Fiction and what it says about us

I’ve been enjoying listening to these writing lectures by Brandon Sanderson.

He talks about what makes good characters. They must have agency, they take actions, have goals and use grit to achieve them, don’t give up. A Jedi/Samurai/Warrior is a hero: they never give up.

What does low agency look like?

A character that frustrates the audience, one that we hate, is the passive one. They don’t take actions, they don’t try. We don’t mind seeing a character fail over and over again because that’s a sign of earnestness. We root for them.

A classic example of a hero character with high agency is Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movies. He kept failing, got his arm cut off, got captured, but he never gave up. And the new movies?

We even love villains who are proactive, who have thought things through. We’re drawn to understand their different motivations.

What is money for?

Do you ever notice how people talk about what they would do if they won the lottery? It’s usually always buying more stuff or being as comfortable as possible. If all you can think of is buying more things, then you have no purpose.

“Money is great. I can’t get enough money. And you know what I’m gonna do with it? I’m gonna buy wilderness areas.” - Steve Irwin

People who have a properly integrated sense of purpose wouldn’t just spend everything on their own comfort and enjoyment.

This applies to our everyday goals too. You want a job? Make a plan, take actions. That’s attractive. You want to save animals? Build a zoo, buy land. That’s cool. It’s about having ambitions and goals and actually pursuing them.

Why do some people not care about AI at all?

AI is kind of like winning the lottery because it gives you leverage to achieve your goals. But if you don’t have any goals, then it’s just entertainment and status seeking.

If someone handed you 50 million dollars right now, what would you do with it?

Scrolling reels is passive. AI is active because you must type something in.

This is the main point of this post. AI tools are only useful for a user who actually wants to achieve something. They don’t compete with mindless scrolling at all, at least not yet. I’ve seen people say things like:

• “AI just tells me common sense things” … you didn’t have a good prompt. Bland input means bland output.
• “I don’t have a need for it” … you must be doing work way off the bell curve or be mindless sheep.

“I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

AI tools demand something of the user: you must have a goal. You have to have something you want to do, or an answer you want.

What is agency?

Agency is the single most important personality trait and habit. This is the ability to take actions, make choices, and exert power to achieve goals. It’s not a skill so much as a way of thinking and doing.

How to develop agency

It’s a mindset shift, similar to avoiding procrastination.

Jordan Peterson says to figure out what you want, and what you want to avoid. Figure out something, anything, worth having, from your own values. It should fire you up. It should be ambitious enough that you would want to put in a herculean effort to achieve it.

That’s why courage is central, it’s very easy to cope, to make excuses, and to be scared off the actions needed.

Scott Adams said to not think about the effort. It involves a subtle cognitive dissonance, to at once appreciate the magnitude of the task and then do it anyway. Focus on the fun part, the reward, and work towards it in a sustained process.

The hero’s journey starts with a prompt

Be your own agentic loop. Wanting something and then having the courage to take the first step, that’s the same thing as being the hero.