Mindset

AI is fuel for your most far-fetched creative goals

Or how I stopped worrying and embraced the creative freedom

Have you ever indulged a creative obsession? A mad dash - an opportunistic fling that consumes your days and nights. The kind that fills you with energy as fast as it drains it... until it doesn't, of course.

If you're a creator, there's a good chance you have - which means you know what it feels like to create something that nobody asked you for.

Really, you asked yourself to create it.

For the past month, I've given in to creative obsession in a big way. I've been working to realize a dream of mine, which is to build an AI-powered coach to teach and collaborate with creators. It's a... big dream.

The project has consumed me, and I let it. More than let it, I leaned into it.

It's been a very intense time. If I'm honest, not a healthy one. My sleeping has been disturbed, my diet has suffered, and I certainly feel burnt out.

But I don't think I've ever felt more creatively fulfilled or as inspired as I do now.

There is something incredibly liberating about giving yourself permission to try and create something that is far beyond your experience, or what someone might call your ability.

But ability is flexible. And determination counts for a lot in the age of AI. If you can allow yourself to become a sponge, and mix that with just enough blind optimism, you can create things you shouldn't be able to create.

The Supermassive Black Hole of AI-Fuelled Learning

This is the thing about working with AI that I find hardest to explain to people who haven't experienced it - the way space and time warp around you. You exist in a second reality where more progress happens in less time.

When I sit down with Claude or GPT to explore a concept, build a system, or design a workflow, hours vanish. But not in the empty way they do when I'm scrolling TikTok. They vanish in the way they do when you're in that magical flow state that creative people chase their whole lives.

The difference is, I can reliably enter that state now. All it takes is a good prompt, a clear goal, and the willingness to enter into conversation with these systems.

You become both student and conductor simultaneously. You're learning at an accelerated pace while directing an orchestra of ideas toward a cohesive vision.

The Human Joy of Zero to One

There's a particular joy in going from zero to one - in creating something that simply didn't exist before. It's the feeling of solving problems, of watching something take shape under your direction.

AI amplifies this feeling because the feedback loop is so tight. You have an idea, you express it (often imperfectly), and within seconds you have a response to react to. Something to push against, refine, redirect.

Traditional creation can feel like shouting into a void sometimes. You write and write and write, and only after days or weeks do you get feedback from others that helps shape the work.

Working with AI, it's more like jazz improvisation. You play a note, the AI responds, you build on that, it takes it in a new direction, and suddenly you're making music together that neither of you could have created alone.

AI Doesn't Replace Creativity - It Demands More of It

I've heard all the fears about AI replacing creators. And maybe for some types of work, that's a legitimate concern.

But my experience has been the opposite. AI doesn't want to create for me - it wants me to be more specific, more visionary, more decisive about what I actually want.

It forces me to articulate my vague notions into specific directions. It challenges me to know my own mind better. It asks me to become a better creative director, even when I'm just directing myself.

The best AI outputs come from creators who know exactly what they want - or who are willing to explore until they find what they didn't know they wanted.

Choose Creative Empowerment

Choose losing track of time while building something amazing.

Choose creating things you never thought possible.

Choose ignoring the doubters and embracing the possibilities.

Choose bringing ideas to life faster than ever before.

Choose conversations with machines that spark your imagination.

Choose building worlds at the speed of thought.

Choose learning in days what used to take years.

Choose your creative superpower.

Choose wonder.

Choose possibility.

Choose your future.

Choose creative freedom.

Choose AI as a creative tool.

I believe AI can be an incredibly creative tool, not a threat or replacement. We can't control its effect on society, but we can control our philosophy and adoption - we can create things which are fundamentally good.

I've been thinking of it this way: I can either spend my creative energy worrying about AI taking over, or I can spend that energy mastering these tools to augment what I already do.

I've chosen the latter, and it keeps me up at night thinking: has there ever been a better time to be an obsessive creative?

I don't think so. We have tools at our fingertips that can help us learn faster, produce more, and experiment with lower stakes than ever before. The barrier between imagination and creation has never been thinner. What once took years of technical training now takes weeks or even days.

But here's what I find most liberating - none of this matters without the human element. Your unique perspective, your weird obsessions, your particular taste, your creative direction. AI amplifies these things; it doesn't replace them.

That's why I'm so excited about this new direction for our newsletter. In coming editions, I won't just theorize about AI's potential - I'll share the actual workflows, prompts, and systems I've developed while building with these tools. The practical stuff that's helped me turn vague ideas into tangible creations.

Because the world doesn't need another think piece about whether AI will replace us. It needs more creators figuring out how to use these tools to make better things. And I'd like to help you do that.

I want this newsletter to be genuinely useful to you - a practical guide to navigating this strange new creative landscape. So tell me, what are you struggling with? What would help you most in your AI-enhanced creative journey? Hit reply and let me know. Your questions will shape what I cover next.

Until next time,

Jacob