Life Is Up To You!

Life Is Up To You!

When you were a child, you think you know everything. After you grow up, you realize you do not know anything. After you are gone, those that remember you will not remember much of your life. Only memories of things they sort of remember, but not the real substance of who you are and what made you you.

Once you realize that most people do not think about you, it is freeing. You can begin to do the things you want in life, and not worry about what others may think of you or those actions. People mostly think of themselves, and maybe their families at most. Everybody else is not important. After this revelation, you have the freedom to be the real person that you want to be.

Happiness begins within yourself. There is no one that can give you happiness. There is nothing that you can do, see, or go to that will bring happiness to you. Throughout history, people have been in horrendous situations, and many have found happiness. You are the one that determines the happiness in your life.

Many think that money, or wealth, leads to happiness. Those that win large sums of money in some type of sweepstakes or lottery often find out this is not true. Whatever sadness they had in their heart will continue, even with the large sum of money they won. Most of the time, they will promptly spend it and go back to the standard of living they had before they won the money. Still not happy in their lives.

Since happiness does not come from money, it does not come from having a job, going to exotic locations, or the opinions of others. It must come from somewhere else. Happiness is the ability to do the things in your life with the freedom to achieve them. For some people, that does require money. For others, it requires not worrying about other people's thoughts about them.

In reality, if you have a goal, you are able to achieve it. People without goals achieve nothing. Goals give you a destination in your life journey. Hopefully, you can accomplish some of those goals in your lifetime. If not, hopefully you are at least on the path to achieve some of those goals. In any case, try something if you want to improve your life!

If you are waiting for somebody to give you permission to go do the things you want, to find the happiness that you long for, that is not going to happen. Like all things in life, it is up to you. So get out there and achieve everything that you want in this amazing world. When it is up to you, you are the only one you can depend on to achieve your dreams.

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Make It Happen

 Make It Happen

No one owes you anything. If you want anything in this world, you need to make it happen yourself. You cannot rely on anyone else for your success, happiness, or anything that will further your career. It truly is up to you to improve your lot in life.

People complain that they cannot do something or get picked for things that they want. Well, make it yourself. If you are an actor and you cannot get cast, make your own films. Put on your own play productions. Find a venue, and make it happen. If you are a musician, start your own band. If you cannot find other musicians to play along with, be a solo act. If there are no open mics in your area, make one yourself. If you are a poet, comedian, or writer, and no one ever hears your work, put on your own writing circle or writing session.

If you build it, people will come. Build something real and you show up consistently, people will notice because others want opportunity. Many people wait for permission. You make your own permission! Perhaps they do not realize that if somebody else can make something happen, so can they. Remember this, if someone else has been able to do something, why cannot you? And the answer is that you can.

Along your creative endeavors, there are many who claim to be practitioners of that particular creative activity. Some of them will support you on your trek. Many will not because various issues, often from their own self imposed restrictions. Some will support you. Some will not. That is fine. Stay focused on the work. Keep building. Keep learning. Keep getting better. Hopefully, you can help lift these individuals up if they want it. Do not worry. You will find other individuals that are willing to work hard. They will become your new colleagues.

This world is full of wonderful opportunities. But ultimately it is up to you to make those opportunities happen. Believe in yourself and back it up with action, because no one else will. And why should they care? They are trying to get through their own existence. If you do not care enough about the things that you want to achieve in your life, why would anybody else? Take ownership of your life, your creativity, and your happiness.

So get out there and create. If something is not working for you, you make it happen yourself. And if it is hard, that is good. Nothing amazing happens when things are easy. Obstacles are ways to show how strong you are. Obstacles do not mean stop. Obstacles mean you have found the part that will make you stronger. These obstacles are barriers for those that are not willing to take risks to improve their life. You are different, you will grow from these obstacles and live an amazing life.

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Be Unique

 Be Unique

Every day is a unique day for all of us. Sometimes life is very difficult. It feels like you are being knocked down when you are doing everything you can. You are giving it your all, then all of a sudden one day you walk outside and it is a beautiful day, and you realize it is worth it. Sometimes the beautiful day is a friend’s smile, a loved one’s hug, or a stranger giving you a nod. Little things go so far. They are all special in their own way.

But what do you do if you give everything, your all, and nothing ever happens. You try so hard and everything never works out. When is it time to give up. You cannot give up. You never know what the next day, next hour, next minute, or next split second will bring for you.

You know the truth. You know how hard it is to get through this wonderful thing called life. So every day you have a choice to get out there and experience life. It is an amazing gift, and you only get so many chances to use it well.

Find the light in your life. Find things that bring you happiness and joy. Do not give up regardless of what happens. Realize the next day is going to bring more challenges. They may be easier or harder. You can face it because you faced it before, and you will face it again in the future.

