I thought all the stuff I was passively consuming didn’t matter, but it shaped my worldview and my sensibilities and my ability to do things in the world. All the time you spend reading Twitter and going on Instagram and browsing bookstores and watching Netflix does modify you in a thousand little ways. Nothing matters as much as what we pay attention to. We overestimate our ability to pick and choose what we’re interested in and what we’re affected by, when in reality the real lever is just time. If you spend enough time and focus on something it will remodel you from the inside out. (This applies to people too, of course. Spend enough time with someone and they’ll bleed into you.)

We can all be a little more random, a little less curated online. And here we might turn to etymology. The root of the word “random” is Germanic, and it evolves into the Old French randir for “a gallop,” then randon for “great speed,” and then to the Middle English random, for an “impetuous headlong rush.” Identity as random resists the idea of a cohesive or narrative arc to one self, online or offline, instead embracing the joys of “an impetuous headlong rush” through multiple moods and selves. Post whatever you want.