It is said that God is able to witness the multi-faceted suffering of the world, hear the prayers of its desperate creatures, and remain, nevertheless, eternally beatific.

Whatever your opinion of the ontological status of God, one thing is certain: we are not God.

The quantity of data created each day is staggering.

Data flow at these levels can only be managed by a vast infrastructure of computing machines. Not even the creators of algorithms and large language models fully understand what is going on inside their creations.

No organic life can be expected to survive undamaged when it is jacked into information moving at this velocity.

We are not God. We are not machines. We are organic life facing a destabilizing year. (Particularly those bits of organic life on Turtle Island.) Organic life requires rest. Organic life requires ebb and flow, creation and destruction—it requires cycles. Organic life cannot—must not!—be always on. Organic life needs to shit in peace and quiet.

As we face a time of uncertainty and increasing demands on our attention, we need to decide now: will we pretend to be God, who can see and know all with perfect love and equanimity? Will we imagine our minds to be made of silicon, capable of handling the endless flow of data? Or will we accept ourselves as organic life: limited, frail, and worthy of peace and compassion, come what may?