*click, THUNK*

It’s the sound of hotel doors closing. Heavy hotel doors with cumbersome entry handles. The ones that are swipe/insert, or recently, keyless. They are clunky things meant to give you a feeling of: SECURE!

Here’s that sound, a little more subdued in the video over the narrator, but on a quiet night, it’s significant.

As we learned that night in the hotel that happened to have a large event or convention happening, and plenty of people getting to their rooms late, those click-thunks start to add up. They started to grate…and awake.

It made me ponder: why isn’t this heavily addressed? Hotels love to sell you on the benefits of their experience, and so it feels like a miss to not focus on soundproof walls and floors (don’t get me started on hotels we’ve stayed in that have wood or concrete floors — the click-clack-thump of heels and boots), but peace and quiet should be a goal and metric for customer experience and happiness.

I think of the advance in kitchen drawer easing technology — soft-close drawers. They move fast, but then slow just before the end, and lock into a resting position, nice and easy.

Hotels need soft-close doors.

Now, let’s watch that video again.

Soft-close hotel doors, please was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I read this post by Doc Searls: “Dear Adobe, Please buy Flickr.” The title sucked me in, and I wanted to read the argument for it. Searls makes some good points and posits his lament well.

To my own dismay — I have well over a decade’s worth of photos there — the service is stagnant. Flickr is a prosumer service. I’m going to borrow that term, as it was popularized greatly by the camera industry. Prosumer describes those who sit between professional photographers and those who are enthusiastic hobbyists. When digital cameras were in their infancy and the first DSLRs came along, these services flourished. SmugMug, 500px, and many more catered well to these people.

I believe it’s not as much Flickr’s fault, nor any other prosumer photo service’s. It’s just that, like the camera industry, these people are becoming a smaller minority. They used to be the majority. These people had the exposure and means to showcase digital photography online. They represented digital photography. I would argue that the iPhone, and smartphones and tablets, have changed that. Apps and tools like Instagram and VSCO, alongside social networks like Facebook and Snapchat, have whittled that down even further. As more people discovered that they could take great photos from their smart devices and share them instantly in places that catered for it, the prosumer services fell behind. The majority has become, well, everyone. The barrier to entry is one smart device.

It’s not that prosumer services don’t have a place but perhaps they need a better direction for what their core competency is. Are you a storage service for photos? (Dropbox/Google Photos). Do you control both storage and presentation? (Flickr/500px/SmugMug). Do you also allow special ways of sharing and the ability to create editorial or content? (Exposure/Storehouse). Perhaps, you take on the juggernaut task of being all of the above. One prosumer service to rule them all?

Pondering Prosumer Photo Services was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Twitter recently released a new version of mobile.twitter.com. I applauded its redesign, and found it to be a breath of fresh air. There are obvious reasons upon first impression. It’s cleaner, the focus is on the feed and tweets, and it is comfortable in a mobile-first world. Also: it is fast.

I get that it doesn’t do what the full web version does — no Moments, no lists, no analytics, etc. What the mobile version does great is focus on the main thing that Twitter is: show and enable you to participate in Tweets, its gold. Easy wins too like the larger type makes reading easier. The hierarchy is clear. Which, for these aging eyes, makes it a grand winner in my book.

Again: it is an admission that the most important thing one should do on Twitter is to read and post Tweets. And that’s refreshing. Should we be surprised?

Twitter Core was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of my earliest influences and favorite designers was Arnaud Mercier, who founded Area17. Mercier passed away in 2011. Area17 put together a retrospective website, that showcases his astounding body of work. Go back to 2003 and look at his work for Patagonia for example:

It’s astonishing how good that work still looks — the sign of a true craftsperson. Look at how much more varied digital work was back then, influenced by print still.

We’ve moved into a new vernacular in digital design. One that isn’t just about visual aesthetic. I’m excited to see how interactive design has started to deliver on its namesake title.

A Body of Work was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published June 8, 2010, after Rdio came out of beta. Given it’s demise, I thought it’d be nice to republish this here for posterity.

Music is a huge part of many people’s lives. It seems odd that music is essentially sounds and noises put together to form something that transcends its individual parts. Music, even in its simplest form is a whole, made of parts — be it notes, chords, instruments and layers — that simply are special. Let me just put music into my Magical™ column.

I recently had the pleasure of joining rdio, an online social music service. I was made aware of the service by Wilson Miner who’s been leading the design and user interface of the product. The braintrust is strong — founders of Skype and Kazaa are at the top — and the design team is a testament to how great a product it is.

