A short muse on learning and longevity -- how does artistry persist through the amalgamating squeeze of AI capitalism?

A long time ago my grandfather once told me, as I was sitting on his lap on a summer afternoon -- he had just finished carving out the insides of a birch log with the roughs of his hands -- about how he had learned to make paper. We had collected the shavings in a mesh bag to be processed, and I remember the sweet, sticky smell that lingered in the hot air behind the shed as we shared cold water and biscuits my grandmother had made for us.

The paper we would make in his workshop would turn out different every time. Sometimes a little more rough in texture than the last, or perhaps slightly yellower. And he had mused to me that day he was quite fond of the little variations that would occur every time I had helped him in youthful fervour.

"Boy," he had said in our mother tongue. "It will bring you good memories one day, that you will know how to do something no one else will." I realized when I got older that he was not talking about making the paper itself, but rather, the process of what eventually yielded the parchment my grandfather was known for making. I was the only one of the grandchildren who -- being the runt of the litter and the most introverted -- found solace in doing so. And thus, am the only one who carries that particular style of artistry with me to this day. Every once in a while I find myself making my grandfather's parchment. I sometimes scribe little tales onto them should I chance upon something worthy.

My grandmother's biscuits never survived. I never did learn how to make them.