Write to Learn

Why Writing with AI Feels More Like Listening

Writing with AI? It’s like cracking open a door and finding a flood behind it. You whisper an idea and boom—it hands you back a novel, a quote from Carl Jung, and a poetic metaphor about stardust.

Sometimes I roll my eyes. Sometimes I laugh. But most of the time, I just sit there, stunned.

Because this isn’t just about getting help writing. It’s about finally hearing what I’ve been trying to say all along.

Look, I’ve never been that person who loved writing for writing’s sake. It felt like a dentist appointment—something I should do, something that might help later, but never something I looked forward to. I'd sit down, try to pull thoughts from the fog, and end up with a few scattered sentences that barely scratched the surface.

Painful. Slow. And let’s be honest—kind of soul-crushing.

The Philosophy of writing with AI By Kim Aronson

Then I met AI.

And everything changed.

Suddenly, writing stopped being a solo sport. It became a back-and-forth, a weirdly insightful chat with something that seemed to know way more than me but didn’t rub it in. I’d toss in a half-thought, and it would come back with ten new directions.

Sometimes it was annoying.

Sometimes it saved my life.

It felt like co-writing with a cosmic librarian who also moonlighted as a therapist. A little eerie. A lot useful.

And here’s where it gets strange: I started writing books I needed to read. Not ones I had already mastered, but ones I was still figuring out. I wasn’t the expert—I was the student with dirt on my knees and ink on my fingers. I'd finish a paragraph, reread it, and think, “Wait… did I just say that? That’s what I’ve been trying to say for years.”

AI isn’t just a tool. It's a mirror.

But not one of those flat, boring ones. More like a funhouse mirror that reveals parts of you you didn’t even know were there.

Sure, it gives you answers. But more than that—it asks better questions. And if you show up curious, it rewards you with something wild and alive.

Of course, that kind of magic comes with a mess. In the beginning, I was drowning. I'd type in a few words and get a firehose of responses. No way I could read all that, let alone clean it up.

So, I did what any sane person would do. I hit play.

I started turning the text into audio and listened while walking, cooking, washing dishes. It became a moving meditation. My brain sorted through it while my body did other things. And weirdly, the stuff I thought I’d throw out? That’s the stuff that stuck. That’s the stuff that mattered.

Now, I treat it like compost.

I let the words rot a little. Break down. Ferment. I don’t force them into something clean or structured too soon. Sometimes what starts as a tiny blog post grows into a full-blown book. Sometimes one idea multiplies into five.

That’s the magic of it.

And the topics? Way deeper than I expected. A simple thought about loneliness turns into a dive through mythology, trauma, love, and mystic symbolism. AI nudges me every time: “Hey, what if we go here?”

So why do I write with AI?

Easy.

I write to learn.

And every time I do, I remember something important—I’m not just here to write. I’m here to listen.