social media made me curious

we are part of the first generation to grow up with social media not as something we discovered, but as something that simply was always there. a window to the entire world, from the very beginning.

but why is it so great?

ideas mostly come from our surroundings. people we spend time with influence us, their stories and decisions impact how we want to go through life ourselves. now that we're constantly engaging with people on social media that have different ideas - whether they come from different countries or cultures - it pushes us to reflect our "normal" way of thinking and gives us an insight into a world that we'd never have been able to see so easily some decades ago.

before i'd ever been to hong kong, i knew what it felt like to live here. youtube videos of europeans building a life in this city - the streets, the energy, the feeling of being somewhere unexpected and fully alive. everything seemed so far from what i was used to, and therefore it created an internal desire to go there. months later, i found the programme i'm on now.

and then: i moved.

it's been the same with my decision to join the military. podcasts, conversations, different people sharing honestly what those years gave them personally. here again, it made me curious and made me want to experience the things - all these people talked about - myself. then suddenly, by the time my friend brought up the idea of joining the military, the seed was already in the ground. social media had put it there, quietly and over time, before the conversation even happened.

social media made me curious. that's the simplest way i can put it.

now that we've covered the part of consuming content, i'd also like to touch on how it's been for me to actively share content myself.

with every single thing we post we build our personal digital identity, and the beautiful thing about it is that only you can decide how you want to be portrayed and shown to others. if you stay authentic and don't play a character, the chances are quite high that people with similar interests are drawn to your profile - and that opens opportunities to connect with them, share ideas and learn from them.

let me bring in a very personal example.

one of my closest friends in hong kong, someone i had never heard of ten months ago, reached out because he'd seen a video of mine on instagram. the way he has curated his instagram looked interesting, so we met. what started as a message became a real friendship. i'm beyond grateful for this.

if this friendship is the only thing i take out of my time here in hong kong to wherever or whatever comes next, moving here was 100% worth it.

when you share your life honestly, the right people find you. it's that simple.

this summer, linus and i went for a run through the doria park in rome. ancient aqueducts, old villas, plants that have been there for centuries. the kind of place you'd think of when the beauty of ancient rome is discussed. the park is so simple, it doesn't get advertised - we only ended up there because we were running - and we ended up talking about everything we saw. somewhere in that park, a question came up: what if you could bring people together who move through the world this way? who run through new cities instead of just visiting them. who get genuinely curious about history, art, culture - not because they have to, but because they want to.

i would call them cultural athletes.

it's still just an idea. but i think this is exactly what social media makes possible - not just content, but real connection between people who are looking for the same things.

the people i want to reach are the ones who are genuinely interested - in the world, in other people, in themselves.

what a beautiful thing social media can be.