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I don't disagree and I understand your point. Coming up with the ideas, the vision, the concept is artistry in itself. Just doing what you're told by the vision creator is not being an artist. But lets not forget that it takes a highly skilled and talented monkey to be able to draw good lines. Ultimately there is no art without the line drawer, no matter whos coming up with the ideas. Even though I am the monkey who draws the lines, I am also the art director because I come up with the ideas and concepts, even though I work with actual art directors at various publishers. But I think we're moving away from my original concerns though. On a practical day-to-day basis, the freelance jobs that I do are simply at risk of being taken because my assumption and prediction is that it will be easier and cheaper and more convenient for an art director to generate a bunch of images and choose one that looks eye-catching and vaguely suits the article. What happens when 30, 40, 50% of my potential jobs are replaced by an AI art generator because its just more convenient and free to use. And if I can't get any work, or i'm getting such a reduced amount of work each month, is there any point in continuing? Well firstly, i'm focusing primarily on editorial illustration in this thread because that's literally how I pay my bills, it's what I do for a job. And secondly, I think you're conflating editorial illustration with stock photos. They're two very different things, even though they're both used in similar contexts. I'm not really thinking about the future of stock imagery. Just searching for 'editorial illustration' on Pinterest will instantly highlight the difference between that and stock imagery, despite both being placed next to articles online or in magazines/newpapers etc.

I appreciate your feedback and encouragement, as always. Just to clarify my position, I'm not saying that all human artists are going to go extinct. Obviously there will always be a need for human creativity, vision, taste, as you said. My main point with my original post is that my particular line of work, editorial illustration, is at risk just because of the nature of the work. It will become very easy for an art director (the person who works at The Atlantic or Washington Post for example, who then works with the editorial illustrator a.k.a me) to use an art generator to find a suitable image for an article instead of contacting illustrators. I've already seen work that could easily be used in an editorial context. And thats with the current technology. It's not that i'm concerned about AI taking my jobs now, this week or even in the next 12 months. But soon I suspect it will start slowly infiltrating into the industry and more and more publishers (like The Atlantic, New Yorker, etc.) will start using it simple because they can get images that are good enough. I've spent thousands of hours working hard to become an editorial illustrator. It just feels like my entire vision for the next 5-10 years of my life is just not going to work or happen. Creating an entirely new vision, a whole new life plan is fucking hard and depressing. Particularly when it took me years to do in the first place. I don't understand your point about making a graphic novel using AI. That wouldn't be artistic. That would just be entering prompts and flicking through the results to find what you need. Even if someone then edited the images, well you're still just working off of the AI's work. You're not coming up with the core images. But I know it's just an example to help get my mind out of this rut, so I appreciate that. The only path forward I have in mind at the moment is to use AI generators to produce 'idea boards', to come up with initial ideas for an illustration, which will be the basis of my actual artwork. The advantages of this are a) it would speed up my process a lot and b) i'd likely be generating higher quality/more creative ideas vs just coming up with ideas myself which can be affected by my mood, energy levels etc. So in theory I could use Midjourney as a sort of creative assistant. But again, this still doesn't detract the fact that many art directors can simply generate images themselves without needing to outsource to freelancers like myself. As i've mentioned in previous posts, fine artists a.k.a painters, sculptures etc, obviously won't be replaced. It's predominantly digital artists that will be affected e.g. game character design, film concept art, landscape concept art, editorial illustration, textile designers, website designers, UI design, etc etc.

Yes this is an important point. AI artists are good at generating artwork but they lack the ability to add subtle and nuanced details which are often an important part of the composition. Maybe its just the eyes of a face looking just slightly in the wrong direction or like you said a small extra details in the background. However, in a lot of circumstances, I would say that these subtle nuances are not really that important for the client. Unless the detail make or breaks the image, a client will be happy with the result. Most professional clients are not looking for extremely specific images. Mostly what happens is a client will give the artist a fairly simple brief and its up to the artist to come up with the composition, details and make all the decisions. But in the not too distant future, if an editorial client has 50 artwork options to choose from based on the title of their new article, they're not going to care about some small detail in image number 18. They'll just choose a different piece.

