Cory Doctorow recently caused a stir on the nerdy corners of the internet where I hang out by writing an essay saying he uses AI to proofread his blog and, what’s more, you are a chump if you decide not to buy literally anything. I mean, that’s my interpretation, but he gives multiple examples of how every form of tech is tainted by its association with someone horrible, and his conclusion seems to be that one therefore should be indiscriminate in what one uses and purchases.

Now, I do not worship Cory Doctorow as many folks do—I think he’s a gifted nonfiction writer who, like most of these guys who run their own platform, desperately needs an editor. I used to find him annoying about 20 years ago when he wrote clumsy, didactic YA novels and asserted that everybody should give their books away like he did. (At the time, he was writing for one of the most-read blogs on the internet and didn’t seem to recognize that this was contributing to his success.)

So yeah, a smart, insightful guy who, like most internet celebrities, is a little high on his own supply and therefore annoying, but I read him semi-regularly for his smarts and insights.

And I get where he’s coming from here—he’s repeatedly asserted that you can’t shop your way to social change, and that, furthermore, that placing all the onus on social change on individual consumers is a strategy to prevent mass movements that might actually cause real change.

So far so good. And, yes, there is, famously, no ethical consumption under capitalism, but people seem to see this and respond with “so, therefore, you shouldn’t even try,” which is how I’m reading Doctorow’s protest-too-much defense of his AI use.

I disagree with this on both a moral and political basis. We cannot, after all, perfect ourselves as human beings—we will always slip up and harm people we care about and/or do things that don’t align with our values. But I think most of us agree that we have a responsibility to keep trying, while knowing that we will never reach the goal.

And, also, while shopping (or, more accurately, refusing to shop) alone cannot bring about social change, it remains an important tool in our arsenal. For many of us our purchasing power is the most meaningful power we have. If you live in a gerrymandered “red” state, you can’t vote your way out of fascism. If you, like me, live in a “blue” state controlled by the Democratic party, you effectively get a choice in every election between people who believe we should be grateful serfs of the Epstein Class, and the collection of religious fanatics, grifters, and pedophiles that calls itself the Republican Party. Voting alone will not bring about the change I want, but I still do it. Trying to make my purchases align with my values also won’t bring about the change I want, but I’m damn sure not going to renounce the only power I have that the ruling class cares about.

Here’s what I have found about trying to reach the impossible goal of having my economic life reflect my values—every time I do it, usually by NOT buying something rather than by buying something—it makes me feel good. I’m not saying you, like me, should renounce corporate social media (though for God’s sake get off of X, what the hell are you doing on a literal Nazi site), or eating meat, or any of the things I’ve done to try to feel like somewhat less of a hypocrite. But I am suggesting that you’d be foolish to not even try to align your economic life with your ostensible values.

I don’t care if Cory Doctorow uses AI to proofread his blog. Proofreading is one of the rare tasks that AI actually excels at, which makes sense since it was trained on the purloined output of hundreds of millions of writers. And look, nobody likes a scold. The fact is that people who are trying very hard to live their values will still fall short (I have an Amazon Prime subscription and shop at Whole Foods all the freakin’ time) because we all fall short, and the fact that other people aren’t doing the same things as you doesn’t mean they’re bad people or that they’re doing nothing at all.

You’ve got a lot of tools available to make the world a better place. I urge you not to throw any of them away.

The same God who guides the stars in their courses, who directs the earth in its orbit, who feeds the burning furnace of the sun, and keeps the stars perpetually burning with their fires—the same God has promised to supply thy strength. While he is able to do all these things, think not that he shall be unable to fulfill his own promise!”

— Charles Spurgeon

#life #quotes #theology

Connie Caskett at the pub, part 2 in the series.

The Star of Bethnal Green was proper heaving, Friday night proper, the kind where the air smelled of spilled lager and someone’s nan’s shepherd’s pie from the kitchen. 

Connie Caskett pushed through the door with her leather jacket still on, zips done up like armour, and the lads spotted her straight away.

—There she is! Darren shouted from the corner table, waving like he was directing traffic. —The bookworm herself!

Connie gave him the finger as she walked over, but she was grinning. Her hair was black as tar, chopped sharp at the shoulders, and she’d done her eyes heavy with liner, the way she did when she wanted to look like she could head butt a demon if it looked at her funny. She dropped into the seat they’d saved, the one with the ripped vinyl that always pinched your arse.

—Pint of what? Gaz asked, already half-standing.

—Guinness, she said. —And don’t start with the jokes yet, yeah? Let me get a sip in first.

Too late. The table erupted.

—Librarian! Darren said, like he’d just invented the word.

—Connie Caskett, queen of the Dewey Decimal. Shhh! No talking!

—I’m surprised you know what that is, said Connie. 

Darren put his finger to his lips, all theatrical. The others cracked up. Little Mick leaned in, elbows on the table, his Cannibal Corpse hoodie stretched tight.

—What d’you do all day then? he asked. —Polish the books? Whisper sweet nothings to the encyclopaedias?

—Fuck off, Mick, Connie said, but she was laughing.

—I shelve, I stamp, I tell kids to stop climbing the ladders. It’s dead normal.

—Normal? Darren said. —You? Normal? You were wearing an Ingested shirt to your interview, weren’t ya?

—Was not, Connie said. —It was Cattle Decapitation. Subtle difference.

Gaz came back with the pints, slopping a bit on the table as he put hers down.

—To Connie, he said, raising his glass. —Who somehow convinced a bunch of old dears in cardigans that she won’t blast Cannibal Corpse through the quiet reading area.

They clinked. Connie took a long pull, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

—They asked if I had experience with the public, she said. —I told ‘em yeah, I’ve dealt with pissed-up blokes in pits who think moshing’s a debate technique. Reckon that counts.

—You told them that? Mick said, eyes wide. —Straight up?

—Nah, Connie said. —I said I was good with people. Which is basically the same thing.

Darren leaned back, arms folded.

—So what’s the uniform then? Cardie and sensible shoes? Little name badge says “Connie – Ask Me About Books (But Not Slayer)”?

—Jeans and boots, same as always, Connie said. —They didn’t say nothing about dress code. Reckon they were just happy someone under forty applied.

Gaz nodded, serious for half a second.

—Fair play though, Con. Proper job. Not stacking shelves at Tesco or pulling pints here. Actual career. You’re posh now.

—Piss off, Connie said. —I’m still me. Still got the patch on my jacket that says “Fuck the System”. Just… quieter about it during opening hours.

Mick raised his glass again.

—To the quietest headbanger in Bethnal Green.

They drank. Someone put “South of Heaven” on the jukebox, low enough that the barman didn’t kill it. Connie leaned back, boots up on the spare chair, watching the lads take the piss out of each other now, moving on to Darren’s latest failed date.

She felt the buzz of the Guinness settling in her chest, warm and familiar. Librarian. Her. Who’d have thought.

—You alright? Gaz asked, quiet, just to her.

She nodded.

—Yeah, she said. —Feels weird. Good weird.

He smiled, small.

—Don’t go changing on us, yeah? We need someone to scare the normals.

Connie laughed, short and sharp.

—No chance, she said. —I’m keeping the horns. Just filing ’em under “Quiet” from nine to five.

The lads roared again at something Mick said. Connie sank lower in the seat, pint in hand, letting the noise wash over her like a riff she knew by heart. Bethnal Green, same as ever. And her, somehow, still fitting right in.

since the sun began to shine again, I am longing for the next days and I can feel my heart has been slowly opening. all I long for is the promise of these beautiful simple days, when I can lie in an open field and fall asleep under its warmth, perhaps close to a cute tree, but exposed enough to feel the sunlight settle on my skin while the earth gathers around me like a soft blanket. I want to be able to close my eyes and surrender to it the way a child surrenders to a mother’s chest: safe enough to sleep, free enough to silent, held enough to cry, because everything is allowed there and everything is natural. And then I want to throw myself into a small river or a lake and get the water wrap itself around me in a hug, while the plants brush against my legs like gentle hands, and in there I know I will laugh again, before I rise to the surface, wrap myself in a towel, and sit at the margins to dry, feeling every pore of my skin open, as if my whole soul is finally able to breathe again. that’s all I want.

