Once you burst the bubble, Spare yourself the trouble; Nothing that you do can ever bring it back again. The bubble had its season, The bursting had its reason; Their veracity’s value Is not diminished by your pain. The past looks real but isn’t, The gift is in the present; It makes you transform You - The only goal you can truly attain. Metamorphosis is life’s pleasure, It’s a treasure beyond measure; It makes you constantly renew Your focus on your spiritual lane. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Change
DON’T SURRENDER IT ALL TO AI
The primary aim of artistic expression is inner clarification of self, as well as personal spiritual development. The secondary aim is communication and sharing of ideas, which in any case always happens automatically as a by-product.
If you outsource all your artistic creativity to Artificial Intelligence, then, yes, finished works of a certain mould will be generated, but your spirit will not grow. And the purpose of your earthlife – the very purpose of life itself – will not be fulfilled. This lies alone in the continuous development of your “I” through self-exertion, self-clarification and the constant effort towards pure and accurate self-expression of intuition via thought into word and deed.
AI will produce works that resemble beauty, but will lead to the atrophy and death of the human spirit – unless you critically interrogate those works and then correct, reject or surmount them with your own personal effort, your own intuiting and reasoning. Don’t surrender to AI. Learn it but remain above it. Artificial Intelligence will make you look good, make you feel good, but only you can become better by yourself, by your own effort. The ancient rule is still the same, there is no short cut to success.
It is very imperative, in this era of artificial intelligence, for each person to remain personally creative, as well as spiritually and intellectually active and independent. Make the effort to think your own thoughts through to the end, and formulate and write them down by yourself. Compose, rehearse and record your own music. Make your own art. Draw the inspiration not just from others, but also, like before, from within the fathomless depths of your immortal spirit. Spend time in the silence of your heart, listening to your inner voice, hearing yourself by yourself and not from the programmed algorithm of an AI companion’s voice.
And also continue to do as many things with your hands as possible. Build. Make. Write. Go out into the world. Use your physical muscles, use your brain muscles, use your heart muscles, use your soul and use your spirit. And also, PATRONISE THOSE WHO DO SO, THOSE WHO STILL PRODUCE BY THE EFFORT OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. When you do this, you are not doing them a favour, but you are doing yourself and humanity and our future a SERVICE!
This is the only way they will grow. This is the only way we will grow. This is how we survived as a species over millions of years. This is how we got here. By the agency of Natural personal Human Intelligence. WE have always been the ones evolving, the ones plumbing our own depths, the ones developing. Thus: Woe betide us today if we now, tempted by convenience, hand that task now over to a self-programming and self-learning artificial algorithm we fashioned. Like the Zauberlehrling who can no longer deactivate or control the witchcraft he awakened. We would thereby have marked the beginning of the end of the story of the human spirit on Earth.
We are the generation that must tame the beast we have created, and ensure that it remains a servant and never becomes the cold lifeless master of our destiny, literally and figuratively. AI is wonderful for sourcing and collating information, and sorting and delivering it coherently. It is also marvellous at generating alternative versions of expressive output. But it cannot see the light. It cannot produce that individual unique recognition that can only come from deep within you. And it cannot produce the NEW, a truly new and different future. It can only regurgitate and re-permutate the past.
The production of Newness is still the purview and the task of the living and active human spirit. Let AI not be our last invention. Let us continue to bestir ourselves to intuit, imagine, innovate and invent even greater creations in the future, greater and higher than AI, and which also come from us – or through us. For WE are human spirit.
Retain your primary art-form in your hands. Don’t outsource it in the name of comfort, or vanity, or convenience, or competition, or materialism. Save and continue to develop that which is most valuable to us – our spirit. Let art, intuition and inspired thinking continue to be tools for personal inner growth through the joy of effort.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
SLOWNESS AND SPEED
Many times tomorrow comes today If you finish today’s task early; Many times yesterday returns today If you finished it prematurely; They rhyme and seen to be the same thing But will each result in a different ending. It’s a fine line between slowness and speed; Knowing the difference between need and greed; To capture and move like eyes when they read; Quickness must follow, Thoroughness must lead; The path from intuition, through thought, to deed; Only through fulfilment can you be freed. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
CHANGE COMPLETELY
What a difference a year can make - Even half-a-year of experiencing can remake Mind and soul, body and spirit completely. How quickly the present becomes the past, It never ceases to amaze me. I look at pictures from just a week ago last And it’s a different life already, A different time, a different world, a different me, A different you - my view has changed completely. Everything always Happens quickly, You take it immediately or you lose it swiftly. When the seasons change, they change completely. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE WAY OF GOODNESS
The fact that a thing goes the way it goes Doesn’t mean it was meant to go that way But in the end, however way it goes, If you follow goodness, it will go your way. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
MOVE!
Move! You have to move! Always you have to move move move! Change change change! Move And move again and again Keep moving keep changing your lane Joy and pain sunshine and rain playing and praying And always adjusting and recalibrating And moving and moving and moving And constantly growing and improving. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
CHALLENGE OF THE PRESENT
When they were living It was for them not the past; Now that we are living It is for us also not the past. It is always the present - And it always feels the same; For some it feels like the end, For others like the start, of the game. The future will one day look back And call our present their past - But their present too will hold them back With the same challenges of the past. It always demands bravery Without the benefit of hindsight; To act without knowing if posterity Will prove you wrong or right. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
WHAT YOU FELT YOU WOULD FEEL
When the worst happens, The thing you fear the most, A strange thing happens: Your fear becomes a ghost. It was never real, It was imagination, It was expectation - What you felt you would feel. But aren’t we spirit? Pain is the hand That forces us to grow and to understand There’s nothing ‘twixt the sea and the sand That can’t be healed by spirit’s magic wand. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
TRANSIENCE
You cannot reproduce the past What is gone is gone The present was never built to last A moment later, it is done. Over and done with. All that’s left to reminisce on Will be legend and myth. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
UNMISSING A PERSON
You know, when you do not Want to stop missing a person, but… One morning you rise and go through the day and only In the evening do you realise That today you forgot to be lonely And in that moment when you remember That person, you wait for the familiar pain… But as sure as August breaks into September The ache is gone, you’ll never feel it again. You know, when you do Not Want to stop missing a person… Because missing that person Is the only thing you’ve still got - But… One day even that leaves you too. Yes, even you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 