Nobody Wants To Earn Their S***

To read more from Matt Zeigler, check out Panoptica and Cultish Creative.

This is the intro to the intro, where I get this immediate reaction to AI out of my system (and maybe yours), in an effort to try to be more thoughtful about the state of the creative world right now:

I don't want to shake my fist at the AWS clouds. I don't want to fight "AI slop." Not gonna do it. You can't make me, anyway. Plus, it's boring. Probably futile, too. All I really want is to at least semi-understand this weird thing that's happening with creativity and culture right now. I'm irked but I'm also interested. What can I say. Argh and ahhh want to make a little aha! baby in my brain. It's just like always.

And now that we've got that out of the way…

Probably like a lot of you reading this, I was shaped by Steven Pressfield's rule: nobody wants to read your s***. It happened a long time ago, in a writing-theory book, far, far away - and cemented itself, at least in my head. The takeaway was you had to make anything you wrote worthy of being read. You couldn't fake overcoming that.

Today, anybody with a free ChatGPT account can fake it. Literally. Literature-ly. They just can't fake it perfectly. It's always a little off when someone creates this way, somehow, no matter how much Pressfield they fed into their prompts, but it’s increasingly well enough written for this type of slop to get real eyeballs on it, which is, frankly, disheartening at best. ChatGPT has become a legitimate shortcut for an online writer to help get somebody to read their s***, and just knowing there are people taking this shortcut - it hurts.

So, this is when, with an exasperated and exaggerated sigh, I admit, "this is the world now."

Good news though, I have settled on some semblance of peace. In part, that means the intro to this essay is officially over, probably. But apparently, the obvious realization - that the answer to nobody wanting to read your s*** is to stop trying and let the LLM do it for you - is only a half answer(!). If anything, it also creates the problem I'm actually afraid of: we are creating a world where nobody wants to earn their s*** either. It's like the elbow grease and Protestant work ethic my parents' generation swore an oath to - and swore at us teenagers over - has finally, fully lost its luster.

And, as a 90s slacker kid, that's a claim I've heard before. Like, a lot of times. Like, a lot a lot.

So where to start? Somewhere that already knows where this ends. Just like Pressfield would have wanted. Which is exactly WHY we start with a core part of my 90s slacker personal origin story, but of course. Let’s go to school.

Picture a middle school band room. The kind with risers, poor fluorescent lighting - which are annoyingly bright but more annoyingly unnatural so everything has a hint of beige-ish yellow, and a group of maybe 12 students, scattered across the first 3 levels of said risers, on uncomfortable band room chairs with cheap acoustic guitars on our laps.

This is a "guitar" class. It's probably 1994, but it could be a year in either direction. In much the same way the Beatles on Ed Sullivan put electric guitars in Sears catalogues, MTV Unplugged has created a new generation of "I can do that!" wannabeism that's landed this as a viable class to take in suburban America.

Now, you should also know, I'm a plant in this class. A plant in the self-selected "easy A" sense.

What I'd really like to say is that I'm there as a ringer, but the ringer status ploy isn't playing out the way I thought it was going to play out. For starters, there aren't really any girls in this class. Maybe there were one or two, but memory says it's a dudefest, so the dynamic of impressing anybody worth impressing for this 13ish year old is, let's just say, severely dampened.

While it might be "cool" that I know a Metallica riff, it's also public knowledge that I can't hit rim without a jump on a standing foul shot - and trust me, the guys in this class are the same guys who will let me know that truth.

A ringer doesn't get had like that. I'm a basic, grade-grubbing plant here.

On top of that, even though yes, I really can play some cool stuff - straight off of Unplugged episodes even - this class is all about "D-triangle" and "G-big stretch" and "A-that's-three-in-a-row-Ooooo, that's a hard one, right?" I can fall asleep in this class, still look like I'm working, and that's pretty much exactly what I do. It's still better than whatever elective was probably available (macrame, anyone?), but I'm not exactly having fun playing easy-A houseplant here.

That is until, one day, when one of the greatest questions ever asked was uttered by our teacher.

Middle school teachers have a weird job. You have these partway-developed young people in front of you, physically and mentally, in all of their fascinating and utterly gross ways. Plus, they're all progressing at some different level relative to themselves and each other, making your primary job to just make it less awkward for all parties involved.

