There and Back Again: 2023 & 2024
Carpe diem, carpe annum
Friends, colleagues,
You might have been wondering where in the world I’ve been. I wish I could say I’ve been on a whirlwind tour of the globe. Or that I started an exciting new company already being eyed for acquisition. Or inherited half a million dollars and donated it all to Doctors Without Borders or World Central Kitchen. Of the three, the third wish is my preferred, for whatever challenges sit in my lap are but ephemera in the crusted eyes of others undergoing much greater suffering.
Thanks and gratitude to you who have stayed on these past few months (in truth, all but three of you have!), and a heartfelt welcome to the nearly 100 of you who’ve come in after September 21. This post will be of particular interest to you, as it’s my first in after that date, and the first of a richer editorial calendar.
I have some wonderful news to share, news that will swiftly explain the reason for the quiet here at The Muse—no doubt many of you have already seen the (literal) fruits of my labor. But before the night bids adieu to the dawn, let us embrace the year in all of its beauty and pain.
A look back and an embrace
Last year around this time, a door was closing. It was the door of a massive 17-billion-dollar house that had been providing my income for nearly five years. The door wasn’t closing by itself; it was being closed by certain hands. For the house was a Mansion of many rooms, hallways, and corridors with secret passageways and tunnels where letters were sent surreptitiously while their authors smiled great big smiles during meetings, but wrote their missives in blood. These letters were the real goings-on, the real rules of the game. Heaven help you if you dared write different rules or endeavor to play a different game. The game I wanted to play was one of sportsmanship and transparency, of professionalism and quality; I seized the bar and was raising it far above their heads. So high that the sun hit their eyes when they tried to see, and they wailed in pain. I realized too late that they had already carved their own rules into those wooden walls, for they had invaded this Mansion, and had sworn to die in it.
The Mansion was run by Corporate Termites. They had gotten into the foundation, and stolen the blueprints I had drawn up for a stronger, more vibrant structure, to scrawl their own names upon the new walls. So be it.
The old adage came through, once again: the door that was rotted through closed, and I turned around, head high, and walked away, never to look back. But I would open my own door, to a house that I built. There would be no more games.
That house is The Muse.
The Muse had lived on another platform for several years, where I mused about all the things we writers ponder, life and love and work. I migrated it here to establish a new garden for it shortly after generative AI blew up, and so two great swells of water met: an incoming tide of thoughts and insights and analyses that had been held back for those five years when I worked at the Mansion; and a new river being carved by ravenous LLMs.
These are the lines 2023 drew in the sand:
The origin story (of my time with AI)
The AI : Human Interface series, where we discover AI’s roots reach back to the 14th century and ponder our own fascination with this wondrous new thing
The Hallucination Nation series, where we dream of electric horses and hallucinating AI’s
We are an auto-immune disease, where we marvel at humans’ propensity to suppress, devalue, and damage each other
Death by a thousand edge cases, where we poke at the messy edges of algorithms and find their tickle spots
The AI at Work series, where we follow the AI dragons through the deserts of our professional future
…and a special treat for those old enough to remember the legends of rock ‘n roll.
The posts may not be numerous, but they are layered and nuanced—a slice of fine tiramisú need not be massive to satiate the senses.
There were live presentations and panels I was invited as a speaker; collaborations with a few of you (Kathryn and Kate and Michael); and the gift of several paid memberships, some quite early on in the journey.
But none of this has brought me as much personal joy as the people I have met here, connected with, and in many cases worked with. Rather than lay out stats and data and revenue models to sum up the year, I’ve crafted a list of the people I have had the pleasure to interact with throughout the year. Because writing isn’t about numbers; it’s about people.
The list is alphabetical, by first name, in the interest of objectivity, courtesy, and a desire to avoid the appearance of favoritism; it is also not definitive.
Some of you were friends long before Substack. Many of you were but names carved in pixels on my screen, but soon took on full form of flesh blood and voice—in Notes, in emails, in phone and voice calls.