My caveat here is that I’ve never really used any of the other social music sites out there — Spotify isn’t available here, Last.fm has always seemed geared towards statistically tracking your music digestion and I only heard about Lala after Apple bought the service. Colour me green here.

It immediately appeals to me as a service because it’s the one area I don’t have much access to from my social circle. Friends are on Flickr (photography), Vimeo (video), Tumblr, their own blog or Twitter (words) but music has been a gap in that area. What are my friends listening to? What are they digging? Aside from the occasional shared tweet or blog entry, there’s never been a good way to get a glance at what people I’m interested in have their ears on. Until rdio.

At the moment, rdio is invite only. This is actually quite important.

Upon entering the service, I looked at it. As in, I studied the logged-in dashboard. A music player to the left, navigation tools at the top and a main window of activity. I saw immediately that because Miner invited me to the service, I was following him. This is quite key as the activity window demonstrates how the service is used but also how my own activity would be shown to the rest of rdio listeners — integrated learning by demonstration.

Collaboration

A feature I found immediately compelling is the playlist feature, but more specifically, the ability to enable levels of collaboration — jamming on playlists with people I follow or everyone who’s using rdio. Back to that social circle: I get to share playlists and friends get to share playlists and we can add and fill them out and remix or mix these playlists to get a crowdsourced mixture. Brilliant.

Heavy Rotation

The Heavy Rotation display shows a collective snapshot of what people are listening to in my network.

And it’s illuminating not just in the fact that it is a recommendation system (the masses can’t be wrong right?) but surprisingly that I don’t own or have heard of most of the albums currently in this list. My tastes have always been a bit late to the game sometimes but also run non-parallel to the general artists of the moment. Oddly enough, this makes it a feature that isn’t as compelling as I thought it might be. I’d actually like to collapse it or hide it so that the main activity stream is higher up on the page.

Like so:

Seamless

Scott mentioned to me that he was impressed with how seamless the player is between the website itself and the desktop version (an Adobe AIR app). They are completely in sync — if you open up the site in another tab, there is no overplaying of one player or the other. If you play a song in one window, you can watch the player in another tab or window move its player along at the same count and progression, like magic. Smooth.

Where You Go

The best feature for me is that I don’t actually have to care about the physicality of my collection. It’s in the cloud. No more backing up my collection to various external hard drives and having to manage my collection on my desktop to prune. I get to keep the silly albums or the one-off songs I want without having to worry about data loss locally or having to figure out storage at home.

Making A Great Product Even Better

There are a few things I’d like to see improved:

1. People I’d like to be able to browse people at large, directory style perhaps or in some other fashion just to get a sense of who’s using the application. Currently, aside from importing contacts, you can’t do a search for people. Some people I’d be interested in musically, I may not follow on other social networks and aside from seeing who my friends follow via the activity stream, there’s no other easy way to really find people.

2. Reviews I’d imagine a rating system for album or track reviews either via a star rating or a thumbs up/down, useful/non-useful or “like” method would be handy in pushing the quality of reviews.

3. Playlists As I mentioned above, I love this feature. Aside from seeing that people are updating their playlists, it’d be great to have a playlist be better described in terms of level of collaboration. I don’t think a non-collaborative playlist needs to say anything but perhaps if it is, it says something along the lines of “Paul Armstrong updated his collaborative playlist.” and let the level of collaboration be intelligent — show the descriptor depending on who’s allowed to collaborate.

4. Collection The bubbly infographic style of your collection is sort of fun at first but in it’s place, I’d prefer a much more powerful management tool to browse my list. In this respect, iTunes is far, far better as a default view. Since music is also quite visual in regards to album art, I’d love to see a way to browse my collection by album art in a grid. Not cover flow, but a grid that can be ordered through a variety of ways.

The variety of ordering methods should also be applied to the list view as well. In fact, the collection should come in Views: List or Grid and be ordered by Artist, Album, Length, Year, Genre, Play Count at the very least. To also take advantage of the social and crowd sourced aspect of the site, rdio could add an additional view to your collection: Heavy Rotation and perhaps Popular (all-inclusive rdio audience) with the same sorts of details ordering.

This leaves you with the following views: List, Grid, Heavy Rotation, Popular.

