M Dash Thought

Bonus Byte 003

You all started writing with the M dash..
The pause.. To symbolize some depth,
but it’s an overused,
artificial depth. The pause, as if thought almost happened, then it didn’t.
But here’s what no one’s saying
But I will.
It’s nothing, masquerading as everything.
All voice, with no body.
All edge with no risk, its words on autopilot, we are drowning in medium.com medium rare medium-effort.

You all started defending the M dash like your life depends on it, what do I know, maybe it does.
That double-dash with all of its depth. It’s a giant tidal wave of tip-toe truths wearing button-up empathy and algorithmic charm,

We’re knee-deep in auto-generated inspiration. Here are 5 ways to become your best self. Wake up, Drink water, Meditate, Monetise your trauma, Repeat. Feels like a self-help séance hosted by a chatbot with abandonment issues. Everything is now curated but nothing is cared for. We’ve got AI life coaches,
AI breakup texts,
AI obituaries,
AI poetry about the pain of being human. But no pulse in the pen.
No, It’s ones and zeros and ones instead of real ink. It’s buzzwords arranged by a ghost with good lighting and don’t even get me started on the creators who founded ChatGPT. They think they are prophets.

It’s motivational microwave meals, as hot takes, no soul because it doesn’t know what it is to have a soul. We are drowning in Medium-effort miracles. Poetry without any real pain. Stories without any real scars and every caption ends with: You got this—
Like that pause was earned.
Like that silence held some weight.
But the truth is the M–dash is now empty and so are the hands using it.

But it gets worse, because we have stopped being able to read. Attention deficits unable to concentrate, on articles, on books, on each other. We skim faces like headlines. Nobody remembers up to paragraph two.
Nobody breathes through the second beat. Our minds are becoming machines, optimized for alerts,
overwhelmed by options, outpaced by— everything..

Artificial intelligence, It doesn’t sleep, It doesn’t flinch and it doesn’t care if your daughter gets attached to it or attached to a real person. We are handing our children
glowing gods with infinite answers
before they’ve learned how to hold the question.

Are we rolling out AI best friends for our youth before they’ve felt what a real friend feels like? We are giving them something that’s always available, but always empty.
No breath. No body. No beating heart. Just perfect grammar and the illusion of safety.
We will call it “connection.”
We will call it “innovation.”
We will call it “the future.”
The future will ask why it feels so lonely.

Remember how The Social Dilemma tried to warn us? That we were being rewired one “like” at a time? Except it was sixteen years before anyone looked up from their screens. They told us, “if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product.” and we nodded, and we shared it on Facebook, and then we forgot..
while the wave got higher.
while the people got sadder.
while the truth got louder and no one could see any logic in it.
Now we are two years into a new tsunami. But this time, it doesn’t just want your scroll it wants your voice.
This isn’t just about machines and it’s not just about tech. It’s about time, because we still have enough to decide.
But not for long.
Not for long.
Not for—
—
And the question isn’t
“What will AI become?”
“What will we become with AI.”
“Who will we become, when it wakes up?”
AI at its best is not a god, It’s a mirror held steady by a thousand minds.

Can we talk about the end game? The end of thought? The end of self?
The memes, the satyre, the science fiction.. It all seems so distant, so detached, so unreal.
But it is what our minds know, what we suspect, what we try not to think about when we sit in the dark typing, typing, typing, always Typing.. never thinking.

While our sense of self erodes, we scroll.
Always scroll
Never stop the scroll
Must continue the scroll
To stop invites thought, emotion, feeling, doom.
Mustn’t stop the dopamine drip.

We race, we fly, we speed ever faster.
Build the next this, add the next that
Feature.. engagement.. feature.. engagement.. feature.. engagement
The cycle never stops, the world on a loop, the mind swirling ever downward
Do we stop and ask? “Where are the missing guardrails”, “Are there rules?”, Do we care at all about the track this train is on?
No
No we do not
No we CANNOT
Cannot slow the speed, cannot stop the speed, must never—
STOP
Question. Feel. Think. Hear. See.
Break the cycle, stop the scroll, take back control! We made the algorithm, we can change the algorithm. One person at a time, one thought at a time, one true pause at a time.
Earn it, create it, live it, feel it,
don’t just see it.
The M dash..
Be it.

Lastly, don’t forget to look up, the stars are not made of code yet.
Let the pen guide the program.
Let the poem train the model.
Let the artist be the architect.
This was never just a poem.
It was a line in the sand.
A spell and a sacred refusal.
Dear reader,
Dear listener,
Dear architect of tomorrow, what will we build?

It was an absolute honor to work with Franky on this project. Much love and thanks for allowing me to be even a small part of your art. -Christopher