What common contexts include filters?
…Coffee, HVAC systems, Instagram, engines, reports and data views, more.
They’re tools to implement inclusion/exclusion rules — which presuppose a deeper purpose (keeping grounds out of morning coffee, cleaning the air we breathe, looking prettier, keeping the motor running, answering a questions about business, etc.).
Harmony between openness and closed-ness is the core concept for any effective filter — whether physical or digital.
The best IT systems engineer the process bringing information to the users’ conscious awareness — like a report on a home screen telling a salesperson what calls and meetings need to happen today, the YouTube algorithm getting us to click on the next video, etc.
As individuals, It seems like any growth and development happens in fragments, not in sudden transformations. The fragments of information and content that hits our mind every day has real impact on our overall trajectory — what we think about, what we say, and what we ultimately do.
Everyone, to some degree, has their own vision and goals — but implementation of them is a different story. That comes with goal sub-elements, goal actions, and insights to learn from. Leading ourselves is developing all of those within ourselves. Leading a team is developing it with everyone else in the ranks.
I think any effective framing – thus mission, communication ability — needs to be rooted in time-tested philosophy.
And here I think is where we collide with some of the biggest problems of our day: loneliness, addiction, anxiety, and depression. The internet is defined by its openness to information — which is great for not excluding important information — but is terrible for excluding harmful information. While the degree to which information-policing needs to handled by the companies or governments should be hot topic for debate, we can also be intentional about setting up our own filters.
Again, that presupposes some deeper (defined) problem to solve, which is something like a vision for our life.
I think there’s a vast listlessness that has been exacerbated as the ease of consumption of content has increased. In that listlessness is where loneliness, addiction, anxiety, and depression spawn.
The opposite is finding a way to enact something like an existential filter: “this is exactly what I want with my life and here is what should be included and excluded.”
Imagine being able to capture the upside of the internet, while capping the downside.