Elizaveta Friesem
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Picture

********************* LIST OF COMPLETED PAGES ***********************

This is an experimental hypertext book-in-progress I began in 2021. It’s built around a simple premise: human thinking isn’t linear, so a linear book isn’t always the best container for questions that sprawl, loop back, and change shape over time.

I use this space to study how people make sense of the world—and how meaning-making, essential to being human, can also cause harm when it hardens into unquestioned stories.

What I’m trying to understand here
This project is philosophical, but not abstract for its own sake. I’m interested in questions with real consequences:
  • Why do people misunderstand each other—even when they mean well?
  • Why do conflict, polarization, and dehumanization feel so “natural” once they start?
  • What helps people repair connection after rupture?
  • How can we collaborate across divides without erasing difference or forcing false agreement?

Underlying those questions is a broader concern: how to reduce the kinds of suffering that come from misreading ourselves, misreading others, and getting trapped in stories we can’t see from the inside.

Why hypertext
Instead of presenting one argument from beginning to end, I build a network of interconnected pages—ideas that branch, echo, and complicate one another. You can enter anywhere, follow links, and let your path reflect your own curiosity.

The structure is not an aesthetic gimmick; it’s a method. This project draws on the rhizomatic approach described by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, where knowledge grows through connections rather than hierarchy—more like roots spreading underground than chapters lined up in a row.

What you’ll find on this site
Some pages are polished essays; others are shorter reflections or working drafts. Even when a page is “finished,” it remains part of a living system—open to revision as my thinking changes and new links appear. The writing aims to be scholarly in substance but readable in style. You do not need academic training to follow the ideas here.

Related work
This project also connects to my separate (but closely related) hypertext project on power—a space that grew out of the questions that kept surfacing here.

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I use AI tools as a kind of writing partner—to shape drafts, clarify arguments, and explore phrasing. But the ideas, perspectives, and direction are always my own. Every piece here is part of an evolving personal project. For more details about my use of AI, see here.
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A >
          • Are you an individual?
        • B
        • C
        • D
        • E >
          • Empathy with Boundaries
        • F
        • G
        • H >
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
        • I >
          • Ideas
        • J
        • K
        • L >
          • List of completed pages
          • The Lure of Special
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning-making vs. sensemaking
          • My quest for meaning
          • The Myth of "Bad People"
        • N >
          • Narratives and Circumstances
        • O >
          • On being a scholar
        • P >
          • Postmodern philosophy
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rethinking What It Means to “Love Your Enemy”
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Stories we tell
          • Symbolic interactionism and Buddhism
        • T >
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Three Blind Men vs Rashomon
          • Three Coordinates
          • Trust and Conflict (and Dragons)
        • U
        • V
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Moral complexity and ambiguity of truth in Wicked
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Poetry
    • Video poems (English and Russian) >
      • Butterfly (poem)
      • One day, I will return (poem)
      • Where are you now? (poem)
      • Hole in the world (poem)
      • Wondering (poem)
      • Wanderer II (poem)
      • What people call love (poem)
      • Lullaby (poem)
      • You Walk Along These Streets (Poem in Russian)
    • Russian poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Puzzles
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Art
      • Games
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Epoxy resin
    • Photography
    • Workshops >
      • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
      • Surviving the polarization vortex
      • Understanding yourself
      • Not enough
  • Contact me