And if you're a kid, middle school is just plain awkward. Full stop. There are no possible positives to it. Just definitely awkwards, all around you, all the time. You are so ready to be a grownup - meaning just not a stupid kid anymore - that any hint that you've graduated past this age is worth it, and you are desperately seeking it at all times.

Now you, dear reader, are ready for THE QUESTION. The greatest one ever asked, in case you already forgot.

Before I type it, I want you to think again like you're in my shoes - the planted, somewhat practiced guitar player, in front of the self-professed actual musician teacher, the one in the front of the classroom with the glorious curly mullet that you already joke about but his teacher status and some of his band stories at least make him seem like a cool kind of alien, the kind who probably likes Joe Satriani or some metal-adjacent shreddy-thing that would warrant the regrettable hair choice you've already thought about too much in your attempt to understand adults, but this is the kind of question where you feel your power relative to the rest of the class peak the moment you hear it, with its adult-validation format, thusly granting THE QUESTION its inherent greatness.

"So. Before we start today, I'm just curious - who are your favorite guitar players? Like, who are you guys into?"

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.

My brain steps on its overdrive pedal. The green tube screamer. No, the fuzz pedal! Yeah. Definitely the fuzz pedal. Big Muff (insert Beavis and Butthead laugh). My brain's racing to fully formulate the answer.

Clearly, Stevie Ray Vaughan, RIP. I even wrote a paper on him the year before. There was a lot of cocaine and Crown Royal consumption stories I had to edit out from the biography I devoured, but the way he infused the Texas shuffle of Freddie King, with the over-bending mitts of Albert King, and the soulful, note milking vibrato of B.B., and that's before we even get into his Jimi Hendrix and Wes Montgomery call-outs, does the conversation even need to go further? He's a composite master. I could argue this and give you 60 footnotes, no problem - but who does my middle school teacher call on first?

"Tommy. Who you got?"

Oh my god, Tommy? He called on Tommy?!

"Teach, easy. Slash. From Guns N' Roses. You know him?"

Tommy's a knucklehead.

Tommy's fearlessness of opinion in this moment is tempered by his amateur class clown attitude. And despite having a bit more muscle than I do, he and I both know he can't totally punk me in gym class. He's very well liked, but not a threat on serious matters like music.

I think the teacher could sense it. Maybe that's why he picked him. Maybe teach needed somebody to dunk on. And this is a moment I'll never forget, because that teacher was really just a middle schooler all grown up and back in middle school with what must have only and always been a Tommy complex. Teacher responds, quick and deadpan,

"Slash? What are you kidding me? What's he gonna do - pick a guitar with a heroin needle?!"

We all laughed. I still laugh when I think about that story. I think the class laughed so much, teacher included, that nobody else even got asked. Nobody, or at least not me. I was a little deflated, but watching him get smacked down like that was worth it. We collectively finished our mutual laugh, which is always satisfying, and just moved on - "Ok class, D-triangle, here we go."

But think about what happened there for at least a second more.

There's a reason I'm still thinking about it. There's a reason I'm going back to it now. I had to start writing this essay about it in order to work it out.

Deep down I've always been bothered by how Tommy hadn't earned the right to that opinion.

I mean, he thought he did, and that's comical in and of itself because I am positive some other knucklehead in his family said, "Dude, Slash is the greatest guitar player ever" and Tommy was like "yeah, ditto, I know. Let's eat a Slim Jim," and this was just him parroting a fraction of the inherent, inherited lack of depth in that moment for all of us to laugh at.

Let's be even more direct: Tommy couldn't handle D-triangle in that class. But he had no problem spouting his greatest-guitar-player-ever take to the class.

To this day, I bet if I ran into Tommy somewhere and asked him his favorite guitar player, there are decent odds he would still say Slash. There are even better odds he hasn't thought about that opinion, or developed it, since 7th grade, or whenever it cemented itself in his head. And that's no fault of Tommy, or anybody else who's mad about the take.

This is how most people go through most of life. We hold on to stuff that feels real enough to us, even if it's un-earned enough to crumble in front of the slightest amount of scrutiny. Public agreement is never the final scoreboard. Tommy's a great reminder of that.