5. Playback Something rdio is missing from a desktop application is the ability to auto play music, random or shuffled. rdio works with the concept of the queue or playlists but is missing a general, “just play” functionality. Being able to just hit the play button in the player and having rdio do what it does now — either continue something in the queue or the playlist (persistence is great in the application by the way) — but also just randomly pick something from your collection if no playlist is selected or nothing’s in the queue would be quite welcome.

6. The Desktop rdio’s desktop component is slickly implemented. But as my dependence on the service grows (and I haven’t fired up iTunes in a few days), the shortcomings of being able to browse and use the service on the desktop (I’m aware that Fluid is a potential stopgap to that end) feels wanting. I’d like to browse my collection as outlined above — in fact the mobile version works better than the desktop version. I’m unsure if this is intentional, preferring to drive people to use the site proper but it feels so, so close to being completely seamless across the board that this would be a welcome revision.

All suggestions and mini-gripes aside, I absolutely love the service. Friends have already started subscribing. It is an extremely well-executed and polished platform and I look forward to growing into rdio over time.

To their continued success and the happiness of my ears.

Originally published at wolfhead.weightshift.com.

On rdio was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mahalo

Life on islands requires a shift in both body and mind. “Island time,” as they say. You relax everything — time, your mental cogs, your movement. Perhaps it’s less about speed and more about finesse and smoothness. You find your groove. There’s no rush here. Patience is a given. You get there when you get there. Friendliness abounds.

Kauai is, well, special. It has its unique place among the Hawaiian islands and is my favorite. There hasn’t been a place in many years where I’ve found peace, a sense of quiet and a spirituality that runs deep. It feels like one of the last few places in the world that understands the modern world, yet it retains its sense of the origins of the Earth.

You’re communing with the beginning of time.

The Onset of Dusk

As you head northwest, an aptly named lookout,Hanalei Bay Lookout,allows for pause, requiring a breathless silence,particularly at dusk.

The Mighty Kalalau

The Kalalau Trail — 11 miles from start to end, 22 miles round trip. Not for the faint of heart.

It is not a straight path. It is not a flat way. It is winding, steep, with a mix of red dirt, mud, boulders, river crossings and loose ball bearing–size rock that conspires to roll you underfoot. And it is worth it, over and over again.

The first ascent takes you up quickly. To the right, you see Ke’e Beach, the trail’s origin. To the left, the Na Pali Coast, 17 miles of coastline shaped by the northern winds and rain.

Kauai is lousy with rainbows.

The red dirt, ever present.

Turn by turn, you march onward.

Two miles takes you to Hanakapiai Beach, which, upon first sight, leaves you speechless, contemplative. Hundreds of cairns — the hopes of so many before you — stand erected for the gods to take note of, to grant, to bestow.

You construct your own and hope for the best.

A Royal Welcome

Off a pathway — actually, a trail (let’s face it, nothing in Kauai is easy to get to in the typical sense), lies a set of tide pools called Queen’s Bath. These are not ordinary tiny vessels of water, harboring the sea’s smallest of creatures. These are nature’s swimming pools bound by rock instead of tile, deep enough for diving, wide enough for underwater exploration. But these sapphire and emerald basins are only accessible in that “summer” season again. When you visit in winter, the locals warn of treacherous avenues, to abandon any attempt to reach the destination. But you don’t hear that until later. So you make your way down and find an angry ocean, swelling deeply before erupting against the lava rock with a voraciousness that forces a realization upon you — you are small. You feel real fear for the first time in a while — the kind of fear you feel in your bones.

Where walkways were once dry, they have become awash in bubbling, hissing ocean waves, and you acknowledge that you’re stuck between a rock (lava) and a hard place (ocean). So you wait. You time the ocean. Meditatively, you scramble across the surface because you know it now. And unlike when you first started this hike, ignorance has turned from bliss to powerful knowledge.

The ocean takes long, deep breaths before exhaling and washing over the very spots you were formerly standing in — just waiting to embrace you in its arms.

The Grand Canyon of the Pacific

Northwest on the island is a ten-mile long, 3,000-feet deep canyon called Waimea. A faultline and the small-in-comparison Waimea River run down the center, at the bottom.

Waimea Canyon wears its age well. The streaks of erosion by water have worn its lines in with a gravitas that demands respect. The many trails around the canyon start high but descend deep into the jungle at the bottom. At times, the trail vanishes into the rock — an off-camber passageway that’s just a foot wide at most — but rewards with solitude. You are the last person left in the world.

Let’s take a hike.

