Fyreside Newsletter - 6/22/26

Hey Reader,

I've been watching this show about abandoned buildings in America. It's a decent show, makes for great background noise. After watching a few seasons, I've become familiar with the interstitial clips used to establish the time periods in which these structures were built. There's a helicopter video of Hurricane Katrina that accompanies any subject in New Orleans, a clip of the Little Boy being loaded into the Enola Gay for WW2 adjacent structures, and an image of the Lincoln Inauguration that pops up around Reconstruction. There's also this famous speech given by JFK that denotes when an abandoned building had something to do with the Space Race.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

"Because they are hard"

JFK gave this speech closer to my parents birthday than he did to mine. I wasn't around to experience this time when challenge was boldly welcomed. In fact, it's hard for me to believe this time even existed. Not because I doubt the current president's ability to say a three syllable word out loud, (though, I do doubt it) but because the cultural goal is no longer to do hard things. Today, the cultural goal is to make hard things easy, not because we need them to be, but because we want them to be.

Why bother measuring our skills or organizing our energies when we could instead let AI do it? What is the point in accepting a challenge when a shortcut exists?

BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD

I'll admit, this whole newsletter has a very "old man yells at cloud" slant to it, but I saw a post this week that really lit my fire. I'd insert the post below, but I didn't save it because it literally made me sick to my stomach. The post I saw was an AI-generated poster advertising graphic design services. The poster said "ANY DESIGN $20." It looked exactly like every other AI-generated posters you've seen online this week.

Hey. Quick question. What the fuck are we doing here?

You're telling me there are people out there who will pay someone else actual money to put a prompt into AI for them and shit out a subpar graphic? Honestly, you don't have to tell me, I know these people exist. I know these people exist because they brag about it. They believe their way of thinking is not only superior, but is worth converting others to.

Difficulty instills value

When I hear about someone's "great AI solution," I hear their disinterest in trying hard. I hear them say, "I don't want to put in work. I don't want to learn new skills. I don't want to find someone who has the abilities I need. I want to check the box and move on." But, I ask you, for what? So you can check more boxes? So you can have more time to do nothing? So you can stand upon a pedestal that you deemed "good enough" and spend the rest of your days hoping a stiff breeze doesn't come and knock it down? Yikes.

On February 22, 1980, the US Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union 4-3 in a game that would become known as the "Miracle on Ice." It was a big deal and arguably the most difficult hockey game ever played. They made a whole movie about it with Kurt Russel and the best friend from The Truman Show. Two days later, on February 24, 1980, The US team defeated Finland 4-2 to win the gold medal, but there's no movie about that, because that was easy.

We have to choose to do things because they are hard. Things being difficult is what gives them value; it's what makes them worth doing.

-MC

p.s.

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