/feb26

9 February 2026

Stuck star (or possibly Third man): returned to the star image in the studio today after the last go at it didn’t work. That’s something I’ve found myself doing for the first time—returning to elements/motifs from failed paintings and re-deploying them. Used to treat references that led to inert paintings as dead weight, but it’s nice to now see that unsuccessful work really can be bent into more interesting shapes. In this case it was by paring down; this one even more than Plane. It’s a small pink star floating near the middle of a panel and sort of spiderwebbing out over a sky blue blotch of watercolor. Now that I think about it, the spiderwebbing feels related to a Lois Dodd painting (Spider Web with Clover and Grass, 2004) I've looked at a lot this week after Louis Block wrote about it in the Brooklyn Rail (it's included in the retrospective he covered). Anyway, I think I like the questions it is asking. Which seem to circle around stability, projection (I see a facade), order, and control.

Recentemente, o INSPER proibiu o uso de celulares em seus campi, e a FGV seguiu o mesmo caminho. Na realidade, não é uma proibição propriamente dita, já que são adultos — e não há lei que dite essa regra, nem federal, nem estadual — é uma forte recomendação que pode beneficiar os alunos em projetos internos das próprias universidades.

Entretanto, definir uma “política de forte recomendação do não uso” é proibir sem usar uma lei, segundo relatos de alunos ao podcast “O ASSUNTO”, do G1. (edição de 18/02/2026).

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Mas essa proibição traz algum benefício real ou apenas tenta controlar o incontrolável?Essa proibição já está em vigor no INSPER há pelo menos um ano, e os professores relatam que as notas e a qualidade do ensino já tem sido melhor.

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Podemos usar o exemplo de uma faculdade do Texas: uma política de incentivo ao uso direcionado apenas ao aprendizado. Quanto “melhor” for o uso — nos momentos corretos — os alunos ganham moedas (coins) para trocar por descontos em lojas no campus e outros benefícios. A diferença é que a política do incentivo não é mandatória — é voluntária.

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No Brasil, uma recente pesquisa divulgada pelo G1, demonstrou que os brasileiros usam o celular, em média, por 05h e 30min por dia. (com uma média de 4h apenas usando redes sociais!). Quando olhamos mais a fundo e separamos por faixa etária, vemos a disparidade entre os jovens: 70% destes passam entre 10h e 19h por dia usando o telefone. Deste tempo, em média 9h por dia é dedicado somente para redes sociais.

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Devem ser realizadas políticas de incentivo ao uso correto do celular, especialmente pelo temido efeito contágio em sala: esse efeito é literal – quando um aluno começa a jogar, os outros têm vontade de jogar também, e quando percebe-se, a sala inteira está olhando para as telas.

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Quando pensamos que os alunos já são adultos quando estão nas universidades, esse pensamento deve ser feito com ressalvas — lembre-se que os alunos oriundos das escolas, geralmente são adolescentes (com 17/18 anos), que entram na faculdade, geralmente, no ano seguinte (com 18/19 anos), ou seja, raramente ocorre grande evolução em tão pouco tempo.

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Porque não faz sentido restringir?

Os profissionais, especialmente aqueles do time dos cálculos (calculadoras de diferentes tipos) e da área da medicina (consultas de condutas médicas) e farmácia (consulta de interações medicamentosas) — usam o celular rotineiramente no mercado de trabalho.

Não faz sentido restringir, afinal também se faz o mesmo uso nas universidades.

Faz-se necessário desenvolver mecanismos de controle do uso dos celulares, voltados ao uso do brasileiro jovem, sem usar a “restrição mandatória”. Um exemplo já mencionado, é a política de incentivo (Universidade do Texas).

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O celular não é o vilão.

O vilão é a incapacidade institucional de lidar com a complexidade dele.

Rio de Janeiro, 19 de fevereiro de 2026.

Aunque muchas personas piensan que la vida de un robot es afortunada, o por lo menos satisfactoria, este tipo de afirmaciones parten de opiniones sesgadas.

Quien así piensa no observa lo fundamental: no es lógico comparar. Quiero decir, no examina por sí misma la vida robótica, sino que la compara, sin más, con la vida humana, que en estos momentos parece un desastre.

Un robot es un robot, por útil o inútil que sea. Hemos visto robots que dan tres pasos y se caen, y otros que corren, saltan y hasta hacen muecas. En cualquiera de los casos, son robots. La identidad robótica está garantizada, al menos en este momento de la historia.

Pero el ser humano es diferente. Primero somos bebés, luego vamos pasando por las diferentes etapas, hasta trascender el en paz descanse. Somos de esta o aquella nacionalidad, ricos, pobres o no se sabe, nuestros antepasados fueron nobles, habrá que ver o facinerosos, carnívoros o veganos, sanos, enfermos o ahí vamos. En todo esto y más, es lógico que nos encontremos con un problema de identidad del tamaño de diez burros, y a la espera de que una circunstancia desencadenante nos encamine al brote de angustia existencial.

Los robots no poseen características similares. Haríamos bien en no comparar; en no proyectar en ellos nuestros fantasmas. Lo que sí es cierto -todo sea dicho-, es que tienen cara de pasarla bien en nuestro mundo.

Soy consejero legal de Markus Skhalagrinsen desde hace cincuenta años. No tengo la menor duda de su honorabilidad; sé que va con la verdad por delante.

Él está dolido. Destila rencor cuando se acuerda del asunto, pero no sabe si callar, porque las consecuencias de armar un escándalo podrían ser perjudiciales para él y su familia, y cree que hasta para nuestro Estado, que no está para muchos brincos.

Realmente, es un auténtico pionero en materia de inteligencia artificial. No me cabe duda. Quizás antes no se llamaba así, claro. Ahora bautizan las cosas de otro modo, según las modas en Silicon Valley.

En su trabajo, Markus ha tenido un éxito moderado. Ya está mayor, cumple ochenta y nueve en julio.

Escribe libros de relatos. Ninguno se escapó de recibir elogios de la crítica y su obra en conjunto fue premiada con la medalla del mérito literario, aunque no hizo el dinero que esperaba.

Su método es único. Reúne sobre el escritorio las obras de Ray Bradbury, abre una página, señala un renglón con los ojos cerrados, lo digiere, y viento: desarrolla una historia. Otras veces arranca con una paráfrasis y luego empuja lo que viene, horno, papel y tinta.

-Dígame si no soy pionero. Merezco un reconocimiento público, por lo menos -me dice.

-Sí, Markus, ya sabes, las cosas son según se miren. Se llama inteligencia artificial si lo hacen en Silicon Valley. Pero aquí, entre nosotros, no faltará un desgraciado que lo llame plagio.

In today’s global economy, a resume is only as strong as the real-world experience behind it. While many look to study in China to learn the language, the most successful global leaders are those who have actually stepped into the professional landscape.

The China International Leadership Programme is designed for those who want more than just a certificate. This is a blended, high-impact programme where a core component allows you to actually work in China, applying your leadership skills in real-time through meaningful professional placements.

By combining online modules with immersive, on-the-ground experience, you won't just learn about leadership—you will practice it.

Your Professional Journey in China

The programme is strategically built around three core objectives to maximize your professional and personal ROI:

• Mandarin in Action: Develop fluency through structured learning and immediate real-world practice.
• Intercultural Competence: Move beyond being a tourist. Build genuine professional empathy through deep immersion and guided educational tours across the country.
• Professional Work Experience: The cornerstone of the programme is the opportunity to work in China. Through a hands-on China internship in rural communities, you will gain teaching and leadership experience that makes a tangible difference.

A Modern, Blended Curriculum

The programme consists of eight modules delivered in a flexible, hybrid format. You begin with online modules that establish your knowledge base, which then transition into experiential, on-the-ground components. This ensures that when you arrive to begin your work placement, you are prepared, culturally aware, and ready to lead.

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Select Your Professional Track

We offer three distinct pathways, each building on the last to offer deeper levels of immersion and professional responsibility:

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A focused, high-intensity immersion perfect for those looking to kickstart their Mandarin skills and cultural understanding.

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Coalescence

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When I think of you I see it— a soft red glow in the dark of the world,

I am the wind And you, a coal...

One ember glowing hot but patient. Hidden beneath the ash.

I ache to see what light we make.

I lean close— slowly—

and feel our ignition— your heat answers mine.

Breath deepens, you brighten.

Tell me not to.