A computer can still play chess better than any human. Yet we still consider many of the best players creative and ingenious with their thoughts. What a computer can do doesn't detract from a human's creativity. And 'being creative' is entirely relative and subjective. I strongly disagree. In a few years time AI artists will be just as good as any concept artist. Of course there will be exceptions. The absolute best concept artists like Aaron Limonick will be challenging to compete with. But even looking at this work now, I could easily see an AI artist replicating some of that. As I said in my original post, I'm not concerned about the AI artists taking jobs now, this week, even this year. It's in the coming years that it will start to take jobs. So my point is why should I continue committing to this path if that's almost certainly going to happen. There will always be a need for some artists. At least for a long time. And as I mentioned in my original post, painters and fine artists, etc will always have jobs. And there will be artists needed to accompany AI art in certain ways. The brain machine interface thing is a long way off. I'm not interested in that. What i'm talking about is actual artists jobs being taken within the next 2-5 years. Including myself. I'm not speculating here. I just think you're underestimating the capabilities of AI. I'm not saying that all concept artists will be thrown out. But its likely that 70% of them will be. They'll just end up having a small team of artists who work with AI image generators. In all fairness who knows what will happen. I could definitely be wrong. I hope I am. I hope AI artists just hit a ceiling at some point. Maybe there's a limit to what AI artists will be able to do. I just know we're a long way off that limit.

A few images I recently generated:

Yea Midjourney is amazing I must admit. Yes its a good point. There will always be value in human made art precisely because it comes from a human. But I would not agree that there is a hollowness to AI art. I've seen work which conveys a deep emotional feeling and message. I've given Midjourney simple abstract prompts like 'gently looking into the past' and it somehow creates images that capture that perfectly. It really depends on the type of art. If some random person is buying a one off painting or drawing then yes obviously they would want a real artists work. But most artists are not being paid by individuals, except for fine art painters. For the most part, normal every-day consumers are not the people buying artwork or artistic services. It's companies, publishers, production houses that are paying artists. And they will always have an incentive to reduce costs and speed up production times, both of which AI art can provide. I appreciate your optimism!

@5-D - L O V E Yea there's definitely some value and truth in what he says. Stage orange is important and necessary, but of course there is much more beyond this way of thinking.

Fascinating discussion with the very highly regarded and experienced marketer Rory Sutherland. Not only a very fun and easy listen, but also loads of interesting and valuable insights into the importance of marketing your product or service - arguably an essential aspect of your life purpose. We often think that marketing is something on the side that is kind of optional. But this discussion highlights the integral role of marketing in basically all of our favourite products and services that we use on a day to day basis.

Yea I watched the video but must have missed that line. Great that he's making those distinctions. I'd be interested to know how far he's gone with the consciousness expansion stuff.

Great talk for beginners but still quite superficial. Not to diminish or invalidated his experiences at all, but of course there is much further to go. Working through personal ego stuff, trauma release, etc, is an extremely important part of the psychedelic experience. But eventually, the ego completely collapses and dissolves. After that it's completely impersonal and more about reality understanding itself as a whole at a deeper and deeper levels. And I don't hear that Tucker is going that far. I don't hear it from anyone except for the obvious.

@SQAAD I totally get what you're saying. Making stuff happen can be hard and you've gotta have a really strong and clear vision for where you're heading. You've also got to have a massive desire for that thing to be an actuality. You've really got to WANT to actualize your life purpose. And you've gotta have a significant amount of willpower. There's good reason why most of us live fairly average lives. Also, the reason people never 'make it' is because they lack vision and have never even sat down and answered the question 'what do I want in life?', and if they have they were not nearly specific and comprehensive enough and maybe they did it once and forgot about it. And then combine that with all of the endless incessant distractions and comforts we have, it results in most of the population never 'making it'. But then we also have to ask, well what does 'making it' even mean. Because it's clearly relative to the individual. If you mean realising YOUR unique life purpose then that's all good. But anything other than that can be discarded. If we think that 'making it' is becoming super successful, famous or super rich, then obviously most people aren't going to make it. But that's a silly metric to use. For me 'making it' means setting my own schedule, being able to wake whenever I want, working on fun and cool projects, being creative and making art on a daily basis, having spare time and energy outside of 'work' to work on other things, having the freedom to live wherever I want, having the freedom to travel and go on holiday whenever I want. And I just described my life right now as I'm sitting here typing this. So I've made it, but none of that required being famous, uber successful, rich or even being in the top 5-10% of my field. Society's idea of success is fucking dumb and stupid. So its not actually that difficult to make a cool life and work a fun job that you find meaningful. Literally thousands if not 100s of thousands of people are doing that right now. You think they're different to you? The only difference is that they got really clear on what they wanted to do, committed to it 100%. 100%! And then followed it through until completion without giving up, course correcting where necessary. But to go back to the first sentence in your post. Yes I felt like giving up many times along the way. I had many many nights of self doubt, confusion and uncertainty. But what kept me going was the recognition that I could not possibly live a life that was not on purpose or at least vaguely meaningful to me. It was not a possibility that could happen. So you keep going. The idea that you should not follow your dreams is fucking stupid. What else you gonna do? Follow something you hate? Something you're not interested in? You just need to dream intelligently, dream strategically, dream fast and dream big.

