I would prefer not to

I would like to imagine that a world where there is less paperwork is possible. I don't think that's asking for too much. Or maybe just where there's like. A number you can call to tell them someone died. And they do all the paperwork for you.

The promise of AI or LLMs or whatever new tech there is has always seemed to me to be built on faulty priors. They are a great way to automate this type of thing I guess but it all seems to assume that a world with this much paperwork is a necessity or inevitability. An infinite series of little hoops you have to jump through and boxes you have to fit yourself in. I guess on net being able to automate that is better but it seems a failure of the imagination for that to be all we can hope for.

Like a lot of people I spend a lot of time wondering if the problem is the world or the problem is me. Clearly I'm not the right shape for whatever hole the world meant to slot me in. I prefer not to think that's a personal failing but I can't really do a whole lot about it and it's hard not to sometimes wonder if all the self-affirmations are just a way of deluding myself.

So much of what we have to do every day seems solely designed to make us smaller and weaker and more bitter and alone and alienated from each other. I don't want to live that way but I do still have to pay my taxes I guess. A lot of people seem to be able to compartmentalize it but that's never really been my strong suit. I get so angry that I have to live this way and I end up putting it off til the paperwork gets even worse.

I wish this was a post where at the end I had a solution or at least a positive takeaway. Right now I'm just angry at how terribly banal it all has to be all the time. That someone dying, of all things, didn't involve so many phone calls and forms to fill out. But I don't think running away from that will do any good for anyone. Someone has to do it and if it's not me that's just more weight on other people I love who are doing their best and don't want to have to do this either. I guess I have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing my best to make a hole that fits me. Maybe I'll wear down some of the edges that make this so difficult and maybe that'll be a good thing but I don't want to give them all up.