Plus, isn't the unearned confidence basically the whole AI problem in a nutshell?

Right now, I can go into my LLM of choice, use memory or click a couple quick MCP connections to my various drives or apps, tell it to write an essay, just like this one, in its best attempt at my voice, about whatever topic I want, and - MF'er will do it. In seconds. It's insane.

It'll probably even do a halfway decent job. Passable, even. Once your LLM knows you? It can and will create passable work with all the effort of a single prompt. You don’t even have to type. You can dictate the instruction, or even thumb it in with a whole mess of typos. All you have to do is get your ask in and press enter.

And that work will also be totally Tommy.

Without actually doing it, I already know nobody wants to read that s***. Pressfield would laugh at the very thought of it. Any teacher would absolutely not be having it, either.

But I'd probably still get a passing grade. Like, it would work on LinkedIn, you know? I could probably digest the shame, especially if the result got me some social points online, or a like from a potential client, or a reshare by somebody I looked up to. And this is THE GAME now! Just like that was THE GAME then. Argh and ahhh, no aha. "Slash" is passable as an answer to spout in front of your middle school boys. It all rhymes.

But anybody wanting to read this AI example, if it doesn't come from me - more importantly, if I know it doesn't come from me and a bunch of time spent toiling over it, both when I wanted to give up and when it was all I ever wanted to do in the whole wide world - then I will know in myself that I didn't earn it. Tommy, for his part, earned exactly what he came for - and I'd still bet he holds that opinion without a second thought.

Meanwhile, here I am, in front of a keyboard 32 years later trying to work out the feelings of missing my shot at answering THE QUESTION. And all this happens as I look side to side and wonder how I even stumbled into a spot writing for this series(?!?).

I look away from my computer for just a second and over at my dog. I’m still turning it over. This is part of my process, or ADHD, or both - candidly. The dog seems to wonder back, but with his eyes and, right there, I see it. I know exactly what he means.

I respect everybody on this Epsilon Theory: Unplugged list because I think they've each figured out their own version of earning it. Personally. Deeply, too. If I'm 100% honest about it, half the reason I feel like an impostor next to people like them is that exact thing - I see the bar they've set and wonder if I'm clearing mine, or if I'm just close enough to fool myself. I'd guess a few of you reading this feel the same way about somebody, maybe even about this list. We're worse than Tommy when we do this because we're self-aware Tommys. It feels awful. He never felt awful about his takes. That gap is worth noting.

Yes, this is a pro-Tommy note, in a way. That's what your attention getting stuck on an idea will do. That's the bar letting you know you're close, when you start to empathize with MF-ing Tommy of all people.

We know the other writers have all used the tools available to them, to whatever degree felt right, and that doesn't disqualify any of their work because of the quality of their output. You don't measure someone's earning it by which tools were in the room. You measure it by whether the knowing was already there before the tools showed up. They play their version of THE GAME. They ask and answer their questions. They prove they earn their s***.

The only place Tommy is different from any one of these authors is where they each set their internal bar. Whatever tools they use don’t replace their knowing, because their knowing is already there. The internal metric leverages the knowing. The only metric, if there even is one that matters, has to be attention.

Attention (think: “a tension”) is how each individual notices which parts of their own thinking are theirs, what they let the tools touch, and what they never let the tools touch - that's what decides and determines everything. Noticing is in and of itself a central part of the earning. Coming up with rules or labels can't be the point. The feeling is the point. And that feeling - paying attention to your own attention - is the whole reason to share anything with anyone in the first place, even if you're worried it's a room full of Tommys.

Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's a nostalgic plea for art. Color me conservative, even, if you must.

I'm still going to use AI. I'm still going to have it help me in all manners of life, even including writing, where I'll regularly tell it stuff like, "Now you're my mean English teacher, red ink this and don't hold back.”

But I have zero tolerance for not wanting to earn my s***. That goes for when I'm using it and when I'm not using it. That's the code right there. And it's internal.

I know THE QUESTION. I know THE GAME. I know where my bar is set and don't have to worry about why it's there, just that it is there.

