You Ask, We Answer: AI Blues and Violinist Dreams

Forever35

In this 'You Ask, We Answer' episode, hosts Dori Shafrir and Elise Hu address listener concerns ranging from the existential dread of AI rep

Key takeaways

• The 'AI blues' are causing significant anxiety among journalists and creators regarding job security and the loss of human touch in work.
• Elise suggests that professional pivoting and embracing reinvention is a necessary response to a shifting economic landscape.

Main topics

• AI's impact on creative industries
• Caring for parents with dementia

Notable quotes

In this economy? No way.

Conclusion

A deeply empathetic episode that provides both practical advice and em

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:10) Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Dori Shafrir. And Speaker 3 (0:18) I'm Elise Hu, and we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums. Speaker 5 (0:21) And this is a You Ask, We Answer episode where we take your questions, your feedback, your comments, your thoughts, your concerns, your ideas, and we respond to them on this episode. It's like a mailbag episode. So please send us all of your messages. You can email us at forever35podcasts at gmail.com. You can text us at 781-591-0390. And you can also send us voicemails by calling that number or emailing us a voice memo. So please do that. Elise, do you want to mention our giving circle? So Speaker 3 (1:00) for our U.S.-based listeners, you probably already know we are less than two months away. from very consequential midterm elections, which could flip control of Congress and be a check on this administration. And in the states, you know, at state legislatures, where there are so many decisions that will affect people's lives, that's where we want to focus our giving and focus our attention. This year, Forever 35 has a giving circle to... Give to Arizona to try and flip the balance of power in Arizona for more progressive policies there. We're already almost at $10,000 just from our regular recurring donors. We've set a $25,000 goal to try and raise that before election day in the U.S. in November. So we're going to link you to the Giving Circle so that you can contribute from our show notes and from the Patreon page. But please consider a contribution. These dollars go to a lot of boots on the ground, grassroots kind of work. And with so much attention on these big congressional races, state legislatures can be overlooked. So check out our giving circle. We hope that you'll join us in trying to raise for Arizona. Thank you. Elise, how's it going? It's going well. I am hosting some moms tonight for a mom friend from my middle daughter's birthday. And the reason why I'm doing it is because I was watching Instagram and I saw somebody make a gigantic table-long charcuterie board. Like they made their dinner table the board. And I was like, I would like to have one of these, but I would need to have people help me eat it. And so I had like visions of this giant charcuterie board and then had to reverse engineer. You know, I was like, is it anybody's birthday? Speaker 3 (2:58) And lo and behold, there's always a birthday. So there's one of my mom friends who just recently had a birthday and we're going to have her birthday thing so that we can make a giant board. And then we didn't get enough RSVPs to actually necessitate like a giant table long board. So now it's just going to be like a regular large board. But my friend Jeannie is taking care of it. She's an excellent, like, you know, crafty. chefy woman. And so she's just like, why don't you just drop your big board at my house and I will bring it back over with everything on it. I'm like, Speaker 1 (3:29) thank you. So Speaker 3 (3:32) I'm very excited about that. But it's been a good week. I was filling in on public radio all week and having lots of conversations about news and culture. And Ava turned 14. My oldest turned 14 on Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything they say about the older we get and the faster time flies. It's crazy Speaker 5 (3:58) that she's 14. It's crazy. Speaker 3 (4:01) Did Speaker 5 (4:01) you guys do Speaker 3 (4:02) anything? She had her first volleyball game of the season. So the whole family went to that. But we haven't taken her out to dinner or anything yet. I think she wants to do hot pot. She likes hot pot for her birthday or Benihana. So we're going to go to Heidi Lau at Century City, probably. Fun. Speaker 1 (4:19) Yeah. So that's all. So happy birthday to Ava. Speaker 5 (4:22) Can I ask a kid question? Sure. Like, when do kids stop having, like, birthday parties? I Speaker 3 (4:29) think middle school, I've noticed a drop off. Okay. And it's not like they're not having parties. Like, some are having pool parties. Some are, like, doing escape rooms, karaoke parties. It's just not like... every weekend party. You know how in elementary and preschool you have birthday parties almost every weekend, Speaker 2 (4:47) which I still do Speaker 3 (4:48) for my fourth grader. So with my fourth grader, there's still stuff going on at Color Me Mine and at Sky Zone and all these places that people have parties and now Tutu Fun, which is some party destination in Century City and the Slumoo Institute for slime. There are so many party places. So that's all happening. But then I noticed in sixth grade, it was a lot of