片手で船を出した。 もう片方の手は、頬の髭の剃り残しをなぞっていた。ざらりとした感触が、朝の光に溶けていく。 「初めてガムを食べたときも、こんな感じだったなあ」 隣で船をたたんでいたミルが、顔を上げた。 「ガムって、あの噛むやつ？」 「そう。初めて食べたとき、噛んだら破れて、変な感じがしたんだ」 ミルは首をかしげて、また船に戻った。彼女の宇宙服は、朝日を受けて淡く光っていた。

その日、天気は三度変わった。朝は霧、昼は雷、夕方には雪が降った。 「今日は、天気が三回も変わったんだよ」 アルトがそう報告すると、ミルは「ふうん」とだけ言って、ピアノの下に潜り込んだ。 「友達に連絡するから」と言って、スマホの画面を見つめていた。 ピアノの脚の影が、彼女の頬に落ちていた。どの星の友達に連絡しているのか、アルトはあえて訊かなかった。

「サウナ入ってくる」 「ハマってるね、それ」 「うん、黒い人が頑張って作ってくれたからね」 湯気の向こうで、ミルが頷いた。 「本当にそうだよなあ」 アルトが言った。 「本当にそうだよなあ？」 ミルも繰り返した。 ニュースの音が遠くで流れていた。二人とも、それにうなずいていた。

自分のホームページを作るのにハマっている。 「また呼吸を忘れてるわよ」 「はっ」として、アルトは慌てて呼吸を再開する。 「これ、誰に見てもらうの？」とミルに聞かれて、 「電話帳順に、姿勢が良くなった自分を送る」と答えた。 「それって、どういう意味？」 「電波。チューニングを合わせないと」 ミルはしばらく考え込んで、それから小さく笑った。 「アルトらしいね」

航海中、自販機が浮いていて、サイダーを買うことにする。 ボタンを押そうとしたら、自販機の上に鳥が乗っていて、こっちを見ている。 「風邪ひけやー」 アルトがそう言って、そっと手を差し出すと、鳥は首をかしげて、また空へ戻っていった。 ミルがその後ろ姿を見送りながら言った。 「あの鳥、私たちのこと、どう思ってるのかな」 「さあ。でも“風邪ひけやー”って言ったから、友好的なことは伝わったと思うよ」 二人はまた船に乗り込む。宇宙服のブーツが、自販機にくっついていたアスファルトの地面を軽く鳴らした。

「シソ揚げる」 そう言って、ミルはシソを揚げ始めた。 油のはねる音を聞いていたら、弟から電話がかかってきた。 「アニメみたいな髪型しないと、体重計に乗れないんだよー」 弟は今日も、言いたいことを優先して話してくる。 相変わらず思い込みが激しいなあ、と思いながら、買って帰るおみやげを考える。 しばらくして戻ってきたミルは、なぜか髪の毛が少し立っていた。

夜、宇宙船から庭に出ると、遠くにチーズケーキみたいな星が見える。 ふわふわしていて、甘くて、少しだけ焦げ目がついている。 「本に載ってた通りだ。かなり住みたい星No.1だ」 アルトが言った。 二人は並んで、チーズケーキの星を見る。その周りの、砂糖のような星々が静かに瞬いていた。

ミルが言った。 「アルト、最近、こっちの星の言葉、練習した？」 「5級くらい」 「そう。でも、なんとかなると思う」

Meu amor, se você soubesse quantos sorrisos você tirou de mim hoje…

Acordei com uma determinação voraz de não te mandar mensagem.

Normalmente é difícil pois sinto sua falta constantemente e me entrego a saudade; mas confesso que estava ou estou, com ciúmes, ciúmes de algo que ainda não aconteceu mas vai, e me apegar a esse ressentimento me fez não te mandar nada pela manhã.

Felizmente ou infelizmente, você só pediu acesso ao GPT, e eu já me derreti todo com a “obrigação” de ter que entrar em contato para te passar o código.

Prometi a mim mesmo que seria mais “difícil” durante esses dias (você não pode ficar brava comigo por isso, estranho seria eu não me incomodar), e consegui ficar sem te mandar um Te amo por incríveis 4 minutos.

A verdade é que você me conhece estranhamente bem, e derrete minhas defesas e postura com uma maestria quase magica.

Você me tirou sorrisos hoje todas as vezes que me mandou uma mensagem, que esticou um assuntinho, que me fez um sinal que pra mim só significava “rock”.

Voce me fez sorrir porque por algum motivo voce fez parecer que queria falar comigo, mesmo eu mais distante em alguns momentos, e isso deu um calorzinho no meu coração.

Eu confesso que sorri quando voce me mandou foto do seu prato, e quando achou impressionante o chat te falar para não emagrecer. Eu deixei 4 instrucoes pra ele, e no final ele me disse: “Fica tranquilo. Eu sei a responsabilidade que voce esta me dando aqui”. Eu só espero que ele saiba mesmo, porque se ele vacilar eu vou queimar todos os servidores onde ele estiver rodando.

Também fiquei meio sorridente quando você ficou com ciúmes, juro que não era a intenção inicial, mas me senti um pouco vingado fazendo você sentir um pouco do que eu sinto… sou toxico?

Sorri quando de coração, não conseguia dormir de tarde porque não conseguia parar de pensar em você, e você respondeu dizendo que estava mesmo na minha cabeça, suas bobeiras despretensiosas conseguem me alegrar com uma facilidade inexplicável.

Sorri relendo sua carta, a parte da casa me pega muito.

Eu leio esse trecho, fecho os olhos e fico saboreando, a cena, as palavras, o desejo.

Eu amo te amar, te amaria mesmo que você já não lembrasse mais meu nome; mas é tão bom te amar e me sentir amado de volta de alguma forma.

Você me fez sorrir com sua empolgação com o livro hoje, me fez lembrar o quanto eu amo o fato de você ser essa pessoa tão viva, tão alegre.

A verdade dona Manuela, é que você me fez sorrir todas as vezes que pensei em você, e lembrei do seu sorriso que é tão meu.

“Tira-me o pão, se quiseres,

tira-me o ar, mas

não me tires o teu riso”

Te amo meu amor, obrigado por me arrancar os sorrisos mais sinceros, e me presentear com os teus sorrisos mais bonitos, você é o meu mundo todinho.

Do garoto que sempre sorrirá ao ouvir seu nome,

Nathan.

You woke up this morning and checked your phone. Before your first cup of tea had brewed, you had already been nudged, filtered, ranked, and sorted by artificial intelligence dozens of times. The news headlines surfaced to your lock screen were algorithmically curated. The playlist that accompanied your commute was assembled by machine learning models analysing your listening history, mood patterns, and the time of day. The product recommendations that caught your eye during a two-minute scroll through an online shop were generated by systems that, according to McKinsey research, already account for roughly 35 per cent of everything purchased on Amazon. And you noticed none of it.

According to IDC's landmark “Data Age 2025” whitepaper, produced in partnership with Seagate, the average connected person now engages in nearly 4,900 digital data interactions every single day. That is roughly one interaction every 18 seconds across every waking hour. The figure has grown dramatically from just 298 interactions per day in 2010 to 584 in 2015, climbing through an estimated 1,426 by 2020. Today, more than five billion consumers interact with data daily, and that number is projected to reach six billion, or 75 per cent of the world's population, by the end of 2025. The vast majority of these touchpoints are mediated, shaped, or outright determined by artificial intelligence systems operating beneath the surface of your awareness. The question is no longer whether AI influences your daily life. The question is whether you still recognise the difference between a choice you made and a choice that was made for you.

The Architecture of Invisible Influence

To understand the scale of what is happening, consider the platforms that structure most people's digital existence. Netflix reports that more than 80 per cent of the content its subscribers watch is discovered through its recommendation engine, a figure the company has cited consistently since at least 2017. The platform, which serves over 260 million subscribers globally across more than 190 countries, reports that its personalisation engine saves users a collective total of over 1,300 hours per day in search time alone. On Spotify, algorithmic features including Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and personalised mixes account for approximately 40 per cent of all new artist discoveries, according to the platform's own Fan Study released in April 2024. Since its launch, users have listened to over 2.3 billion hours of music from Discover Weekly alone. These are not peripheral features bolted onto the side of the product. They are the product.

The sophistication of these systems has advanced well beyond simple collaborative filtering, the technique that once powered the familiar “customers who bought this also bought” prompt. Modern recommendation engines deploy deep learning architectures that analyse hundreds of signals simultaneously: your viewing history, obviously, but also how long you hovered over a thumbnail, whether you watched to completion or abandoned at the 23-minute mark, what time of day you tend to prefer certain genres, and how your consumption patterns correlate with those of millions of other users whose behaviour the system has already mapped. According to McKinsey, effective personalisation based on user behaviour can increase customer satisfaction by 20 per cent and conversion rates by 10 to 15 per cent, while retailers implementing advanced recommendation algorithms report a 22 per cent increase in customer lifetime value.

