I don't think I like being a content creator.

Yes, I know the title sounds like I’m taking the piss. Considering this is literally what I do now. I’m aware of that contradiction before anyone else points it out. But that’s kind of the point. I’m not interested in smoothing it out just to make it sound cleaner.

I hate making content. Or at least I hate what that phrase has come to mean. Because what I actually care about has nothing to do with feeding something constantly. It has everything to do with thinking properly. Sitting in an idea long enough that it changes shape. Writing it out. Speaking it through. Letting it feel like something instead of just producing something. Most of the time that comes from my life, or whatever has managed to hold my attention for more than ten minutes. Which is rare enough that I don’t ignore it when it happens.

Writing has never been optional for me. Not in a romantic sense. Not in a career sense. In a very literal sense. If I want to communicate anything at all, I have to build it word by word. So this was always going to be the thing whether I framed it that way or not. And somehow that’s turned into a job where I’m expected to constantly produce. Constantly show up. Constantly exist in a way that assumes consistency is something I can just decide to have. Which is funny when the only thing my body has ever been consistent at is being inconsistent.

I get why the system works like this. I’m not pretending I don’t. Attention is fragmented. Everything is crowded. If you’re not visible, you get replaced. It’s not dramatic. It’s just what happens. But I don’t actually think people have stopped reading. I think they’ve stopped waiting. And those are not the same thing. Even if everyone treats them like they are. The people I actually want to reach aren’t looking for constant noise. They’re looking for something that feels like it was worth the time it took to make.

I’m not going to stop writing. That’s not discipline talking. That’s just reality. Every time I try to step away, it circles back. I end up in front of a screen building sentences again. Which either means I’m supposed to be doing this. Or I’ve boxed myself into something I can’t get out of. I’m not sure which version annoys me more. But either way, it’s still true.

Once I’m in it, I don’t stop in a normal way. I go until something gives out. My body. My attention. Both. That cycle is messy. It’s inconvenient. It’s not optimised for anything. Which is also how I know it’s real. Because if I was faking this, I would have picked something that actually works with the world I’m trying to exist in.

Momentum matters now in a way that feels ridiculous until you realise it actually decides whether you’re visible or not. Once you lose it, you don’t just slow down. You disappear. Getting back isn’t just about doing good work again. It’s about being seen again. That’s a completely different problem.

People treat writing and content like they’re the same thing. They’re not. Content is always there asking for more. It wants frequency. It wants presence. It wants you even when you’ve got nothing worth saying. Writing doesn’t work like that. Writing shows up when there’s actually something to work through. It doesn’t care if that takes time. Or silence. Or space. Or disappearing for a while.

Somewhere along the way, writing got dragged into the content system. Now it’s expected to behave like it. Constant. Predictable. Scheduled. That’s where this stops being preference and starts being pressure. Because I don’t work like that. And I don’t think anything worth writing really does.

If I want to keep up with that system, I have to use AI. That’s not a statement. That’s just reality. Without it, I fall behind. I know that now. Not theoretically. Practically. And that’s where it starts to feel off. Even if everything looks like it’s working.

On paper, it’s a win. I can keep up. I can produce more. I can stay visible in a way I physically couldn’t before. That’s exactly what everyone tells you to aim for. But that assumes your best work comes from constant output. Mine never has.

My best work comes from disappearing. From sitting in something longer than is efficient. From letting ideas develop properly instead of forcing them into shape early. That doesn’t fit neatly into a system that rewards showing up every day. AI makes it very easy to ignore that. It removes the friction that used to force me to stop. It fills the gaps. It smooths things out. It keeps things moving even when I probably shouldn’t be moving at all.

And that’s where it gets uncomfortable.

Because I don’t know where the line is yet. Between using it to support my thinking. And using it to replace the space my thinking actually needs.

The risk isn’t that I’ll cross that line on purpose. It’s that I won’t notice when I already have.

This has been sitting underneath everything for a while. I’ve been circling it because it’s easier to talk about the theory than admit what I’m actually doing. But at some point that stops being honest and just turns into avoidance.

So here it is.

I use AI constantly. I don’t use it inside my AAC system, not in my voice, not in the part that actually speaks for me. But I use it everywhere around that. In writing. In structuring. In thinking. In getting from what I know I want to say to something I can actually put out into the world without it taking hours I don’t have.

And the way people talk about this makes it sound like you press a button, something appears, and you either claim it or you don’t. That’s not what this is.

It’s a back and forth that doesn’t really stop once it starts. I throw something at it, it throws something back, I tear it apart, reshape it, push it in a different direction. Most of what survives that process doesn’t look much like what came out in the first place. Half the time I already know exactly what I want to say — I can feel it sitting there fully formed — but getting from that to actual words is where everything slows down. That gap is where this sits.

So yes, I use it. Not because I can’t think. Not because I want something else to say things for me. But because the world I’m trying to exist in is not waiting for me to take ten minutes per sentence and then politely rewarding me for the effort.

It changes things in ways that are hard to ignore once you notice them. It changes how fast something comes out. It changes how easy it is to keep going when I would normally stop. And it changes how tempting it is to accept something that’s close enough and move on instead of pushing it further.

If that makes people uncomfortable, fine. Because the alternative isn’t some ideal version of writing where everything is pure and untouched. It’s me getting left behind in a system that assumes speed is normal and that everyone can just show up and produce on demand. I type ten words a minute on a good day. I’m competing in a space where people can now produce more in an afternoon than I could in a week. Ignoring that doesn’t make it go away.

What does get to me is what happens when people notice from the outside. Suddenly it’s not “this is how the system works now.” It’s “you didn’t do your job properly.” As if I’ve cut a corner that invalidates the work itself. When really it’s a reflection of what this space actually demands — constant output, constant visibility, constant pressure to keep up whether that fits how you work or not. I’m not outside of that. I’m in it.

But there are things it doesn’t get to do.

It doesn’t get to decide what I’m saying. It doesn’t get to decide how I’m saying it. It doesn’t get to decide whether something gets published. If I’m not making those calls, it’s not mine — no matter how efficient it is or how good it looks on the surface.

I’ve also noticed that if something comes out too fast, too clean, too easy, I don’t trust it. Not because it’s necessarily bad, but because it probably hasn’t been pushed far enough to actually sound like me yet. That’s the point where I slow it down again. Break it. Rewrite it. Pull it back into something that feels like it came from the way I actually think rather than the fastest possible version of it.

Because my voice isn’t just the idea. It’s the way I move through it. The way it builds. The way it lands. If that disappears, it doesn’t matter how efficient the process was.

The problem is I don’t always want to do that. Sometimes I’m tired. Sometimes I just want to keep up. Sometimes “close enough” feels good enough in the moment even when I know it won’t hold up later. That’s the part no one really talks about. It’s not a clean decision between using AI or not using it. It’s a constant negotiation between keeping up and falling behind in a system that doesn’t give you space to opt out.

So that’s the line I’m holding.

It’s not perfect. It’s not fixed. I won’t get it right every time. But the real risk here isn’t AI itself — it’s what happens when I stop noticing I’m adjusting. When small decisions slide because they don’t seem like they matter. When “close enough” becomes the default and I stop questioning it.

Until one day I’m not choosing my words.

I’m just approving them.

That’s not happening. But only because I’m paying attention to it now in a way I wasn’t before. And that’s about as honest as I can be about where I’m at.