So I write something, like this essay, in a way that I think somebody like me would absolutely want to read it. I mean, you’re still here, right? It’s amazing when that happens. And it’s the reason WHY, forever and always, that's my internal bar.

And that is still a feature and not a bug. The internet gave us infinite shelf space. And internet shelf space created the need for algorithms that have become so impossibly narrow that what falls into each of our individual feeds looks less and less like what falls into anybody else's - which is exactly why Pressfield's rule is harder to clear today than when he wrote it. I bet even he will tell you that.

It's still as true now as it was then: Nobody wants to read your s***.

I’ll admit that it feels strange to have come this far in this essay only to arrive at this point, but I’m still a 90s slacker kid, so. So what?

Close your eyes and find your attention. It's hanging out around THE QUESTION. It's somewhere in THE GAME, for better or for worse. Keep them peepers closed and start to feel the actual joy of creating anything. The high wire act of doing it. The myth of creating something that resonates with whatever you're chasing. If the bug's bit you, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know that compulsion to scratch that itch.

It's WHY we do the work. It's WHY we earn the right to present it, within ourselves, and then test it on the world with whatever audience will receive our s***.

Because…

Because we have to. Because we’re compelled to - and our attention demands enough of our own awareness to know when we’ve met a bar we set for ourselves and everyone else's be damned.

There’s no ANSWER. Just THE GAME, THE QUESTION, and THE WHY and they don’t even have an order or hierarchy.

Post-intro, intro flavored interruption: I have to get specific on this bar idea. I have to get specific on THE WHY. Somewhere into working this out the all-capsing started and now we can’t go back. This is like the final boss. We're ready to overcome it and get the treasure.

There's an internal bar and an external bar, and they're not exactly the same height. Or fight, either. They’re both of those things, which is weird - but think about it.

The internal bar is Tommy's, even if his answer was silly - we can empathize and admit he still earned the right to hold it, because somewhere, somehow, someway, that s*** became genuinely his. He, deep down, believes it to be true. I can respect that, even when I'm laughing at it. The internal bar is mine. It's yours. It was even Tommy's. We all have one. Some of us just hold it up differently.

The external bar is Pressfield's: nobody wants to read your s***, so you start with that assumption and then go out to find the people who do. That one's harder. It's made of finding the non-Tommys, one at a time, who share at least a little bit of your unique perspective on whatever QUESTION you are answering. Pressfield's bar doesn't care how you feel about your own bar. But it reminds us that once you have an idea that's up and out in the world, then and only then, it's all about shared taste.

You only clear the external bar by being compelled enough, by loving the work enough, to keep trying, succeeding, and failing with your internal bar in front of other people to get them to care along with you - which, candidly, is a lot like being a middle school student. On every level that matters.

It's conclusion time! Write "So, in conclusion" and cross it out with red ink because you're an adult and it feels so good that even AI isn't dumb enough to let people write "In conclusion" at the bottom of their posts. You have the treasure. You know WHY, and how to find THE QUESTION, and that it's all part of THE GAME. You're ready for this. I'm ready to be done writing this, too, thank the gods, so let's land this bad boy already.

The whole world is in middle school right now over AI.

I'm trying not to forget that. Some of us are more advanced than others, but it's all really pretty new. That means we're all some version of Tommy in this moment, hand half-raised, not totally sure if what we've got is earned or just borrowed, confident-sounding, and completely fine with that.

That's not shameful to admit. That's just where we are. So laugh on the way, the way we all laughed at Tommy, because some of us are about to be him, and some of us already have been, and neither one is the end of the story.

I guess I did learn something in that middle school guitar class?

No tool can replace the work of finding out who you are via the act of making something you think is cool, that somebody else agrees is cool. Because no tool can know that. Only you can know it, in yourself, unassisted, and that's as hard to admit as it is essential. You are the only one capable of setting that bar. You are the only one capable of sharing it. You are the only one who has to wake up tomorrow and be you all over again.

So I’ll say it as plainly as I can: no tool can replace you. Stop sweating it. Even if you’re a Tommy, just don’t be a tool. Get back to earning it, whatever your s*** may be.

P.S. Not even with a heroin needle.

P.P.S. I did not take that elective art class, clearly. I say this in full Tommy mode: images by Google Gemini.