What makes this consequential is not the technology itself but its invisibility. The philosopher and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, co-author of the influential book “Nudge” with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, has written extensively about how “choice architecture” shapes human decisions. A nudge, in their definition, is any design element that alters people's behaviour in a predictable way without restricting their options or significantly changing their economic incentives. The critical insight is that choice architecture cannot be avoided. Every interface, every default setting, every ordering of options on a screen constitutes a form of choice architecture. The only question is whether it is designed transparently and in the user's interest, or opaquely and in the interest of the platform.

In the digital realm, that question has taken on extraordinary urgency. A European Commission study published in 2022 found that 97 per cent of the most popular websites and apps used by EU consumers deployed at least one “dark pattern,” a design technique that manipulates users into decisions they might not otherwise make. A subsequent investigation by the United States Federal Trade Commission, published in July 2024, examined 642 websites and apps and found that more than three quarters employed at least one deceptive pattern, with nearly 67 per cent deploying multiple such techniques simultaneously. These are not outlier findings. They describe the default condition of the digital environment in which billions of people make thousands of decisions every day.

Your Feed Is Not a Window; It Is a Mirror

Perhaps the most profound form of invisible AI influence operates through the news and social media feeds that billions of people consult daily. The global number of active social media users surpassed 5 billion in 2024, with the average user spending approximately 2 hours and 21 minutes per day on social platforms, according to DataReportal and Global WebIndex. Mobile devices dominate, accounting for 92 per cent of all social media screen time in 2025. The average user engages with approximately 6.8 different platforms per month. During that time, every piece of content encountered has been selected, ranked, and sequenced by algorithmic systems optimising for engagement.

The consequences of this optimisation have been the subject of intense academic scrutiny. A systematic review published in MDPI's “Societies” journal in 2025 synthesised a decade of peer-reviewed research examining the interplay between filter bubbles, echo chambers, and algorithmic bias, documenting a sharp increase in scholarly concern after 2018.

The distinction between filter bubbles and echo chambers matters. Filter bubbles, a term coined by internet activist Eli Pariser in 2011, describe environments where algorithmic curation immerses users in attitude-consistent information without their knowledge. Echo chambers emphasise active selection, where individuals choose to interact primarily with like-minded sources. A 2024 study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that user query formulation, not algorithmic personalisation, was the primary driver of divergent search results. The way people phrase their questions matters more than the algorithm's filtering.

Yet this finding does not absolve the algorithms. A study on “Algorithmic Amplification of Biases on Google Search” published on arXiv found that individuals with opposing views on contentious topics receive different search results, and that users unconsciously express their beliefs through vocabulary choices, which the algorithm then reinforces. The researchers demonstrated that differences in vocabulary serve as unintentional implicit signals, communicating pre-existing attitudes to the search engine and resulting in personalised results that confirm those attitudes. The algorithm does not create the bias, but it amplifies it.

On TikTok, these dynamics are particularly pronounced. A major algorithmic audit published on arXiv in January 2025 conducted 323 independent experiments testing partisan content recommendations during the lead-up to the 2024 United States presidential election. The researchers analysed more than 340,000 videos over a 27-week period using controlled accounts across three states with varying political demographics. Their findings indicated that TikTok's recommendation algorithm skewed towards Republican content during that period, a result with significant implications given that, according to Tufts University's CIRCLE, 25 per cent of young people named TikTok as one of their top three sources of political information during the 2024 election cycle. The platform has already been fined 345 million euros by the Irish Data Protection Commission because its preselection of “public-by-default” accounts was deemed a deceptive design pattern.

The Quiet Colonisation of Consumer Choice

The influence extends far beyond politics. AI-powered recommendation systems are fundamentally reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products. A McKinsey survey found that half of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, with a majority reporting that AI is the top digital source they use to make buying decisions. Among people who use AI for shopping, the technology has become the second most influential source, surpassing retailer websites, apps, and even recommendations from friends and family. McKinsey projects that by 2028, 750 billion dollars in United States revenue will flow through AI-powered search, while brands unprepared for this shift may see traditional search traffic decline by 20 to 50 per cent.

The numbers from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reinforce this pattern. Their research found that 44 per cent of AI-powered search users describe it as their primary source of purchasing insight, compared to 31 per cent for traditional search, 9 per cent for retailer or brand websites, and just 6 per cent for review sites. Nearly 90 per cent of AI-assisted shoppers report that the technology helps them discover products they would not have found otherwise, and 64 per cent had AI surface a new product during a single shopping session.

What is striking is the degree of satisfaction users express. According to Bloomreach consumer surveys, 81 per cent of AI-assisted shoppers say the technology made their purchasing decisions easier, 77 per cent say it made them feel more confident, and 85 per cent agree that recommendations feel personalised. Over 70 per cent say AI often anticipates their needs before they even articulate them. From the consumer's perspective, the system is working brilliantly. The experience is frictionless.

But “frictionless” is precisely the word that should give us pause. When a system removes all friction from a decision, it also removes the cognitive engagement that constitutes genuine deliberation. A 2025 study published in PMC on AI's cognitive costs found that prolonged AI use was significantly associated with mental exhaustion, attention strain, and information overload (with a correlation coefficient of 0.905), while being inversely associated with decision-making self-confidence (r = -0.360). The researchers concluded that while AI integration improved efficiency in the short term, prolonged utilisation precipitated cognitive fatigue, diminished focus, and attenuated user agency.

This is the paradox at the heart of AI-mediated consumer life. The system makes choices easier in the moment while gradually eroding the capacity and inclination to make them independently.

Surveillance Capitalism and the Business of Behaviour Modification

To understand why these systems operate as they do, it is essential to examine the economic logic that drives them. Shoshana Zuboff, the Harvard Business School professor emerita whose 2019 book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” has become a foundational text in the field, argues that major technology companies have pioneered a new form of capitalism that “unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data.” The excess data generated by users, what Zuboff terms “proprietary behavioural surplus,” is fed into machine learning systems and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what users will do, think, feel, and buy.

Crucially, Zuboff's analysis extends beyond mere data collection. She documents how surveillance capitalists discovered that the most predictive behavioural data come not from passively observing behaviour but from actively intervening to “nudge, coax, tune, and herd behaviour toward profitable outcomes.” The goal, she writes, is no longer to automate information flows about people. “The goal now is to automate us.” This represents what Zuboff calls “instrumentarian power,” a form of control that operates not through coercion or ideology but through knowledge, prediction, and the subtle shaping of behaviour at scale. Unlike traditional totalitarian systems based on fear, surveillance capitalism operates through continuous, invisible behavioural guidance towards economically profitable ends.

In 2024, Zuboff and Mathias Risse, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, launched a programme at Harvard Kennedy School titled “Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy?” The initiative brought together figures including EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa, and Baroness Beeban Kidron. Vestager emphasised at the September 2024 forum that “it's not too late” to curb the exploitation of personal data.

A December 2024 research paper published on ResearchGate, drawing on frameworks from both Zuboff and technology critic Evgeny Morozov, examined how AI systems facilitate the extraction, analysis, and commercialisation of behavioural data. The paper concluded that platforms and Internet of Things devices construct sophisticated mechanisms for behavioural modification, and advocated for a balance between technological innovation and social protection.

The relevance of this framework has only intensified as generative AI has matured. In 2025, AI no longer merely analyses clicks or searches. It anticipates needs before individuals are fully aware of them. Large language models and predictive systems function as accelerators of behavioural surplus, capable of absorbing vast quantities of human data to create economic value. Meanwhile, new regulatory initiatives such as the European AI Act confirm one of Zuboff's central contentions: without political regulation, the market does not self-correct.

The Neurological Dimension: How Algorithms Rewire Attention

The invisible influence of AI extends to the most fundamental level of human cognition. Research published in the journal Cureus in 2025 examined the neurobiological impact of prolonged social media use, focusing on how it affects the brain's reward, attention, and emotional regulation systems. The study found that frequent engagement with social media platforms alters dopamine pathways, a critical component in reward processing, fostering dependency patterns analogous to substance addiction. Changes in brain activity within the prefrontal cortex and amygdala suggested increased emotional sensitivity and compromised decision-making abilities.

A key 2024 paper by Hannah Metzler and David Garcia, published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, examined these algorithmic mechanisms directly. The researchers noted that algorithms could contribute to increasing depression, anxiety, loneliness, body dissatisfaction, and suicides by facilitating unhealthy social comparisons, addiction, poor sleep, cyberbullying, and harassment, especially among teenagers and girls. However, they cautioned that the debate frequently conflates the effects of time spent on social media with the specific effects of algorithms, making it difficult to isolate algorithmic causality.

