Let’s dive right into it! This episode is all about the overwhelming presence of AI in our lives and how it's leaving us feeling a bit exhausted. I've been navigating the parenting trenches solo for a couple of weeks now, and let me tell you, finding the energy to chat about tech feels like climbing Everest with a toddler on my back. You know how it is—AI's everywhere, throwing new tools and updates at us like confetti, but do they really change our lives? Spoiler alert: not really. We also get cozy with the winter vibes, where the lack of sunshine has me reminiscing about summer days and sipping on sage tea like it’s the elixir of life. So grab your comfiest blanket, kick back, and let’s explore this whirlwind of parenting, AI fatigue, and the cozy charm of winter together!

Finally, I get to sit here and record in my cozy little home studio—what a treat! This past week has been a whirlwind, let me tell you. I’ve been juggling parenting duties solo, and boy, has it left me drained. It’s like I was running on fumes, trying to squeeze in some personal time to create, but every time I hit record, it was just a chaotic mess. I was stuck in this loop of exhaustion, and my thoughts felt all jumbled. But tonight? Oh, tonight I’m feeling a bit more alive, and I want to dive into a couple of topics that have been swirling around in my mind. Sure, I can’t help but feel a bit silly talking about podcasting itself—because, let’s face it, podcasting about podcasting is a little on the nose, right? But let’s talk about AI instead. I mean, we’re bombarded with AI news left and right, and honestly? It’s wearing me thin. I’m exhausted just keeping up with all these updates and new tools that promise to change the world but kind of just… don’t. It’s a bizarre dance, really. We’re expected to be thrilled about every new gadget, but when you dive deep, it feels like we’re just skimming the surface of something that should be way more meaningful. I often find myself wanting to tune it all out, even as I rely on AI more and more in my daily life. But maybe there’s a silver lining? I’ve found some comfort in the winter season lately. There’s something about the coziness of the dark evenings and warm spaces that makes me feel at home. I've been going a bit sage-crazy, too! Burning it, brewing it, you name it. I think it’s my little way of battling the winter blues and keeping those pesky colds at bay. But I’ve got to admit, the lack of sunlight does take a toll on my energy. It feels like I’m perpetually tired. Anyway, I’ll share more on my thoughts about parenting, winter, and maybe a sprinkle of Black Friday chaos in the coming chats. Let’s keep it real and relatable, yeah?

Recording in front of my mic tonight feels like a small victory after the exhausting week I’ve had. I’ve been in full-on parenting mode for what feels like ages, and let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. The energy levels? Let’s just say they’ve been at an all-time low. 9 PM was my only window for ‘me time’, but by then, I was too beat to even think straight, let alone talk coherently into a mic. But tonight, I’ve got some energy back, and I’m ready to spill a few thoughts. First off, can we talk about podcasting about podcasting? It feels a tad cliché, but there’s something about the creative process that’s worth exploring. Then there’s the AI chatter that’s been nonstop. I swear, every time I check my news feed, there’s another AI tool or update that’s supposed to be revolutionary. But honestly? It’s exhausting. It’s like we’re all expected to keep up with the latest and greatest, yet most of it feels like a whole lot of hype for not much payoff. I find myself using AI for daily tasks, but I’ve become increasingly skeptical about its efficacy. It’s a strange relationship, really. On the flip side, I’m embracing the winter season, which has surprisingly brought some comfort. There’s a unique coziness about dark evenings, and I’ve found solace in the warmth of my home—plus, I’ve been going a little wild with sage! Burning it, cooking with it, you name it. It’s like my winter survival kit. But let’s be real, the lack of sunlight can be a downer, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one feeling it. I’ll wrap up for now, but let’s keep this conversation going about the ups and downs of winter, parenting, and maybe even some reflections on consumer culture this Black Friday. Buckle up, folks!

