The pathless path, the AI shock, and who I am without the craft
On The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd, the 2025 AI shock, and the strange grief of watching the work you spent decades on become trivial.
For me, 2025 was the year AI went from "this is amazing" to a full-blown existential crisis.
The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd helped me make sense of that shift.
Layoffs are spooking people. For good reason. The world isn't asking us to become better versions of who we were. It's asking us to become something else. That likely means many more creative entrepreneurs, whether we want that identity or not.
There's endless content about financial independence and success. At this point, it makes me a little nauseous. What I don't see enough of is the conversation after FIRE. After success. After the ladder has been climbed and quietly pulled away.
In the book, Paul describes slowly deprogramming himself from a linear narrative of success into a more holistic one — built around exploration, creativity, and contribution. That framing feels especially relevant now.
The AI acceleration of 2025 has forced the issue. Every day, skills and crafts many of us spent decades cultivating are becoming trivialized.
Artists. Writers. Programmers. (Me.)
We enjoyed the work. We were proud of the craft. Proud of what it took to get good. Lately, I catch myself asking: who am I without that?
I still program, but the job has changed. I got into it because I loved the act of programming itself. Now — even as a solo developer — I mostly do the parts I dislike: wiring integrations, managing environments, reviewing diffs. Cursor is simply too good at the fun parts. I could do them myself, but I often ask, why bother? I'm a practical person.
Many of us are going to have to expand — not just our skill sets, but our identities. The disruption isn't only economic. It's personal.
I don't have answers. That's kind of the point. It's a pathless path. Over the past few years, I've learned a bit of everything, much of it not directly useful to the bottom line. My ego took some real hits. For a while, it felt awful.
But it's reassuring to know others are navigating the same uncertainty. So — thanks for the book, Paul. It helped more than I expected.