It is hard on the animal
when the habitat changes faster than the skin.
For decades we build our minds around a specific labor.
We take pride in the friction
the pattern, the familiarity of it.
We tie our honor to the muscle memory of the craft.
Then a new tool steps over the wall
and renders the old struggle unnecessary.
The first reaction is rarely curiosity.
It is grief.
It feels like a cheat
because it bypasses our sacrifice
our investment, our life so far.
Every transitional generation feels this same vertigo.
The monks looking at the printing press.
The blacksmiths looking at the assembly line.
Now we stand looking at the prompt.
The old tools shaped our identities.
The new tools demand our adaptation.
We are the generation caught in the middle
trying to honor the discipline that made us
while learning to walk in a world that no longer requires it.
Our descendants who inherit these tools
will likely view our anxieties as overly simplistic.
