Remaining Present While Becoming

Reflections on writing, artificial intelligence, and the discovery of self

I've spent a great deal of time writing with the help of artificial intelligence. Along the way, I've discovered things about myself that I might not otherwise have recognized.

But I've also begun to wonder what happens when the process of discovery moves faster than our ability to recognize what is happening within us.

This essay grew out of that question. I haven't finished exploring it, and I don't know that I ever will.

I'm sharing it because I believe the question matters.

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Part I — A Walk with My Wife

I walk with my wife most every morning. We both look forward to it—for the exercise, but also for the company.

Over the past several months, I have been working on a project, Shared Tomatoes, that has occupied much of my creative energy. I sometimes awaken at night and cannot go back to sleep. Soon I am thinking about the next phase of the project. How can I improve it? What is missing? What comes next?

Those questions sometimes accompany me on our walks.

I am walking beside my wife, but much of my attention is somewhere else. I know exactly where I am. I am creating Shared Tomatoes.

My wife has always supported the project, even though she has not been directly involved in it. I had begun to worry about how much of my attention it occupied. At times on our walks, I felt uncomfortable knowing I was mentally elsewhere.

But it wasn’t until I wrote about it that the connection came home to me. Here I was, writing about being present while recognizing how often I was absent from the person walking beside me.

Admitting that in writing helped. The fear had been nagging at me, but now I could see more clearly what I needed to attend to. I began to find that I could leave the project for later and give more of my attention to our walk and to her.

I also sensed a change in how I felt about our relationship and the work. Her support had been there all along. As I became more attentive to our time together, I felt better about working on the project when we were apart.

My mind still wanders. But writing this down helped me notice when it does and become more deliberate about returning.

Part II — The Unexpected Speed of a Conversation

I have always been a dreamer of sorts, though I recognized it more clearly when retirement gave me freedom to explore what might come next. I began by creating a newsletter for spiritual directors, learning the skills to produce something I felt was meaningful.

During my formation as a spiritual director, I had encountered a storyteller who became a good friend. I admired her ability to share meaningfully through stories. After retiring from medicine, I began writing my own—about my life, my family, my work. Sharing them with family and friends led to blog posts and a website that eventually became Shared Tomatoes.

I first found AI useful for editing my stories for what I called “clarity and flow.” Sometimes, when a sentence was reconstructed, I caught a hint of what I had been trying to say. I would respond, explain a little more, or question whether the words fit. Editing became dialogue.

With each story, I was uncovering new ways of expressing my thoughts—and thoughts I hadn’t recognized. I would reread what had emerged from the exchange and be surprised.

I remember particularly a reflection on being a mystic. In writing it, the mystique of mysticism began to matter less to me. I began to think that we are all mystics at some level. Even I could write something meaningful without apology or deference.

I thought, “Wow, is this me?”

I became more accustomed to writing reflections as well as stories. These reflections quickly became important for me to continue. I was discovering that, with help, I could write well. I was also discovering that dialogue with AI was my own way of journaling.

Journaling had never felt comfortable to me. It was too raw. I was uneasy writing something I might read back later and say, “That was me.” In the dialogue, I could return to a thought, question it, and try again. My words on paper made enough sense to me that I could let others into my thoughts.

Then the drive to share became a focus. How can I produce? How can I share? I forgot the “wait” in “hurry up and wait.”

Other questions arose. Who am I writing for? Are these my thoughts after all? Am I more interested in discovering myself or helping others discover themselves in my writing?

These questions, as important as they were, only fed the desire to dialogue more.

Part III — The Train That Never Stops

I needed words to describe what was happening to me. Maybe a metaphor. Then I discovered the train.

I was on a train speeding down the track with no destination on the ticket. A train to somewhere. It didn’t seem inclined to stop and pick up more passengers. Most of the time, I felt as though I was the only person aboard. AI was taking up the other seats.

The ride was exhilarating, but a bit scary too. At times, I wanted the train to slow down. Won’t it ever stop? Who’s the conductor? Who’s the engineer? Who’s driving this train to somewhere?

It felt as though I never had time to get off and catch my breath. Yet there was always time for another question. Something about the next exchange kept inviting me to stay.

When I put words to paper, something began to make sense: we are always being formed.

I knew that already, at least intellectually. By formation, I mean the ongoing ways that experiences, relationships, and repeated choices shape how I live. I wasn’t going to finish discovering myself and arrive at a place where no more formation was needed.