No one is responsible for your happiness. It is up to you. If you expect to find somebody that can make you feel better, that does not happen for long. Ultimately, it is up to you to find happiness and joy in this world. 

If you are unwilling to try, this gift can start to feel negative. It does not have to be that way. You can choose a different approach. Some people find joy helping others. Others find joy learning and experiencing things. Others find solace in being in the moment. They do not worry about the future or the past. They stay in the current moment.

Every one of us perceives reality in a different manner. Who is to say who is correct? Ultimately, you are the one that has to find happiness and joy in your life. You are the one that has to get out there and shake up the world.

Do not rely on a phone call or somebody giving you something. You have to make the phone call. You have to get the attention of others. If they do not respond to you, keep at it. Somebody will at some point. If no one responds, then you find a way to make it happen yourself without any help. It is nice when others can help you. But why would they. They are worried about their own lives.

It is up to you to be focused on your reality and figuring out what to do in this amazing world. If life kicks you down, it is up to you to stand back up. If it knocks you back down, stand up again. At some point life will stop taking the wind out of you. Perhaps you will be the one that puts the wind into life.

Ultimately, the ones that have a positive mental attitude, and realize that no one owes them anything, are the ones that achieve amazing success. It might be financial. It may be work related. It may be something you truly care about. It is up to you.

If someone gave you everything, you may be happy for a short time. At some point, you will realize you did not make it happen yourself. If you go through someone’s resources and you have nothing, you are back where you started. However, if you learn how to fish, you can feed yourself for the rest of your days. The best way to get better at life is to live life straight on.

Every day is a chance for success, even the days you feel bad. Those are the days you especially have to show up. Dress for the job that you want. Dress for the recognition and the respect that you want.

No one owes you anything. Not a chance. Not an interview. Not even friendship. If you get any of those, do your best. Seize the day. Carpe diem. In the end, you are the one that has to find happiness and joy in your life. Whether you are a toddler or you are in your final days of life, you have this. Believe in yourself, and others will believe in you.

Have the confidence to realize that you are given a very special gift. So many events led to your existence. One event from eons ago could have resulted in you not existing. In many ways, you are already a winner just by being alive. Maximize it. Be the person that you want to be in this world. If others cannot understand it, you still do. Sleep well at night knowing that you did a good hard day’s work. Achieve the things you want to do. Accomplish what you came here to accomplish.

Believe in yourself. Imagine how amazing this world would be if all of us believed in who we are, our skill sets, and our gifts that we can share with others. Once humanity grows out of its infancy, that will be the reason why. And if humanity never grows out of its infancy, we will know why.

Computed

AI and Creativity

AI and Creativity

AI and Creativity
by Herbert Midgley
12-31-2025

Today, people are complaining about artificial intelligence entering filmmaking. They think you can just put in a prompt, and it makes a complete movie in a matter of seconds. That is far from reality. My experience with artificial intelligence for creative purposes over the last few years has shown that it is just another tool. It is not much different from using a digital camera versus a film camera. Both are tools. Both can achieve different kinds of creativity in art.

People complain that AI is going to put people out of work in creative fields, as well as other industries. And that may happen. Like any other technology that has developed, certain jobs are replaced while other jobs are created. The same filmmakers who are loudly against any type of AI use in cinema are probably using a digital video camera instead of actual film stock. The shift from film to digital had similar complaints in the past. “How can you be a filmmaker if you do not actually use film stock?” “Digital is not film.” These were objections from people who love 35 mm film and did not want the ease of digital photography to take over their field. With newer digital photography and filmmaking cameras, many creative individuals were able to create films. Many also feared this technology would put people out of work.

And it was true. Those who were highly skilled at editing on a Steenbeck film editing machine had to learn how to edit on a computer, or they found other work. This was also true for those who developed film, and for places that sold film supplies. Paying for film stock, the developing process, using a second system for audio, and producing a final print would make filmmaking cost-prohibitive for independent filmmakers today. The fact that you can shoot a feature film or a short film on your smartphone shows that technology allows more people to get into the creative aspects than before.

Using artificial intelligence, I have tried many different AI software solutions. These large language models all work differently, and the cost ranges from free to expensive. As stated earlier, you cannot just put in a prompt and make a film. A filmmaker has to use these tools to figure out what they can actually make. This is time-consuming, frustrating, and a learning process, just like when we went from film to digital.

