I Don't Know What To Title This

Full Circle?

Back To My Sock Drawer?

Never Too Late?

You Can't Make This Stuff Up?

My primary goal for this substack was to journal what it's like to get old, from the view point of someone who is way past the middle of the journey. Of course I know that every single human is going to have his or her own experience and conclusions. We are nothing if not diverse, us oldies. Even us old Boomers.

Sometimes things happen though. Out of the blue. That interrupt your adapted/accepted normal and it might ought to be shared.

The thing that I experienced in the last week was akin to being a long lost artifact, excavated from a deep burial spot, cleaned off and put in the light to be examined. That was my first analogy for what happened but after a week of sorting through this I think it's more like when I was a kid and I was compelled to write stories and poetry. I was so in awe of the written word. I dared to think I might be a writer some day but I knew it was too soon for me to claim I was a 'writer' so I never gave my stories a title or a byline because that seemed too presumptuous (which is a word I didn't know back then, I just knew the feeling).

So, here I am, full circle, old unexplainable urge, compelled to hide away my compositions under my socks in the bottom drawer of my old maple dresser.

But, one might argue, I am more mature now. Whatever my compulsions or justifications were seventy years ago, I am more practical and braver now.

Maybe.

So, here's what happened:

Last week a fellow substacker - Douglas Lloyd Peck (dougpeck.substack.com) posted a link to a website (sunoai.ai) that is an AI generated music composer. I am highly suspicious of AI but I was curious and so I tested it by uploading the lyrics I wrote when I was trying to figure out how to publish all the stories people had given me (https://meemanator.substack.com/p/god-only-knows).

Five minutes later there were two complete compositions for me to choose from. I confess I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was one of those moments where your brain can't process fast enough and your past comes careening in colliding with your present and unknown future. You freeze and have no idea what to do next.

After I was able to breath again I composed myself and uploaded more lyrics, some written when I was a young person, and now, a week later, I have 14 compositions, more in the works.

Fast forward past my experience to my overall conclusion is that, first, AI is, at the same time, scary and awesome but like all things created by humans it can and likely will be used for nefarious purposes. That I am sure of. I have to let God sort that out. Please Lord deliver us from evil.

What I am not sure of is what I am supposed to do, or not, with this new collection of fun, painful, exciting, disturbing last opportunity to be creative as I once was ages ago.

Maybe that is all it had to be?

Full disclosure, my instinct is to stuff them in my socks drawer except I don't have a socks drawer anymore.

However...

Just because...

I will share the results of the first lyrics I uploaded when I got a chance to feel an adrenaline high one more time if nothing else, to let other elders know it's never too late to reconnect with what you once were. If just for a little minute.

If nothing else a nice break from the headlines of the day.

No Photograph ©2025 Meema Fields