I was refreshing Twitter/X for the fifth time this hour when I realized what was happening. There were thousands of us, doing the exact same thing. Following Artemis updates live. Holding our collective breath every time there was a milestone announcement. It felt like the whole internet was in the same room.
Maybe that's the thing about space missions. They don't happen behind closed doors anymore. They happen with live telemetry, with public flight control audio, with strangers on the internet who feel like friends for a few hours because you're all watching the same thing. Those updates — orbit insertion confirmed, we've passed behind the Moon, re-entry sequence initiated — each one landed like a shared heartbeat.
I think about scale a lot. Or maybe I should say: it forces itself on you when you're watching humans orbit the Moon. The Earth is small from there. We're small. But somehow we build things that can reach that far. That contradiction doesn't resolve cleanly. It just sits there, and you sit with it, and it shifts something in how you see the world — people, connection, all of it. We get so caught up in the noise. But maybe at the base of it we're all just here to build something, help someone, grow a little.
Artemis didn't give me answers. It gave me a feeling I didn't know I needed — rejuvenation, maybe. This sense that we're capable of more than our daily routines suggest. That the next frontier isn't only out there — it's also in the work we do with that same sense of wonder as fuel.
That same expansive feeling, that moon joy, is showing up in other places now. In my inbox every morning — daily briefs from agents I'm running that feel like personal mission telemetry. Working on a novel with AI in the mix and being surprised by where it takes things. Building stuff that felt impossible six months ago, like a PowerPoint generator that actually understands what I'm trying to communicate.
It's not the same as watching a rocket launch. Obviously. But it rhymes. Human capability amplified by technology. The "we're doing this together" feeling, even when the "we" includes something non-human.
I've been testing a new agent this week. Just poking at it, seeing what it can do. And I caught myself feeling something I didn't expect — not efficiency, not productivity, but curiosity. Like when you're exploring and you don't know what you'll find. That energy feels related to what I felt watching Artemis. The sense that there's more possible than your current horizon shows.
The discourse around AI tends toward extremes from what I can tell. Either it's all promise and revolution, or it's exploitation waiting to happen. The lived reality of using these tools day to day doesn't fit clean narratives. It's messier. More hopeful in some moments, more troubling in others.
Right now I'm working on a novel with AI in the mix. Not having it write it for me — more like a thinking partner, pushing on ideas, taking things in directions I wouldn't have gone alone. Building a PPT generator to automate the parts of my work that drain me, so I can focus on the parts that don't. Getting daily briefs that help me see patterns I'd miss on my own.
None of this is as grand as a moon landing. But it all carries that same trace, that same moon joy. The feeling that we're in a moment where human potential is being amplified, and we're watching it happen in real time, together.
Collective awe doesn't just make you feel small in a good way. It refuels something. Gives you permission to try the thing you've been hesitant about. Because if we can send people around the Moon, maybe your project isn't as impossible as you thought.
I don't know where this particular wave is heading. Maybe the agents become boring infrastructure. Maybe they change more than I can predict. But right now, sitting with that feeling — the one that started with refreshing for Artemis updates and shows up in my inbox every morning — it seems worth paying attention to. Worth protecting. Worth using as fuel for whatever comes next.
What comes next? Honestly, I don't know. That's maybe the realest answer I have right now. The horizon keeps moving — what felt out of reach six months ago is Tuesday's task now. And it increasingly feels like the only real limit is imagination. What you're willing to try. What you're willing to build.
Somewhere in all of this, it makes me want to contribute something. Not in a grand way — just positively. Leave something useful for people. And then you look up, past the tools and the projects and the morning briefs, past everything we're building, and you remember: we're doing all of this on one very small planet in a very big universe. We're unlikely. We're specific. We're here.