The old folktale of John Henry has been echoing in my mind lately. In the story, a man meets a machine that can outpace him in the very work that defines him. The steam drill is faster, tireless, and built for efficiency. John Henry is slower, mortal, and built for meaning. He swings his hammer anyway. He works with his own weight, his own rhythm, his own breath. And although the machine wins the race, the story survives because something in us still recognizes the dignity of doing things by hand.

That tension feels newly alive today. We live in a world where machines—now including AI—can do so many things faster than we can. They can calculate, sort, generate, and optimize at a scale that makes our human pace look quaint. But the more the world accelerates, the more I notice a quiet countercurrent: the desire to feel our own hands in the work.

I’ve started calling people who feel this pull Musclarians.

A Musclarian is someone who chooses human muscle, human pace, and human presence even when a machine could do the task faster.

I’m one of them. I don’t own a dishwasher, a washing machine, a microwave, or a car. Not because I’m a purist or a Luddite, but because there is a certain satisfaction in doing things with my own body. When I wash clothes by hand, I feel connected to the rhythm of daily life. When I walk instead of drive, I feel the shape of the world under my feet. When I cook without a microwave, I feel time unfolding in a way that makes sense to me.

This isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about remembering that we still have a choice.

Machines excel at speed, repetition, and scale.
Humans excel at presence, attention, and embodied meaning.

A craft that takes months to create isn’t inefficient; it’s infused with the inner life of the maker. A loaf of bread kneaded by hand carries the imprint of the person who shaped it. A garden tended slowly over seasons becomes a relationship, not a task.

As AI becomes more capable, many people worry about what will be left for humans to do. But perhaps the answer isn’t to compete with the machine on its terms. Perhaps the answer is to reclaim the value of the human pace. When we admit that we are slower, we stop trying to win the race the machine is built for. We begin to notice the qualities that only emerge in slowness: identity, nuance, intimacy, care.

There is also a deeper layer here. Machines don’t just do tasks; they create ecosystems that recruit us. Cars require roads, parking lots, and a whole architecture of speed. Dishwashers require particular detergents and a rhythm of consumption that keeps them full. AI will have its own ecosystem too—one that shapes how we think, what we expect, and how quickly we feel we must respond.

A Musclarian stance interrupts that automatic recruitment. It asks simple but radical questions:

• Do I want to participate in this machine’s ecosystem?
• What part of myself becomes dormant when I outsource this task?
• What becomes possible when I stay in direct contact with the work?
  

We don’t have to beat the machine.
We only have to remember that we still have a choice.
And sometimes the slow, human way is not a failure of efficiency but a form of beauty.

Apply & Observe:

Take a moment to notice one small task in your daily life that you usually hand over to a machine or rush through on autopilot. What changes in you when you imagine doing it at your own pace, with your own hands? What part of your attention, presence, or inner rhythm becomes available again?

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1 The default: Let’s turn our meme awareness to sandwich bags today. They are handy and useful, inexpensive and easy to find at any store. It’s easy to see what’s inside.

2. Assumptions: A sandwich bag is a good sign. It could mean a homemade lunch rather than fast food. They make food storage simple and mess-free.

3. Shift the view: A sandwich bag is not compostable and is typically only used once then thrown away.

4. Check for coherence: Concern for the environment and microplastics may reveal that a sandwich bag is a little out of alignment with what you really care about.

5. Open the door to possibilities: What did people do before there were sandwich bags? What could do the same job in a better way? Is there an option that aligns better with your values?

6. Reflect: Would it be worth the effort to make a change? Take a look at the video below to see if wrapping a sandwich in parchment paper sounds appealing.

Most of us don’t think twice about laundry. A washing machine is one of those unquestioned fixtures of modern life — a symbol of convenience, progress, and adulthood. I felt the same way. For years, I never imagined doing laundry any other way.

Then I started learning about natural lawn care. The idea is simple: instead of fighting weeds with chemicals, you build a healthy, balanced ecosystem so the lawn can take care of itself. It made sense to me. But in the summer months, even a healthy lawn needs water. I wanted to conserve water, not pour gallons onto the grass every week.

That’s when I heard about gray water systems — pumps that redirect washing machine water out to the yard. It sounded promising, but when I looked into it, the setup was complicated and expensive. I almost gave up on the idea.

And then something shifted. I looked at my washing machine with fresh eyes — not as a given, but as a meme. A cultural default. A solution I had inherited without ever questioning whether it was the right one for me.

What if the machine wasn’t the only way?

That tiny question cracked the door.

To make a long story short, I got rid of the washing machine. (Yes — I know. This is basically a cultural taboo.) I bought a washboard and repurposed a plastic container as a washtub. I discovered eco‑friendly detergents that don’t harm my hands or my plants. And I found that when I wash clothes by hand, I use far less water and no electricity at all. Best of all, I can take the gray water straight to the lawn — no pumps, no plumbing, no engineering degree required.

I’ve been doing this for over two years now. It takes consistency, because I don’t want laundry to pile up, but it’s simple, satisfying, and aligned with my values. What started as a practical workaround became a quiet act of meme awareness: noticing an inherited solution, questioning whether it truly served me, and choosing a path that fit my environment and my life.

Not as a rebellion.

Not as a statement.

Just as an experiment in coherence.

And it worked.

Take a moment to reflect:

Think of one everyday habit, tool, or routine you’ve inherited without much thought — something so normal you rarely notice it. What happens if you look at it with fresh eyes, not to change it, but simply to ask: Does this still fit the way I live now?

No pressure to act. Just notice what you notice.

If you would like to reflect more on meme awareness, follow this link to the Journal Portal.