As I look over this list, I feel a deep, snowy gratitude. The kind of warmth you feel in a mountain cabin buried in fresh snow, a quiet fire crackling in the fireplace, a cup of the thickest hot chocolate because you’ve melted chunks of chocolate instead of your usual mix. There is, also, awe. Awe in the knowledge that this list is but a sliver of Substack and the minds that inhabit this space; minds that make it great, that make it good. This is our writerly family.
Michael Spencer of Sabrina Smith of S.E. Reid of🙏🏽 ❤️ 🙏🏽
The year end should always feel whole. We’ve completed a circle, a cyclical path through time, through space, through life; and we’re about to hop aboard another.
A year ago, there was bare soil here. Today, we have a garden. Gardens and orchards take time—to plant, to tend, to weed, to grow. You start with a few seedlings. In 2023, the first seedling planted in my new garden was the AI : Human relationship. As I write in an upcoming guest post for Michael Spencer’s AI Supremacy, the impact of generative AI on the human spirit and condition is so intricate and nuanced, no single newsletter, no one book, no one blog could cover it all. There are a great many newsletters covering the news, the numbers, the startups, and of course the technology itself. Not so many talking about the full-bodied, full-nuance impact of gen AI on humanity—our lives, our thoughts, our work, our relationships, society & the environment. This is the space The Muse inhabits, the rabbit holes she explores, the oceans she navigates.
A new planting season
In 2024, I will continue to focus on the intersection of AI : Human. But because this is a garden, I’m also planting a few new seedlings as well, knocking down old fences and freeing up space for the garden to grow. You’ll see new sections pop up, forays into new rabbit holes, and of course new collaborations.
Collaborating with another writer is like ballroom dancing. One of you leads, but you both follow each other’s footsteps in a fresh new choreography, holding on to each other as the music carries you across the floor. My collab dance card is already full as we move into the first few months of 2024:
A guest post for Michael Spencer’s
A guest post for
A guest post for
An interview with the lovely
(thank you Kathryn for all your patience!)A three-way collab with
and . You’ll never guess the topic. 😜
And now… the wonderful news I’ve been waiting impatiently to share.
It’s a new Muse!
I’ve just returned from maternity leave, and I’m delighted to announce the birth of a new member of our literary family: The Cacao Muse, affectionately abbreviated as TCM. Younger sister to The Muse, TCM has been in gestation long enough to put any elephant to shame. But she is here, she’s beautiful, and has lots of energy and verve!
We named her The Cacao Muse for her rich, shiny dark brown hair, her buttery soft skin, and the brightness in her eyes. But it’s her voice that will captivate you most of all—for woven throughout the songs she sings, are messages of the earth, the trees, the people, and the hearth stones where an ancient fruit tree began its journey ten million years ago, weaving its way into the hearts of an entire planet. They are messages of joy, passion, and hard work. Of imbalances in balances due, mysteries in ingredient lists, injustices in supply chains. Of flavors and textures your palate has never dreamed.
Would you like to see her? If you’d like to take a peek in the nursery, it’s just through this gate below—all self-serve, no key required. But I must warn you that what was a wee young babe in swaddling clothes just 3 months ago, is already walking—and partying up a storm. She’s got quite the CV for a toddler:
Thirty-four posts published
Five1 other Substacks recommending her
One guest article published in the outside world
One inaugural podcast at The Chocolate Life
One very dark homage by Mr. Field Research himself
She’s been to two live events and planning more
Five paid subscribers (excluding comps), two of which are Cacao Deities
174 members total, all organically grown from a seed of one
One more thing.
There is one more thing. There is always one more thing.
So much time, so little to do.
Good things come in three’s — and if there are now two Muses, then surely …
I shall leave it there, till the next time. I won’t be long. Promise.
And if you’re not feeling this subscription thing, I get you. Happily it’s not the only way to express your love.
Not including her older sister of course.
So happy to have found you this year, sweet Birgitte. Our family here grows bigger and brighter every day. Cheers to you on a beautiful year of making things happen. 🌈🌼🌷
Intentional, consequential, and enjoyable as always. Each word. Each punctuation.
Happy 2024 Birgitte!