need our saving. But what does that mean? And how might it open up a new way of imaginatively engaging with a world in various states of erosion?

We will explore this question with a magical cadre of spiritual teachers, embodiment practitioners, philosophers, therapists, scientists and Indigenous creatives.

And if this inquiry and framing resonates with you, hit REPLY and share your whole-hearted observations, questions, or comments with me.

Finally, if you are a fan of the show, please share with a friend or colleague who hasn’t heard about it yet! It’s medicine for those of us disheartened by the imperialist/militarized moves these days :)

Jennifer England holds a conversation with a guest for her Tension of Emergence podcast.