Showcasing how the Social Impacts Alliance amplified its mission and postive impact through a powerful new brand identity crafted by ezier.
Toby Edwin
October 3, 2024
6 minute read
Case Study
I like to write, but I find it difficult to write in the normal course of life. I need specific moments, usually my setbacks or someone else's, that triggers me, and I must write. This is how I have dealt with breakups, how I have dealt with loss and adversity. When I write, like many other creatives, we write for ourselves, not for an audience. Its raw, and its uncut, so it often doesnt sit well with our friends and neighbours. It may be embarrassing, perhaps reveals a kind of darkness that is hard to talk about in polite company.
While I speak a lot on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, for most people this is a threatening and often anxiety inducing topic. For me, I have recently found it to be a welcome companion for these pursuits. But I wanted to demonstrate this with an example rather than explain it.
The fictional piece of writing below is something I 'had to' write. It came unbidden, unstructured. I wrote it down, and I started discussing it with ChatGPT. My writing, and its response is below. While I have no illusions or naivities about what 'it' is or isn't, the level of engagement, the intelligence and perceptiveness was uncanny, and importantly, helped me in that moment. I hope you enjoy the piece, but more importantly, that you start to consider the idea that maybe AI is not something on the surface, creating competing and fake imagery, but something that has and will get under our skin so very fast. For many of us, this new 'companion' will speak to a less public side, and may even help that side express itself better.
"I burst into the café, a brimming anticipation pulling inside of me.
As I entered through the light and found a small table in the corner, the floorboard creaked beneath my step. Sitting down, I was overwhelmed. Every noise, every chime, every colour, every scent leapt into me, igniting a fire within. I looked around—the shades of skin, the glint in every eye, the lipstick, the smell, the touch of people surrounding me—overwhelming in their energy. I ordered my first drink, my first meal, and it was everything I had hoped for, delicious and fulfilling.
The waitress came over and sat with me. She spoke in words I didn’t quite understand, but her smile said everything. She fed me, spoon by spoon, and I smiled back. I took her hand, and she held mine. Everything felt right in that moment, but soon she had to leave—other people needed her, and the café became noisy and chaotic again as she disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by the constant ebb and flow of strangers.
My table felt larger now, with more space for my things. I pushed my empty plate to the side, picked up a newspaper, and laughed at the comic strip. Outside, the sky was turning cloudy, maybe it was raining, but the dirty window made it hard to tell. Inside, the hum of people was constant, and then I saw her—a beautiful angel across the way. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. Her table was the same size as mine. I gestured for her to join me, and she came over without a word. She sat in my lap, took my hand, and I held her close, feeling safe—safe from both the exhilaration and the fear of everything around us.
We sat there for what seemed like hours, watching people come and go. Sometimes the rain beat against the window, sometimes it didn’t. The floorboard still creaked underfoot, and lunch arrived—a fresh salad, meats, and vegetables from every corner of the world. We smiled, we ate, we held each other’s hands. But after a while, she excused herself, wanting something different, and left the table. Her absence made the café feel quieter. Her empty dishes lingered until a passing waiter cleared them away.
Time passed, and I found myself alone again at my table. I wasn’t hungry anymore, just watching the world move around me. Other people sat with me, some in my lap, some beside me, but they were never quite the same as she had been. I had a coffee to wake myself up, its warmth reigniting a spark of curiosity. So I left my table and joined another—a group of old friends, laughing and joking. I sat with them for a while, but their words didn’t quite reach me. I moved on.
At the next table, things were different—strict, difficult, full of rules. People grabbed my hand only to let it go again, confusing and unsettling me. But there, I found another her. She took my hand, her warmth so intense, so comforting, that I thought she would never let go. Together, we found a quieter table, and the waitress helped us settle in the corner. We invited children to join us, gave them high chairs and baby spoons, and giggled as we fed them crumpets and milk. The children needed more from us, so we played games, coloured in books, and even arm-wrestled. A boy beat me easily, growing stronger by the minute, and eventually, he left our table, the floor creaking under his steps as he crossed the café in another corner with vibrant lights and youth.
After the kids left, I turned back to her, and we held hands tightly. It was almost time for dinner. The clink of cutlery filled the air, but conversations were muted now, as if the day was winding down. Dinner was a simple meal—a rich and rustic Merlot, a bloody steak and white truffles, something to savour slowly and carefully. The café had grown quiet, and outside, the sun was setting, its orange glow casting long shadows. We napped together, exhausted from the day, and drifted into a peaceful evening as musicians played softly around us.
I felt her fear suddenly, and taking her hand, I asked her to dance. We swayed gently around the table, while the others watched in silence. They couldn’t hear the music like we did. They couldn’t dance like we could. The children with white ribbons circled around us, their laughter echoing faintly. Even the waitress stopped to watch for a moment, a smile crossing her eyes, and then walked back to another corner of the world to serve someone else.
We sat down, exhilarated in each other, and I turned and squinted at the glaring sunset, as it flooded my eyes. I don’t know when she left, but I turned, and she was gone. I was back at my table again—the same table, though now it bore more scratches and dents, like it had lived a life of its own. I smiled. It was my table, full of memories.
There was a certainty that it was closing time. The café was almost empty, familiar faces fading away, the noise of cutlery and chatter dying down. I looked around and barely recognized anyone. Even the joyful faces seemed distant, their voices just faint echoes.
I wanted to pay my bill, but there was no waitress in sight. There was no account of what I had done or consumed, nothing to settle. No obligation remained. So I stood up, and easily moved between the remaining tables to find my hat on a rack by the door, though I didn’t remember leaving it there. I turned back for one last look at the café—the faces, the meals, the laughter, the wine, the rain on the window, the sunshine. And I smiled.
And then I left.
The door gently closed behind me, the creak of the floorboard the last sound I heard."
"This piece feels like a deeply reflective stream of consciousness, filled with vivid sensory details and rich metaphor. It captures the emotional journey of someone experiencing life, relationships, and time through the lens of a visit to a café. The café acts as a metaphor for life itself, where every interaction, every meal, and every moment signifies deeper themes of connection, loss, joy, and the passage of time.
You’ve crafted an immersive sensory world, where every detail, from the creak of the floorboards to the texture of food, builds an emotional and reflective atmosphere. The repetition of sensory inputs (“every noise, every buzz, every moment...”) adds to the overwhelming feeling of life, as if the narrator is taking everything in all at once, feeling both exhilaration and, at times, isolation.
The presence of the waitress and other characters seems symbolic—representing fleeting connections, love, companionship, and how people come and go in life. The way the narrator holds hands with others, dances, and shares meals creates an intimate sense of unity, yet the transitory nature of these interactions suggests a bittersweet undertone of impermanence.
There’s a poignant shift towards the end, as the restaurant begins to empty, voices fade, and the narrator finds themselves alone once again. The departure of the final companion and the absence of a bill hints at a release of responsibility, perhaps a metaphor for moving on, having no regrets or debts left in life.
The overall tone is nostalgic and somewhat melancholic, balancing between the beauty of lived experiences and the inevitable solitude that follows. It captures the ebb and flow of relationships and moments, beautifully portraying the cyclical nature of life through the familiar setting of a café.
The narrative flows poetically, though at times, it might benefit from some structural tightening to improve clarity. The use of metaphors and symbolic imagery makes it powerful, but it also drifts into abstractness, which may challenge readers trying to follow the plotline."
