The moment for me was when I was scrolling through Instagram and realized that within 30 seconds I had been confronted by posts that required 5 entirely different emotional states.

A photo of a friend's new baby gave way to a video of kids running out of a school after a shooting, followed by an acquaintance's (gorgeous!) trip to Mexico, a family member's adorable pup, finishing with shocking news about a friend's nephew who had unexpectedly passed away.

We are not meant to process all of this conflicting emotional information in such a short amount of time; our brains are not built for it. The only thing I can compare it to would be if you were having a conversation with a friend and each sentence they spoke was a total non-sequitur, requiring entirely different emotional responses. It would be exhausting and bizarre, which is what our current experience of social media is.

I want something softer. Less extreme and energy extractive. Not to replace these platforms, but to serve as an alternative. A place where you have a sense of what your experience will be instead of just being dropped into an ocean of emotional uncertainty and other people's decisions.