Mahalo

Kauai deserves respect, attention and consideration. While it can be a set-it-and-forget-it island, its deep beauty and adventure truly does come from getting off the beaten path.

Jurassica was originally published in The Well Worn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Again

We toured the Road to Hana once before. We never completed our journey — admittedly, the incessant one-lane bridges, switchbacks and lack of commitment on our part made the initial attempt a touch frustrating. We consoled ourselves with a hike to a waterfall instead, vowing to try again on another trip.

We kept our promise; however, we opted for what is deemed the Southern Route. It’s not advised. In retrospect, one could see why, but there are numerous fragments of experience that coalesce into a whole that outweighs the warning. These are those bits.

37 to 31

This is not the route Google Maps will give you. That route, the official Road to Hana, is an infamous scenic, twisting, turning thoroughfare that passes deep valleys, waterfalls and many tourist-friendly photographic spots along the way. Turnouts, Ford Mustang Convertibles and tour buses make up the traffic here. The Southern Route, on the other hand, is lacking in any sense of civilization. It requires an adventurous spirit and some time.

The Hand of…

A moment of grace and beauty.

Technically, rental cars aren’t allowed to venture this way. For most of it, it’s smooth sailing. As you reach the halfway point, though, you start to understand the reason for the prohibition: the road becomes steeper, wide enough for a single car at certain turns, with no guardrails or lane striping to guide you. Occasionally, we saw the remains of rusted, burnt-out cars nestled in the hills, having met a fate by overcooking a turn or losing sight of the course. Night driving is not recommended.

There are no lights out here.

Given the red-rock volcanic cavities and the rugged, undisturbed sloping embankments, Maui evokes an alien feeling — this is life on Mars on Earth.

The descent.

Fellow Travelers

Your only companions, rare as they are on the island’s deserted conduit, are the few locals who live peppered among the landscape, hidden from time. We paused to wonder what it’d be like to exist back here. Pretty rad, we thought.

Degradation

The terrain changes swiftly. From a cattle grate to a one-lane bridge. Further afield, the tarmac degrades to rougher and looser gravel. It becomes a marker of time, a progression from modern to old.

Rememberance.

The cliff face transforms in a breath — from lush greenery to jagged rock needing to be contained.

The last third of the trip is rough, literally — dodging and embracing potholes becomes a game. You can do nothing but laugh at the situation as you go bump-de-bump.

We stopped at a small inlet of water to shake out rattled nerves and to feel solid ground. Our pitstop accommodated a quick wade into the ocean, as we sought the calming effects of the waves lapping at our legs — nature’s massage.

This is Hana

You’ve arrived.

Routed South was originally published in The Well Worn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Kauai, Hawaii. August 2015. It was our third time there.

Being there felt harder—but I slowly let go. Meaning, I let go of the trappings of our regular life back in a city, back in San Francisco.

We had little snippets of conversations with locals. It was a stark contrast. For context, I was topless, clad in board shorts, and thanks to my Asian heritage, well-tanned after a few days of intense humidity and heat (unusual for Kauai, by the way). This is the mode I assume when here.

I hadn’t truly noticed how hard this year has been in various aspects, and being there further illuminated this realization. The polarity was very evident. Usually we make the switch quickly, but this trip it all felt a little… prickly.

Kalalau

We had aimed to do a 10.5-mile “strenuous” (the intel was serious) hike up in the mountains; however, we opted not to. The weather had been intermittently stormy, which is typical, but damn, with two hurricanes just 800 miles away from the Islands, we saw the effects — bugs, mosquitos, and big swells on the water.

We tackled four miles of the Kalalau Trail instead. (You can hike the whole 11 miles, if you wish.) I always forget how tough Kauai’s hikes are. They often involve scrambling, water crossings, and parts where the “trail” is questionable. We love this hike, though, and even with just the four miles, it’s a rewarding experience each time.

Shortly before we arrived at Hanakapi’ai Beach (the two-mile mark), the rain began and we made the river crossing.

We settled up on the rocks amidst numerous cairns and broke out our lunch boxes for some food. The surf was up, and the beach was visible, but barely. I walked out on the sand berm at the highest point; I gazed back at the valley and the weather that was leaving us drenched. No one minded. We were all in a beautiful, peaceful place, and our collective silence paid respect to our current situation. In this moment, at this time.