The concept of “brain rot,” named the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024, captures the cultural dimension of this neurological reality. Research published in PMC in 2025 defined brain rot as the cognitive decline and mental exhaustion experienced by individuals due to excessive exposure to low-quality online materials. The study linked it to negative behaviours including doomscrolling, zombie scrolling, and social media addiction, all associated with psychological distress, anxiety, and depression. These factors impair executive functioning skills, including memory, planning, and decision-making.

The attention economy, as a theoretical framework, helps explain why platforms are designed to produce these effects. A paper published in the journal Futures applied an attention economic perspective to predict societal trends and identified what the authors described as “a spiral of attention scarcity.” They predicted an information environment that increasingly targets citizens with attention-grabbing content; a continuing trend towards excessive media consumption; and a continuing trend towards inattentive uses of information.

This spiral has measurable consequences. Research published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media in 2025 documented that 39 per cent of respondents across 47 countries reported feeling “worn out” by the amount of news in 2024, up from 28 per cent in 2019. The phenomenon of “digital amnesia,” whereby individuals forget readily available information due to reliance on search engines and AI assistants, further illustrates how algorithmic mediation is altering basic cognitive processes. A systematic review published in March 2025 concluded that the digital age has significantly altered human attention, with increased multitasking, information overload, and algorithm-driven biases collectively impacting productivity, cognitive load, and decision-making.

The Chatbot in the Room: Large Language Models as New Echo Chambers

The emergence of large language models has introduced an entirely new dimension to the problem of invisible AI influence. A 2025 study published in Big Data and Society by Christo Jacob, Paraic Kerrigan, and Marco Bastos introduced the concept of the “chat-chamber effect,” describing how AI chatbots like ChatGPT may create personalised information environments that function simultaneously as filter bubbles and echo chambers.

The researchers argued that algorithmic bias and media effects combine to create a prospect of AI chatbots providing politically congruent information to isolated subgroups, triggering effects that result from both algorithmic filtering and active user-AI communication. This dynamic is compounded by the persistent challenge of hallucination in large language models. The study cited research indicating that ChatGPT generates reference data with a hallucination rate as high as 25 per cent.

Given the capacity of large language models to mimic human communication, the researchers warned that incorporating hallucinating AI chatbots into daily information consumption may create feedback loops that isolate individuals in bubbles with limited access to counterattitudinal information. The ability of these systems to sound authoritative while producing fabricated content represents a qualitatively different kind of information risk than anything previously encountered in the history of media.

This concern gains additional weight when set alongside the growing use of AI for everyday decision-making. According to Bloomreach surveys, nearly 60 per cent of consumers report using AI to help them shop. Among frequent shoppers (those who purchase more than once a week), 66 per cent regularly use AI assistants such as ChatGPT to inform their purchase decisions. The IAB found that among AI shoppers, 46 per cent use AI “most or every time” they shop, and 80 per cent expect to rely on it more in the future. Research from the California Management Review at UC Berkeley has found that consumers prefer AI recommendations for practical, utilitarian purchases while favouring human guidance for more emotional or experiential ones, suggesting that the boundary between human and algorithmic judgment is becoming increasingly contextual.

The implications are significant. If the tools people use to make decisions are themselves shaped by biases, trained on data reflecting existing inequalities, and prone to generating plausible but inaccurate information, then the decisions emerging from those interactions are compromised at their foundation.

The Regulatory Response: Too Little, Too Late?

Governments and regulatory bodies have begun to respond, though the pace of regulation consistently lags behind the pace of technological deployment. The European Union has been the most aggressive actor in this space. The Digital Services Act (DSA), effective since 2024, explicitly prohibits a range of dark pattern techniques on digital platforms. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) bars designated gatekeepers from using “behavioural techniques or interface design” to circumvent their regulatory obligations.

Most significantly, the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act, adopted in June 2024, represents the world's first comprehensive legal framework for regulating AI. The regulation entered into force on 1 August 2024 and introduces a risk-based classification system. AI systems deemed to pose unacceptable risk, including those that manipulate human behaviour through subliminal techniques or exploit vulnerabilities based on age, disability, or socioeconomic status, are banned outright. The prohibition on banned AI systems took effect on 2 February 2025, with remaining obligations phasing in through 2027.

The EU has also launched consultations for a Digital Fairness Act, following an October 2024 “Fitness Check” in which the European Commission found that consumers remain inadequately protected against manipulative design elements. The proposed legislation would establish a binding EU-wide definition of dark patterns, categorised by severity, functionality, and potential impact on user decision-making. A public consultation was launched on 17 July 2025, with the final legislative proposal expected in the third quarter of 2026.

In the United States, enforcement has been more piecemeal. The FTC has pursued action against individual companies under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Notable cases include the ongoing proceedings against Amazon for allegedly using dark patterns to trick consumers into enrolling in Amazon Prime subscriptions, the December 2023 settlement requiring Credit Karma to pay three million dollars for misleading “pre-approved” credit card offers, and the 245 million dollar refund order against Epic Games for using dark patterns to induce children into making unintended in-game purchases in Fortnite.

At the state level, New York passed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) Act to protect children from addictive algorithmic feeds, and Utah enacted legislation in 2024 to hold companies accountable for mental health impacts from algorithmically curated content.

Yet regulation, by its nature, operates reactively. By the time a law is drafted, debated, passed, and enforced, the technology it targets has typically evolved beyond its original scope. The EU AI Act's phased implementation, which will not be fully operative until 2027, illustrates this temporal mismatch. Legal scholars have noted the inherent difficulty: dark patterns operate in the grey zone between legitimate persuasion and outright manipulation, while EU consumer legislation still largely assumes that consumers are rational economic actors.

What You Do Not Know You Do Not Know

The most insidious aspect of invisible AI influence is not that it exists but that it operates below the threshold of awareness. A 2025 study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications introduced a system to evaluate population knowledge about algorithmic personalisation. Using data from 1,213 Czech respondents, it revealed significant demographic disparities in digital media literacy, underscoring what the researchers described as an urgent need for targeted educational programmes.

The research consistently shows that informed users can better evaluate privacy risks, guard against manipulation through tailored content, and adjust their online behaviour for more balanced information exposure. But achieving that awareness requires recognising the influence in the first place, which is precisely what these systems are designed to prevent.

The research also reveals a generational dimension. According to data from DemandSage and DataReportal, Generation Z users spend an average of 3 hours and 18 minutes daily on social media, with United States teenagers averaging 4 hours and 48 minutes. Millennials follow at 2 hours and 47 minutes, while Generation X averages 1 hour and 53 minutes. These are the individuals whose political views, consumer preferences, cultural tastes, and understanding of the world are being most intensively shaped by algorithmic curation, and the youngest among them have never known a world where such curation did not exist.

Trust in AI continues to grow even as evidence of its limitations accumulates. According to the Attest 2025 Consumer Adoption of AI Report, 43 per cent of consumers now trust information provided by AI chatbots or tools, up from 40 per cent the previous year. Trust in companies' handling of AI-collected data rose from 29 per cent in 2024 to 33 per cent in 2025. Among 18 to 30 year olds, 37 per cent trust AI companies with their data, compared to 27 per cent of those over 50. There is also a notable gender dimension: men are significantly more likely than women to use AI for purchasing decisions, at 52 per cent versus 43 per cent.

Reclaiming Agency in an Algorithmic World

The picture that emerges from this research is not one of helpless individuals trapped in algorithmic prisons. It is something more nuanced. The algorithms are not imposing preferences from without; they are amplifying tendencies from within. They do not create desires; they detect, reinforce, and commercialise them. The filter bubble is not a wall erected around you; it is a mirror held up to your existing inclinations, polished and magnified until it becomes difficult to distinguish reflection from reality.

This distinction matters because it shifts the locus of responsibility. If algorithms merely reflected an objective external reality, the solution would be straightforward: fix the algorithm. But if they are amplifying subjective internal states, the challenge requires not only better technology and stronger regulation but also a form of cognitive self-defence that most people have never been taught to practise.

The academic literature offers some grounds for cautious optimism. A commentary published in Big Data and Society explored the concept of “protective filter bubbles,” documenting cases where algorithmic curation has provided safe spaces for feminist groups, gay men in China, and political dissidents in countries with restricted press freedom. The technology is not inherently destructive; its impact depends on the intentions and incentives of those who deploy it.

Researchers are also exploring technical solutions. A 2025 study published by Taylor and Francis proposed an “allostatic regulator” for recommendation systems, based on opponent process theory from psychology. The approach can be applied to the output layer of any existing recommendation algorithm to dynamically restrict the proportion of potentially harmful or polarised content recommended to users, offering a pathway for platforms to mitigate echo chamber effects without fundamentally redesigning their systems.

