Alex Dobrenko

Does the value of an experience—whether joyful or tragic—depend on the act of sharing it with others? If so, is the meaning of life inherently tied to relationships and community, or can solitude offer a comparable sense of fulfillment and purpose in moments of significance?

Authenticity brings us to avatars. This might seem a strange connection: aren’t avatars, by nature, inauthentic? After all, avatars entail being someone other than yourself. But for many people, avatars are a vessel for more authentic self-expression.

How it felt to me : that is getting closer to the truth about a note book. I sometimes delude myself about why I keep a notebook, imagine that some thrifty virtue derives from preserving everything observed. See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going... See more

Someone living in fear does not stretch their wings. They hide behind them. They defend themselves from their source of distress. It’s a matter of survival: you can only safeguard yourself arduously. Then you become stuck in that garrison. You become some Greek myth of a story: forever hiding behind your wings. Dread and angst at your seemingly... See more

Writing needn’t be a formal enterprise to have this effect. You don’t have to write well . You don’t even have to “write,” exactly — you can just talk onto the page.

I suggest writing emails to your friends. Writing with an audience in mind makes the writing better, and writing to a friend means you won’t get hung up on how you sound. You’ll become... See more

We don’t write things down to remember them. We write them down to forget.

But sometimes, uncharitably, I imagine that what’s at the bottom of the consumption of this kind of writing is a desire not to overcome one’s apparent helplessness in the face of “the algorithm” but to affirm it--a compulsion to wallow in one’s perceived estrangement from the motions of culture and commerce and politics in the 21st century, to have... See more