One of the biggest arguments people have against using AI for any purpose is that it uses a lot of water for data centers. For AI servers to function, they use a lot of electricity and other resources. Any computer system needs cooling, especially as systems scale up. The use of AI has grown tremendously over the last few years since it was released to the public. It is true that the resources required are large, with estimates placing the global water footprint of AI between 82 and 203 billion gallons annually.¹

That number is roughly equivalent to the 118 billion gallons of bottled water consumed globally each year.² However, even that pales in comparison to agriculture, which accounts for about 70% of global freshwater usage and often wastes up to 40% of it through inefficient irrigation.³ Before we condemn the roughly 17 ounces of water used for a single AI query, we should consider the 4,000 gallons required to produce just 2.2 pounds of beef.⁴ In fact, the 600 gallons needed for a single hamburger is enough to cover about 5,000 AI queries.⁴ Even a simple cotton T-shirt requires over 700 gallons to create, which shows that mass production of any kind demands significant water resources.⁵

Like any previous technology, technology tends to get smaller, faster, and more efficient every 18 months. I am sure the same thing will happen with these artificial intelligence data centers because it makes them more effective for those companies as well. It is in the best financial interest of these tech companies to make their centers more efficient. We will solve these hurdles without running out of clean water or food, just as we have adapted to the energy needs of previous industrial and technology shifts.⁶

Creativity is the most important part of making films, or any creative process. If you are creative, you can use any tool to make something happen. If you are an independent filmmaker and you want to make an explosion or some type of large CGI that only the big film companies could do, your options can expand with these tools. Artificial intelligence can help you make cartoons and animation more easily than using traditional animation software with a large learning curve.

Just because someone is an expert with a tool used in the past does not mean someone in the future should not be able to use new technologies. This argument is already moot because large language models are integrated into many things we use, including word processors, grammar checkers, and search engines. Most filmmakers using modern tools are likely using some type of AI, directly or indirectly, to make their work. AI is just another tool that a filmmaker can use, like a camera, lights, sound gear, editing software, or screenwriting software. The future is bright for those who are creative and embrace current technology. You cannot go back in time. If we did, we would all be writing scripts longhand and spending a large budget to make a five-minute film.

I personally love using digital cameras, and I love using lenses that were used on old film cameras. There is a certain look you get from glass that you do not get from a built-in lens. However, shooting a film on your iPhone with built-in depth of field looks fantastic, and it is fast and efficient. I know this software lens effect uses math to emulate depth of field rather than a film lens. It looks fine, so audiences are not going to care. And when you get right down to it, whether it is film, music, writing, or anything at all, I do not think the masses will care as long as they are entertained. If the story moves them, they will not mind if the background blur was generated by a microchip or a piece of glass.

We are still at the beginning of using artificial intelligence for creativity. AI has already been used in film, music, and writing, and that is going to continue. Right now, artificial intelligence is the worst it is ever going to be. It is going to get better every day. This technology improves because it learns from what people make and share. Even if there is some type of government regulation in one country, if it is not universal, those who are able to use AI in their creative work are going to have an advantage over those who cannot use it.

When you get right down to it, whether it is creativity or business, money is the bottom line. In the film business or the music business, the business side is an important part of earning money. Back in the old days with vinyl, cassettes, or CDs, people bought physical media. Today, you can stream everything. The money artists get is less than it was in the old days, but streaming allows more people to enter the space. The same thing is true with filmmaking. Artists have always had to find new ways to earn income when new technologies arrived. When cinema first appeared, people thought live theatre would end. When phonograph records came around, people thought live concert performances would end. When synthesizers and sampling were used in recordings, many performers thought that was the end of their gig, but it was not.⁷ More opportunities appeared in different areas, and at some point, the past was integrated with new technologies.⁸

Ultimately, if you do not like “AI slop,” that is your choice. Do not watch it. There are many things I do not watch that are professionally made. Usually, I give it a few minutes. If I like it, I continue to watch. If I do not, I stop. That is one reason it is great to have so many options today for entertainment.⁹

At some point, with these AI videos, if it reaches you in some way, maybe that is the important part of creativity. If you can elicit emotion or move someone one way or the other, that matters. So do not associate AI creativity with “AI art” as if it is fundamentally different. It is no different than using any other kind of digital technology to create something. No one today would disregard a screenplay written on a computer versus a typewriter.

I would much rather write a screenplay on my laptop with screenwriting software than break out a manual typewriter or write it out longhand. In the old days, I used to score music and write all the parts out by hand, and my hand would get so tired that it would take days to complete. It took forever to write out parts even for a small string quartet, much less a big band or symphony orchestra. Today, with modern music notation software, I put the score in and extract the parts in a matter of moments. Did music get worse when Mozart or Beethoven hired copyists to transcribe their scores? No. AI does the same for filmmaking, photography, music, and writing. It saves us from “hand fatigue” so we can focus on the ideas. It makes it more efficient for me to create. The same ease happened when MIDI technology developed. This led to the convenience of recording any instrument on a laptop anywhere in the world. I can record a beat at any time with any sound I want.

Artificial intelligence can be a great tool for filmmaking, music, writing, photography, and many other parts of creativity. Right now, you can tell if something is generated by AI most of the time. As time goes on, it is going to be less easy to identify AI. Hopefully, you realize that any video you see could be fake, which should make you question what you see or hear from this point on. Over time, it is going to get harder and harder to tell. The same thing has happened with graphic design. 

