I struggle to find the right words.

All the time. There is a never-ending evaluation of “is this phrased accurately? concisely? beautifully?” or “am I sharing too much or too little?” or “is this passage relevant to the broader point?”. I’m constantly writing and rewriting and by the time I reach the end of this sentence, it will have been revised a couple times in my mind; and, even then, I’ll question if I’d written it correctly.

As I’ve thought about and revised this post I’ve realized that, despite the many, many thoughts and feelings I have about modern technology and my relation to it, the answer to the question “why does this site exist?” is simple.

This site exists because I choose for it to exist.

Extracted, distilled, and refined from my soup of thoughts is this declaration. It holds all of the alienation, frustration, and contempt I feel for the algorithmic domination of our modern lives. It holds the hope that I feel that my participation and curation here can help me create a healthier relationship with the internet. It holds the recognition of my person, my humanity, this gift of self determination. It holds my desire to escape the grip of companies whose sole purpose is to lure me to their platforms and abuse my psychology to hoard my attention as much as possible.

I feel no agency on these platforms. I feel no connection to other people on these platforms. I feel no desire to continue donating my time and attention to these platforms.

So when I think of why this site exists, I think of many things. And although my explainations have been (and will continue to be) edited, revised, and updated, the essence of it’s existence will always remain True:

I’ve chosen it.