The Myopic Manifesto

The Myopic is on a quest to see a little more clearly every day.

That might sound like a simple mission. Day by day, it’s actually pretty simple to find one thing to see just a little more clearly. That could be learning a new word to clarify a sentence, taking a photograph to clarify a memory, or imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes to clarify a misunderstanding. But over time, these little clarifications add up, stacking onto one another until you need a whole new level of vision to understand the complicated web.

We are all nearsighted to some degree. Maybe you don’t have glasses as thick as coke bottles like I do, but there are a million little things that you probably don’t see as clearly as you could. That’s not a slight to you, that’s just humanity. We’ll never see everything perfectly clearly, and forces will always exist to make clear vision even harder. But the only thing we can do is try; try to see a little bit more clearly every day.

The Myopic is part blog, part photography magazine, part newsletter. We cover a wide range of topics because life is broad.

The connective tissue of the Myopic is the desire to see more clearly. This can take many forms. Some of our current favorites are below, just to give you some flavor:

• Good photography: Nothing clarifies a memory like a crisp, evocative picture

• Personal essays: Writing to understand oneself more clearly, and to give others a roadmap towards their own inner clarity

• Book reviews: Because books (fiction and nonfiction alike) are the greatest thought-clarifying technology ever invented - for both readers and writers

• Music reviews: Often an indirect way to communicate ideas, but more often a perfect way to understand them

• Reading Lists: We read far and wide at the Myopic, and love to share the most clarifying work we find across the web

New posts will appear on themyopic.co and can be delivered to your inbox via our Substack.

If you’re interested in contributing to the Myopic, you can reach out to Dave on Substack.

About the creators

Dave, aka Myopic Dave, is the founder and a primary contributor to the Myopic. An engineer by day and a writer/photographer by night, Dave’s interest cover pretty much whatever captures his ADHD-stricken brain at any given time. His favorite topics to write about are those that have brought some new level of clarity to his world. Dave’s extreme nearsightedness and inch-thick glasses are the inspiration for the Myopic’s name.

AI Policy

Artificial Intelligence is an insanely broad, murky, and complex topic. That makes it a naturally intriguing area to explore in order to view it more clearly, and you’ll likely see a lot of AI-related pieces on the Myopic. Therefore some guidelines are necessary.

Blanket statements on AI are difficult, but the following statements are true today, and should always be true at the Myopic:

• No writing, photography, or other content presented as original will ever be performed by AI. Humans create all original content for the Myopic, period. If you ever have a doubt about something here being human-made, call us out.

There may be AI tools used in the background for non-creative purposes. The definition of “non-creative” may change as our views on AI tech change, but the following use cases should remain acceptable in our view:

• Using an AI tool in order to understand it more clearly. This may include using Generative AI tools to “create” things, however these “creations” will never be presented as original. For example, all AI “writing” will appear in quotations if there’s ever a need to use it

• Basic research functions like creating a list of sources like articles, videos, etc. However we’ll never use AI summaries as a substitute for reading and understanding original sources, because the purpose of the Myopic is to see clearly for ourselves, not to outsource that understanding to a computer tool

• Dave’s current day job is related to the broader world of AI and robotics. Any content on the Myopic reflects personal opinions only and is in no way related to any employer or their points of view. Dave’s job does not entail using Generative AI to replace human creativity

If you have any other questions about our use of AI, leave a comment or reach out to Dave.