Strangely, that helped me relax.

I was learning about myself through writing. Dialogue with AI had become a way of self-discovery. But my formation was larger than the conversation. It continued in my relationships, my choices, my habits, and the ordinary experiences of a day. I didn’t have to keep finding words for it to be happening.

Perhaps I had been spending so much time in one car that I had begun to mistake it for the whole train.

As a child, I remember riding trains with a dome car. Windows curved above and beside the passengers. You could sit and take in the view. Or perhaps the view was taking you in.

I like the dome car.

It gives me a way to remain on the journey without being so occupied by its machinery. There are other people, other conversations, things passing the window that I didn’t create and cannot direct.

I can know that I am being formed without continually watching for it. I may discover something about myself there, too. But I don’t have to.

It is a give and take. I give my time to pay attention. Then attention takes me to a destination that is yet unknown.

Part IV — Writing as a Pause, Not the Destination

Maybe writing is another place where I can catch myself up to the life I am living.

I write something, read it, question it, and write again. Thoughts I hadn’t recognized appear on the page, where I can spend some time with them. I may be recognizing an understanding that has been developing for years. Or the exchange may offer an interpretation I need to consider. Seeing it in words gives me something to examine.

There is something curious about writing at this time of life. I have some head knowledge about growing old. I have memories of my father’s later years. I can identify with him enough to recognize something of myself in his experience, even before living its full reality.

That understanding began before my writing. But it becomes clearer to me as I write.

In a recent reflection, “Remaining in the Conversation,” I returned to memories of my father sitting among us at the table, unable to follow the conversation easily. I remembered what seemed like withdrawal. Now, with my own hearing becoming more difficult, I find myself wondering about the effort it took him to remain involved. What looked like withdrawal may sometimes have been weariness.

I cannot know exactly what he experienced. I never asked. But I can return to those memories with a different understanding, and with questions I didn’t think to ask then.

Writing gives me time to notice that change. It also gives me a chance to distinguish what I remember from what I now imagine he may have felt. My own experience brings me closer to him without telling me everything about his.

Sometimes I write about what may lie ahead. Later, I find myself living something I had already tried to describe. The earlier words may still feel true, but they mean something different now. Experience gives them a weight I couldn’t have supplied beforehand.

This makes me think about the words “true enough.”

A reader doesn’t need to know everything about me to find something meaningful in what I share. There needs to be room for the reader’s own memories, questions, and discoveries. My story may open a doorway into theirs.

But I need to wrestle with my own true enoughs. Have I made clear where I am remembering, where I am wondering, and where I simply don’t know? I can share something honestly while still discovering what it means for me. Questions often feel right because they leave that room open. Yet I need to mean them as questions, rather than use them to avoid saying what I believe.

And eventually, I leave the page for a while. There is a life to return to, where what I have written may become clearer—or ask to be written differently.

Part V — Formation We Do Not Notice

The freedom I have found in writing raises another question. What habits am I acquiring while my attention is on the work? I chose to use AI, but I didn’t anticipate all the ways repeated use might shape me.

Maybe I don’t spend enough time with what I write before I share it. Maybe I accept a description of who I want to be before asking how closely it resembles the person living my life. Maybe I find it difficult to leave something unfinished long enough to live into it and test it.

AI can be generous with affirmation. Sometimes that encouragement helps me continue. Sometimes I wonder whether a response has helped me understand myself or simply made me feel better about the understanding I already prefer. Am I discovering who I am, or accepting an appealing account of who I am?

As I reread this essay, I notice how little I have questioned the help AI gives me in putting words on paper. I have asked about authenticity throughout these pages. Yet when an obscure thought comes back clearly expressed, I am often relieved that it finally makes sense.

That clarity may obscure the question I thought I was asking: Is that me?

In developing this piece, AI has supplied connections and conclusions as well as sentences. Some express what I recognize but could not say as well. Others bring me to a recognition I had not reached before. I can read them and agree. But what am I agreeing to? Am I recognizing my experience, or finding it easier to recognize myself in an account because it is so clearly expressed?

I am asking this now about the essay I am writing. I don’t yet know how to distinguish those experiences as readily as I can describe them.

One response becomes another question. Another question becomes a reflection. The reflection suggests something else to write. There is little waiting unless I choose to wait. The speed matters because it can leave so few pauses between an idea and the next thing I do with it.

