The Anti-Algorithm Manifesto

On protecting your inner life from becoming content

Honestly, monetizing is one of the fastest ways to kill a vibe.

There’s a strange pressure online that if you’re good at something, you’re obligated to optimize it. Every hobby needs a business model. Every skill needs a funnel. Every interest is expected to become content. Somewhere along the way, we stopped allowing people to simply love things without immediately asking how those things could be packaged, monetized, or scaled.

The internet has quietly convinced us that if we are not constantly converting our lives into visible productivity, we are wasting our potential. Maybe that’s why so many creative people feel spiritually exhausted.

From Curiosity to Performance Management

When I started my first publication, it felt like a sanctuary. The work itself was the reward. Reading, writing, researching, and curating ideas felt deeply personal and grounding. But the second you add metrics, expectations, and an audience hovering over your shoulder, the relationship changes. The work stops being about curiosity and craft and starts becoming performance management. You stop asking, “What do I want to explore?” and start asking, “What will perform?”

Those are two completely different psychological states. One creates meaning. The other creates burnout disguised as ambition.

Lately, I’ve been realizing how deeply the algorithmic mindset has infiltrated the way we interact with art, reading, and even our own identities. Books are no longer allowed to simply be books. They become “content opportunities.” Reading turns into extraction. Every highlight becomes a future Instagram carousel. Every thought becomes potential engagement bait. Somewhere between productivity culture and personal branding, we accidentally transformed human curiosity into a factory assembly line.

And I think our nervous systems know something is wrong.

Reading vs. Harvesting

This year I’ve only finished six books. Normally, I’d be half way to forty by now. At first, I treated that like a personal failure, but eventually I realized it was a warning signal. My brain was rejecting the constant pressure to convert every intellectual experience into public performance. I wasn’t reading anymore; I was harvesting. There’s a huge difference between the two.

The most unsettling realization is that the people you’re supposedly “inspiring” are often having a healthier relationship with creativity than you are. They’re actually reading the books. Actually disappearing into ideas. Actually living. Meanwhile, you’re sitting under fluorescent algorithmic lighting trying to package your humanity into something searchable, clickable, and optimized for retention.

The Myth of Perpetual Broadcasting

Social media hustle culture loves to convince us that if we are not constantly visible, we are becoming irrelevant. If we aren’t posting daily, filming every thought, or documenting every moment, our work supposedly disappears. But that is a deeply broken way to live. Human beings are not designed to exist as perpetual broadcasting systems.

And honestly, some of the most intelligent, interesting, and creatively alive people I know are difficult to access. They disappear for weeks. They read quietly. They return with something thoughtful when they actually have something worth contributing. Their lives are not optimized for engagement; they are optimized for depth.

I trust those people more.

Creating from Surplus, Not Panic

Lately, I’ve been trying to build a different relationship with visibility altogether. One rooted less in constant exposure and more in intentional presence. I no longer want to feel like a dancing monkey performing tricks for an invisible machine that immediately forgets me the second I stop feeding it. I want to create from a place of genuine intellectual and emotional surplus, not from panic.

That means protecting parts of the process from public consumption. It means allowing some ideas to remain unfinished and private. It means resisting the urge to immediately convert every meaningful moment into “content.” Not everything beautiful needs witnesses.

I think this is especially important for writers, researchers, artists, and deeply curious people because our best work usually requires periods of invisibility. Depth cannot develop under constant interruption. Original thought requires spaciousness. Reading requires attention. Reflection requires silence.

The algorithm hates silence because silence cannot be monetized efficiently.

But silence is often where the real work begins.

Less Content Creator, More Wandering Archivist

That’s why I’ve started thinking less in terms of rigid posting schedules and more in terms of rhythm. I love the idea of becoming someone who appears when they genuinely have something worth trading and then disappears back into life again. Less “content creator.” More roaming nomad. Less personal brand. More wandering archivist.

There is something deeply human about that rhythm, and it also protects the work itself. Because the moment creativity becomes entirely audience-dependent, you slowly lose your relationship with your own internal compass. You stop making things because they fascinate you and start making things because they maintain visibility. Over time, that shift hollows people out.

And the frightening part is how normalized this has become. We now live in a world where rest feels irresponsible, privacy feels suspicious, and hobbies feel unproductive unless they can be monetized. Even joy is expected to justify itself economically.

I reject that completely.

The Radical Act of Privacy

Some things should remain sacred. Some things should belong only to you. Some books should never become reviews. Some ideas should never become posts. Some mornings should exist without documentation. Some lives should be lived instead of performed.

I don’t think the answer is abandoning the internet altogether. I think the answer is rebuilding healthier boundaries around visibility and using digital tools intentionally instead of allowing them to dictate the architecture of our inner lives. Because if your creativity only survives when constantly validated by an audience, eventually you stop creating and start managing perception.

Those are not the same thing.

So this is my anti-algorithm manifesto, or at least the beginning of one. I want to read more than I report. I want to think more than I publish. I want to build slower, deeper, quieter things. I want to disappear long enough to actually have something meaningful to say when I return.

And maybe the most radical thing we can do right now is reclaim the ability to enjoy something privately: to read without reviewing, to learn without branding, to create without optimizing, and to live without performing.

Because at some point, we have to ask ourselves a difficult question: when was the last time you did the thing you loved without wondering how it would look to an audience?