Recommendations from across the research literature converge on several themes. Greater transparency in how algorithms operate and what data they collect is consistently identified as essential. Educational programmes that build digital media literacy, particularly among younger users, are repeatedly advocated. Regulatory frameworks that keep pace with technological development are widely called for. And individual practices, including controlling screen time, curating digital content deliberately, and engaging in non-digital activities, are recommended as personal countermeasures against cognitive overload.

The nearly 5,000 daily digital interactions that now characterise modern connected life are not going to decrease. If anything, as the Internet of Things expands and AI systems become more deeply embedded in everyday objects and services, that number will continue to climb. The challenge is not to retreat from the digital world but to inhabit it with greater awareness of the forces shaping our experience within it.

Every time you open an app, scroll a feed, accept a recommendation, or ask an AI assistant for advice, you are participating in a system designed to learn from you and, in learning, to shape you. The transaction is invisible by design. But the fact that you cannot see it does not mean it is not happening. The first and most essential act of resistance is simply to notice.

References and Sources

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37. Taylor and Francis, “Reducing echo chamber effects: an allostatic regulator for recommendation algorithms” (2025). Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/29974100.2025.2517191

38. Irish Data Protection Commission, TikTok fine of 345 million euros for deceptive design patterns affecting children. Referenced via: https://cbtw.tech/insights/illegal-dark-patterns-europe

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

What I said about what I said (because I said it weird)

A friend told me she loved the last post, but the title stayed just a bit out of reach for her. And because I like her honesty, and I trust the depth of her understanding, I will not simplify the thought. Instead, I’ll unfold it even more.

What I mean when I say “your future is your neighbor” is a small healthy provocation, yes it is ok, I never said I was cool.

Most people think of society as a system of rules and laws. Even if they’re not written down, they are shared through traditions and habits, creating a set of norms. You can organize these norms to be relatively functional in social life: what is legitimate and what is not, what is accepted and what is rejected, what is implicit and what is explicit. Are you still there?

Now, there’s another way to think about social life. A much richer one, in my eyes.
Let me leave you with this: in a society like ours, deeply sick, being “functional”, fitting in, being comfortable within it, should never be taken as a sign of success, but rather a symptom of your subjection to it.

I personally see social life as a circuit, a network of emotions and affections. These emotional exchanges are what shape relationships: between individuals, between individuals and institutions, between institutions and corporations, you got my point.

And yes we need to think about this, because there is no real way to escape social life. Even if you decide to live alone in a cave, ordering Foodora with “leave it by the door” every day, I can guarantee you the Austrian catholic church will still find you in 72h and ask for a contribution by post.

When I use the word “affections,” I mean literally whatever affects you.
Affections generate effects: answering or not answering the Catholic Church, for example. Paying or not paying that stupid tax. Shakespeare wrote “to be or not to be” in 1600.
Yes, folks, it's 2026 and that’s still the question.

Suddenly, a decision your parents once made of raising you in a catholic community, maybe as the spine of your upbringing, your first interactions, your school years, now comes back in a proposal letter. Kiddo, it’s your turn to decide if you stay as “one of us,” or if you part ways. Do you still want to belong? Pay it. But in my eyes, the cruelest part is this: if you’re not willing to pay it, you have to declare it. You have to contact them and say, to their face, that from now on you’re excluding yourself from the community. They use your affection to subject you into action. And by the way, here is the condition: there is only one legitimate way of being catholic in this country: pay it.

For me, Paula, baptized and raised in the catholic church and schools, it's a no brainer: to be a good christian, in this set up, means keeping a healthy distance from this version of the catholic church you’ve established in this country. But that’s just me. You do you.

I think I’ve made my point about how affections produce effects. These affections shape our tendencies and behaviors, often without us even realizing it. Many times, what moves us to act toward something is not a clearly stated plan or conscious decision, but the feelings we experience without being fully aware of them, without much elaboration.
And these affections circulate not only on a person to person level, but also at institutional, corporate, and political levels. In other words: wherever you find people, you will find affections.

We’re taught that the ideal way to navigate society is rationally. Rationality supposedly allows us to speak in a neutral space where we can say what we want, announce our interests, even clash with one another, and maybe (just maybe) reach a consensus. That’s the “rulebook” we learn back in kindergarten.
There’s no space for passion there. Because passions, or affections, are said to destabilize us. The classic reason versus passion division is more deeply baked into us than we admit.

I would insist that if there’s anything truly “rational” in social life, it’s precisely our affections. They shape our relationships, form our inner lives, and guide how we act on our fantasies, beliefs, and desires. To know yourself, who you truly are, what you can do, and what holds you back from it, means understanding your affections.
I personally don’t believe political changes (or any changes) simply come from new ideas, but from new affections that give rise to new ideas. Coherence definition.

So, when I say “your future is your neighbor,” I am making a wonder. I wonder whether a large part of our blockage in political and social creativity, our inability to imagine new futures, comes from the fact that fear has historically been the core affection of our world.

If a society is built by people who don’t claim this connection to one another, their desires no longer have a natural place to unfold and they end up wanting mostly the same things. And when everyone wants the same things, the only relationships they form are competitive, sometimes even violent. That’s how insecurity is created.
Fear of violence, fear of death, fear of being isolated or undervalued, fear of immigrants, these fears become common affections, our main social drivers. And to deal with that, we invent governments and institutions whose purpose is essentially to protect us from one another.

So now, governments have to keep reminding us that our safety is always at risk. Even intimate relationships are treated like contracts. Want to get married? Declare it at the notary office. Kant would say marriage is a contract between two people for the usufruct of their sexual faculties. I find that hilarious. Imagine coming home and your husband isn’t down for some cuddles, you might as well call the police because he’s breaking the contract.
Want to be part of the Catholic Church? Your signature and 1.1% of your annual taxable income, please.

Jokes aside, what I’m trying to highlight is the absurdity of contracts as the main connector of social relationships, how this twisted logic fails to grasp what’s really at stake. The goal becomes transforming hearts into risk-oriented minds.

When I say “your future is your neighbor,” I choose the word neighbor to play with the idea of this immediate other, the other who is close enough to affect you, even if they don’t resemble your idea of yourself. The only way to escape this installed logic of fear is to practice affection as your core mode of being. And if you do that long enough, you learn something real, and eventually you’re able to extend your sense of closeness far beyond your own street.
That’s what real change looks like to me.

/feb26

There are truths in Scripture that we read so casually that we miss the weight of them, and one of the heaviest among them is this simple, easily overlooked statement: the Son of Man had no place to lay His head. Those words do not just describe a passing circumstance in the ministry of Jesus; they reveal the shape of His entire earthly life, a life without permanent shelter, without a mailing address, without a deed or a property line or a quiet bedroom with a lamp on the nightstand. When you sit with that long enough, when you stop romanticizing it and start feeling how it would actually feel to live it, something inside you begins to unravel—because we live in a world that measures people by what they accumulate, but the Savior we worship measured His life by what He fulfilled. He chose the road. He chose the movement. He chose the mission. And in doing so, He dismantled the illusion that stability, comfort, and achievement are the true indicators of a meaningful life. For anyone who has ever felt like they were behind, like the milestones of adulthood passed them by, or like they don’t fit the mold that society keeps trying to force them into, the footprint of a homeless Messiah becomes the unexpected reassurance that heaven defines success in a very different way than the world does.

Most people avoid instability at all costs, yet Jesus stepped directly into it with open hands. He traveled from town to town, boat to boat, hillside to hillside, living entirely from the generosity of others and the provision of His Father. He slept under the open sky more nights than we can comprehend, walked through villages without a home to return to, and woke up each morning with the same reality pressing against His ribs: all He owned was purpose. That truth becomes even more staggering when you consider how many people through history have imagined that godliness and prosperity are twins, or that the blessing of God must always appear as material comfort. Yet the most blessed human being who ever breathed owned nothing but the clothes on His back, and even those were gambled away at the cross. This is the kind of truth that pulls the insulation off our modern faith and forces us to see Jesus not as a well-resourced leader but as a wandering teacher who demonstrated that purpose and provision are not the same thing. It invites us to wrestle honestly with whether we have confused comfort with calling.

