The Ditto

ramblings of bar flys and literary homage

Many moons ago, while attending college in Seattle, I lived across the street from a dive bar called the Ditto. It was the kind of place that felt deliberately out of time. Old typewriters sat on scarred tables, and mounted to the walls, wrapped with yellowed newspaper clippings. The food arrived cold and the beer warm, yet none of that seemed to matter. The Ditto was a quiet, unspoken salute to literary minds, a dimly lit room where people of every background gathered simply to talk, to listen, and to be near the written word.

On weekends this tavern would be filled to the walls, where conversations were rare, and hearing was lost from the blaring sounds of local bands who took the small stage and played with the raw urgency of those who still had everything to prove. In its hey day before I arrived, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and other staring out bands that sang songs everyone knew- sometimes was composed by other writers. They would later fill arenas but conversations were had about the days they first filled that narrow room, their music rising between conversations about ideas, passions, troubles and whatever else the night carried in from the street.

I remember the smell of old paper and spilled beer, the easy mixing of strangers who had come looking for the same thing: a place where thought and expression were still allowed to breathe freely. That memory returns to me now as I consider the questions of originality, influence, and the tools we use to shape our words. The Ditto was never pure. It was a mixture of borrowed lines, half-finished stories, and music that borrowed from everything that came before it. And somehow, in that imperfect mixing, something living was made. It is in that same spirit that I offer what follows.

I’ve been thinking about originality. And writing something new- or retelling an old story or myth in a new way.

For most of human history, writers and thinkers were glad when their words traveled. A striking line, a useful idea, a well-told story. These were meant to be shared, repeated, improved upon, and passed along. Quoting someone was often a form of respect. Then, somewhere along the way, the rules tightened. Permission became required. Lawsuits appeared. The free circulation of thought began to feel dangerous. Now we face a new version of the same tension: artificial intelligence.

Some people say it is unethical for a writer to use AI. Others call it a form of plagiarism, or worse. I wanted to sit with that claim for a moment. If I deleted every digital book I’ve ever owned, every note I’ve taken, quite using divination, every glimpse into a subject taught to me by someone else, or rare volumes I’ve discovered, every conversation that shaped me — what would remain of “my own” thoughts? How many of the sentences any of us write are truly untouched by what we have read, heard, or inherited? Substack itself would go quiet if no one were allowed to repeat a historical fact, echo a myth, or restate an idea that someone else once expressed well.

Writing has always been a conversation across time. We stand on the shoulders of countless others, whether we name them or not. The printing press, the typewriter, the word processor, search engines — each was once a new technology that changed how thought moved from mind to page. AI is simply the latest tool in that long line.

The real ethical questions, it seems to me, are about honesty and intent. Does the writer claim sole authorship when the work was collaborative? Is the tool used to avoid thinking, or to extend thinking further? Is the final piece offered with transparency, or with a mask?

I don’t pretend to have the final answer, or say, “here is the line in the sand!” In contrast to the stance many people have written lately, I wanted to explore having AI write a short article. I only gave it a direction, to see if it was garbage or soulless. So I gave AI (Grok) a direction and made minimal suggestions to see what would happen. I think it did a great job. Im not here to be known as a great writer, I barely think of myself as a writer at all. More just like a patron at a hole in the wall tavern sharing ideas, hoping in exchange for others stories from you crazy fools, that I may offer something to let a little light shine back, or plant a seed for positive change. What matters is, if it left an impression (certainly not my own wisdom, which is very small if any). I shaped the direction, the questions, the tone, and the deeper concerns that matter to me. The AI brought pattern recognition, speed, and a certain clarity of expression. What you are about to read is the result of that exchange.

The first explores Orion — the mighty hunter fixed in the stars, and the ancient figure of Nimrod who, in some traditions, became that constellation. Kind of an after thought or an extension to my last article.

The second follows the Fool on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, traveling through every Sephira and path from Malkuth all the way to Ain Soph Aur. For those who know a bit about Tarot and the Tree of Life- or nothing about it at all, but want to see what may be gained with an AI explaining it, in a short form. I offer them not as pure human artifacts, nor as pure machine output, but as something in between — a record of a conversation between a curious mind and a capable tool. I would genuinely like to know what you think. Is this kind of collaboration a problem?

Where do you draw the line between influence and authorship? And what, in the end, is left of any of us once we remove every book, every newspaper, teacher, and every voice that came before?

The posts begins with the two following articles: The Mighty Hunter, and the Fool’s Journey