The Growth Question (May)

The growth question asks whether the builder's capacity for genuine encounter has expanded through AI collaboration—not whether productivity increased, not whether output improved, but whether the builder is more able to face what is unknown, more willing to tolerate uncertainty, more capable of bringing creative courage to work. Rollo May's clinical criterion for therapeutic progress was not whether patients felt better but whether their capacity for encounter had deepened: Were they more able to face what was previously unfaceable? The same criterion applies to creative work. If six months of AI collaboration have expanded the builder's judgment, strengthened the capacity for questions machines cannot answer, deepened the ability to sit with productive anxiety—the collaboration serves creative life. If six months have left the builder no more capable of encounter than before—if judgment hasn't deepened, if uncertainty tolerance hasn't expanded—the collaboration has succeeded as production tool while failing as creative partnership. It amplified output while leaving the signal unchanged.