Oh you mean Dr Schwartz's life purpose? I get ya. I thought you meant just in general. Make sure to use @user or quote as some people won't be notified of your response otherwise.

We've all been there. The first and second days are always the hardest. Good job on getting through it, sounds like it was a productive retreat

@assx95 India definitely has some different acceptable standards when it comes to approaching women and dating/relationships in general, so I suspect it's going to be quite a bit more challenging doing day game there vs somewhere in the West. But the very fact that you're out there doing approaches is amazing. Seriously - you've taken a step that millions of guys will NEVER do. Don't let this situation derail you. Re-frame it as a win simply because you've gained some experience in a difficult social situation. That's valuable in itself. Work to be more relaxed, chill, friendly and grounded in the body. You might have been coming off a little stiff and awkward which can make people feel uneasy and anxious.

@Ulax Quite a profound talk, thanks for sharing. Although I'm not sure it has anything to do with the non-linearity of life purpose. Is that in the following parts of the talk?

1) Give it everything you've got. Really really try you're hardest to make the most out of every single meditation session. Try not to slack off on sessions in the evening or nearer the end of the retreat. Every time you sit down for a new session, set a quick little intention to give it everything and try your best. 2) Don't quit halfway through unless you absolutely have to. It's really important that you stay for the full 10 days because on day 10 the noble silence is lifted and it's more relaxed. It's important to have this day to transition back to normality. 3) A few useful items to take: 1) ear plugs - an absolute must, unless you're in a private single room. Every retreat I've been on there's been someone snoring. 2) Shoes that you can slip on and off easily. You'll be going in and out of the meditation hall a lot, so it's useful to have shoes you can slip on and off easily. However, if you know the climate/weather will be bad, obviously take the appropriate boots/shoes, etc. 3) Wristwatch (turn off hourly bleeper) - they do ring bells for certain sessions, but it's just useful to have because you won't have your phone to check the time. 4) Optional item is a small pen and paper to write down the timetable. There will be notice boards around the site that show the schedule but I always find it useful to have a little timetable in my pocket that I can check without having to walk halfway across the site to find a notice board. 5) Optional: Your own pillow and other bedding items that you think will make your sleep as good as possible. 6) Good water bottle - highly recommended to take. 7) You're not supposed to take snacks but I usually take a few small bits with me, like some sweet snack bars, bag of nuts, dark chocolate. This is up to you. This might not apply to you but I always take caffeneited tea bags and coffee because the center I go to only provides decaf. And I don't want to go through caffeine withdrawals on a retreat haha! 8) Take some basic medication stuff like paracetamol, anti diarrhea and anti-constapation (yes I've had to use all of these on different retreats). Something about changing your schedule and meal times that fucks with my gut. 4) Optional advice: Don't do too much socialising on the day of arrival. I've been on retreats where there's just so much chatter and talking with new people and then all of a sudden it's noble silence. The other downside of socialising too much on arrival is that it can create distractions for the rest of the retreat. You end up thinking about what you said or what other people said or what others have done or not done etc. Any retreats I go on these days I minimise or totally remove all socialising with other people there (except for staff and managers) to the absolute minimum. I'll just go and sit in my room until the first meeting. 5) The last thing I'll say is really try to enjoy it as much as possible. Every moment remember that you're doing something that very few people are willing to do. You're also in a position of privilege to be able to do this. When things get challenging, remember that you're doing something extremely special and quite serious. You're deconstructing the fabric of reality and self. This is serious stuff. But it's also something that should be enjoyed as much as possible. I think that's everything. Goodluck!

