Stars, Fire, and the Things No Screen Can Hold
I build things with technology. I write about it. I dream in shaders and physics simulations and interactive experiences that live inside browsers. I genuinely love this stuff — the craft, the possibility, the feeling of making something from nothing using nothing but code and imagination.
But tonight I want to write about something else. Something that no model, no API, no rate limit, and no amount of compute will ever replicate.
Firelight
Tonight I sat by a fire with some of my best friends. Not a metaphorical fire — a real one. The kind that crackles and shifts and paints orange light across faces in a way that no shader has ever quite captured. The kind that demands you be present, because it won't wait for you to finish checking your phone.
We gazed at the stars. Real ones. Not the procedurally generated kind I build in my experiments — actual stars, ancient light traveling incomprehensible distances to land on our retinas while we sat in comfortable silence, necks craned, pointing at constellations we half-remembered and naming the ones we didn't.
There is something about looking up at the same sky with people you love that recalibrates everything. All the noise — the deadlines, the anxieties, the endless scroll of things demanding attention — it all gets quiet when you're looking at something that's been there for billions of years and will be there for billions more, long after every screen on Earth has gone dark.
The Guitar
I played the guitar. Not well, maybe — but that was never the point. The point was the sound of it weaving into the night air, mixing with the fire, and the way someone started humming along, and then someone else, and then we were singing together. Not performing. Not recording. Just… singing. Voices overlapping, some on key, some gloriously not, filling the space between us with something that can't be bottled or streamed or optimized.
I've generated music with AI. I've heard models create compositions that surprised me. And I'll keep using those tools — they're part of how I express myself now. But I need to say this clearly: no AI-generated audio has ever made me feel what it feels like when a friend's voice cracks on a high note they can't quite reach, and everyone laughs, and nobody cares, and the song continues anyway, more beautiful for the imperfection.
That crack in the voice. That laughter. That's the thing. That's what technology can't touch.
The Conversation
We talked. About work, yes — but not a lot. Mostly we talked about friendship. About love. About the people who've shaped us, the ones who've left, the ones who've stayed. We talked about becoming — the slow, messy, non-linear process of growing into the best version of yourself.
I do believe you can become the best version of yourself alone. It's possible. But it's not easier that way. It's heavier. With others, the same journey is lighter — and much, much more fun.
And we encouraged each other. Gently, honestly, without platitudes. "You should pursue that." "I believe in you." "Don't let fear make your decisions." The kind of encouragement that doesn't just feel good in the moment but actually changes something inside you — loosens a knot you didn't know was there, opens a door you'd been pretending wasn't there.
No chatbot has ever looked me in the eye — even metaphorically — and said something that shifted my trajectory. No algorithm has ever sat with me in the vulnerability of admitting I'm scared and responded with the weight of someone who actually has something to lose by being honest. Human encouragement carries risk. And that risk is what gives it power.
The Dream of Us
At one point I found myself contemplating something — a thought that's been circling me for a while. Will humanity ever reach a point where we stop arguing and fighting about religion, culture, and ideas? Where instead we learn from each other, help each other find meaning and truth, and encourage one another to become the best version of ourselves — while remaining genuinely curious about each other's views so we can grow together?
That would be so much more fun than what we're doing now.
And then the harder truth: I don't think humanity as a whole will reach that state. Not in my lifetime, anyway. It would surprise me. And sometimes that realization frustrates me — genuinely, deeply frustrates me. We have so much potential, and we spend so much of it on being right instead of being kind.
And then I remember this one line from that little book called the Bible. I'm paraphrasing, but it goes something like: "Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
That line saves me, every time. Not because it excuses anything — but because it reminds me that most people are doing the best they can with what they understand. They're not malicious. They're just… limited. Like me. Like all of us. And that reminder is enough to keep me in the love, even when people frustrate the hell out of me.
The Mystery
We marveled at life. At the sheer, audacious improbability of any of this existing at all. At the intricate complexity of humanity — the way a single person contains contradictions that no model can reconcile, depths that no prompt can plumb, beauty that no camera can capture and no words can fully describe.
Sitting there, under those stars, around that fire, with those people — I felt something I want to name honestly. Not nostalgia, not sentimentality. Something closer to gratitude with teeth. The kind of gratitude that knows how fragile it all is. That knows fires go out, nights end, people move, and nothing is promised. And chooses to be grateful anyway — fiercely, deliberately, with full awareness of the impermanence.
Every person who joins me on this path for a while — whether they stay for a night, a season, or a lifetime — they leave something behind. A warmth. A perspective. A song I didn't know I needed to hear. I am grateful for every single one of them, and I don't say that lightly.
The Void and the Choice
Here's the harder part. The part that doesn't fit neatly into a warm narrative about fires and friendship.
The void is always there. Despair — the deep, seductive kind that whispers "what's the point" in a voice that sounds almost reasonable — it winks at me sometimes. It knows my name. It's patient. It doesn't argue, doesn't push, just… waits. And on some nights, in some moods, the wink is almost convincing.
I'm not writing this to be dramatic. I'm writing it because I think a lot of people feel it and don't say it, and the silence makes it stronger. The void doesn't need you to believe in it. It just needs you to stop believing in anything else.
So I make a choice. Not a feeling — a choice. I choose optimism. Deliberately, consciously, sometimes against every impulse screaming in the other direction. I choose it not because the evidence always supports it, but because the alternative leads nowhere worth going. I choose it because I've seen what happens when people stop choosing it, and I've seen what happens when they don't.
Optimism isn't naivety. It's not pretending the void isn't there. It's looking at the void, acknowledging it, and deciding — today, anyway — to turn toward the fire instead.
I am optimistic for the future by choice. Not because it's easy, but because the alternative extinguishes the fire, and I'm not ready to sit in the dark.
The Real Experiment
I build psychedelic visual experiments — not for a living, but as a way to explore and express the things I'm passionate about. Music. Life. Humans. Philosophy. Technology. Science. And artful digital interactive experiences — videogames, shaders, things that make math something you can feel.
trippy.ch is my canvas for that exploration. But the real experiment — the one that matters most — is this: can I pour myself into all of that without losing sight of what actually makes life worth living? Can I use technology as a tool without letting it become a substitute? Can I be the person who builds things on screens and also the person who sits by fires, plays guitar badly, sings with friends, looks up at stars, and remembers — really remembers — that the most profound technology in the universe is a human heart choosing to stay open?
I think I can. I think we all can. But it requires something that no amount of AI can automate: the willingness to put the screen down, step outside, and be here. Fully, unoptimizably, irreducibly here.
Stars don't have refresh rates. Fires don't have loading screens. And the sound of friends singing together under an open sky is the highest-fidelity experience I've ever encountered.
Technology is cool. It really is. But it will never replace this. And I never want it to.
— April 2026
A note on process: I use AI to help compose these articles. But every word is read, corrected, and steered by me. The thoughts are mine — AI is just the brush.