If Jesus had lived the way we think spiritual leaders should live—settled, stable, established—His message would have been hearable but not transferable. Instead, He lived in the wilderness of human vulnerability. He understood the uncertainty of each day. He navigated the fragility of relying on others. And that allowed Him to meet humanity in its real condition, not in the sanitized version we pretend to live in. So many people feel behind in life because they compare themselves to norms that never existed in Scripture. They feel lesser because they rent, or they move between jobs, or they rebuild again after life has torn things apart. Yet the Savior Himself never owned a home, never held a long-term job once His ministry began, never sought financial security, and never apologized for it. The freedom He carried was not the freedom of stability, but the freedom of obedience. And that should cause us to ask why we measure ourselves by standards God never required.

There is a strange relief that comes when you realize Jesus never expected His followers to become homeowners of their own destiny, but travelers on a road shaped by surrender. When He called people, He never said, figure out your five-year plan and then follow Me. He simply said, follow Me. No caveats. No prerequisites. No security attached. The invitation always came dressed in uncertainty because the faith He came to birth was not built on calculation but trust. And sometimes trust will take you to places where nothing looks settled. For those who feel like their life does not look the way it “should,” the life of Jesus stands as a quiet defense: you can be exactly where God wants you, living with less than you imagined, without being one inch outside of His will. He shows us that the absence of traditional success markers is not evidence of failure but sometimes the very proof that God is writing a different kind of story in you.

Yet it is not just the lack of a home that defines Jesus’ mission; it is the way He filled the world with belonging even while having no place of His own. Everywhere He went, He built community without owning a community center. He healed people without owning a clinic. He preached life-changing messages without owning a stage. He discipled His followers without owning a classroom. His entire ministry functioned without the physical structures we consider essential. This is why His homelessness is not a mark of deficiency but a revelation of divine strategy. God wrapped eternity in flesh and sent Him to travel light so nothing external could stake a claim on His authority. He was never bound to one geographic region, never tied to buildings that could burn, and never dependent on systems that could collapse. His mission was as mobile as the wind, and He needed to move freely—because heaven was showing us that the greatest works of God often happen in the margins, not in the comfort zones.

When you peel back the layers of our culture’s obsession with status, wealth, and visible markers of success, you begin to see how radical Jesus’ life truly was. He didn’t marry. He didn’t build a family estate. He didn’t leave behind an inheritance that financial planners would applaud. Instead, He left behind a kingdom. He left behind a people who would reshape the world. He left behind a message that outlived empires. But from the outside looking in, His life looked like anything but accomplishment. And that is where so many believers quietly struggle today, because we have been conditioned to believe that if we are truly walking in God’s favor, our lives will be ascending in measurable ways people can track. Yet Jesus lived the most favored life in history and died with no possessions to His name. What He carried could not be measured by numbers, but by eternity.

There is something deeply healing about recognizing that you do not have to fit the cultural script to be used by God. You can be single. You can be divorced. You can be rebuilding. You can be starting over at forty, fifty, sixty, or beyond. You can have days when you’re unsure where the road is going, and God can still breathe purpose through every step. Jesus’ homelessness is a strange comfort for those who have wandered through seasons of uncertainty, because it reminds us that uncertainty does not disprove destiny. If anything, uncertainty often accompanies it. When God leads you into a calling, He rarely hands you the blueprint first. He gives you the whisper, the nudge, the conviction. And you learn to follow that voice even when you don’t know where you will lay your head next.

His lack of a home also reveals the depth of His identification with humanity. The Creator of galaxies chose to feel the ache of transience. He chose to experience what it means to rely on the kindness of others. He chose to walk through towns where He had no safe place to retreat. And by doing so, He made Himself accessible to everyone who has ever felt displaced, forgotten, or unseen. There are countless people today who feel like they are scrambling through life without anything solid beneath their feet. Jesus steps into that emotional terrain and says, I’ve been there, and I know how to lead you through it. His ministry carries the scent of dust, not luxury; the simplicity of fields, not palaces; the humility of borrowed spaces, not personal empires. We follow a Savior who lived on the move, which means our faith was birthed in motion, not in comfort.

There is also a deeper theological layer in the homelessness of Jesus—He was not homeless because He lacked ability or resources; He was homeless because He refused to be anchored to a world He came to redeem. His true home was with the Father, and every step He took on earth was purposeful, temporary, and mission-driven. That alone should reshape how we view our own existence, because if the Son of God lived as a traveler passing through, then we too are meant to hold this world loosely. We build. We work. We steward. But we do not cling. We do not measure our worth by our addresses. We do not define our identity by the square footage of our achievements. When you remember that Jesus lived as a nomad of divine purpose, it frees you from the pressure to create a life that looks impressive instead of faithful.

When you step back and trace His movements through the Gospels, you begin to notice that the lack of a physical home never diminished His sense of direction. He always knew where He was going because He always knew why He was here. Most people think a house provides stability, but for Jesus, stability came from communion with the Father. His footing wasn’t anchored in geography; it was anchored in obedience. And that is where so many believers quietly wrestle, because we’ve been taught to chase the life that looks secure instead of the life that feels surrendered. Yet Jesus demonstrated that surrender, not stability, is the birthplace of purpose. That is why He kept moving. That is why He spent nights under the stars and days crossing borders. That is why He allowed His life to be shaped more by assignment than comfort. And if you’ve ever felt like your life has not settled the way you hoped it would, then the life of Jesus whispers that perhaps God is guiding you into something deeper than stability—perhaps He is guiding you into purpose.

There is an ache in the human heart that believes that arrival is the goal. We think life begins once we own the right home, achieve the right milestone, or build the kind of predictable existence that others applaud. But Jesus challenges that entire framework by showing that the journey itself is sacred, not merely the destination. The road became His classroom. The fields became His sanctuary. The unpredictable rhythms of each day became the living illustration of the message He carried. His parables grew directly from the soil His feet walked through, the seas He crossed, and the hillsides He prayed upon. This means His homelessness did not diminish His ministry; it shaped it. It kept His heart aligned with heaven more than with the expectations of culture. And for the believer who feels like they are living in between things, like they are forever on the edge of becoming, His life reassures you that the in-between is not a delay—it is a design.

Some people feel embarrassed when their life looks unfinished, undone, or unconventional. They question whether God is truly with them when they don’t have the markers that others use to measure success. But the Savior who changed eternity would have looked unsuccessful through modern eyes. No business. No marriage. No estate. No children carrying His lineage. Just a trail of transformed lives, healed bodies, awakened hearts, and a movement that could not be stopped. His purpose was not validated by societal norms; it was validated by heaven itself. And that is where your confidence must be anchored—God may be writing a story in you that defies every template you’ve seen around you. You might not look successful by the world’s standards, but heaven may be cheering louder than you realize. Jesus shows that the absence of what others celebrate does not diminish the presence of what God is cultivating inside you.

The deeper truth beneath Jesus’ homelessness is that He refused to be owned by anything temporal. A home can be a gift, but it can also become a tether. A career can be a calling, but it can also become a cage. A lifestyle can be a blessing, but it can also become a barrier to the movement of God. Jesus lived with nothing anchoring Him but purpose, and that allowed Him to pour His life out without hesitation. There were no competing allegiances. No divided priorities. No earthly identity He was trying to protect. Everything He did pointed toward the cross, the resurrection, and the salvation of the world. And while most of us will never live as nomads, we can adopt His posture of loosened grip—living with our hearts unbound, our identity unanchored to achievements, and our hope rooted in something that cannot be shaken.

It is remarkable how the more you study His life, the more you realize that His lack of a home became the very thing that made room for everyone else to belong. He walked into the lives of the broken with no walls between Him and them. He stepped into homes not as a guest needing accommodation but as a Savior offering transformation. He made fishermen feel like family. He made lepers feel human again. He made outcasts feel chosen. He made sinners feel seen without being condemned. His presence brought belonging everywhere He went because His heart was never divided. That is the power of a life unanchored from worldly measures: it becomes a refuge for others. And if you have ever wondered why God let your life unfold in ways that feel unstable, perhaps part of the reason is that instability has a way of softening you, deepening you, widening your compassion, and making you a safe place for others—just like Jesus.

His homelessness also reminds us that this world is not our home in the ultimate sense. We are travelers passing through, carrying purpose that cannot be confined to a single location. But we often forget that and cling tightly to the things we build. We fear losing them. We fear not having enough. We fear falling behind. Yet Jesus’s life whispers a deeper truth into those fears: you are not defined by what you own; you are defined by who you follow. Your worth is not measured by your possessions; it is measured by your obedience. Your legacy is not determined by what you accumulate; it is determined by what God accomplishes through you. And if the Savior of the world could live with empty hands and a full heart, then perhaps the emptiness in our own lives is not a punishment but an invitation to trust.

