How a trip in 2012 transformed my relationship with photography—from staged performances to capturing genuine moments that matter, for engagement rather than validation.
Meaning and Purpose
Humans are desire-driven machines: a business should help dissipate desires by satisfying them without exploiting you.
Meaning and Purpose
The enemy in your head is usually wearing your face. On projection, the villains we invent, and the chair we can't see ourselves sitting in.
Essays
My meditation teacher said something that stopped me cold: “We fall in love with the idea of a person, and then we fight so hard to keep it alive.”
Interconnectedness
From lovers to spouses, from employers to parental approval, we search for ourselves in others' eyes—creating perhaps the most elaborate illusion ever sustained: that validation exists outside the self that seeks it.
Interconnectedness
From Apple's glass cathedrals to unboxing rituals and tech prophets, we replaced religious behavioral patterns with product worship without acknowledging it—creating perhaps the first truly global faith.
Meaning and Purpose
What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.
Freedom and Constraint
Why ten years ago I quit my passion as a job to follow my passions as just passions.
Freedom and Constraint
Between middle-class stability and creative resistance, there's a teenage part of us keeping watch. Maybe it's right.
Meaning and Purpose
When you replace a vacuum robot's proprietary brain with open-source firmware, you are not just modifying a device—you are making a statement about ownership and control. Sometimes the smartest choice is to make devices dumber.
Freedom and Constraint
In a world of endless pings, every creative act becomes rebellion. This isn't about time management—it's about protecting your spark in a system designed to extinguish it.
Freedom and Constraint
When we pretend AI generation is street photography, we're not just misusing terms—we're surrendering authentic engagement with reality.
Meaning and Purpose