MY HYPERTEXT PROJECTS
I like this picture because it’s both interesting and confusing: you can feel that several things are happening at once, and they seem connected—but might not be immediately clear how.
I took it in summer 2019 during a trip to Cambridge, UK. In a room of King’s College Chapel, a display explaining the chapel’s architecture used mirrors and models to create this strange, beautiful view, and I decided to capture it.
A year later my first book, Media Is Us, finally came out after more than five years of work. I was proud of it, but I also felt the cost of a linear narrative: to make a coherent book, I had to leave out many ideas that still felt important. During that Cambridge trip, I remember deciding that my next major project would focus on meanings.
But the same problem remained. Any new book would force me to narrow my path again, even though I was drawn to many interconnected questions—especially one central question: How can people be more connected and less divided?
In the winter of 2021, I had a different idea: instead of choosing one direction, I would explore many directions at the same time. That became my first hypertext project, Me, Looking for Meaning, which began in February 2021. This project is where I try to think seriously about a question that has been driving my work for years: why is it so hard for people to understand each other well enough to coexist, collaborate, and stay connected—especially in polarized times? The project explores the obstacles to connection through a basic feature of our humanity: we are meaning-making creatures. We constantly interpret what we see, tell stories about motives and threats, decide what feels true, and then act as if those meanings are the world itself. In this hypertext, I follow those processes across many topics—relationships, media, identity, moral judgment, reality and truth—not to offer one neat argument, but to trace how our ways of making sense can both help and harm our ability to live together.
In November 2021, I launched my second hypertext on a separate website: POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. It continues the same underlying concern—how we reduce conflict and polarization by strengthening empathy, compassion, and connection—but it looks at that concern through a sharper lens: power. I write against the increasingly common habit of treating power as a simple binary (powerful vs. powerless, oppressors vs. oppressed). Instead, I explore how power and powerlessness are often intertwined within the same person, relationship, or social situation, and how our meanings—about identity, morality, safety, and belonging—can intensify that dynamic. The goal is not to excuse harm or deny injustice, but to complicate the story in a way that makes better understanding and coexistence more possible.
A hypertext book is nonlinear and digital: it’s made of entries connected through links. This format lets me follow connections as they emerge rather than forcing everything into one storyline. It also supports my working process. The project grows gradually—and readers can follow that growth.
This picture helps me accept that complexity can be beautiful even when it’s confusing. I wouldn’t be surprised if many visitors arrive and think, “What is going on here?” Some may leave without an answer. Still, I’m staying true to how I work. If this page has sparked your curiosity, I hope you’ll find something worthwhile in my intellectual journey.
I took it in summer 2019 during a trip to Cambridge, UK. In a room of King’s College Chapel, a display explaining the chapel’s architecture used mirrors and models to create this strange, beautiful view, and I decided to capture it.
A year later my first book, Media Is Us, finally came out after more than five years of work. I was proud of it, but I also felt the cost of a linear narrative: to make a coherent book, I had to leave out many ideas that still felt important. During that Cambridge trip, I remember deciding that my next major project would focus on meanings.
But the same problem remained. Any new book would force me to narrow my path again, even though I was drawn to many interconnected questions—especially one central question: How can people be more connected and less divided?
In the winter of 2021, I had a different idea: instead of choosing one direction, I would explore many directions at the same time. That became my first hypertext project, Me, Looking for Meaning, which began in February 2021. This project is where I try to think seriously about a question that has been driving my work for years: why is it so hard for people to understand each other well enough to coexist, collaborate, and stay connected—especially in polarized times? The project explores the obstacles to connection through a basic feature of our humanity: we are meaning-making creatures. We constantly interpret what we see, tell stories about motives and threats, decide what feels true, and then act as if those meanings are the world itself. In this hypertext, I follow those processes across many topics—relationships, media, identity, moral judgment, reality and truth—not to offer one neat argument, but to trace how our ways of making sense can both help and harm our ability to live together.
In November 2021, I launched my second hypertext on a separate website: POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. It continues the same underlying concern—how we reduce conflict and polarization by strengthening empathy, compassion, and connection—but it looks at that concern through a sharper lens: power. I write against the increasingly common habit of treating power as a simple binary (powerful vs. powerless, oppressors vs. oppressed). Instead, I explore how power and powerlessness are often intertwined within the same person, relationship, or social situation, and how our meanings—about identity, morality, safety, and belonging—can intensify that dynamic. The goal is not to excuse harm or deny injustice, but to complicate the story in a way that makes better understanding and coexistence more possible.
A hypertext book is nonlinear and digital: it’s made of entries connected through links. This format lets me follow connections as they emerge rather than forcing everything into one storyline. It also supports my working process. The project grows gradually—and readers can follow that growth.
This picture helps me accept that complexity can be beautiful even when it’s confusing. I wouldn’t be surprised if many visitors arrive and think, “What is going on here?” Some may leave without an answer. Still, I’m staying true to how I work. If this page has sparked your curiosity, I hope you’ll find something worthwhile in my intellectual journey.