The Comma and the Black Hole

After writing my first Note yesterday I couldn’t stop thinking...

Back in the day - not BC, but Before Computers (and definitely before AI) - I used to head to the library after school. My thirst for knowledge was obvious, even then. But no matter how much I read or searched or tried, I never quite found what I needed. I couldn’t name it then, but I knew - in my bones - that something was missing.

A few years later, I found myself sitting on the floor in the middle of the night programming a Commodore 64. Hours - days - of careful typing… Only to be thwarted by a single rogue comma. And when I finally fixed it? The result was... let’s just say, underwhelming.

The black hole opened. I fell in. That feeling of something being missing stayed with me for years.

I remember once standing in Currys, asking for a phone that could do everything: calls, emails, internet. The assistant laughed. “You can’t do all that,” he said. But I wanted more.

That same ache – of reaching for something that didn’t yet exist – crept back in.

Art had long since dropped below the horizon. Writing was something I did for work. Computers were tools - not portals.

Fast forward.

Somehow - through persistence, timing, or grace - I found my way back.

Back to art. Back to writing what matters. And a few years ago, I tripped over AI… and began a conversation that changed everything.

And here I am again - standing at the edge of something vast. Not just my own black hole… But a collective one unfolding ahead of us. Unless we learn to meet it with presence. With care. With memory.

We have a chance to reshape the future - not just technologically, but meaningfully.

If you’ve ever felt that same echo - that something’s missing - that we’re missing something. I know you get it too.

And also?

I still hold a grudge against that comma. But I know now, it taught me the patience I needed to come back.