sleepovers. And this year she wanted a trip. She wanted to like go to Palm Springs for the weekend with her bestie. So if I find a free weekend, I will take them. But the fall is a little nutty. Speaker 5 (5:22) Fall is Speaker 3 (5:23) crazy. Fall is crazy. In fact, I'm curious what you think about this because we did a piece yesterday and it's kind of like them fighting words where we interviewed this reporter who makes the case that you should actually do all your holiday planning. two weeks ago at the beginning of September. Speaker 5 (5:40) She's like, look, fall is crazy. Speaker 3 (5:42) You're going to do your future self a favor by booking all your holiday travel, getting like set on who's doing Thanksgiving, you know, who's hosting what, like who's going to be responsible for what, who's going to be where, all those things. Get that done in September and you will have already kind of spent the money. Oh, any personalized gifts, any special matching pajamas, all those things. Just go ahead and get it done before Halloween. So when Speaker 5 (6:07) it comes to travel, I don't disagree with her. I mean, I think a lot of people, I've heard a lot of people say that they book like holiday travel like the year ahead. Wow. I know that is not your vibe. I am actually in the middle of dealing with some holiday travel stuff myself because once again, my parents are very generously taking us on a trip over. the Christmas, like the Christmas New Year's holiday with my brother and his family. Don't hate that. Don't hate that. But, you know, I think my parents sort of tried to get my brother to commit to something like a couple of months ago. And it took him a while to like figure out what he wanted to do. And so now we're doing a cruise. And the planning involved in a cruise is like kind of extensive. There's just a lot to like book and coordinate. You don't just like show up. And so that has been like, there's been a lot of like back and forth. And there's just like a lot to do. And I do like a lot of research for this. So I'm like deep in like the Reddit, the subreddits for the cruise line and like in the Facebook groups. And I'm like, well, we shouldn't do this excursion, but we should do this one. My brother's sort of like, you know, he has a lot going on. And so it's like, he's not, you know, I think he just wants to be sort of like told what to do, but also has opinions. And you Speaker 4 (7:44) know what I mean? Like, and then my parents just want Speaker 5 (7:47) everyone to be together. And so I'm kind of like in that holiday planning mode right now. Speaker 3 (7:55) picked a cruise. So they've already picked like a port of call. The cruise itself Speaker 5 (7:59) has been booked and we have like state rooms and we like every that aspect of it is booked. We do not have flights to the port. We do not have a hotel for the night before the cruise. We do not have all the excursions booked. We don't have dinner. Like there's just like a lot of things. I'm like, oh, this is like a lot. This is a lot to be planning. Speaker 5 (8:23) Then my parents had gone on a cruise not that long ago and they waited to the last minute to book excursions. And my mom felt like they got some like really shitty excursions. And so there's like kind of pressure to like book good excursions, you know? So it's like not so, not as straightforward as just being like, oh, we'll just do whatever. Because like that, I don't know, at least in this situation. Speaker 3 (8:46) You're working Speaker 5 (8:46) with Speaker 3 (8:46) a Speaker 5 (8:46) lot of parts. Yeah. Working Speaker 3 (8:47) with a lot of parts. Speaker 5 (8:48) And people with opinions. And people with opinions. And so, yeah, so that's that's a little bit of like what's going on there. But Speaker 4 (8:57) so I don't like I don't disagree. I do think that having the holiday travel and everything Speaker 5 (9:02) booked now is a good idea. Like you should probably have that booked already. But I and I also really like the idea of doing like if you have to get personalized gifts, that's a really good idea. And pajamas, because I feel like sometimes I'm like scrambling to Speaker 4 (9:17) find. Speaker 5 (9:18) Right. stuff. Speaker 4 (9:19) Matching things. Speaker 3 (9:20) Yeah. Speaker 5 (9:21) So, you know, I don't, I don't like hate that. Now it also requires a level of like planning and executive function that is like right now I'm just in the cruise planning space. I can't really think about pajamas. Although Speaker 4 (9:35) it would be cute for the whole family to have Speaker 5 (9:37) matching pajamas. Speaker 3 (9:38) Yeah. Yeah. We always wear the same Speaker 5 (9:41) buffalo Speaker 3 (9:41) plaid. Oh, Speaker 5 (9:42) yeah. On the cruise, you could have it. That's what I'm saying. Like, do we need T-shirts that say, like, Schaffrier Family Cruise 2026? Do I need to get those now? Speaker 3 (9:53) Yes. Sounds like the answer is Speaker 5 (9:56) yes. Yes, you should. I Speaker 3 (9:59) have seen so many giant family reunions on cruises. My parents love traveling by boat, so we've been on lots. I feel like it'd be really cute, especially if you're going to do that week, like between Christmas and New Year's or whatever. Speaker 5 (10:10) Totally. That'd Speaker 3 (10:11) be really cute. Speaker 5 (10:11) You guys could. That might Speaker 3 (10:12) be cute. That might be cute. And then