Introduction

Hello, my name is Carly.

I try to stay in a continual state of learning and by that I mean I consume. The natural state of the world is devolving towards overconsumption and I am an active participant. I have self-righteously fooled myself into believing that intelligent people are better off keeping to themselves. Speaking without all the facts leads to misinformation and it would be unwise to produce well-meaning content in a society overloaded of sources with ambiguous ways of validation.

I’ve stayed a passive internet user for the majority of my adult life because I don’t want to be wrong. I avoid posting anywhere because my adolescent digital footprint (long ago archived) embarrasses me. Each reposted “political” infographic or storied selfie was published with a hasty, unquenchable desire for approval.

This notion of the intelligent staying quiet is something I’ve gathered from those around me. I’m influenced most by those who limit their online presence in order to widen their sense of reality. Particularly my friend Lydia and my father.

But in this reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m floating in the purgatory between. I’m living in the shadow of social media by continually consuming, I’m trying to broaden my sense of self through reading, I’m taping doodles to my wall to prove to myself that I am creating in silence, and I clock in to my 9–5 engineering consulting job to feign a sense of purpose to my daily drudgery.

I propagate from the things I read and I want to share my conclusions. I can never read just one book at a time and somehow they usually connect to each other and help me meander thoughtfully across my own mental landscape.

I’m wrong most of the time, I almost always believe I am correct, and we’re all going to die anyways so I may as well publish my thoughts.

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” Haruki Murakami