Being inscrutable is a tactical asset in our extremely online age. As more informational influence campaigns are waged, it becomes easier to invade your headspace if you are too predictable.
I’m not saying that being predictable isn’t worthwhile. If you have a firm foundation of philosophy or religion that dictates a stance sometimes you just have to own it. I’m a libertarian and I often walk the line of what I consider to be foundational beliefs in the value of other people’s freedom in relation to mine.
But I also live in reality where the grey of living in a civilization is a lot less clear. Anyone who doesn’t admit to this fundamental tension is untrustworthy as far as I’m concerned.
This of course makes me legible. It is one of the buzzwords in my favorite online spaces. It is the art of how we make ourselves legible to others such that we can see and be seen. I rather like this philosophy overall.
But I am also quite sure that if you give someone an opening to fuck with you they probably will. It’s definitely a risk to be seen. It makes you a target. But it’s also how you become a beacon. So it’s an over under decision on how much you care about other people attacking you is up to you. But if you open about experimenting with life and how little you know it almost always turns out alright.
There is a theory of public relations, much popularized by Steve Bannon and legal discovery, called flood the zone with shit. And sometimes not giving your enemies a sense of who you is because you are always in process of becoming more and bigger and inscrutable and then suddenly you are in the Heart of Darkness.
It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
So everyone be optimistic and find your people but remember everyone is going to be playing the same game. So I’d definitely recommend you don’t cheat and play the long game.