I've been having some very similar thoughts recently. I don't want much Netflix or movies etc, and don't recommend heavy binges of course, yet at the same time I know it's a pure expression of people's creativity. It's people's life work, people's creative gift to the world. From set designers, to concept artists, to the camera crew, etc etc. And you're right, we often talk about Netflix in such a derogatory way, as though its some toxic shit that you should stay away from. Such absurdity.

@thenondualtankie Personally I wouldn't recommend LSD for a first trip because it lasts so long. My recommendation for a first trip is always a low dose of mushrooms. Just start with a very low dose so you get a taste of the psychedelic mind/feeling space, but you've still got one foot in reality. Make sure your setting is 10/10 and that you are certain no one will disturb you. Surrender to the experience, and if you get into a tricky situation, you're moving into a bad state, then focus on relaxing the body. Breath, relax and put your attention on the body. Ground yourself in the body. MDMA is not really a psychedelic. It's a stimulant which can induce mystical experiences but very unlikely if it's your first time.

Yes plugging 10mg is a good starting point. Don't go over that though. I've never done ayahuasca, but based on all the report I've read and listened to from people who have, it's nothing like 5-MeO. But at the same time, I suspect the process of letting go is much the same. Letting go is about surrendering. Surrendering your desire to control and surrendering your life. Surrendering and trusting that you will be fine and that it's okay to let go of your self and your life. No don't look at this way. Try not to overthink it, just trust in the process and relax as much as possible. The 'until you're dead' phrase is not accurate because it's not really a death because there's nothing that can die. See it more as a divine transformation.

If you've had a few psychedelic trips with ayahuasca and LSD you'll be ready for 5-MeO. Best starting dose varies from person to person. But my first test session was a really small dose - i think as low as 5mg. You could probably do 10mg on the scale, I wouldn't go any higher than that for first trip though. Then move up to 15mg, then 20mg, then maybe 25mg or 30mg depending on your tolerance/sensitivity. The low doses aren't particularly special so don't expect god-realisation on 10 or 15mg. But they're really important to prepare the body/mind for the higher doses. You need to get used to the 5-MeO experience before going to the higher doses. With lots of incrementally later doses, you can practise your capacity to fully let go and release the self more and more. The higher the dose, the more letting go and releasing is required.

Definitely, but it's not required ofc. My first low-dose sessions were without any music, just complete silence. But my higher dose sessions were with music. Test it out, see what works for you. I really like ambient music, but play whatever you feel will put you into the best state. I'd avoid music with lyrics though. You want the music to facilitate an inward journey, rather than becoming a distraction. No, and you won't want to. Focus on going inwards rather than staying with gross sensations. No I have always had perfect clarity and control over the body and mind. Never any intention to break anything or move about uncontrollably. Half a day is good. The trip duration is very quick and you are back to a normal state of consciousness pretty quickly. Maybe some rare medical issue. Can't speak from experience though. I've never had any issues.

I don't watch too many of Owen's videos these days and I don't think I've ever felt the need to share one on here either. But I just felt there was something special about this one that was worth sharing. It's just a really great video giving some super practical advice for being successful. It's veerry stage Orange, but Orange is important and necessary, so don't dismiss it. The video isn't too waffly, like some of Owen's other talks. And it just outlines the main fundamental mindsets you need to develop and embody to be hyper-successful in whatever field you want. It crosses over with life purpose work perfectly. Over the past 9 months I've intentionally moved down into Orange to get this area of my life sorted. And I have been doing so very successfully. It's been amazing in fact. So this video is applicable for me right now, and hopefully for a few others around here. For a long time I was making the mistake of staying in Green and above, with basically no material success in my life. It's been incredibly rewarding getting that part of my life sorted. It's videos like this that I think are extremely useful and applicable for this stage, which is absolutely essential and important for everyone to get ticked off.

I'm now a full-time freelance editorial illustrator. I get to design and create images for a living, whilst being able to dictate my schedule and do whatever I want. The joy that comes from living on purpose is staggering. It cannot be understated. I have an amazing story about my first job as an illustrator that I might share at some point.

You mean what is my life purpose work?