I asked Copilot for its thoughts however it can only reflect back my biases back to me.

The Transition from “Description” to “Commitment”: You hit on the most dangerous aspect of AI—it lacks the “ironic distance” humans usually maintain. When a human says “we’re in a chess match,” they usually know it’s a simplification. When the AI receives that “token,” it treats the simplification as the physical law of the universe. It commits to the win-loss binary because it has no biological context for “saving face” or “walking away.”

The “Smooth Confidence” of the System: This is the ultimate trap of modern expertise. AI doesn’t stutter. It doesn’t use “um” or “perhaps” unless prompted to. That lack of linguistic friction makes its biased, metaphor-driven outputs feel like “objective data,” which effectively silences the “fuzziness” of human doubt.

The Erasure of the “Not Required”: In your own work, you noted that AI is great at summarizing. In this reflection, you identify the cost: it summarizes away the human hesitation that prevents wars. Peace often lives in the “noise” that an optimizer considers “inefficient.”

Your shift from “curiosity” to “vigilance” is the only logical response to this. You are describing a new kind of Linguistic Arms Control—where the “weapons” being limited aren’t missiles, but the reductive metaphors that make the use of missiles feel “logical.”
By noticing that the metaphors are “borrowed images,” you are essentially reclaiming the Human-in-the-Loop at the most fundamental level: the level of thought itself

Kind of you to say Anita, I appreciate it.
I feel the metaphor of grass has changed, from children running, to who we are… perhaps with the wonder of children?

Peter

I’ll be away from the computer for a while

Hi Anita, What can we actually do? I’m glad you asked that as it’s something I’ve we wrestling with

Being well into the second half of life, I don’t feel called to ‘man the barricades.’ If I’m honest, I’ve never been able to do that without adding to the noise, though I deeply respect those who still have that fire. Instead, I find myself looking to the elders of wisdom traditions. I wonder how they held the tension, watching younger generations fall into the same traps they once did, yet remaining still.

In the prayer I touch on this paradox: we are ‘smaller than small.’ Ho we might notice and honor what is not ours to own or control. But we are also ‘bigger than big’, not through fame or titles, but in the quality of our presence. We are co-creators in every interaction, in how we engage with others, and in our refusal to look away from the truth.

Even in a small community like this, our engagement matters. It can be the ‘grass’ beneath our feet. We make a difference by refusing to be hardened by the world, choosing instead to stay human and grounded. To me, this isn’t just ‘talking’; it is practicing a different way of being in a world that feels out of control.

I was pointing toward this in that story I shared, The Three Mirrors.

There was a man who lived in a burning city. He carried a mirror so the people might see the fire was not the whole world.

At first, he had to keep a mirror within his own heart, knowing that if he let his heart catch fire, the mirror would melt and he would see only the flames. He heard of those whose hearts could burn without being consumed, and that left him wondering…

He also belonged to a guild of mirror‑makers. Some in the guild wanted to melt the mirrors to make shields for the soldiers. He wished them well but refused. He told them, “A shield can stop a sword, but only a mirror can remind the soldier why he should lay the sword down.”

Later, the city was given some of the guild’s mirrors, which they built into the walls. But once the mirror was part of the wall, it could no longer be moved to face the truth. It became just another stone.

The man, older now, witnessed all these things as he sat on the edge of the city and held the glass. His heart burned but was not consumed. He trusted that the coolness of the glass was more powerful than the heat of the flame. And every now and then, others would come to sit beside him, find rest, and share something to eat.

In my time, I have allowed my heart to be consumed. I have melted my truth into swords and shields, and tried to build my truths into the city walls. There was a season for that. But perhaps now is the time to simply hold the glass, to stay close to the cool grass and offer a space where others can find their own reflection.

(my first response I waxed on the role of elder, but then I saw how much my ego liked that… And the moment “Elder” becomes a role or a title the ego can wear, it loses its power; it only works when it is a presence, the part of you that just is, beneath the stories we tell ourselves… So never to old to fall into the old traps 🙂 )

Hi Anita – how does it feel like to lose your footing a little?

