There’s a question I keep returning to lately, though not in a dramatic way, but more like background noise that occasionally sharpens into focus when I least expect it.

What do I let in?

It sounds simple. Almost too simple to take seriously. But I’ve been realizing how rarely I actually ask it and how important it may have become in our times. Most of the time, things just arrive in the form of images, words, opinions, energies, or other people’s certainties, and I absorb them without thinking. I scroll, I save, I bookmark, and I move on. The day fills itself, and slowly, without noticing, my inner world accumulates fragments I never consciously chose.

I used to think this was just how life worked. Information comes, you process it, and you continue. But something shifted in how I see it now. I’ve started paying closer attention to this matter, and it all came from a growing sense that what I allow in eventually shapes what I become. That the textures of my attention settle, and eventually form me.

There’s a weight to that realization that makes me want to slow down before saying yes to everything that asks for my attention. It’s a clarifying weight that helped me recognize that choosing what stays is no longer a luxury but a responsibility. Maybe one of the few responsibilities that remains entirely mine in today’s world that increasingly decides or attempts to decide things on my behalf.

And yet, curating alone doesn’t feel like the whole truth.

Because I’ve also been sitting with something else this week. A recognition that surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. The people and the things that don’t resemble me, that don’t fit neatly into my patterns, aesthetics, or ways of understanding, might actually be the source of the coherence I am looking for.

I think we’re taught that difference is something to manage, that unity requires agreement, and that for something to belong in our world, it has to mirror us in some recognizable way. But I’ve been feeling the opposite for a long time, questioning myself the same thing over and over again:

What if connection doesn’t begin with similarity, but at the edge of what we already understand?

I think about how often I’ve looked for resonance only in the familiar, in voices that confirmed what I already believed or images that matched the aesthetic I’d already built, and how much I might have missed by doing that. How many encounters passed me by because they didn’t arrive in the shape I was expecting.

There’s something freeing in letting that go, in allowing things to remain what they are without needing them to become something else before I can appreciate them. And for those questioning (as I did initially), this doesn’t mean that I am abandoning discernment, but rather it means expanding what discernment can hold.

If we embraced each other more genuinely, without requiring that others become legible to us first, I wonder what would change. Not just in relationships, but in how we curate our lives, our attention, and eventually our inner worlds.

What if choosing well didn’t mean closing off, but making room? What if the discipline of selectivity and the openness of acceptance weren’t opposites, but two expressions of the same care?

I’ve been reflecting on these questions. I don’t have a clean answer. Maybe there isn’t one. But I am learning to stay with the question longer before reaching the resolution.

This week, I wrote more in-depth about what it means to choose, to curate, in an age that produces endlessly. I am looking at the act of curation not as a matter of taste, but as a form of care, a way of deciding what kind of inner world we’re building in the age of artificial everything. If this resonates with you, you can read the full essay, Curation as Modern Wisdom, on The Hidden I.

This week, I’ve also shared a curation that sits on the other side of the same coin. Five works, five voices, with none of them asking to be the same, and yet, together, forming something whole. They have reminded me that multiplicity can be a form of coherence, not a threat to it. You can experience Many, Still One, on The Hidden I.

Thank you for being here!

See you next week!🌹

Eduard 🌹

There’s a question I keep returning to lately, though not in a dramatic way, but more like background noise that occasionally sharpens into focus when I least expect it.

What do I let in?

It sounds simple. Almost too simple to take seriously. But I’ve been realizing how rarely I actually ask it and how important it may have become in our times. Most of the time, things just arrive in the form of images, words, opinions, energies, or other people’s certainties, and I absorb them without thinking. I scroll, I save, I bookmark, and I move on. The day fills itself, and slowly, without noticing, my inner world accumulates fragments I never consciously chose.

I used to think this was just how life worked. Information comes, you process it, and you continue. But something shifted in how I see it now. I’ve started paying closer attention to this matter, and it all came from a growing sense that what I allow in eventually shapes what I become. That the textures of my attention settle, and eventually form me.

There’s a weight to that realization that makes me want to slow down before saying yes to everything that asks for my attention. It’s a clarifying weight that helped me recognize that choosing what stays is no longer a luxury but a responsibility. Maybe one of the few responsibilities that remains entirely mine in today’s world that increasingly decides or attempts to decide things on my behalf.

And yet, curating alone doesn’t feel like the whole truth.

Because I’ve also been sitting with something else this week. A recognition that surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. The people and the things that don’t resemble me, that don’t fit neatly into my patterns, aesthetics, or ways of understanding, might actually be the source of the coherence I am looking for.

I think we’re taught that difference is something to manage, that unity requires agreement, and that for something to belong in our world, it has to mirror us in some recognizable way. But I’ve been feeling the opposite for a long time, questioning myself the same thing over and over again:

What if connection doesn’t begin with similarity, but at the edge of what we already understand?

I think about how often I’ve looked for resonance only in the familiar, in voices that confirmed what I already believed or images that matched the aesthetic I’d already built, and how much I might have missed by doing that. How many encounters passed me by because they didn’t arrive in the shape I was expecting.

There’s something freeing in letting that go, in allowing things to remain what they are without needing them to become something else before I can appreciate them. And for those questioning (as I did initially), this doesn’t mean that I am abandoning discernment, but rather it means expanding what discernment can hold.

If we embraced each other more genuinely, without requiring that others become legible to us first, I wonder what would change. Not just in relationships, but in how we curate our lives, our attention, and eventually our inner worlds.

What if choosing well didn’t mean closing off, but making room? What if the discipline of selectivity and the openness of acceptance weren’t opposites, but two expressions of the same care?

I’ve been reflecting on these questions. I don’t have a clean answer. Maybe there isn’t one. But I am learning to stay with the question longer before reaching the resolution.

This week, I wrote more in-depth about what it means to choose, to curate, in an age that produces endlessly. I am looking at the act of curation not as a matter of taste, but as a form of care, a way of deciding what kind of inner world we’re building in the age of artificial everything. If this resonates with you, you can read the full essay, Curation as Modern Wisdom, on The Hidden I.

This week, I’ve also shared a curation that sits on the other side of the same coin. Five works, five voices, with none of them asking to be the same, and yet, together, forming something whole. They have reminded me that multiplicity can be a form of coherence, not a threat to it. You can experience Many, Still One, on The Hidden I.

Thank you for being here!

See you next week!🌹

Eduard 🌹