Walking up to me was a Network School newcomer with food on his paper plate: "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a lowdown, lying, gossiping, backbiting lot of people," "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here." Another newcomer walks up. "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a decent, hardworking, law-abiding, friendly lot of people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of people you'll find around here."

It is worth knowing that what I notice in Forest City is shaped by my own values, taste, insecurities, and blind spots. If I say Network School has not yet found people-market fit, I am revealing as much about my own standards as about the community itself. These letters reflect reality as it passes through my filter, for my writing is intended for netizens of start-up societies.

At Network School, I have become aware that there is a version of myself I can easily explain, another that people may understand before I do, another version that I keep hidden behind charm or competence, and still another that remains obscure even to me. Within a few days, people know my name, where I'm from, what I am building, and how fluently I can answer the question of who I am. After a while, people may observe information about me that I would not know myself, such as my mannerisms and nonverbal behaviour that others see but I do not. What unsettles me is not the possibility of being misunderstood. I fear that others may see parts of me more clearly than I do myself, like my motives, fantasies, and yearning that would compromise the version of me that I've curated for others. Then again, why do I feel the need to curate at all?

The question I keep asking myself is what I am here to do at Network School. I would like to write a book about my year of living here. I do not want to spend my life doing work of little interest just to steal a few hours for work that feels real. Writing these letters feels fun to me. I came to Network School in part because I thought a place like this might make for a good story. It has been a month and a half since I arrived in Forest City, long enough for this place to rearrange my habits. I came here partly to make distractions less convenient. I replaced my iPhone with a CAT flip phone, which puts a little friction back into my attention. The cover images for these letters are all taken with my CAT phone. My days have grown quieter, and in some ways predictable. I write at night beside the gold-lit trees in NS Cafe, surrounded by the rotating cast of founders and remote workers who seem to live different ratios of work to life.

My routine at Network School is backwards compared to most people here. I have a career as a data consultant for U.S. clients, which means I work Eastern Time without telling them I’ve moved halfway across the world to join a startup society in Forest City. There is a twelve-hour time difference between Toronto and Singapore, so I start work at 9 p.m. and usually go to bed by 4 a.m. I wake around noon, read and write through the afternoon, go to the 5 p.m. gym "Burn" session, eat the catered dinner, then settle into NS Cafe until work begins. Some nights I jiggle my trackpad just enough to keep the green symbol glowing on Teams while I write these letters. Consulting pays the bills; writing feels like the work I am trying to grow into. I am using one kind of work to buy time for the other.

I recently picked up a book that taught me the cause of suffering is the ignorance of the true nature of reality, as well as insatiable desire. The cure is freedom from craving and self-grasping. I see no aim for these letters. No purpose. I simply write them because it's fun to notice how reality unfolds, then communicate the story with others. If founders build products in the hope that people will find them useful, writers build stories in hopes that someone might feel more alive for having read them. That, at least, is the trade I find myself trying to learn through these letters in Network School.