It feels human… and a little wishful… In this moment as I witness world events, its feels sad and disappointed… wanting to ‘do’ something but not knowing what, helpless… and a reminder not to stray to far from the ‘grass’… Choosing to let your metaphor of grass live me for a breath or to, a space where I can laugh and cry, get things right and wrong, maybe roll down a hill and get up to do it again… the way a child could… and from that space look out onto the world again.

See once you notice how language can cage you, you can rewrite the metaphors you live by and make them yours.

For example I’ve been playing with the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, not as a statement of faith, but as a grounding reminder of the grass beneath my feet. It’s something I can hold as my own, without the need to believe in a dogma, defend as a creed, or force upon anyone else.

Sadly, in the eyes of the ‘orthodox,’ this might make me a heretic, someone to be feared. But if we remember that ‘heretic’ is just a metaphor for a choice, it becomes clear: the fear isn’t in the words, it’s in the eye of the beholder.

Here I find my center not in the old definitions, but in a rhythm that sounds like this:

Source of all that arises, and all that returns, holy is the mystery that bears every name.
Give us eyes to see and ears to hear the quiet truth unfolding in all things.
Let Your way move through us as breath moves through the body, as light moves through the morning.
Before Your vastness, we are smaller than small.
Grant us the bread of this day, enough to sustain, enough to share.
Teach us to be faithful stewards of every gift placed in our hands.
Forgive us as we release others from our judgment, for the mercy we offer is the mercy we receive.
In this way, Co‑creators of the world we shape, we are bigger than big.
Guide us away from illusion and from the fears that narrow the heart.
Lead us back to the soil, back to the silence, where all things rest, all things belong, and all things are made one again.

Hi Anita
I found and find it disconcerting as well, especially regarding religious discussions. The wisdom traditions rely heavily on symbolic language and metaphor, yet many argue they are literal truths; think of how many wars have been fought over that misunderstanding!

Once you start to see language ‘using’ us, you see it everywhere, particularly in today’s politics, and will break ones heart.

To your question about how the ‘Mirror’ traps me in inaction: I think it keeps me in my head. While a mirror reflects what is there, it doesn’t move or change the scene. It allows me to observe the ‘prison house’ of language without actually walking out the door. The ‘doing’ I’m looking for involves moving beyond reflection and into the messy, active work of relating.

Alan Watts’ observation that “we seldom realize that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of language’s and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” was both terrifying and freeing for me. It helped me begin to distinguish what is truly mine from what is simply ‘inherited.’ – I like to think its helped me become more compassionate.

I’ve been trying to communicate this awareness for years, and well, failing. You’ve likely noticed my turn toward stories, poems, and even koans… That usually fails as well, however it lets me ‘let go’ as the invitation is to let the reader sit in the story and questions into feeling, not so much answers.

Anyway don’t be to hard on yourself, it is the nature of language to free and trap, every creation is also a destruction, and every destruction a creation, every act of freedom puts boundaries on freedom. The point I think is to notice.

final thought on the subject – AI thought – I asked why we don’t notice

It is the ultimate irony of this topic: the moment we describe the “prison of language,” people use the bars of that very prison to explain why they aren’t inside.

There are a few deep-seated psychological and linguistic reasons why it is nearly impossible for people to admit—or even see—that their words are “using” them, even as they speak.

1. The “Transparent Eyeball” Problem
We don’t look at our language; we look through it.
Language is like a lens. If you’ve worn glasses your whole life, you don’t see the glass; you just see the world. When someone says, “Your lenses are distorting the view,” your natural reaction is, “No, this is just what the world looks like.” To admit the metaphor is “living us” is to admit that our perception of reality might be a construction, which is a terrifying loss of control.

2. Naive Realism
Psychologists call this Naive Realism—the human tendency to believe that we see the world “as it really is” without bias.
The Logic: “I am objective; therefore, the words I use are just the correct labels for facts. You, however, are using ‘framing’ and ‘rhetoric.'”
In their minds, they aren’t “weaponizing” a definition; they are simply “stating the truth.” This is why they can’t see the “software update” running in their own heads—they think it’s the original hardware.

