refining how you relate to the world
six modes of engagement + how to refine them
As the world keeps accelerating, we’re right to question how we’re supposed to relate to it.
For a long time, I believed everyone just needed to activate themselves — to spring into some form of civic action. Now I’m less certain. Not everyone’s wired to be an activist or political junkie, and it’s genuinely tough to know where to slot in.
So this week, I’m getting back to the basics: reflecting on how we relate to the world around us each and every day. What are the ways we engage in the collective whether we choose to or not?
Six ways we relate to the collective, and how to refine them:
Through media’s filter.
What gets framed as “the world” is really what’s fit to print, what algorithms surface, what drives engagement. If this is your primary mode of relating, be honest about what you’re actually engaging with – the media’s version, not the world itself.
Refinement: Audit the news you consume for a week. Track where your current events info actually comes from. Then ask: Is this helping me understand the world, or just keeping me anxious and reactive? Cut a source that consistently leaves you worse off.
Through your inner circle.
Everyone around you is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive right now. Your closest relationships shape what you think about, care about, and talk about.
Refinement: Be honest about your relationships – who’s additive and who isn’t. You truly are who you surround yourself with.
Through intellectual lenses.
The ideas, frameworks, and stories you pick up — books, documentaries, essays, even memes. These become the scaffolding for how you interpret everything else. This is the conceptual layer between you and the world.
Refinement: Be rigorous about what you let shape your perspective. There’s quality creativity everywhere, but we often default to low-calorie content that doesn’t nourish us.
Through feeling.
Certain things strike a chord in a way you can’t fully explain — whether it’s an insecurity you woke up with, something someone said, or something you observed in passing. You carry a unique energy signature that resonates with specific aspects of the collective — your interests, your sensitivities, your filter for what matters.
Refinement: Pay attention to what consistently moves you. What makes you hopeful, engaged, or excited? Those are signals pointing to where you’re meant to be. Trust them.
Through vision.
Your sense of the mark you’re here to leave. The gap between what is and what could be, and your role as that bridge. This doesn’t have to be grand — just the difference you make by being here.
Refinement: Ask yourself: What problems do I think about even when I don’t have to? Where does my energy spike when I imagine a better version of the world? Sit with it.
Through awe.
Fleeting moments where the scale or beauty of human endeavor hits you. Nature, art, great company. A reminder that you’re part of something vastly larger than yourself—and that it’s worth protecting.
Refinement: Go seek it. Find somewhere that makes you feel small — a forest, a skyline, a cathedral. Awe is core to sustained engagement with life.
Making society better starts with understanding how you’re already part of it.
If not us, who?
j