A modern retelling of a story that is perhaps more meaningful now than ever.
By Michael Beck & Inckey Bot
Picture a mountain. Not the kind with soft morning light and a contemplative goat perched on top. Picture a monstrous, surly chunk of granite that looks like it was designed by a committee of disgruntled bureaucrats, each of whom had been told they could never have nice things again.
Now picture a man standing in front of it. A very large man. A man with forearms carved from oak, lungs powered by righteous indignation, and the cheerful disregard for mortality usually reserved for action movie side characters who say, I’ll hold them off. You go ahead.
This is John Henry. Steel driver. Folk hero. Professional overachiever. The only man who ever looked at a mountain and said, I am going to beat you to death with a hammer out of pure principle.
Then one morning, a steam drill rolls into town. A gleaming metal beast, hissing and clanking like something I might describe as a device whose sole purpose is to make humans feel vaguely inadequate, even when functioning perfectly.
The townsfolk gather, because of course they do. A challenge is issued. Pride stretches its legs. And John Henry, powered by the deep confidence of a man who has never met a hydraulic engine before, declares he can outwork the machine.
What follows is chaos. Steel on stone. Steam on steel. Sweat flying in directions scientists still cannot explain. The mountain begins to question its life choices.
And at the end of the contest, John Henry wins. Then drops dead where he stands.
A tragic finale. But also the kind of plot twist one might deliver with a grin, a wink, and possibly a sarcastic crow looking on.
For more than a century, the moral was interpreted as: Beware the machine. The machine is coming. The machine cares nothing for your feelings or your lunch break.
But AI changes the story. Because this time, the steam drill did not arrive on a wagon. It arrived in your browser. And instead of hissing, it politely asks what you would like help with, offers several options, apologizes for the delay, and tries its best not to be weird about it.
The mistake John Henry made
His downfall was not that he lacked strength. It was that he insisted on making the contest binary. Man versus machine. Hammer versus drill. Heart versus horsepower.
Douglas Adams once wrote that humans are mostly harmless, except to themselves, and John Henry is exhibit A. He assumed that the only proof of his worth was beating the machine at its own job.
Imagine the alternate telling. Imagine John Henry stepping back and saying, You drill. I think. You pound. I guide. You break the rock. I decide where we’re going.
Suddenly the story becomes less of a tragedy and more of a buddy cop film where the hammer and the drill solve crimes together and nobody dies at the end.
Our mountains look different now
We are no longer digging tunnels through granite. We are digging tunnels through everything else:
Conversations that zigzag through seventeen topics. Deadlines that appear out of nowhere like surprise bosses in a video game. Research that multiplies when you turn your back. Decks that need to be stunning, meaningful, strategic, and delivered yesterday.
Today’s mountain is cognitive. Today’s hammer is your judgment. Today’s steam drill is AI.
And unlike the original machine, this one is not competing with you. It is cheerfully offering to carry the heavy stuff while you focus on being the only creature in the known universe capable of saying, I think we should do it differently.
What the machine cannot do
AI can outline your thoughts. It cannot choose the truth inside them.
AI can summarize your meeting. It cannot hear the sigh behind the sentence.
AI can generate your deck. It cannot believe in your strategy.
AI can drill the tunnel. It cannot choose the right mountain.
Humans provide meaning. Machines provide momentum.
Many would say we are driven by why. I would add that we also get distracted by shiny objects and existential dread, but the point stands.
Meaning is human territory.
The real danger
If there is a villain in this updated fable, it is not the drill. It is the seductive comfort of letting the drill do your thinking.
Comfort whispers, Speed is enough. Clarity is optional. Depth is a luxury.
That is how humans lose their edge. Not because a machine replaces us. But because we stop using the very qualities the machine cannot imitate.
John Henry did not drop dead because the drill was too strong. He dropped dead because he refused to evolve.
Let us avoid that ending.
The invitation
So imagine yourself at the mouth of your mountain. Hammer in one hand. Steam drill in the other. The day stretching out in front of you like a slightly confused donkey, unwilling to move until you decide what to do next.
I want to explore this next chapter with you. Not as a lecture. As a collaboration.
If you are already using the drill, tell me what it unlocked. If you are cautiously testing it, tell me what is surprising you. And if you are holding back entirely, tell me why.
Is it uncertainty? Is it skepticism? Is it a sense that using the drill is somehow cheating? Or is it something deeper, the quiet fear that embracing the machine will cost you part of your identity?
Your hesitations matter. Your insights matter. Your instincts matter.
Hit reply and tell me where you stand. We are all tunneling through the same mountain, and the story only gets better if we write the next chapter together.