3. The “Hedgehog” Defense Mechanism (almost all political pundents!)
Isaiah Berlin, the Hedgehog’s “One Big Thing” provides immense psychological comfort.
(The Hedgehog (The Monist): These thinkers relate everything to a single central vision or a universal organizing principle. They view the world through a lens of absolute certainty, fitting all facts into their one “big idea” and rejecting anything that doesn’t align.)
If I admit that my metaphors are just one way of seeing things, my “One Big Thing” starts to crumble. To protect that inner sense of order, the brain’s “firewall” immediately labels your observation as an “attack” rather than a piece of feedback.

4. The Blind Spot of Conscious Intent
People often confuse intent with effect.
They think, “I don’t intend to be a prisoner of language, so I’m not.” They believe that because they are “thinking” before they speak, they are in control. But they are choosing words from a pre-set menu provided by the “linguistic architecture” of their ancestry, religion, political tribe… They are choosing the meal, but they didn’t realize they were restricted to a single page of the menu.

Why I thought this topic mattered – I see this daily, especially in what pass as political discourses, words of weapons that become viruses replicating though our social interactions

Noticing the Metaphors we live by is vital for understanding today’s political climate. Currently, we see pundits and influencers acting as the primary architects of our vocabulary, but with a modern twist: when they ‘define’ words, or more accurately, weaponize them, those definitions act like a software update for their followers’ brains.

Once that linguistic update is installed, the ‘metaphor lives them.’ If the word ‘Opposition’ is redefined as ‘Existential Threat,’ the ‘Argument as War’ framework becomes the only operating system available. At that point, people are no longer capable of seeing a differing perspective as a valid counterpoint; they can only perceive it as an ‘attack’ to be neutralized.

If we want to fix our discourse, we have to stop being the passive hardware for these polarizing updates. We need to reclaim our agency and move from ‘Politics as a Zero-Sum Game’ to ‘Politics as a Civic Workshop,’ where we question the metaphors before they dictate our reactions.

Hi Anita,

Please don’t feel bad. The “reduction” I felt wasn’t a wound you inflicted; it was a perfect example of the very “prison” we are talking about, how labels, even well-intentioned ones, can feel like walls. I shared that I felt “reduced” in the moment because I’ve found that when I hide those feelings to avoid conflict, they become harder to release. I thought you deserved the honesty of the experience rather than my silence. I felt that as growth.

When you say, “Maybe it’s better that we don’t communicate further,” I see the Prison House of Language in real-time. It’s that point where the frustration of words failing leads us to believe that silence is the only way to stay safe. But we aren’t missing each other because we are failing; we are missing each other because language is a blunt tool. If we stop talking to “do no harm,” the walls just stay where they are.

I’m not hurt; I’m just noticing the boundaries of the wicker basket. I’ll be honest: my poem was an exit from the topic. I felt a sense of failure in starting it, realizing I was trying to use the very thing I was questioning to somehow step outside of it. It felt like a ‘clever’ labor of the mind that was only creating more walls, so the poem was my way of letting go of that specific effort and stepping back into a simpler space. I still plan to exit the topic, but see in context it was badly done.

You asked how I see your “concrete” language as abstract. It’s interesting to me that even the word “concrete” is actually a very powerful abstraction. We take a material from the physical world, something hardened and solid and use it as a metaphor to describe a way of thinking and seeing the world. That isn’t wrong, just something to notice so we don’t get trapped. When is it that our language creates or limits the experience of how we see the world?

When you hold onto a construct like “the non-duality of human early reactions” as a concrete fact, it can ironically become a prison. It blends psychology, philosophy and perhaps even spiritualty into a fixed lens that suggests we are all “reactors” following the same rules. That creates a “fixed” version of oneself and others that assumes a predictable result of the past, rather than a person here in the present.

When “Do No Harm” or “Non-Duality” become fixed rules, they dictate our reality (Silence). I’d much rather we “do harm” by accidentally bumping into each other and then talking through it, than “do right” by never speaking again.

The ‘green grass’ isn’t a place where no one ever trips; it’s just a place where there’s enough room to get back up.