The Eye Behind The eye

I remember hearing the infinite monkey theorem when I was young. That if you put infinite monkeys in a room with infinite typewriters, eventually you’d get the full works of William Shakespeare. Being ever practical, my mind did not go to what the theorem was meant to express – something to do with probability and possibility – but rather to the logistics of a room full of infinite monkeys.

Who was feeding them? How could there be so many in one room? What a horrible existence! And what about all of that poop?

Admittedly, I very much missed the point, but the idea did put me off a bit from writing. The already insecure, uncertain person that I was shrugged her shoulders and said, “well why bother?” I was even discouraged on behalf of Mr. Shakespeare. What good did his works offer if even he was replaceable by infinite monkeys?

And why not just bag the idea of writing altogether with today’s version of infinite monkeys – A.I.? The aspiring (or even seasoned) writer might be left with the same feeling when one can simply put into ChaptGPT or a Google Search bar: write an essay about infinite monkey theorem and it could come up with something much better than what I’m writing now. 

Because you have intention.

Not just the intention to write and to write something you care about. But intention in word choice. In the nuance of choosing one adjective over another. In painting a specific picture for your reader. Because the thing is. You can give A.I. a prompt, and it will just do it. No questions asked. But, you as a living, breathing, thinking, human being asks questions and processes the information with the bias of the life you’ve lived so far. Of your own personal experience in the world and the content of literature (and cheap magazines) you’ve read and plays (and bawdy tv shows) you’ve watched. You have a unique, unprogrammable perspective.

You should also keep writing because you are not infinite. 

There is a limit to how long any of us will be here to share what rattles around in our minds. To push the letters on our keyboards or press our pens and pencils to paper to scrawl out what comes to mind when we consider our existence and make sense of the world around us. That’s a combination A.I. cannot match.

Whether it be infinite monkeys or infinite artificial terabytes of intelligence, don’t be discouraged. Write. Get your ideas out. Maybe they go no further than your well-traveled journal or your own computer screen. But they’re yours and you don’t have to be one in an infinite number of monkeys to write them.