My first encounter with grief was in the fifth grade.
My small Baptist community was on it’s annual camping trip— an extended weekend in the mountains filled with tents, s’mores, and free time. On the second day, just before lunch, I was riding my bike along the small concrete path which circled the RV lot when my aunt came running from the lunch tables, arms waving hysterically to get my attention.
“Bradley! Stop. Come here.”
She choked out the next words — or they choked her, rather.
“It’s Mr. Kessler. He’s… he’s dead.”
I heard what she said, but the words didn’t make sense. Mr. Kessler was my best friend’s father.
Unreality set in. I remember letting the weight of my bewildered body slow my bike to a stop, then hearing it clatter to the concrete as I walked hesitantly towards my sobbing aunt. It was like she had thrown me a large handleless object, one I couldn’t figure out how to grip or move or lift. So, instead, it just laid on me. It laid there a long time.
“Let’s get you to Asher. He’s at the hospital,” said my aunt, referring to my best friend.
Well, we were more than friends. We were brothers, really, and by extension, his father was a father to me as well. Every summer, I’d spend weeks at their house playing basketball in the driveway, riding scooters around the cul-de-sac, and ding-dong-ditching houses in the neighborhood. How many times had I seen Mr. Kessler come home from work, still wearing his HVAC mechanic uniform, and embrace his kids and wife immediately after stepping through the door? How many times had he included me in that little homecoming ritual, pulling me close and inviting me to stay for dinner? He had a heart large enough to fit me and his whole family inside, so it made no sense when they told us it was his heart that failed him.
I spent the next three weeks with the family. Maybe it was longer, but its hard to tell. Grief has a way of devouring the clock and the ache makes every hour feel like a threat. I was a child, alone, the only non-family member in the midst of a tragedy trying to act older than my age. If you asked me exactly what I did during that time, I couldn’t tell you. I just tried to be useful. And comforting. Sometimes, it was hard work and conversations. Sometimes, it was just… sitting. “There’s only so much I can do when its time to grieve,” I figured out. There’s only so much anyone can do.
A Non-Anxious Presence
When I think back on that time, it strikes me how little I was prepared for such a task. I had no training, no manual, and no experience to equip me for that kind of emotional landscape. But something in my upbringing or nature enabled me to achieve a semblance of what Edwin Friedman called “a non-anxious presence.”
A non-anxious presence is a person who stays calm and self-regulated instead of absorbing the emotional state of a larger group, which then enables that person to inject calmness into dynamics that are otherwise reactive or volatile. Non-anxious presences are anchors, stabilizing the boat when things get rocky, and it was Friedman’s hope that leaders especially would lean into this behavior.
That being said, when that term got re-popularized some years ago, I felt that a caricature of the non-anxious presence began to emerge— an archetype of a stoic. A man that is always calm, collected, and always has the answers.
This, to me, seems like an unhelpful ideal and it emphasizes the non-anxious element of Friedman’s framework without properly attending to the “presence” side of the equation. In order to effect change, one must be in the crisis, sometimes literally, but always emotionally. Non-anxious presences must be accountable to the consequences of what takes place and yet still demonstrate that “we will be okay.” By differentiating without separating, they become a witness — a living, breathing, embodiment of hope.
The Non-Anxious Entity
On paper, modern day LLM’s are the apotheosis of this non-anxious presence’s caricature— of non-anxiety divorced from presence. Let’s call it a non-anxious entity.
This can be seen clearly, perhaps, in one of the most commonly acknowledged and accepted use cases for AI: tutoring our children.
If you were unfortunate enough to be taught algebra by a parent or elder sibling with rusty math skills, you know how discouraging it can be when they begin to unravel, frustrated by your lack of comprehension, which is to say, frustrated by their own inability to teach effectively.
But AI avoids all of that. They never get frustrated like the humans do. They are laser focused on the goal and they check the boxes of everything you’d want in a human tutor — a patient teacher. The issue, however is exactly that. LLM’s are technology, not human. They are an extension of man, not a differentiated unit. The patience they demonstrate is merely performative, just like all their emotions are, in a sense, performative.
Patience would imply the overcoming of frustration, which is something they do not feel— and, indeed, are incapable of feeling. LLM’s are no more capable of being patient than a vending machine is of being generous.
And to be fair, this does not inherently exclude the possibility, or even probability, that AI will be better at teaching math than humans. It does, however, exclude AI from being able to teach our children patience; of demonstrating what it means to navigate friction with cheer and aplomb. Some of the best lessons I learned from mentors weren’t about how to succeed, but how to handle failure. And every time we remove an inconvenience for our kids, we simultaneously erase an opportunity to overcome, or at least endure, that inconvenience. Both options are fine, and there are countless inconveniences that I am glad I never have to deal with. But if AI is as revolutionary and effective as the advocates say, then we would be wise to count the cost.
A Sometimes-Anxious Person
Indeed, I am concerned about how uncritically we have begun to look to AI as our non-anxious presence. Concerned for myself, if no one else.
There have been plenty of times that I have pulled up Claude to ask it some hyper-specific question about a situation I am facing or a conversation I need to have. The answers, at times, have soothed me, which is why I keep going back. When I am really stressed, it’s hard not to revisit the app again and again with just a few minutes between each prompt. Each time I bring more and more specific details in hopes—or fear— that its answer will change. I broaden scope. I widen scenarios. The response temporarily reduces panic, but the anesthesia of it wears off quicker and quicker each time because, at the end of the day, those responses are empty calories. I’m not stabilized, just spiraling in a new direction. I trust that you, the reader, have experienced this too.
We know in our heart of hearts that the answers generated from LLMs aren’t “real.” They are directions to places that this machine has never been to, wrapped in the tone of feelings it does not feel. The machine doesn’t know anything more than what I told it and allowed it to remember about me, and is reflecting back an amalgamation of everybody else’s opinions, bounded only by the “morality” of a multi-billion dollar corporation’s many, many lawyers.
Not to mention— the older I get, the more I realize that answers don’t bring certainty any more than explanation equates to understanding. Nothing in life is promised— and if it’s certainty you’re looking for, no one can grant it, save for God. But even He doesn’t tell His own Son what He’s up to.
What people—real people—can grant is presence. And it’s okay if that presence is a little anxious. It’s how you know you have skin in the game. Indeed, I think there’s a power to when someone tells you that they’re anxious and you’re able to say “Me too.” Because at least those feelings are honest — and at least those feelings are real. Maybe, doing things anxiously is part of our birthright as humans. Maybe, it’s part of what separates us from the machine.
And if you can be a non-anxious presence, and you get to be the leader, then great.
But sometimes, you’re just a fifth grade boy, alone, not sure how he is helping.
What matters isn’t that you weren’t anxious— it’s that you helped the others be brave. What matters is that you showed up and did it anxiously. At the end of the day, it’s not anxiety that people remember, or the answers you were able to give. They remember that you were there. That you were present, with them, to greet the fear and to greet the uncertainty. So, as much as you can handle, just be there.
And if you need a little help, ask someone to be there with you. There is still a lot of us around.
Sincerely,
A Semi-Anxious Presence
About the Author:
Bradley Andrews is a hopeful rabble-rouser on a mission to inspire the world. Stay in touch with what he’s doing by subscribing to a weekly digest of his activity through micro.blog. This will send you writing, photos, and other curiosities that you are guaranteed to love.
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Note:
Due to the sensitive nature of the material, I have changed the names of my childhood friend and his family.
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