There is a tenderness in recognizing that the Son of God walked roads many of us have walked—roads of uncertainty, roads of need, roads of transition. He knows what it feels like to not fit the societal mold, to live outside traditional milestones, to carry a destiny that others might misunderstand. When you relate to Jesus in His homelessness, you begin to see that He understands you more deeply than you realized. Your struggles are not strange to Him. Your questions are not foreign. Your longing for stability is human, but His presence in your instability is divine. He joins you in the tension and gently teaches you how to see your life through eternal eyes instead of temporary ones.

For those who feel behind, His life offers freedom: you are not late; you are being led. For those who feel forgotten, His life offers comfort: He knows what it means to wander. For those who feel out of place, His life offers belonging: the Savior with no home opened the door of the kingdom to you. For those who feel disqualified by their earthly lack, His life offers dignity: heaven’s greatest work was accomplished through someone who owned nothing. His homelessness is not a footnote; it is a revelation. It shows us what truly matters, what truly lasts, and what truly defines us.

If you look closely, you begin to recognize that the entire Gospel story is framed by borrowed spaces. He was born in a borrowed stable. He preached from borrowed boats. He ate the Last Supper in a borrowed room. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. His lack was not evidence of weakness but evidence of mission. Everything He touched became holy not because it belonged to Him but because He filled it with purpose. That is the quiet miracle hidden inside His life: holiness can inhabit the ordinary, purpose can inhabit the impermanent, and God can inhabit the places that look unqualified. So if your life feels borrowed, unfinished, transitional, or temporary, you are standing on sacred ground without even realizing it.

The world teaches you to measure your life by acquisition, but Jesus teaches you to measure it by impact. The world says build comfort, but Jesus says build character. The world says secure your future, but Jesus says surrender your present. The world says find stability, but Jesus says find Me. That is why His homelessness matters—it confronts the very foundation of how we evaluate our worth. And once that foundation cracks, the light gets in. You begin to breathe easier. You begin to release the shame of not fitting the mold. You begin to see that the parts of your life that feel uncertain may be the very places where God is preparing to move most powerfully.

His life gives you permission to stop chasing the version of success the world keeps dangling in front of you. It frees you to pursue a life that might confuse others but pleases heaven. It reassures you that purpose is not tied to possessions, calling is not tied to credentials, and destiny is not tied to domestic milestones. If you never build the life others expect, you can still build the life God intended. And if you ever feel like the world has passed you by, remember that the One who redeemed the world did so while owning nothing but purpose. You are in good company.

As you walk forward, carry this truth gently: if Jesus could live a life that made sense to heaven even when it made little sense on earth, then you too can trust God with a life that unfolds differently than you imagined. You do not need the validation of the world to walk confidently in the calling God placed in you. You do not need the traditional markers to know you are on the right path. All you need is His voice, His presence, and His direction. If those are intact, you have everything. The Savior with no home built a kingdom without walls, and you are part of that legacy. Your life's value will never be measured by what you own but by what God accomplishes in the space where you surrender.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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It's been one day since we broke up. I've had an incredibly crushing pain in my chest pretty much since then and I've spent most of today trying not to cry, or going to my car, or walking and breaking down crying. It hurts really fucking bad even though I know that it's honestly for the best. I cry as much as I can and then I start to feel a little bit better for a little bit until I see something or I hear something that reminds me of her and it hurts all over again. I walked really far from my work in the middle of kind of nowhere and I looked down and I see UCSD health, and it reminds me of her. I remember on one of her dates she started to have a floater in her vision, and for her that’s potentially a sign of her retina detaching and so we left the bookstore and I took her straight to the specialist. I then sat with her for four hours, and I relayed all the information to her mom while trying to keep her anxiety down. Her genetic condition makes her life really fucking difficult. And I remember that I didn’t think about how she went blind how she might not be able to do any of the things she likes to do, or the things we do together, for the things she needs to do for money, but rather I thought about how I could maybe bring back some of the hobbies she has to her. Or how we could find new things together. I thought it would be a really sweet present as a surprise if I got myself tested for the gene that she has so that I can show her that we can have kids without the risk. I thought it was such a pure form of love.

I feel like my chest is crushed, and I can’t think. The grief is so fucking big. I think about the pictures of her, and almost all of my favorites are of her. There were a lot of really nice things. And there were also a lot of really bad things. And I wish it could’ve worked out, but what I mean by that is I wish that there bad things weren’t there. But you cannot pick and choose parts of a person.

I believe that in the future I will have a partner that is emotionally mature and listens to me and makes me feel safe. In the future I will not have to feel like I have to fully explained and archive my emotions as much, because hopefully they will have the knowledge and empathy required to understand a bit more. I think I’ll have a partner who will genuinely make me laugh in clever and smart ways that I get to steal. I’ll have someone who will teach me things also, and that will have meaningful and insightful conversations with me. I won’t feel like I’m being patronizing, and I won’t have to worry about stepping on any insecurities or ego. I will have a partner who values my feelings and interests as much as their own, if not more. I will have someone who is very thoughtful and take the time to truly understand me. I’ll have someone who is considerate to me and kind in minor ways, without asking for recognition. I will have a relationship where conflict could be resolved through effective conversation, both with understanding their own thoughts, but also compassion behind them. I will not feel like I am having a one-sided argument, and I will not feel like I have to regulate someone’s emotions for them.

It’s such a weird thing to have this grief. I both recognize that the relationship was not one that should’ve continued, and it is absolutely a good thing that it ended. I know that no matter what it is going to be incredibly painful to end, even if that is the right decision. But that exists in a part of my mind, that remains un mixed like oil and water. And next to it are all of the beautiful memories. All of the sweet and kind things that she did. And how loved I felt. How much I felt like she tried, and how many times I felt hope.

I think during the relationship I got swept up in a lot of the fantasy of what the future could look like. And I think that’s part of what I’m mourning so much. I don’t know what to do with all of these sweet memories and little things that I didn’t even know I remembered until now. And it’s just a wave after a wave that hits me. It sucks because the highs were so high. She really was a drug to me.

I have a feeling that time will heal this, but it’s terrified because time happens so slowly. And I just wanna know what I can do to stop this feeling because it kills me so much. I feel so horribly sick to my stomach. There were a lot of things that I didn’t like about her, not in the sense that like they were big issues at all but just things that I wasn’t crazy about.

I started writing more things on the list of things I didn’t like, and also fundamental reasons why the relationship would not work out. I feel cruel doing it from being honest, but I need some sort of a way to leave this nostalgia behind. I can always return to the place of the nostalgia, but there will be nothing left. There will not be the illusion that things could just be getting better and this was just a perfect storm, or that this would be the last time these issues happen and then we would be good. Issues just kept happening, and perfect storms just kept happening. At some point there is too much coincidence and I have to acknowledge the fact that past behavior is the best indication of future behavior.

I am absolutely a good partner, and a catch. I don’t think I’m perfect, and I don’t think that I wouldn’t hurt a partner accidentally, but I think that I have shown a consistent commitment to listening and understanding my partner, and I have the tools and the drive to change. I also believe that I am attractive, I am kind, I am genuine, I am funny, I am successful, I am generous, I am very loving, and I think that I am happy with the person that I am. And that person includes the fact that I want to consistently continue to improve as a person, and this relationship has shown me several ways where that is important.

I think a big thing I learned was how easy it is for me to fall into codependency. I absolutely struggled with loneliness when I moved here. And in a way I am grateful for the pain that comes from this entire situation because that both taught me how important it is, while also reminding myself that I absolutely have the tools to find and foster connection. I’m thankful that I have friends around me, and I’m thankful that I know that I will survive this. It’s absolutely going to hurt, but this isn’t just the price of good things. This is serving as a reminder and an incentive for my mind to recognize the hard choices that I needed to make along the way, and the things that I need to look at in myself. Every day will be easier than the last. At least in the amortized sense. I won’t have to worry about fixing the current issue, if me talking with someone else or spending time with someone else leads to their stabilization, if that destabilization leads to her interacting with bad groups of people online, like e daters, or feeling the anxiety and fear of not knowing what she is hiding from me. My sister said something very hopeful, there are actually a lot of good families out there. There will be plenty of kind families that will welcome me with kindness and the same sense of inclusion that E’s family did. There was nothing in E that is unique and unobtainable again. I may not find all of the same things in a partner, but my wants will change too.

If nothing else I’ve learned how easy it is for me to love. I don’t need someone to be my everything, I don’t need them to like all of my hobbies, and share all the same interests. I’m grateful for that experience since it let me learn firsthand both the good and bad things with that. I have faith it will be ok in the end.