A few months ago, a daily email reader asked if I’d ever studied the Muslim scripture.
And if not, why?
And I quoted & replied to it in an email flippantly saying:
“no, I don’t have much time for fiction these days.”
That got me a bit of grumpy mail, it turns out. But it also amused quite a few people, too. One of the guys who was probably not amused by me, but was definitely amusing to me, fapGPT-prompted this reply below.
He said:
I read your response about not having time to look into Islamic scripture, and I think you’re missing something important.
You’re someone who clearly understands the power of language, persuasion, and emotional impact. But the Qur’an — regardless of belief — is one of the most linguistically influential texts in history. It didn’t just tell stories. It challenged an entire culture that prided itself on mastery of language, and it did so in a way that left even its strongest opponents struggling to respond.
This isn’t about religion. It’s about language, structure, rhythm, and impact.
Dismissing it without engaging with it — especially as someone who builds a career on understanding how words move people — feels like a blind spot.
You don’t have to agree with it.
But from a pure copywriting and persuasion standpoint, it’s hard to argue it’s not worth at least examining.
At the very least, the question isn’t whether you believe it.
The question is: Can you afford to ignore a text that moved — and still moves — hundreds of millions of people, at scale, across centuries?
Why, yes, I can afford to ignore it.
But the irony of the above reply about learning how to write that was so obviously sharted out written by generative so-called AI is glorious unto itself.
There are many lessons packed between the lines in this.
Some obvious and some maybe not-so-obvious.
But the one I want to leave you with is specifically for if you are finding yourself discouraged by, or even succumbing to, the gaslighting from generative so-called AI companies and their tech bro moonies in the geek chorus shilling it all over hell and gone.
And that lesson is this:
If you write using your own brain, your own personality, your own flaws, and your own experiences… you really have no “competition.”
Least of all from these guys running around saying you’re going to be left behind.
And that, as they say, is all she wrote.
Okay, enough fun for the soul.
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Ben Settle
