Ahead Of Your Time, Until You’re Not
(Updated 9 June 2025)
Back in the early 2000s, I started a blog as an experiment in digital communication.
If I remember right, it was called Chameleon Diaries. It was going to be provocative, funny, honest. I wrote, maybe, three posts, but quickly decided I had nothing meaningful to say. I’d barely lived! In fact, at that stage I hadn’t even left my hometown of Nelson in New Zealand except for a couple of small trips to Australia (which doesn’t count).
So, I deleted it.
A couple of years later, I started another blog. This time it was called The Shining Cuckoo. But I was afraid people would think I had mental health issues. At that point in my life, I did have mental health issues. Anything I might have written would have been therapy. Possibly helpful, but I don’t like being pigeonholed, and people love to typecast.
I deleted that one too then briefly resurrected it then deleted it again.
Some years later, I started a health-based blog. I wanted to chronicle my experiences in the world of hormone replacement therapy. It was a free WordPress blog and the trolls did my head in.
You guess right, I deleted it.
Voila! Here I am again, communicating via a blog.
The difference is, back then I was ahead of my time.
Now, I’m not.
I’m way behind.
The majority of communicators out there are creating a podcast, updating their YouTube channel, growing a following through a patronage-based economic model or hosting their own Discord channel. And they’re in their 20s and 30s.
And after a bit of positive self talk, I’ve come to accept that that’s okay.
I’m an introverted Gen X who loves to create and communicate online.
My reasoning runs deeper than this though.
Not many of us rise to the lofty heights of the elite where a platform and power is a given. Not many of us want to 😉 And regardless of how experienced or intelligent or knowledgeable we are, not all of us get to share our perspectives or ethics in a globally meaningful way. Call it what you will, this website/blog is my attempt to leave a digital footprint for now and a future world I probably will not know or understand.
Why? Because I am a communicator.
The Value of Human-Centred Creativity
In my day job, I’m committed to the mission of my client which is: bringing people together as a community through the common language of “playing great games.” Our studio is all human with no AI creation involved and I’m proud to stand by their side in this. So many game studios are adopting AI faster than you can say AlphaGo.
I believe to my core that the need for embodied artisanship has never been greater. This will always be my default. When I sit down to make a collage, I put my imagination and hands to the test. I physically cut and assemble images from books and magazines found in second hand stores. I make so many mistakes I can’t ‘unglue’. When I pen a poem, I soak in the many poetic forms and luxuriate in language. The ideation process is tantalising. Unfettered. Sometimes I enter the Flow State. It is the kind of creative practice artificial intelligence, AI or AGI, would struggle to experience.
The same goes with the type of blogging I lean towards. Personal, values-driven blogs written by a human with human emotions about real life. Blogging is an online medium that I appreciate in this hyper-real, hyper-digital world we live in. I enjoy taking my time to read and the quietude of the experience.
Curiously though, in my vocation as a creative communicator I’m AI curious. Here, I want to ‘surf the wave of change’ as the incomparable Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn Podcast has coined. I’m open to being an ‘expert curator’ and I’m willing to test being an ‘AI-assisted artisan author’ on certain projects. Technology now has a foothold in almost all areas of modern life, and I intend to keep up with it without compromising on my values and ethics. If I ever use AI assistance, I will disclose this use.
Embracing Authentic Communication
When it comes down to it, I don’t think the choice is human vs AI content. Rather, it’s about our aptitude for authentic communication that matters. My philosophy is highly phenomenological in that respect. My imagination, my expression, and my physical involvement cannot be taken from me and cannot be given to me.
So, if you’ve read this far, welcome. This is where you’ll find this human. Social media is a tough place to hang out. I don’t know how to ‘be’ on there anymore, so I’m not there for now.
No more deleting. Just honest communication, in all my myriad expressions.
Hi Rachel,
I foundation your blog through Google while I was searching for other peoples inspiration on collage books. And than I stuck around. I like this post. It resonates with me. I too have started a few blogs but I never got past 1 or 2 posts. Ultimatly I didn’t feel I had much to say. Which is anoing because I feel I’m full of something that just is not coming out, I know that sounds weird.
I totally agree with you about the online space at the moment and all the ways communicators utalize it. I’m in awe but ultimatly I want to read about people. I want to get to know people and countless photography feeds and annoying talking heads don’t do it for me either. So Hooray for the good old fashioned blog by an actual person who is just figuring things out like all of us. That you for writing! I’m here to read.
PS. I lived in Masterton for a year and love how you say you’re based in Aotearoa!!!
Hi Anna, thank you for sharing your experience! That feeling of having something to say but not yet able to say it – I get it. I’m reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, do you know of it? It is a beautiful book, incredibly light to hold, and full of wise reminders. Highly recommend ✨ And yay for living in Masterton for a time. Where is home for you?