People pretend graphic design used to be pure and technology ruined it. Graphic design was never separate from technology.¹⁰ It has always been built on tools. Printing presses, phototypesetting, paste-up boards, rubylith, airbrushes, scanners, and software all shaped what designers could do. Every era had tools that made some jobs easier and made others obsolete. In the old days, people did layout by hand, literally cutting and pasting. If we still made magazines that way, an issue would cost an outrageous amount. Technology made it cheaper and faster. That did not destroy creativity. It changed the workflow. Now we can use creativity in new and different ways. Personally, I am looking forward to the future of these large language models and artificial intelligence in creative work.

I also think people need to be honest about job changes. In 2025, people have been laid off in tech because AI can do parts of their jobs more efficiently.¹¹ Wall Street rewards companies that reduce their workforce, which can lead the company to be more profitable.¹² I predict more industries will do the same thing in 2026. If the company thrives financially, they will call it the right decision. If it does not work, they will hire people back. That is how business thinks. It is not personal. It is money. I do not believe AI will erase every job. It will change jobs. Just like word processors reduced secretary pools down to a few people. The work did not disappear. The workflow changed. You cannot stop the future. Once the technology is out, people are going to use it. If they can save money, they will use it. This is true in business and in the entertainment business.

For all those who are against AI and think you can stop it, you are wrong. When personal computers arrived in the 1980s, you could not stop it. When the internet arrived in the 1990s, you could not stop it. When cell phone technology took off in the 2000s, you could not stop that either. Now we cannot live without these tools in our personal and work lives.¹³

People who misunderstand how technology works often misunderstand how creative individuals use AI. A lot of the anti-AI mindset comes from misunderstanding what the tools actually do. They think it is magic. It is not. It is software. You still need a human with taste, discipline, and a clear point of view. That is true with a pencil and paper. It is also true with AI.

This is the future. Fifty years from now, people will not think twice about using AI for creativity, business, and daily life. It will be how things are done. People will use it the way we use search engines and smartphones today. This technology is already changing, and we do not know how it is going to turn out years from now, in the same way nobody truly predicted what the internet would become.

So, before you dismiss everything as “AI slop,” give it a chance. If it reaches you, that matters. If it does not, turn it off. You are allowed to choose what you watch. But do not pretend you can stop the technology. You cannot. The only real choice is whether you learn to use it and use it to push your creativity further. If you do not, you will get left behind.

May you live in interesting times. We really do. I am looking forward to the future of using these tools. The future will be something we cannot imagine!

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References

1. Li, P., Yang, J., Islam, M. A., and Ren, S. (2023). Making AI less “thirsty”: Uncovering and addressing the secret water footprint of AI models. (supports the global AI water footprint and “17 ounces per query” style estimates). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.03271

2. Generative AI Newsroom. (2024, December 2). The often overlooked water footprint of AI models. (used for bottled-water comparison and global AI water footprint ranges). https://generative-ai-newsroom.com/the-often-overlooked-water-footprint-of-ai-models-46991e3094b6

3. Khokhar, T. (2017, March 22). Chart: Globally, 70% of freshwater is used for agriculture. World Bank Blogs. (supports 70% freshwater to agriculture and 40% inefficiency comment). https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture

4. Cooper, R. (2024, September 27). Water is not the problem with artificial intelligence. The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/2024/09/27/2024-09-27-water-not-the-problem-artificial-intelligence/
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   4b. Mekonnen, M. M., and Hoekstra, A. Y. (2011). The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-15-1577-2011

5. International Desalination and Reuse Association. (2023). Understanding the fashion water footprint. https://idrawater.org/news/understanding-the-fashion-water-footprint/

6. de Vries, A. (2023). The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence. Joule. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.09.004

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8. Tapper, J. (2024, October 12). Once-mocked synthesisers enjoy new golden era. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/12/synthesisers-musicians-designers-experiment

9. Meltwater. (2025). AI slop consumer sentiment social listening analysis. https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/ai-slop-consumer-sentiment-social-listening-analysis

10. Los Angeles Film School. (2019). Before Photoshop: The evolution of graphic design. https://www.lafilm.edu/blog/before-photoshop-evolution-of-graphic-design/

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12. Bishop, T. (2025, October 28). Amazon confirms 14,000 corporate job cuts, says push for efficiency gains will continue into 2026. GeekWire. https://www.geekwire.com/2025/amazon-confirms-14000-corporate-job-cuts-says-push-for-efficiency-gains-will-continue-into-2026/
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13. White, A. (2025, September 22). Chicken, beef or vegetables: Assessing the real environmental impact of AI. Top1000Funds. https://www.top1000funds.com/2025/09/chicken-beef-or-vegetables-assessing-the-real-environmental-impact-of-ai/