Here for the Wrong Reasons — Are.na

the sum total of all of a person’s nodal points could be some kind of proxy for a personal identity. At the very least, it’s an indication of an individual perspective. Since writing this essay, I’ve thought a lot about this kind of personal intuition towards things: the radar that any person has that leads them to different points in their life.

I was thinking about all the time spent browsing with no real aim, and how even as a 12 year old, there was some small intuitive sense of the things I was drawn to.

Environments are emotionally contagious, and if the environment you spend a lot of time in is hyper-competitive and performative, you’re going to feel pressure to act competitive and performative as well. The dominant model of social media codifies and enhances that pressure.

I started thinking about all the other important “nodal points” (I don't know what else to call this) of people, places, books, albums, websites, etc. that all played a part in shaping who I am as a person and what I think is important. These points are a combination of seeking things out myself and getting recommendations from important people in ... See more

In an ideal world, one’s own personal intuition or radar is the same thing as the force that motivates them.

But actually, what I’m trying to get at is the opposite of doing things for yourself. Doing something for yourself sounds the same as doing something because you think it will reflect positively on you. What I love seeing is people pointing their attention out into the world and doing things for the world, in service of ideas and not an expected ou... See more

That shared love for the thing or the overlapping interests allows you to tune your radar for certain types of people. Similar to the idea of desire lines, agency is the key component. There’s the agency to move through abstract space guided by your own intuition. In the case of Soulseek, there’s nothing (other than your own intuition) that is infl... See more

Soulseek is a file sharing platform that came out around the same time as Napster and Kazaa, but it’s still around and still has a passionate userbase. One part about its design that’s worth highlighting is that if you search for a song or album and find a person who has that song or album, you could go through their entire shared music folder and ... See more

People have always lived in their own realities. A person’s intuition helps them decide what to pay attention to, how to perceive the world, and what to value.

The distinction between the two modes I’m trying to define is that one side takes the position that being fascinated with something or someone in the world has a benefit that is self-evident. Being able to feel love towards something or someone is a gift in and of itself. The other side (the side that annoys me) orients fascination or association o... See more