He passed me by, but my attention lingered on his presence; initially, I formed a judgement: “Seems like an a-hole.” Then I felt superiority: “I'm glad I don't start my mornings like that, mad at the world.” I have no idea what was actually going on, and I'll probably never see him again. Yet, here we are a day later, and I'm still ruminating on it.

Do I see a little of myself in that man, a complete stranger? I have bristled and puffed myself up to protect myself. I've used body language to dissuade people from invading my space. When I walk in this protective mode, alone, I overlook the world falling silent. It has stopped speaking to me. I wonder: What else do the walls keep out?

As I drove home, I noticed people along the streets. Many were also enthralled by the eclipse. A mother and her two kids were standing along the sidewalk, smiling and hugging each other. A group of students were sitting on an open lawn, taking photos and buzzing with excitement. A couple were walking their dog, stopping to enjoy the moment.

I pulled into my parking space and ran inside to grab my camera. Maybe I could capture this moment and relive it later. I ran back out to the alleyway and snapped a few shots, moving to different vantage points. But the picture fell woefully short of the experience and isolated it to just a tiny spot in the sky. Nothing of the shared wonder felt represented in the photo. So I put my camera down and just looked. I took a breath, smiled and stepped back inside to greet my family.

First, I'm thinking a lot about participation and re-engaging with the world. One of the casualties in trying to reclaim some privacy for myself is that it can feel a lot like hiding. In The Right to Oblivion, Lowry Pressly says, “Hiding is for those who have something to hide. Privacy, we ought to say, is for something else” (92). I want to communicate and share interests with people. I recently joined an online philosophy book club, and it has shown me the value of opening up and letting people in a bit more. It's also teaching me the value of boundaries so that I don't lose myself in the process. I think this blog might be an attempt to stop hiding and communicate publicly in a way that still aligns with my privacy values. For public communication, the dominant force these days is social media. I've grown more and more repulsed by the algorithmic domination of social media and the manipulative tracking and advertising that goes along with it. I enjoy connecting with friends, but I don't enjoy that experience nor do I want to subject anyone who wants to connect with me to that. There is a feeling of inevitability, that we're all just stuck with the platforms that dominate online discourse. I want to do my part to prove that wrong. I want to create a space where I can share whatever I want at any frequency and where people can read or see or listen free from all the clutter of the invasive tracking of the attention economy. My site is my little zen garden of thought, where I can choose to respect anyone that walks through the gate.

I also think that having this WriteFreely blog is a good exercise in running a server and owning my data. I am not a computer programmer and just getting the site up and functioning was a big lift. That being said, I've learned so much in the process and am much more knowledgeable about how servers, the command line and Linux work as a result. I hope that it better aligns my values with anyone reading. I pay for the server and can assure myself that nothing is running on it that I'm not intentionally running. That peace of mind feels good. It also feels good to be contributing to the fabric of the internet and helping to create a world I want to live in.

Lastly, this site allows me to focus on writing for my own pleasure. I'm not chasing likes or reach. I actually like writing. I find it to be an enjoyable experience when it isn't driven by metrics.

Pressly, Lowry. The Right to Oblivion: Privacy and the Good Life. Harvard University Press, 2024.

The first two seasons of the tv show stay true to the first book, Wool. There are some small differences in characterizations, but the general plot is mostly the same. The third season is loosely following Shift, the second book, though they've diverged a bit to keep some of the main characters' stories progressing. It's been an interesting journey, as it's one of those rare cases where I think the book series and the tv show adaptation are different but both really well done. Anyway, back to the last book. I don't want to give away the plot, as a lot of the fun is in the plot-driven narrative of the Silo series. I found myself constantly wondering how a character would get out of a jam or what they were going to do next. Dust moves at a pretty quick pace, like the other two books, and the chapters are short. That keeps the rhythm up, and I was often convincing myself that I had time for just one more chapter.

Two timelines are converging toward a collision point. How will it all tie together? It's a book that defies expectations in smaller decisions, but ultimately stuck to a pretty safe ending. That was my only disappointment. I loved the ride of going through the series but felt that the ending was a little too expected. I didn't hate it. I just didn't feel like it quite lived up to the potential of the previous storytelling.

Ultimately, Dust is about the necessity of finding hope. It explores the terrifying idea that taking risks when the pathway forward isn't clear is the only way to survive. Safety is a prison and the true human experience lies in the uncertainty of the unknown. I really enjoyed all three books and am excited to see how the tv show continues to progress!

“Mechanical time now became second nature: the acceleration of the tempo became a new imperative for industry and 'progress.' To reduce the time on a given job, whether the work was a source of pleasure, or pain, or to quicken movement through space, whether the traveler journeyed for enjoyment or profit, was looked upon as a sufficient end in itself” (Mumford 198).

Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934.

When I got home, I had a text message from when I entered the parking garage and another one when I exited free of charge. How did the lot know my cell number? Then I remembered the automated lot I used in Las Vegas about a month ago. Could it be the same company? Sure enough, Metropolis runs both garages. I was able to sign in to an account and see all my “activity”, thus tracking where and when I was at those lots. I deleted my payment info and then my account, because I read a few stories about people being mistakenly charged with little recourse. This is so creepy. A private company was tracking me across state lines without my informed consent.

Did I sign some sort of contract when I originally linked the parking with my phone number in Las Vegas? Probably, but I gave it a cursory glance and assumed that it was only tied to that specific lot. I did not know that I was agreeing to a multi-state contract that would link my activity at multiple garages into one timeline.

I want to live in a world where companies respect my privacy. It's fine to offer this sort of connected experience as an opt-in feature. I understand that when I sign up for a loyalty program at a store, I am agreeing to have my purchases tracked and used for marketing in exchange for a discount. This is why I don't sign up for many loyalty programs. I personally don't want to make that trade, but it's fine if others do. I just don't want to be forced or tricked into invasive tracking by default.

It's an odd premise to describe. A late-1970s “wasteoid” looks back on his transition to becoming an IRS accountant. That greatly simplifies what is actually a very profound book about enthusiasm, life's purpose, understanding our parents, and the transition to adulthood. It's a short book and written in a conversational stream-of-consciousness style. In fact, it struck me as funny that the book is called Something to Do with Paying Attention, but the narrator constantly gets side-tracked and goes off on tangents. It makes the writing feel very real as different memories often spawn other memories before realizing we've lost our train of thought and getting back on track. The book moves at a pretty quick pace, it's only about 135 pages. It's a character-driven book more than a plot-driven book. You're witnessing a narrator recount the arc of their growth. The main thought I'm left with after reading this book is how well it captures a specific but subtle feeling. It's the feeling of a spark of enthusiasm, when you realize something core to your life's purpose. Some would call it a calling. I don't know that I've ever read something that captured this feeling this specifically. I'm probably not even doing a good job of describing it. I'll be thinking about this one for a while and will probably re-read it at some point.