Agency

Since writing [On Motivation] two years ago, I’ve thought a lot about this idea of nodal points. And just to be clear, what I’m calling a “nodal point” is just any “thing” in the world that has changed your trajectory. The easiest examples are the ones that I gave, but a nodal point could also be a person, it could be a friend, or a place, or just an idea. Anything that has a hand in shaping how you see the world.

I’m interested in this idea because I think on some level, the sum total of all of a person’s nodal points could be some kind of proxy for a personal identity. At the very least, it’s an indication of an individual perspective. Since writing this essay, I’ve thought a lot about this kind of personal intuition towards things: the radar that any person has that leads them to different points in their life.

In an ideal world, one’s own personal intuition or radar is the same thing as the force that motivates them.

In many ways, we have outsourced the curation of our information diets to distant platforms unaligned with our interests. Reclaiming even partial agency in navigating knowledge networks is an act of self-care. Setting up our own RSS feeds, linking out to personal sites, elevating voices that inspire - these actions are the basis of a healthy information democracy. One that is defined by thoughtful pruning, editing and contextualising via trusted guides, not by endless generation,

In every garden, seasons of growth require seasons of care - cultivating, pruning, and even fallow periods to replenish the soil. May we embrace this fertility cycle of information - rather than seek to dominate and control it.