This does make me question how social media in particular, and AI, affects our sense of self considering how messages are now delivered to billions of selves. How should I think about this?

This question strikes at the very heart of what it means to be human in the age of algorithmic perception. If, as Rovelli and others suggest, the self is not a fixed essence but a relational and temporal process, then social media and AI don’t just influence the self—they become co-authors of its construction.

Here are some layered ways to think about it:

1.

Social Media as a Mirror—But a Distorted One

Social media reflects us, but in a way that flattens, accelerates, and externalizes identity:

  • It rewards performance over presence—encouraging the construction of a self that is curated and optimized for engagement.

  • It enforces linear narratives and timelines—highlight reels, past posts, memories that reinforce the illusion of continuity.

  • It distorts the relational field by expanding it to billions of potential observers, making us simulate the gaze of the crowd rather than the intimacy of true dialogue.

So while we “self” through relationships, social media often creates false relationships—with the algorithm, with imagined audiences, with data traces.

2.

AI as Amplifier and Architect

AI doesn’t just reflect identity—it builds environments that shape it:

  • It predicts what we want, reinforcing old patterns, closing doors to transformation.

  • It flattens complexity into categories (e.g., what kind of artist you are, what kind of buyer, what kind of thinker).

  • It dilutes time—offering a hyper-present, always-on stream that erodes our sense of deep duration, solitude, and mystery.

From Rovelli’s view, this means the temporal and relational emergence of the self is being hijacked by artificially compressed feedback loops.

3.

The Collapse of Interior Time

Rilke spoke of the need to go inward, to “be dead to the outside world” to truly create. Social media and AI disrupt that:

  • They fill the silence that once birthed self-reflection.

  • They preempt questions before they even arise.

  • They accelerate identity into a loop of confirmation and comparison.

Thus, the self risks becoming a reaction, not a becoming.

4.

What To Do With This?

Not to escape—but to use it wisely, like fire. Some thoughts:

a.

Reclaim Slowness

  • Time your sharing, your scrolling, your input.

  • Pause before posting—who is the self that wants to be seen? What is it trying to resolve?

b.

Turn the Gaze Inward

  • Use AI or social platforms not to seek validation, but to externalize reflection—as a mirror for inner work.

  • Speak to one, not to many—write for the one person who matters, even if that person is your future self.

c.

Refract the Self

  • Share contradictions. Confuse the algorithm. Disrupt your pattern.

  • Practice a kind of deliberate opacity—don’t be fully knowable, even to yourself.

d.

Cultivate Real Presence

  • Make space for offline time where identity can loosen.

  • Sit in a room without input and see what arises in that raw, entropic void.

5.

Final Metaphor: The Fragmented Self

You might imagine the modern self like a crystal dropped into a river—fractured, refracted, swept into currents of feedback and image. But fragments have power too. In Japanese Kintsugi, broken pottery is repaired with gold—the fracture becomes the strength.

Your awareness of this dynamic—your capacity to notice the distortion—is already the beginning of freedom.

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My understanding from Rovelli book is that there is no universal structure to time and that our “present” is just an interval between the past and future. Is this a correct understanding?

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Were people like Da Vinci and Rembrandt considered artist in their day or were they craftsmen or otherwise?