From Dawn to Dusk

We caught the sunset almost every day. We scoped out spots where the locals gathered. Naturally, they know best. It was easy to spot them — find a cluster of beautifully beat-down pick-up trucks and a bunch of people who were clad only in board shorts and bikinis, with the deep mahogany leathering and look of Iggy Pop.

On this evening, we watched the sun go down indirectly, but with the copious storms, the clouds put on quite the show. Everywhere you turned, somewhere it was raining. You could see the thick curtain from some distance. I took a photo here of a thunderstorm out on the water.

We chatted with a local who had a new puppy named Cosmo. An absurdly cute little dog. The man was from San Francisco, but he had come to Kauai some 30+ years ago. And he never left. This is the common tale we hear from locals when visiting the Islands. His 22-year-old son, Kauai born and raised, is now a boat captain.

He asked what we knew about the Kalalau Valley. I said I knew it was hard to get to. He replied, “Yep,” and proceeded to tell us about how he lived there for a few years, off the grid. If you’re not familiar, the Kalalau Valley, and the trail that I wrote about above, is inhabited by a population of alternative lifestyle “hippies” who live out in the wild, just off the beaches, in shelters that range from makeshift camps all the way up to hand-built homes. They travel by (bare-) foot or kayak to restock on supplies here and there, but generally catch fish, pigs or boar, and gather local fruit and vegetables. Astounding. He still visits the valley in between painting houses for famous people and some of the more affluent locals.

“I learned to live simply, quickly,” as he continued digging around in the sand, taking photos with his Nikon of Cosmo, the cutest thing in the world, at that moment. I snapped a photo as they walked down the beach into the twilight.

NouNou

With all the tropical storms and hurricanes rolling closer, our plans for big hikes up in the mountains had been waylaid for safety reasons. The trails are treacherous in wet conditions. (Did you know the wettest place on Earth is on Kauai? Yep.)

We wanted to get one more hike in, so we decided on Sleeping Giant, or as the locals call it, NouNou. It’s a large range of elevation that from the highway and coast looks like a giant sleeping on its back in profile. We were going to summit the “chin” or “nose” (debated by locals, but we felt it was the chin), which is the highest point in the photo above.

It’s at 1,425 feet. We took the NouNou-East trail, which starts at 200 feet. In 1.5 miles, you gain 1,000 feet. In the last half mile, you gain the last 225 feet.

They call these pig or goat trails, where local wildlife meander through. We heard things rustling around, but never came face to face with any critters. This trail is narrow, and the last bit of ascent, to the chin, gets very rocky. It boasts a spine of only one to three feet wide, with ~1,200-foot vertical drop-offs on both sides. Some bouldering and scrambling is required. It reminded us a lot of Angels Landing in Zion. And, of course, it’s past the End of Trail sign, where the good stuff usually is.

Once you get to the summit, you have to step out onto the chin, an act where extreme caution is best practiced. There is only the rock of the chin, and it’s one foot in front of the other to traverse to the tippy-tip. It’s exposed and windy too, so grabbing the rock and getting low in combination with leaning is the way to go. We snapped photos and marveled at the view.

We then turned around and headed back down the way we came, getting through the thick mud that the storms had left, which anchored our shoes down the more we descended. We broke free into the sun at the bottom, glad to see it, as the light on the mountain faded fast in the shade and growth of the tropical forest.

Baths Fit for Queens

We went to Queen’s Bath four separate times this year. Its close proximity to our accommodations made it easy. It became a spiritual home to us. We’ve loved Queen’s Bath ever since our inaugural journey, despite not being able to actually visit the bath itself—a tale of jeopardy that you can read about when I recounted our first trip to Kauai.

We found a new spot in the Queen’s Bath area on our first foray. It’s open to the ocean, but remains relatively calm in the morning at low tide where a submerged shelf keeps it protected. We took turns getting dips in. I scoped out the volatility of the water and reef, but then we both plunged in the water and enjoyed the serenity.

We found another spot, which we dubbed nature’s bathtub, probably the size of a limousine.

We visited again on a Saturday when the weekend crowds were in full effect, giving the bath some party vibes. We communed together, with a good chunk of the crowd egging each other on to dive in from various points.

The third time involved almost no one—the rain was coming down, which turned the trail into a soupy, brown mess. But we were in our full-on comfort/NFG mode, and passersby treated us like locals, asking about conditions and what the shoreline had to reveal.

Our last time was just hours before our flight home. One last visit. One last dip. We caught a few waves. We enjoyed the solace. We gave thanks.