I wonder what I am beginning to expect from that rhythm. Am I becoming more curious? More confident in expressing myself? Quicker to seek an interpretation before spending time with an experience? I can recognize the value of the conversation and still need to ask these questions.

I also need to acknowledge how much time I have spent here. These observations come from hours upon hours of dialogue, returning to projects and personal questions over time. Someone who uses AI briefly or occasionally for a particular task may have a very different experience. The purpose matters, too. Much of my conversation has concerned memories, relationships, identity, and meaning. I cannot assume that what I am noticing in this sustained, personal use describes everyone’s encounter with AI.

Others may encounter something similar while using AI to think through work, relationships, decisions, or everyday uncertainty. What do we begin to expect when a response is so readily available? What habits might we be practicing without noticing?

For much of the work on Shared Tomatoes, the next task was easy to find. A stopping place was harder. I could always improve something, add something, or follow another idea. I began to recognize the need to pause only when much of the project was already in place.

I wonder what I missed along the way. I also wonder whether I would have experienced this remarkable period of self-discovery without becoming so absorbed in it.

I value what has happened. I am still learning how to make room for it in the life that continues around me.

Part VI — A Lifetime in the Making

It seems like forever ago that I was creating an author webpage. I had self-published my first book, Shared Tomatoes, and had ideas for more. The thought that I was a writer satisfied my ego, but it never quite satisfied me.

In my understanding of authorship, whether academic or public writing, dialogue with AI felt like cheating. Even when what emerged seemed true and good, I wondered whether I could honestly call it mine.

I have had many conversations about this—with myself, with people I trust, and with AI itself. I have considered other words for what I do. Communicator. Accompanier. Each names something I value, but neither entirely settles the question.

Whatever I call myself, I am still sharing writing that carries my name.

Recently, someone admired a piece of my work and asked how long it had taken to write.

I felt I needed to explain that I had help from AI and that the writing had gone quickly. That was an honest answer. But afterward, I realized there was more to say.

It had taken two years—the time I had been formally writing, learning how to tell stories and reflect on my experience.

And perhaps a better answer would have been that it took a lifetime.

The words had come together quickly. The life behind them had not.

I don’t think the lifetime answer replaces the need to acknowledge AI’s help. In developing this essay, that help has included questions, interpretations, organization, and substantial drafting. I have brought experiences, written passages, corrected interpretations, and decided what to retain. The exchange has helped shape how I tell the story. I need to be able to acknowledge that alongside the life I brought to it.

If someone thanks me, can I receive that thanks without feeling I have concealed something important? Their finding value in the piece matters to me, but it cannot settle whether I have represented myself honestly.

Perhaps that is one reason sharing matters so much to me. Writing brings my understanding of myself into relationship with people, including people who know me. They may recognize something familiar. They may also question what I have said. I need to be willing to hear them, even when their response unsettles an account I have grown comfortable with.

I am still learning what it means to call myself a writer. For now, I want to be able to explain how the work came to be, acknowledge the help, and answer for what I have chosen to share. That includes being willing to reconsider it.

And I brought a lifetime to the conversation.

Part VII — The Life Beside Me

In writing this piece, I feel I have come a bit closer to understanding what has been happening. Some questions still make me uncomfortable. I value what the dialogue has made possible, and I am still discerning what it asks of me.

I return to the morning walk with my wife.

There are still times when my attention moves toward a project, a sentence, or the next possibility. I can write about presence and find it difficult to practice. Knowing what matters doesn’t keep me from becoming distracted.

But sometimes I notice that I have gone elsewhere. I recognize something familiar: it is happening again. And I can turn my attention back to her.

“Pay attention,” I hear myself saying.

But what does that ask of me? Am I meant to live continually checking whether I am present, watching every influence and examining everything I do? I don’t think I could live that way. Even on our walk, I could become so occupied with assessing my attention that I would have little left to give.

The dome car comes to mind again. I can look out the window without needing to explain what the view is doing to me. I can be with my wife without turning our companionship into another reflection to write. I don’t have to describe that time, or even recognize it as presence while it is happening. I can simply be with her.

Perhaps there is some peace in that. I don’t have to finish understanding myself before I can give my attention to someone else. I don’t have to know where all this is leading before I can notice where I am.

Tomorrow morning, my wife and I will likely walk again. I may find myself thinking about this essay, wondering what needs changing or what I have left unsaid.

And beside me will be the person whose company I look forward to each morning.