A Case for the Human Process

These days, I forget my worth more often than I’d like to admit. I don’t say that pessimistically, I say it honestly, as someone navigating the creative world and the professional one. Lately, a question keeps resurfacing for me: In a world obsessed with optimization, what is the value of a human doing the work?

We now have tools that triple productivity, process information instantly, generate art from prompts, clone voices, and even cast virtual actors. It feels like we’re inching toward recreating the human being, or at least the illusion of one.

As an actor, I’m auditioning in a landscape where digital doubles are becoming storytellers. As a singer, I’m releasing music while AI-generated artists chart. As a performer, I’m facing a decline in sustainable live music opportunities. All while technology produces thousands of outputs with virtually no friction.

But as much as I wish it wasn’t true (especially on my fourth draft of this blog post), friction is where discovery lives.

Back in 2013, when I spent a semester at NYU, a professor opened a class with one question: “What is the meaning of art?” After an hour of debate, he concluded with a simple answer: “Art is proof that we exist.”

That line has stayed with me for over a decade.

The work I do, whether that’s writing music, performing, producing, acting, or even writing my blog, is the spirit within me trying to exist. Trying to understand itself. Trying to connect. And that process requires vulnerability, failed attempts, wrong turns, and the kind of human engagement no algorithm can replace.

Collaboration, for instance, is hard (sometimes painfully so), but it’s also one of the most meaningful things we share as humans. We now know social engagement can profoundly affect mortality. In other words, connection keeps us alive.

I’ve tried skipping steps. I’ve chased virality, studied optimization, relied on shortcuts… and none of it ever increased my sense of self-worth. What does? Struggling with an idea. Letting myself be changed by the process. Connecting with people, not outcomes.

Yes, the future feels uncertain, especially for creatives. But art has never been about efficiency. Our favorite songs, films, and paintings move us because someone felt something and shared it. We recognize ourselves in their humanity, not their optimization.

That’s why I made my album the way I did: live instruments, real people in a room, one shared breath. I wanted to capture the joy of collaboration, the sound of humans creating together. Because I believe this: We crave reminders that we belong. That we are here.

Maybe the point isn’t to prove our worth in an optimized world…but to remember it.

Together.