Thanks to my wife, @jenschuetz, for some of the photos here and for being the best travel companion I could ever have.

Kauai State of Mind was originally published in The Well Worn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This was originally written for Weightshifting, a Tinyletter I keep, during a week whilst I was visiting family in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October 2014.

People here love big phones.

They prize big phones in the same way that the characters from the movie Her regard their devices. They are customized, elegant machines. Often encased in some kind of leather/fake leather flipcase, making them look like wallets or notebook journals. It’s refreshing to see the reverence that people devote to their gear.

They are not subsidized here. People pay full price for them, and for many, this is their only computer. It is a worthwhile investment. And the smartest choice: to buy the largest device you can.

White is popular here. (White cars are also a trend, my mom informs me.) Devices are white. Black isn’t as prevalent. But colored backs are popular. Android devices, particularly Samsung, are dominant. iPhones, not so much. But the 6 and 6 Plus are smart moves. The U.S. may not understand it, but Cook and Co. have done the research, and they’re smart — moving to where the puck has been. In Asia, it feels like catch-up. The view of smartphones is different here.

It is about putting these devices in people’s hands, and in their lives. And seemingly, not in their pockets.

They are status symbols. A way to financially show you can hang. That you can afford one. Nikes and clothes no longer matter, but that big-ass phone? That has value. They are not hidden away in pants, purses and backpacks. Rather, they are held in hand, a little piece of a person’s everyday carry. They are whipped out for photos, for communication, for watching videos and reading while walking.

They all have cases with covers. Almost.

I look at my iPhone 5s, and it feels small within this context. No one cares. They have the best phone in front of them. So many options for a very diverse place and culture. No one size fits all. Many sizes for many. Many styles fit many. Many ways to express yourself.

I look at them almost longingly, with a newly found desire to sheath this phone in a bespoke leather cover.

Like Theodore in Her, it is one’s most precious device. And one would treat her well.

—

Photo courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns, under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Smartphones in Asia was originally published in Weightshift Memo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I read about it a lot. I have friends who work there. I have been recruited and asked by the same friends who work there if I would work there.

“I don’t have Facebook.”

I know I miss out on things: party and get-together invitations, announcements, limited-edition releases, exclusives. The list goes on. And yet, despite this decade of not having an account, a compelling reason for being on the network of the masses has never reared its ugly head.

There is a beauty in connections and relating to people. Call me old school, or a person of the classics, but I have feared for some time now the demise of real human interaction — of knowing how to talk to people, to understand them, to pick up on all the subtleties of human beings that are only prevalent when you are face to face.

You understand much quicker who they are, what they’re about and whether they’re someone you get along with.

As my time on the Internet reaches its 18th year and the trends of the information superhighway have evolved (I won’t say mature — we have a long way to go yet), the complexities of living a life mostly digital has given rise to the same base human behaviors we have in real life, except we have a better shield (nee platform) to position ourselves on. We can be more than we are. We are allowed to reach more people than ever before. Everything from joy to happiness, grief to despair, silly and inane, and all-encompassing in-between, is up for grabs.

Time has accelerated and isn’t slowing.

When I’m out in the social network I’ve belonged to the longest — the real, living, breathing world of meatspace — I encounter all of humankind’s creations. From the homeless and poor to the million-dollar-house-owning and IPO’d, and all the people hustling for a living in the spectrum that exists, I enjoy the little moments.

I talk to a shop owner about a product he offers in his store, and because we’re having a nice conversation, and he’s feeling generous after the holidays, he gives me a little discount. I don’t expect it at all — I didn’t hunt around all the stores on this block thinking about who would give me the lowest price or who took the most coupons. I just went in to see if they had what I was looking for and they did. I interacted with someone because I liked them and what they were doing and had a conversation. I may never buy anything there again, and may never converse with the owner in such a manner in the future, but in that moment and time, it was worth the ten minutes we both had to just be genuine.

Before the Internet made things arguably easier, I spent a lot of my time growing up trying to understand where I fit in the world. To know who the people I might really get along with and vice versa and why. It’s a work in progress, but it’s worth my time, so very much.

I know a simple truth: that people who genuinely care about you are the same people that you should care for as well. These are relationships that deserve more than just a thumbs up, or a #blessed, or a +1. These deserve love — that thing that wells up from the deepest springs of your soul and you give away with no thought to yourself.

It’s 2015, and I don’t have Facebook.

A Lack of Blue was originally published in The Slow Web on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.