I've been spending an excessive amount of time online recently.

With the Permaweb Journal, I'm exploring both tech and literary communities on X. In my foray into these new spaces, I've encountered a larger number of people than expected who have a spiritual and philosophical outlook toward tech. These communities, alongside the lit scene that I was introduced to through my short time in NYC, have me interested in the crossovers of online philosophy, literature, and tech.

Ever since a fortune teller at my high school prom predicted some spooky things about my future that ruined my night and haunted me for subsequent nights, I've kept spirituality at arm's length. But I tend to find myself in situations where it comes up anyway.

Recently a girl pointed at a tattoo on my arm of a scale and asked, "Are you a Libra?"

I was immediately confused. Do I really look like a spiritual kind of person? "I'm not sure," I said, "I just liked the way it looked."

After a certain amount of tattoos, the meanings become arbitrary. Tattoos are sort of like carbon dating for bad decisions, and I prefer not to explain the psychology behind my poor decision making to a random person I just met.

The conversation continued and I complimented her nose ring. I told her I used to have one in my more eccentric days.

"Why'd you take it out?" she asked. "Got sick of being called slurs from the less accepting types?"

"No, that never bothered me. I actually looked in the mirror one day and didn't like how off-balanced my face looked with a piece of metal on one side of my nose."

"Like a true Libra," she replied.

Fair play. On that day I moved to the right on the astrology girl bell curve.

Like the scale on the back of my arm, I'm on a quest to find balance. Finding place online isn't easy. You have to navigate schizo anons, productivity-maxing tech bros, degen gamblers, influencers, academics and more. I don't fit into any of these subgroups, so I'm left wondering: how does one actually find place online?

Is it yelling into the void? Becoming a reply guy? Engagement farming by copying posts from larger accounts? None of those feel authentic, and any real person will see through the performance.

But performing online is part of the game we play if we want to be noticed. The physically attractive post thirst traps on Instagram. The wordcels and shape rotators post on X.

Finding place IRL is hard too. Now in NYC I find myself not fitting into the corporate types or the hipster types. I feel myself becoming soft from sitting on a computer all day and sometimes catch myself LARPing blue-collar by wearing boots and Carhartt carpenter pants just to go into the office and write about a niche internet community.

After work I hit the gym, and my favorite part is hanging from a pull-up bar. Not because Andrew Huberman said to do it, but to try and get the calluses back that once covered my palms from working construction many summers ago. It's all a performance, but in most cases we're performing for ourselves whether it is online or offline. So might as well be genuine in it.

I believe the most successful people online have taste and authenticity. Authenticity comes from having substance. And tastemakers know how to perform effortlessly.

I'm at a point where I have substance but still trying to find taste. I've spent the past 6 months in my local Obsidian notes writing longform articles that turned into a publication, preparing personal blogs and soon a draft for a novel.

I have a lot to say but I'm still searching for methods of tasteful performance.

I find a lot of people online have good taste, but not a whole lot of substance. In tech, there is no shortage of vaporware crypto or AI companies that aren't doing a whole lot under the hood, but they have the performance down. I'm new to the lit world, but I've always found the Dime's Square scene's online presence funny because instead of creating art, they talk online about creating art. But it kind of works. In both cases they found their place online. The performance IS their substance.

The most sustainable approach is probably somewhere in the middle of "if you build it, they will come" and "performance is the substance," but what do I know?

Maybe the answer is that there is no perfect balance. This is my sisyphean struggle.

Like a true Libra.