Finally getting to record again feels like a breath of fresh air after a week that felt like I was in a blender. I’ve been on full-time dad duty, and let’s just say it’s been a rollercoaster. There were days when I thought I might just fade away into the background noise of parenting chaos. Every time I thought about hitting record, it was like my brain just went blank, or worse, all I could produce was a ramble of nonsense. But tonight, I feel a spark of energy! I’ve got a couple of things on my mind that I want to share. First up: podcasting itself. I know, I know—it’s a bit of a meta topic, but hey, it’s part of my journey. Then there’s the whole AI phenomenon that’s just exploded everywhere. I mean, we’re inundated with AI updates, and honestly? It’s overwhelming. I get that tech is supposed to make our lives easier, but it feels like we’re on this hamster wheel of constant updates that rarely deliver on their promises. I often find myself wanting to tune out all the AI noise, even while I use it daily. Then we shift gears to winter—ah, the season of cozy vibes! I’ve been enjoying the darker evenings, wrapping up in warmth, and yes, I’ve become a bit of a sage enthusiast. I’m using it in every way you can think of—cooking, burning, you name it. It’s like my little antidote to the winter chill! But let’s be real, the lack of sunshine? It’s draining. I miss those long, sunlit days where you feel alive. Anyway, I’m excited to keep exploring these themes in our chats. Let’s dive into the madness of parenting, the quirks of winter, and maybe a little retail therapy during Black Friday. Here’s to keeping it real and relatable!

Takeaways:

• Podcasting can be a rollercoaster of joy and exhaustion, especially when juggling parenting duties.
• AI tools are popping up like weeds, and honestly, they're not always helpful, right?
• Winter brings cozy vibes but also a serious energy drain, making us crave sunshine like it's our job.
• Finding meaningful topics to discuss can feel forced; sometimes, capturing spontaneous thoughts works better.
• The struggle of resisting those tempting Black Friday deals is real; just because it's cheaper doesn't mean we need it.
• Creating engaging content is more about connection than numbers; I crave a close-knit audience over a massive following.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Contact me at cmonkxxx@gmail.com

Oh, it's so nice to finally record for you and to be here in front of my microphone in home studio.

And I've been in this situation throughout the week.

With the only difference tonight.

I do have a bit of energy.

In the last week, if not last two weeks, I was just completely exhausted.

I was taking care of my daughter for the last two weeks on my own, doing all the parenting duties, and I just didn't have enough time for myself.

In fact, I would have time for myself every day from sort of 9:00pm but at that point, I just didn't have any energy.

I think I was trying to record, but what was coming out of me was just awful, Just complete mess and chaos.

So I didn't want to share this with you, but I would really like to record something tonight.

And I do have a couple of bullet points on my notepad, and they kind of sound.

They feel ridiculous.

They sound a little bit forced.

I wanted to talk about podcasting, which is, you know, podcasting about podcasting is a little bit lame.

I would maybe move that to the end of this episode if I run out of the steam.

I want to talk about AI, but that also seems a bit of an overkill.

Maybe.

We're hearing those two letters way too often those days.

They media, all kinds of media.

They give us both.

Both.

No, they give us all sorts of emotions.

Joy, fear, resentment, maybe fomo.

I think quite often it's mix of everything.

I feel like this is the case with me.

For me, I see new announcement, new tools, new version of something that was already great but then became kind of bad.

There's new version of something that's apparently improved and it's meant to change everything.

It kind of never does.

And that's, I think, source of this latest crisis where while we are learning how much money and energy goes into those.

Those new inventions, but they don't really result with anything truly meaningful or worth those resources.

So it's a.

It's an exhausting dance.

And I think you will agree the stand is changing all the time.

And I think we are.

We have a right to be overwhelmed and tired of this.

I think at this point, I kind of am.

I am exhausted by AI news, and I feel like I want to tune this away.

I want to tune it down.

Yet I do find myself using AI every day, and it is helping my life.

But I did drop a couple of tools that I would use every day.

This voice mode, having conversation with AI, it was.

It was.

I felt like it was useful for some.

