Heyaa
Recently I watched the movie āWhere the Crawdads Sing.ā Itās a murder mystery, yet soothing and romantic for much of the part. But what I liked in the movie were the thoughts of Catherine "Kya" Clark (aka the āMarsh Girlā). Sheās the movieās lead and the prime suspect in the murder.
The movie had several quotable thoughts. Mostly about pain and solitude, as Catherine found herself alone in the marsh.
There was this one quote I related to the most:
At some unclaimed moment, at last, the heart pain seeped away. Like water into sand. Still there, but deep.
Itās what I have become over the years. All the painful moments have seeped in somewhere deep inside.
Sometimes the pains do surface, but they drown themselves before Iām drowned. So far, all is good.
I feel like a jolly, carefree optimist. Living in today without any worry for the future. Will take care of things as they happen. Maybe Iām just plain selfish or a self-loving maniac. Donāt know!
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OK, back to my storyā¦
For me, in the last few yearsā¦ things just are. They arenāt good; they arenāt bad. They happen because they have to happen. And I have stopped arguing about the pros and cons.
I feel I donāt have an opinion about anything. Will AI eat my job? I donāt know. Will AI help me rule the world? I donāt know.
Still, sometimes, I do hope things should have been different. You know, those hundreds of what-ifs from the past.
There was this article: I miss the Internet.
And reading it, I felt the same: I miss the Internet. The real internet. The one we lost to algorithms. What if the Internet stayed the way it was, a way to communicate and get work done? Yes, just that.
Hereās an excerpt from the article:
Back then, the internet felt like a vast frontier, a boundless expanse waiting to be discovered. You didnāt so much surf the web as explore it, encountering unknown territories and unexpected gems. Websites were less about utility and more about passion.
Another:
The thrill of joining a new forum, the anticipation as you waited for a page to load, and the luxury of anonymity were all part of the charm.
Did you read my newsletter: Twitter gave me wings? That Twitter was a part of the lost Internet.
Back then, users werenāt data.
But then things started changing. We started complicating the Internet. Tech companies tried to make the web āmore relevantā to users.Ā
I guess I got my first taste of this complicated, algorithmic Internet with Facebook. Sometime around 2010-11, it started making the feed more interesting and engaging to me.
And thatās when we started losing the real Internet. Itās lost now. It has been 12 years. and I still miss itā¦
The thrill of uncovering something new is lost. It was only yesterday when I was trying a new āAIā video creator. And I wasnāt enthu at all. Everything seemed familiar, with just one dash of AI feature.
This is what the Internet is today. Every website is similar to others.
Itās all about cracking the algorithm. Everyone is like: āThis works for everyone; letās follow this.ā Itās rare that someone tries to test something unorthodox.
Now you may say, āItni problem ho rahi to phir karo system change!ā (If you have a problem, then start changing the system!)
Well, Iām hoping to.
Iām trying to be me again.
And Iām trying to share my thoughts unscripted, uncensored, unhinged from the social algorithm at least. This newsletter is the only platform where Iām putting my thoughts out.
You, too, find a platform where you can be the real you. Not the branded, social-media version but the real (maybe, broken) version. Stop being used by algorithms whenever you can.
I be me; you be youā¦ and things will start to change (hopefully).
Iām still not completely off the grid. Hoping someday Iāll be. And be where the crawdads singā¦ in a space deep in the marsh. Just like the Marsh Girl.
That was all for today.
Bidding adieu.
Live long and prosper.
See you next week, with another story.