Unplugged #14: Craft and integrity, a fullness of presence, the call of the goldfinch, and maker’s knowledge

I got into an online debate with a pro-AI evangelist, and I don’t think I completely disgraced myself…

May 06, 2025

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Alpenglow Journal towers, with weekends spent doing field work in Snowdonia and the Peak District – more on this soon – and a magazine print deadline. It’s also been a strong period for my personal reading, and as I put more time and effort into this journal I’m looking ahead to how I can be more organised in talking about the books and magazines I’m enjoying.

Talking about putting more effort into this journal, subscribers who previously received missives through alexroddie.com have now all been migrated to Substack. Hello and welcome! You’ve joined more than 1,000 other subscribers.

Far more important than numbers, I feel like I’m starting to connect with like-minded individuals who share some of my hopes for building the new counterculture. Here’s an extract from a lovely message I recently received from a reader:

I just wanted to let you know that what you’re building really speaks to me. Your writing over the past few weeks on AI and facing that threat by doubling down on the things that matter: nature, adventure, craft, creativity, is something I’m not encountering anywhere else right now. The prospect of Alpenglow Journal building out a formal home for that and more is great to hear.

All I can say is that I hope I can live up to the hopes and dreams of this passionate community. Thank you all for keeping the flame alive.

From my desk

Recently published

🤖 AI and Creativity - Alex Roddie and James Carson

Matt Barr invited me to participate in an open letter exchange with James Carson, who believes that AI will be a positive force for creatives. My belief (as you know, dear reader) is that it’s an aggressive attack against creative workers, and that therefore we have a moral duty to resist.

The exchange was respectful but also robust. I enjoyed the challenge of keeping my arguments to a concise format, because I could have written three times as much! Tip of the hat to Brian Merchant, whose ideas and research have informed my perspective recently. It’s great to know that a large community of resistance is building.

From the open letter exchange:

I’m not arguing for a halt to progress. I’m arguing for craft and integrity. I’m arguing for us to be intentional with how technology is adopted, honest about who it will benefit, and to think about what we want human creative work to be in the future.

Read the full thing here, and do let me know if you feel I could have done better.

Upcoming

I’ll be opening Alpenglow Journal up to submissions for articles fairly soon. If you have any ideas about pieces you might like to publish, please send me a DM. I’m going to be paying for articles I publish right from the start. I won’t have the budget to pay much, but I feel this is an important principle to uphold.

Recently processed film images

Three April frames from Glen Girnaig, Perthshire. Shot on Lomography Colour Negative 400 with my Olympus XA2. The more I use this basic little compact camera the more I like it. I’m trying to summon up the courage to go exclusive on black-and-white film for an upcoming trip, but I keep coming across images that just work better in colour…

Dipping into the archives

From PB6, p.112 and 113, December 2019: thinking on paper while writing an article for The Great Outdoors called ‘Back to Basics’. This is a glimpse into my planning process for any article. Mind mapping on paper is how I order my thoughts. Appropriately, the article was about picking up paper maps again after years of digital mapping.

What I’ve been reading

Books

🥾 A Philosophy of Walking, Frédéric Gros

This lovely little book has been on my bookshelf for months now, but I decided to take it with me to Snowdonia the other weekend. It’s the kind of book you can’t rush through; every other line seems to contain an idea that deserves serious consideration. I read a couple of chapters on the train, and frequently found myself staring out of the window thinking in between sentences. Needless to say, I’m making copious notes.

Standout quotes so far:

But haste and speed accelerate time, which passes more quickly, and two hours of hurry shorten a day. […] Days of slow walking are very long: they make you live longer, because you have allowed every hour, every minute, every second to breathe, to deepen…

The elemental is revealed as fullness of presence… it yields itself in pure form only to one who has, at some time, got rid of the necessary.

What we give ourselves up to is that which we are given.

This, dear reader, is what we believe in. Please inject this stuff directly into my veins.

Magazines

🥾 Heath and Mud

Tip of the hat to Kirsten Amor, who pointed me in the direction of this fabulous-looking journal of photography and writing from the Peak District. Issue #3 is available to pre-order now. An insta-buy from me.