For some Time until I realized how badly those, those chatbots, especially in the voice mode, how badly they are trying to please me.

And it's kind of scary to think how much bad advice I've gotten, you know, throughout months of using this.

So I no longer use that.

I'm trying to use AI to automate some tasks, but I don't use it as kind of like assistance.

I don't address it as a person.

I don't see it as a intelligent being.

Intelligent entity.

Yeah.

And I have less and less trust in this.

I, I feel like I need to be more and more careful somehow.

But the thing is, those tools are being released almost every week, and it feels like we need to look into them regularly because, well, this will change everything.

It never does.

Okay, I said I will just tell you what I want to talk about.

Yet I feel like I already exhausted this topic.

I don't want to talk about AI anymore.

AI is really lame lately.

I don't know.

It's just being portrayed also as something disappointing.

Another thing on my list, winter season.

Yes.

This is something that greatly contributed to my energy levels lately.

I really enjoy this darkness.

I mean, it's so cozy at home.

You know, I get to heat up this space to reach that level.

As if there was a fire, like live fire in the apartment.

I just feel like this warmth.

Okay, it's okay.

There is a big difference between getting warmth from a heater and getting warm from a fireplace.

Okay.

But I'm, I'm doing my best.

And I'm also burning some sage.

I'm crazy about sage lately.

Okay, this is not on my bullet point list, but I'm crazy about sage lately.

I eat it, I burn it, I, I, I brew it, I dry it.

I don't just use as a spice, I guess I don't chew it.

I don't know if you can chew it or if you shoot it, should chew it.

But I, I really love the flavor, the smell.

I think it's incredible.

I, I knew sage before and I always liked it, but right now.

And maybe it's somehow related to this winter season thing, this need for coziness and maybe some subconscious battle with lingering sickness, you know, catching colds and all that.

I'm not into being crazy, preventive, preventative.

But yeah, I don't want to get sick.

And I feel like maybe this has some cleansing protecting effect.

So, yeah, I'm eating a lot of sage, drinking a lot of tea, sitting in a warm, cozy apartment.

And I do like it.

But I have to say, And I think you will agree it just takes a lot of energy out of us.

There is not enough sun during the day to.

Yeah, to get that vitamin D thing.

I, I said it, but I, I don't think that's how it works.

I feel like there's more to it.

Right.

I feel like we need sun to be awake and vitamin D is just something that comes with it.

But yeah, I, I miss those warm, sunny days when, you know, when you get to walk around in T shirt or.

Yeah, just something really light.

I mean, lack of it just keeps me, keeps me very tired.

I do like my winter jacket.

And this is another element of, you know, staying cozy and warm.

And it's, it has its appeal, but it's really hard to get anything done when it's so dark.

When it feels like day ends at 5pm when it's already dark, yet there's so many hours that feel like, yeah, no, there's nothing else can be done.

It's super late.

Why am I feeling sleepy at 7pm?

Yeah, that's sort of what it is.

And I feel like this is something I'm saying every winter, every season, every winter season, I catch myself forgetting how winter feels like every year.

And I do the same about summer also because when you're in winter season, summer feels just impossible.

What can it be?

So hot that you need to look for shade and when you are in this summer shade, when you're sweating and you need to drink a lot and you know, you get sunburn or whatever, it's hard to comprehend that there are dark, cold months that feel just completely different, that are complete opposite.

It's just, yeah, those opposite seasons seem very abstract.

And I, yeah, I have, I have a lot of giggle about forgetting every six months how the previous six months felt like so.

Well, that's me.

Maybe, maybe you've got different way of dealing with it.

Maybe you don't even think about it.

I, I, I, I, I wanted to go parenting, but maybe I did already.

I did make my informal excuse.

Yeah, I was spending a lot of time with my daughter.

I don't want to talk about my daughter.

Not because it's, it's not an important thing.

It's just, yeah, I feel like I need to protect this area of my life.

Let's talk about Black Friday because it's, it's really annoying because, not, not because of all the ads and all the discounts that I'm seeing.

