Student of the Internet

[This post first appeared on Cent]

I first started blogging towards the end of 2009. Back then I was a new transfer student at a Korean university and had just (barely) finished my first mid-terms.

There was a lot to write about, yet very little to write about at the same time.

My writings back then were sporadic, unstructured and in constant search of a real voice.

But I kept reading. And I kept learning.

In short succession I came across three great thinkers early on during my studies in Korea that have remained enormous intellectual influences until today: Dr. Dong-sik Lee, Lewis Mumford and Martin Heidegger.

I was lucky to be able to read many of the noteworthy classics from both the Eastern and Western canons before I graduated.

Even after graduating I continued to think of myself as a student, constantly learning and in the pursuit of truth in this world. To borrow the enlightenment phrase that either Franklin or Paine used - I'm not sure which one it was - I strove to be a student of the world.

At the time, being a student of the world felt like the broadest, most open-minded perspective one could adopt.

But in the span of a few short years I have come to realize there is a much broader, universal plane of existence that has been opening up into a legit alternative world.

Similar to our current world, but at the same time drastically different from it, any human that can access this new world can not only potentially connect and engage with literally everyone else on it instantaneously, but they can now program and exchange digitally native money. This new world is of course the internet.

While the internet is an extension of the physical world - it is after all grounded in it - it is not, and need not be a direct reflection of it.

Having been on Cent now for over a year, it has become crystal clear how different digital money can make the internet and how different an internet powered by digital money can be from the real world. At the same time, it has also become apparent that the impact that the internet will have on the world will continue to grow.

This is true not just in terms of increasing ecommerce levels, but in terms of defining and shaping new values and attitudes, such as thoughtfulness for example. It's my belief that the latter will have the power to transcend the digital world and impact the physical world in a profound way.

For those reasons I now want to strive to live life as a student of the internet, constantly learning and in the pursuit of truth in the digital realm and beyond.