Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2007. Mattie was five years old. Mattie grew up learning that laundry was in the basement of our building. Regardless of the weather, I had to leave our apartment, go outside (sometimes it was raining or snowing!), to go back into the building, onto the elevator to go three floors down to the basement. When Mattie was a baby, I was carrying him and pushing the cart, and as he got older, he would either walk, ride his bicycle, or hop into the cart. What I would never do is leave Mattie home unattended, so he got used to doing all sorts of chores with me! I truly do not know how I manage laundry for all of us over the decades, but I did it! It was our way of life and I never complained. I think sometimes that it is easy to forget that these chores done for the entire family are acts of love, and it is work, just unpaid.
Quote of the day: Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. ~ Mahatma Ghandi
It was another long day, as I took both of my parents to the physical rehab medicine physician today! In order to make this happen, I got up at 5am. When I got up, I went downstairs to feed Indie. I literally walked into a nightmare as she had vomited all over the basement and pooped everywhere! I was NOT a happy camper. I spent thirty minutes cleaning up that nightmare and completely cleaning out her litter boxes. I clean them daily, but she obviously wanted the boxes cleaned out completely and given new litter.
My parents both had good doctor appointments and literally when the health care team asked how I was, I looked at them because I am NOT used to people asking about me. My parent's doctor is very aware of the the massive role I play in their lives and I am quite certain if my dad wasn't living with me, he probably would have died years ago.
But back to the question.... how am I? To me that is a loaded question. For the most part, I typically do not give an accurate response, because truly who wants to hear my saga.... and it is a saga! I am not sure how I carry on each and everyday, or find a way forward. Which leads me to a topic I listened to on the radio last week. The commentator was talking about people turning to artificial intelligence for emotional support. He even went on to say that chat bots perform harder on the question asked of them, if you use pleasantries like "please" and "thank you." I listened to all of this and was left perplexed. I am perplexed that a human being with complex thoughts, emotions and experiences could think that a computer of any kind could possibly serve as a friend or confidante. Moving passed that, what difference does it make using pleasantries with a computer?
Ironically I came across an article on this topic, and toward the end of the article, it stated....
The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that one reason you shouldn't be cruel to animals is that it's also damaging to yourself. Essentially, being unfriendly to anything makes you a harsher person. You can't hurt AIs feelings because it doesn't have any, but maybe you should be nice anyway. It’s a habit that could benefit other parts of your life.
This whole statement left me baffled. Baffled because whether I bark out a command to a computer or not, has no impact, effect, or consequence to me as a person. Whether I ask a question bluntly or kindly, to me it doesn't matter. I do not think it makes me a harsher person or an unfeeling one. It makes me practical and I think personalizing a thing, a device, a computer.... sets the wrong tone in our lives. Humanizing a thing, I believe, is a slippery slope for our society. Turning to computers for factual answers is one thing, turning to a computer to replace human to human interactions will have long term negative consequences on our mental and emotional health. I have no doubt if I were to share (which I never would.... NOT my style) my last two years with a chat bot, all I would get back is some trite responses! There is NO possible way a computer could have the empathy, compassion, or insight to delve into complex emotional issues, help me when I am distraught, or provide the hope necessary to make it to the next day. Yet people are doing this daily and it leaves me saddened that it is deemed safer and just as effective to have these types of meaningless connections than it is talk, connect, and chat with a real person!
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