This Is Me

When I saw this challenge, I thought I could enter my "Another Raven" poem, a re-imagining of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven", as that includes me reading the poem at the suggestion of my friend Pam Reeder. You can check it out here, complete with me reading the poem:

Of course, I am not going to read that poem; that is your choice, but I am going to talk about how potentially fragile our work is and how, with the right tools, almost anything or anyone could be faked.

The video is filmed on my phone, a Google Pixel 6, but I am sure there is software that could easily deepfake me if someone wanted to do that. I do not see myself as a target, but I know banks and supermarkets have my information because I have given it to them, and sometimes shops give you little rewards for letting them track you with their loyalty cards.

I have to prove that I wrote these words, and did not use AI, but my video could be deepfaked and stolen, as could the words and ideas.

I suppose something that really reminded me that I am alive happens every time I wake up, but a few years ago I was diagnosed with Liver Cancer, and I have written about that a lot on Vocal and you can drop into that story series here:

While I am not the finest example of health, I try and look after myself, and when I was diagnosed, I knew I was probably in the best place in the world to survive it. I moved here thirty years ago, so was that destiny or something? I don't think so. I just got lucky. When I spoke to the specialists, they said I was in great physical shape to fight this and be operated on (sorry if this sounds like a Donold Drmpf speech).

I went through the process and had the cancer removed, though it had touched my lungs, and I was excellently supported by work (ironically, a health service regulator, and close to the best place I have ever worked), then it was a slow recovery but I built it up slowly, and today I am in a very good place.

I got huge support from my friends on Vocal, as you can see from this post from my great friend Lesley:

My family and friends, Fiona, Juliet, Kirsty, Mark and Alexis Leia, plus the Preston gang, including my Dad and sister Yvonne, Krista, Sandy Wells Lee, and so many others, were all a huge help to me dealing with it.

The outcome was that I survived, and I knew I was worth surviving because of the love that everyone showed and still shows me.

When I came out of the hospital, I had plans that I could not put into action just because I was physically unable to walk very far, but I could listen to music, watch TV, read books, and do a lot of things that I love doing. I felt life was worth living.

I now feel that every day, when I wake up, I am glad to be here, and while others will have had some similar experiences to mine, none have had my experiences.

Nobody could write this story, and I doubt that ChatGPT or whatever could come out with this life Odyssey of mine.

That got me thinking, if you borrow an idea or some words from someone, are you inspired by them, or are you stealing from them?

Thank you so much for reading.

I would love to hear your thoughts.