How AI Became My Second Brain

Before I explain how AI helps me write better, let me assure you that this will all come together in the end. First, though, there is some backstory. I know I said this would be a little blog post, but you may want to grab a cup of tea. This one takes the scenic route. 😊

Why I Often Think in Terms of Challenges

For me, the word disability has always felt heavy. I understand why the term exists, and I know that many people use it as an important and accurate description of their experiences. Still, it has never felt like the right word for how I see my own life.

This was especially true when I was growing up and heard labels such as “learning disability.” Even when a child is surrounded by love and support, words can shape how they see themselves. A label can sometimes plant the idea that they are not normal, that they are somehow less capable, or that the outcome has already been decided for them.

I have always preferred to think in terms of challenges. A challenge may be difficult. It may require help, patience, new tools, or a different path. It may never disappear completely. But it does not have to define the person living with it.

As a child, I faced several challenges at once, including severe vision impairment, hyperactive ADD, moderate dyslexia, and the combined effects of all three. They did not make me incapable, but they limited what I could do until I received the right help and learned how to work with them.

I spent what felt like endless hours at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital eye clinics and support centers, trying to keep up while other children were simply being children. At one point, I developed a serious blood condition that doctors linked to Ritalin, and they caught it just in time. Without their care, I might not be here writing this today.

In the early 1980s, awareness of vision problems and learning challenges was only beginning to grow. I credit my parents and the doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for carrying my brother and me through those years.

A World Through a Fuzzy Lens

Imagine your entire world looking fuzzy and yellow. There are no sharp outlines and no truly bright colors, only haze.

That was my reality until I was about six years old and received my first pair of glasses. Even then, the world was not fully clear. It was not until I was seventeen, after cataract surgery and lens implants, that I finally saw the world the way most people had been seeing it all along. For the first time, light, color, and detail felt completely new.

I was born with congenital cataracts. The condition was not unheard of, but it was not as well understood or treated then as it is today. Medicine has made tremendous progress since those years. My brother and my son were born with the same condition, but their cataracts were so severe that doctors had to remove the lenses from their eyes before they were eighteen months old.

I never fully understood what my parents had gone through until my wife and I received the same diagnosis for our son. I remember the fear, the hope, and the uncertainty crashing together while we sat in the doctor’s office and learned that our baby was essentially blind unless the doctors acted. Even with surgery, he would remain partially blind without corrective lenses and would face a high risk of childhood ocular hypertension, a complication we unfortunately did not escape.

The closest comparison is looking underwater. You can see vague shapes and colors, but very little detail. That was my son’s world. It was my brother’s world, and it had once been mine.

In our family, we focused less on what could not be done and more on what could be overcome, accepted, adapted to, or approached differently. That mindset did not make the difficulties disappear, but it helped us keep moving.

If someone handed me a hammer and told me a wall would be difficult to break through, I would probably take a swing. But if they handed me the same hammer and told me the wall was impossible to break before I had even started, I might never try. Words matter. They shape how we see ourselves, and sometimes they shape what we believe we are capable of becoming.

For me, congenital cataracts combined with farsightedness meant growing up in a constant blur. Surgery was considered too risky when I was young, so I had to live with it. That blurry beginning did not stand alone. It stacked on top of my dyslexia and made reading and writing feel like climbing a mountain without ropes.

It was not until fourth or fifth grade, and honestly several years beyond that, that I began to catch up. The truth is, I only made it that far because my parents were absolute superheroes. They refused to give up on me. They kept pushing, helping, and believing that I could do it, even during the moments when I did not believe it myself.

Perhaps you have your own version of blurry notebooks, skipped words, or invisible hurdles. It may not be dyslexia or impaired vision. It may be something entirely different that leaves you feeling behind or out of step. What I have learned is that tools matter. Support matters. Mindset matters, too.

Enter AI: My Second Brain

So how does AI help me now?

It acts as my second brain.

Even after years of improving and working through these challenges without AI, they have never completely disappeared. I built a career in information technology that involved extensive technical writing. I spent late nights creating fantasy stories, Dungeons & Dragons modules, adventure hooks, and half-formed science fiction concepts. Through all of it, I continued to stumble over the same things.

Moderate dyslexia means my brain sometimes skips what is directly in front of me. Whole words disappear. Letters reverse. Sentences trail off, and I may not notice until someone else points it out.

Years ago, spellcheck in Microsoft Word felt like a miracle. It was not perfect, but it helped me catch mistakes I could not always see on my own. AI takes that same kind of assistance much further.

Now I can give my writing to an AI tool and ask it to act like an English teacher. I can ask it to show me what is missing, unclear, repetitive, or grammatically incorrect. Most importantly, I can ask it to identify those problems without replacing my voice.

That is what makes it so valuable to me.

Instead of rereading every sentence five times and still missing something, I can concentrate on the story I am trying to tell. AI helps me catch the mechanical errors that my brain may overlook.

AI has not made me a writer. It has helped me become a better editor of the stories that were already inside me. The imagination, characters, worlds, choices, and heart still have to come from somewhere. AI simply helps me communicate them more clearly.

That shift has been life-changing.

Why It Matters

Tools such as AI do not erase challenges. They make some of them more manageable. They give people like me another way to keep creating, working, learning, and communicating without becoming overwhelmed by the mechanics.

Had something like this existed when I was a child, I cannot imagine how different my path might have been.

We truly live in a science fiction age. When I was growing up, Atari felt cutting-edge, and the family telephone hung on the kitchen wall with a cord long enough to become tangled around everything. Today, children carry the equivalent of both in the palm of their hands.

How science fiction is that?

The pace of technology can be both exciting and frightening. Still, I believe in the good humanity is capable of. With love, strong values, faith, wisdom, and a willingness to learn, I believe we can use these tools without allowing the tools to use us.

I only wish I could see what humankind may accomplish hundreds of years from now. Will there be real moon colonies? Interstellar travel? Generations of people growing up among the stars? Could something resembling Star Trek eventually become reality?

I hope so.

The alternative, a humanity that destroys itself or collapses inward, is not the future I want for our children. As long as we continue moving forward, learning from our mistakes, and facing challenges rather than surrendering to them, I believe the future can be brighter than anything we have imagined.

If you are someone, know someone, or care for someone who lives with a disability or significant challenge, remember that the person is always more than the label. Some challenges are permanent. Some are devastating. Some cannot be overcome through determination alone, and acknowledging that reality matters.

But no one needs the added weight of being treated as less valuable, less intelligent, or less worthy of possibility. The struggle may already be obvious to the person carrying it. What they need is support, understanding, access to the right tools, and people willing to believe in what is still possible.

Do not let the challenge stop you, or the people you love, from trying.

Sometimes the greatest victories begin with simply believing the challenge is worth facing.

🖋️ Ryan L. Smith
Author | Mythic Quill Publishing & Studios

© 2025 Ryan L. Smith. All rights reserved.

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