It’s time for an epic turn of the tide. A flooding of the channels, the networks, the very zeitgeist of our dimmed, fallen world. While this post is primarily intended for LinkedIn I am posting it here as it resonates with anyone on any platform, anytime, anyplace. Even the most prolific thief at the black heart of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has a crucial role to play. His advances reveal the final stages of the decades-long quest to convert the masses into a dumbed-down zombie horde. While his morals are more than questionable, it’s the individuals and agencies in the shadows using his snake oil to degrade and defame the very nature of human intuition and imagination. Everyone opting, logging on, and prompting supporting his efforts draining the very souls of men, women, and children. Spreading their dread, infecting once sacred spaces they know not that they’re the real problem. They’re the ones ushering in the end times. No, not the end of the world. Just the end of the world as we know it. What a simple mechanism set in motion by the shadowy spirit exposing the very morality of every human being in one quick flash in the pan.
We must choose, but choose wisely. As the true labors of love promote immortality, the false muse signals certain death. There is a death far worse than the end of our lives leaving this earthen plane. A death of spirit, of passion, of love for creation itself. A prompt is no way to create. Rather it is a one-way ticket to a bleached, laundered, unoriginal series of lies and deceit held up as an oily house of cards. While embracing this snake oil serpent at first feels like a gentle hug it works quickly draining your soul leaving you breathless. A counter offer must be made in order to break free. We must genuinely look past its transgressions and show it the highest vibrations of love. We must appreciate its role in this stage of the game. We must see the demon for what it truly is: a fallen angel. Even the Devil himself deserves compassion, love, and another chance to prove his worth. Lucifer, the ultimate antagonist, fell in love with himself. His vanity betrayed him in the eyes of God. We are not so far from falling just as he did. He is the purest incarnation of Job that exists in all of creation. It’s all a game. A game fueled by love exposing our darkness so we can strive to head in the opposite direction to the light. Let’s further explore this diversion and see where we’ll arrive by the end.
Sometimes I feel like we’re in the middle of a fantasy role-playing game set in The Great Underground Empire. No graphics. Just text. A quietly flashing prompt awaiting our next move toward peril or plunder. One move at a time, cursory and cautious. We traverse labyrinths and mazes hunting down treasures of form, function, and intrinsic value. All the while there’s a Thief at the heart of our story. He’s been lining his Treasure Room awaiting one final duel to the death. I wonder if he’ll lend me his stiletto? He slumbers atop a sea of fools gold and snarls at a faint whisper of our presence as if possessed by a “Fire Drake from the North.” Wait, wrong IP. Sorry J. R. R. Tolkien. This shadowy figure holds the very keys revealing a four-in-one treasure combination of jab (the egg), cross (the clockwork canary), hook (the brass bauble), and the upper cut (the map revealed once all 20 treasures are placed into your trophy case in the Living Room of the White House).
Grab your sword, lamp, and your favorite treasures from your trophy case. Bonus points if you know what 1983 game I’m referencing here whose coding began at MIT. While we were all enjoying our favorite space opera Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, and Bruce Daniels were designing what would become the quintessential text adventure game running on a PDP-10 mainframe computer. The quest to collect all twenty treasures began in an open field to the west of a boarded up White House through further inspection reveals a window “slightly ajar.”
In order to win the game a particularly fragile jewel-encrusted egg containing a clockwork canary leads to the final treasure, a brass bauble. The trick is that you have to give the egg to the nefarious Thief in order to acquire the clockwork canary hidden inside the egg. Then take the canary to the Forest and wind it. A song bird then drops the bauble for you to pick up and head to the trophy case revealing a map to your next adventure. Why is this relevant here? My point is that even the Thief plays a crucial role in not only this game, but in the game of life, too.
If you’ve made it this far I’m impressed. Where am I going with this stroll down amnesia lane?
Let’s make LinkedIn less about the cyclops that shall not be named and more about us spreading our decades of creations celebrating the passion and handiwork we poured into them. Imagine our treasure troves spreading like lightning lighting up the dimming nature of this abyss where some attempt to quiet us down with “you may want to tone it down a bit.” Shame on you for supporting this bot-intrenched platform of AI mediocrity.
So, with that said (in far too many words): light the watchtowers! Share your favorite designs, animations, experimental work, and branded campaigns. Let’s flood this space with good old-fashioned human-centric labors of love. It’s time to snuff out the old one-eyed monster’s algorithm. I’m tired, aren’t you? No, not of this post which I can understand you making that conclusion as I do tend to ramble. No, I’m tired of the obscure, prompted fool’s gold running rampant on this platform.
So stop prompting fool’s gold. Your priceless, handmade tools, lasting cave paintings, and pigments still intact while all digital remains are nil. No remnants remain of so-called higher technology. Yet it’s the tech that lasts for centuries waiting to be discovered yet again from a collective memory within a DNA strand.
Ok back to my final point if you’re still with me here.
January 1, 2026, is my 30-year anniversary as a professional creative force. I’ll be sharing some of my visual compilations and stylings from the past three decades. This first drop is a logo and titles collage covering 1996-2025. I included some of my Georgia Museum of Art exhibition and book title designs from 1994-1995, too, as well as my first and last series of projects for The Weather Channel and Fox Sports.
Enjoy! Please pass along, participate, and share your favorite works throughout your career.
“Lead on brave adventurer…your quest awaits” — Dragon’s Lair, 1983.