From the web

🏔️ A Silent Rebellion

I’m a huge fan of Kitalé Wilson’s writing, photography, and film. We published his story ‘A Silent Rebellion’ in Sidetracked Volume 31, and it’s now available to read online, complete with some sublime analogue images.

I know this much. I’ve always found it hard to be present at the beginning of an adventure. My hands do the final checks, but my mind is elsewhere. Some would label it fear, but I know fear. This is something different. More an absence as my mind wanders off, as if it has begun the journey without me.

🌿 The Call of the Goldfinch

The goldfinch as metaphor – bringer of joy and change and resistance, and as a symbol for how nature can give us the mental framework to slow down time and reclaim our minds.

This is a perfect example of the counterculture I want to champion. So welcome, Mairi McFadyen, and I’m tremendously looking forward to your future posts.

I have written previously about the birds: how they are our measure, our meter, marking the coming and going of the seasons. It feels to me as though the seasons are passing by at an ever-quickening pace; that time and life are speeding up.

The constant stream of updates creates the sensation that everything is happening all at once, overwhelming our ability to process events meaningfully. We also experience a loss of locality, feeling hyper-connected to global events but disconnected from our immediate surroundings. With endless scrolling and algorithmic feeds keeping us in a state of constant stimulation, time feels like it’s slipping through our fingers.

🚵🏻 How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Data and Love My Bike Rides

Hannah Singleton writes about demetrication in cycling. I’m glad to see more athletes speaking honestly about this subject. I gave up GPS watches and other trackers myself some time ago and couldn’t imagine going back.

Part of the reason these devices are so hard to quit is because they’re designed to keep us hooked. Like social media, fitness trackers tap into a psychological feedback loop: set a goal, receive instant validation, repeat.

After coming to terms with my own data fixation, I have started to notice a larger backlash building, especially among everyday athletes hoping to reconnect with the simplicity that drew them to the sport in the first place. Some runners now swear by “naked runs,” leaving their GPS smartwatches at home and running by feel rather than pace.

🌄 Unseen – In Search of the Sublime and Spirit of Place

Truly beautiful work from Rachel Poulton. Caught by the River is becoming one of my favourite blogs on place and landscape and human connection.

The South Downs is a perfect place for drift and daydream. I freefall into the landscape and its deep time. Uncanny auras and silent subterranean tremors guide me. I’m searching for the Unseen, those primordial ghosts and traces of long ago that still exist if you know how to look.

📚 Vinyl records 🤝 journaling

‘One record. One writing session. That’s it. That’s the system.’ Such a simple idea, but so perfect… and you don’t even need to use a vinyl record! As Jestine points out, it even works with streaming.

📚 Through a Love of Note-Taking, José Naranja Documents His Travels One Tiny Detail at a Time

This is just gorgeous. Back in the 2010s, posts like this would occasionally do the rounds on Facebook or Instagram, and it was so easy back then to be cynical – at best, ‘Oh, that must be so so slow and inefficient; why not just use an app?’ or at worst, ‘Style over substance.’ But I think today such ideas can be seen in a different light. To me this speaks of care and attention. Of deep connection with where you’re going and what you’re doing.

🤖 “AI-first” is the new Return To Office

A great piece with some framings I wish I’d thought of before my email discussion with James Carson!

AI is really good for helping you if you’re bad at something, or at least below average. But it’s probably not the right tool if you’re great at something.

It’s telling that the creators of so many of the AI tools don’t even have enough confidence in their offerings to simply let users choose to adopt them, and are instead forcing them into users’ faces in every possible corner of their apps and websites.

📚 Maker’s Knowledge

I have noticed a split beginning to appear in culture: those who believe the end result, the product, is the most important thing, and those who seek truth and meaning in process. Craft, in other words. (I’m in the latter camp.)

To understand a thing, make it. This is profoundly connected to the generative AI debate.

Vico’s Notion of Maker’s Knowledge is, simply said, the philosophical belief, that we only truly know what we make. Turned on its head it also means that we can only think straight if we use our hands. Both views will only be fully comprehensible to those who both like to think and make things.

That’s all, folks

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