It's just all the products that was looking at, they do get back to me now.

And I, I decided not to get those items usually because, you know, I realized that I don't really need them.

And now I see them again discounted, and somehow I'm trying to find.

No, I need to find reason to, to avoid getting them because nothing really changed.

I don't need those things.

Just because they're cheaper doesn't make it so that I. I need those things now.

And I think I said the story about the DJI vlogging camera I got a long time ago.

Yeah.

Last summer when I thought, I will, I'll be vlogging, I will have fun with video.

Yet as soon as I started, I realized, well, my.

My life isn't really vloggable that much.

You know, I don't want to vlog my daughter.

So I cannot do anything with camera in those, on those days, in those hours.

I live in a. I live in an interesting place.

But it's.

I, I don't like it visually.

You know, Berlin is.

It can be quite depressing.

No, I think recording audio in Berlin can be interesting and I should stick to podcast.

And for, for the podcast, you don't really need that much.

Just the microphone, you know.

Oh, I've.

I've been actually recording.

I've been recording on the, on the go.

A few days ago, I took my portable recorder with me as I was dropping my daughter out at school.

I was walking back, talking to myself, talking to myself, talking to the microphone, trying to say something meaningful.

It was nothing meaningful.

I feel like I was just indulging myself, telling myself, telling you what I.

What I was seeing.

And I was hoping to arrive somewhere with it, but I didn't.

So as much as I like this recording, I decided not to use it.

I won't.

Yeah, it's no longer on my hard drive, but I'm tempted to record like that as well in the future.

And so here's the thing, you know, I'm looking at this bullet point list, and I feel like these are good topics, but they feel.

It feels very strange to talk about something that was meaningful to me a week ago because I think that's how a long time ago I started this list.

What I need to do, I think I need to record segments throughout a week that feel right, that feel like, oh, now this is really important to me right now.

So I want to record those segments when ideas trucks, when I'm in the mood for this, and then when I get to collect those different segments from various days, I want to combine them into.

Into one long episode and Maybe there will be a theme, maybe, maybe not.

Maybe they will be completely random from each other, unrelated from each other, and so be it.

But I don't think I want to work with a bullet point like this.

Just feel like it's.

It feels, it feels a little bit fake, a little bit forced.

So I will post this episode for you today.

And yeah, I feel like we can agree working with lists doesn't really work for me very well.

But yeah, this is it for tonight.

And in the next episode, I will try to collect a list of topics that came to me and there might be, you know, they might be recorded on my phone, they might be recorded at home and they'll be sort of glued together, recorded on different devices in different locations.

I hope you enjoy this and I hope you enjoyed this episode as well.

One thing to add is I set up an email, email that you can use to get in touch with me.

I already disclosed I will not be actively using any social media platforms unless there is just really need for that.

But I do want to have either email or a newsletter, but definitely email that you can use to get in touch with me.

So you'll find that address in the show notes.

If you don't have access to that, you can just write it down.

Right now it's SimonKX.

So just like the name of this podcast, SimonKXmail.com you can email me whatever you like.

You can introduce yourself.

That would be nice.

You can comment on what you hear.

Some feedback would be in fact highly appreciated because I really don't know what I'm doing.

I really enjoy doing this.

I would like to have very close, closely connected bunch of listeners.

I'm not looking for a big audience, but I would like to have engaged audience.

So I would love to hear from you.

You know, tell me where you are from, where do you live, what you do, what brought you over to this, to this feed?

How did you discover me?

You know.

Yeah, tell me what's up.

Introduce yourself.

You can even send me some, some audio.

You know, I will, I will feature you on the episode, but that's all for now.

I think my mind is still quite tired.

I will be fully recovered next week, I think I'm hoping.

And I will try this new format with you.

So stay tuned.

Oh, I was wondering what this sound was.

That was my dishwasher.

It sounded really weird on, on my headphones.

I don't know if you heard it anyway.