Tag Archives: Fielies’ 100-word Ponderings

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I Even Dream in AI Now?


#writtenbyahuman

I woke up this morning, realising that I just had my first ‘AI dream’.

I woke up a bit earlier, but fell asleep again and, as it often happens, had a nonsensical dream. All I remember is a green meadow and a cute cow with a bell around its neck. At first, I wasn’t bothered, but then the question started repeating itself in my head:
Is it real or is it AI?
Is it real or is it AI?
Is it real or is it AI?

Well, we all know dreams aren’t real! It’s literally in the meaning of the word. But AI dreams? How can one dream in AI? Probably just the same as with other dreams.


Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, the Biblical idiom from Luke 6:45 goes. In this case, however, it was a matter of Out of the abundance of the Internet, the subconscious dreams. All my late night YouTubing might have led to me seeing things a-bit-too-cute cows in my dreams. What a wake-up it was this morning!

Of course, it has happened many times before that I dreamt about the things that kept me occupied. A few years back, my husband and I were part of a training project where we stood in front of a class, giving instruction from 08:00 to 16:00 every weekday for four and a half months. It was the hardest work I have ever done in my life! And guess what happened at night? I kept on going in my dreams for what felt like the w-h-o-l-e night! Last year, we renovated our son’s holiday flat, and I painted in my dreams. The examples can go on and on, but let’s leave it at that.

The thing is just that I don’t really use AI much. I am adamant that I will always keep writing my blog entries, articles and stories myself for as long as I have all my faculties. But I did dabble into AI two days earlier, when I asked an AI model to make pictures for a children’s story I had written (myself). I suppose that that experience lingered a bit in my subconscious and found its way into a very short, very vivid dream – and, if I’m honest, I don’t like it one bit!

How can I ever trust my subconscious after this again?

PS:
AI didn’t get the picture right I asked it to create for this post. It isn’t the exact a-bit-too-cute cow in my dream, but you know what? It actually made me feel better that it couldn’t do it. It might think it’s so clever, but really it isn’t. I’m still the human and only I can see in my mind’s eye what I can see. AI cannot see in there! Yet.

Fielies De Kock is a freelance content writer/blogger (www.fieliesdekock.com) living in Hermanus in the Overberg, South Africa, with her crazy-haired husband and two dogs. She authored a children’s chapter book and a few short reads and is co-author of 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads (available on Amazon Kindle) with her content writer son – who also has crazy hair.

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This is NOT an AI Hate Article – It’s Just an Appeal to Survival

Visual art of a photograph of a human taken by a human

#writtenbyhumanhand

100+100 Words: Since being on the towards-hundred-side of 40, I too started reminiscing on memories of things past. This is not on purpose – it seems to happen by design. I remember an innocent time when children played in mud, climbed trees and collected anything from erasers to stamps and writing block pages as hobbies, and I remember – tearfully – family and friends who are not here anymore. And friends who had emigrated for their “children ‘sake” and are now left by their children. And sometimes I even wonder if the memories I have, are mine or if they’re from books – or made up.

Today we – once innocents – are up against intelligence generated by machines. We have more knowledge available at our fingertips than any generation before us. But it made us lazier, dumber. AI is the next buzz happening and it’s a bigger threat to human creativity and originality than anything ever before. And like the phenomenon of smart phones, we will let it take us over – willingly. But let’s fight back. Let’s do real things again, like crocheting and drawing by hand. Let’s write emails and essays using our brains, because if we don’t – soon we won’t be able to anymore.

10ish-words Takeaway: Live for real in an artificially-driven world, so that you have real memories to reminisce on when old.

Read the previous 100-word Pondering here.

© 2025 Fielies De Kock

Fielies De Kock is a freelance content writer/blogger (www.fieliesdekock.com) living in Hermanus in the Overberg, South Africa, with her crazy-haired husband and two dogs. She authored a children’s chapter book and a few short reads and is co-author of 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads (available on Amazon Kindle) with her content writer son – who also has crazy hair.

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Audition your Thoughts and if they don’t Perform Positively, Kick them Off the Stage!

#10

100 Words: I recently read tips on how to stay encouraged and one point was to hold ‘thought auditions’. As we’re getting older and more isolated and come into contact with others getting older and lonelier, it becomes a repeating theme. People break contact with each other because of the thoughts they entertain. The thing with one’s thoughts is that one leads to another and another… and after a while, the thoughts get intermingled with untruths, and trust is broken – and fixing broken relationships gets almost impossible. All because one little ‘unauditioned’ thought was being allowed to grow into a web of untruths.

Under 10-words Takeaway: Banish negative, untrue thoughts to save your relationships.

Read the previous 100-word Pondering here.

© 2025  Fielies De Kock

Fielies De Kock is a freelance content writer/blogger (www.fieliesdekock.com) living in Hermanus in the Overberg, South Africa, with her crazy-haired husband and two dogs. She authored a children’s chapter book and a few short reads and is co-author of 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads (available on Amazon Kindle) with her content writer son – who also has crazy hair.

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Tribute to a Woman Who Left her Earthly Home

From the furniture one can deduce that they always lived in large houses. They are big pieces oozing generational pedigree and there are lots of them – chests of drawers, bookshelves, couches, smaller tables, a round table looking smallish in the foyer. Despite the many pieces, the house isn’t cluttered, but thoughtfully and tastefully decorated with soulful wall hangings, a few large photo family collages and memorabilia from travels and heirlooms strategically placed on surfaces. The dogs’ oversized beds fit neatly in a corner leading to the main bedroom without looking out of place or in the way. The cat sleeps wherever and sits wherever throughout the day, but mostly on one’s lap if you allow her and at night, she crawls in wherever she is welcomed, looking for comfort. The house was a happy home, it seems, but change is visible in the pets’ subdued behaviour. They seek human contact and comfort, only to retreat again to a corner or wander aimlessly through the living areas. Quilts and crocheted blankets still cover the beds – a silent legacy to be enjoyed by those she left behind, that they will provide warmth to guest for years to come.

The real evidence sits untouched on a chair in a corner of the sunny living room, in a basket filled with crocheted blocks – some separate and some already sewn together. The pattern waits on top of the half finish project.

It will remain unfinished now.

© 2023  Fielies De Kock

Fielies De Kock is a freelance content writer and blogger living in Hermanus in the Overberg, South Africa, with her crazy-haired husband and two dogs. She authored a children’s chapter book and a few short reads and is co-author of 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads (available on Amazon Kindle) with her content writer son – who also has crazy hair.

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Close the Tap Every Now and Then

#9

100 Words: It’s dry season in the Cape now, so our dams are emptying rapidly. The 2017/18 drought is still fresh in our memories and with the electricity crisis, our water supply is in danger countrywide. But in a world where we operate like headless chickens, humans are in danger of running dry too. We need to help and serve others, but a tap without water cannot fill an empty cup. As we give, we also need to take in, switch off, take a rest and replenish – otherwise our taps will not only run dry, but our feeding source is threatened too.

Under 10-words Takeaway: Soak in the rain (rest) to replenish your resources regularly.

Read Fielies’ next 100 Pondering here. Start reading the series from here.

© 2023  Fielies De Kock

Fielies De Kock is a freelance content writer and blogger living in Hermanus in the Overberg, South Africa, with her crazy-haired husband and two dogs. She authored a children’s chapter book and a few short reads and is co-author of 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads (available on Amazon Kindle) with her content writer son – who also has crazy hair.