AUTHOR’S VISION:

The Portal is an invitation to examine our relationship with the internet, both as individuals and as a species.

The internet can be a portal into suffering and delusion. It can seduce us, coaxing out the devil on our shoulder, and amplify the worst aspects of our nature at unimaginable scale. Getting lost in this labyrinth can turn us into both predators and prey, gamblers and addicts, zealots and extremists.

The internet can also be a portal into life’s highest possibilities. It can open the doors to connection, purpose, and self-renewal. It can erase the limitations of the physical world, helping us connect to the exact people and opportunities that bring us most fully to life.

Over ten years as an internet dweller, I’ve experienced both of these extremes. My plan with this book is to reflect on the various portals I’ve stepped through—the addictive patterns of media consumption and spending, getting caught up in America’s culture war fervor, my journey to predatory internet marketer and back, and more.

But I also want to explore the positive portals as well. The internet has connected me to amazing people, made it possible to build a small, joyful business, led to new romances, and helped me spiral into more whole and healthy versions of myself. Cynicism is popular, but the beautiful aspects of the internet are part of this story, too.

Part memoir, part manifesto, my hope is this short book will act as a portal into a much larger story. The internet is still young, as is our collective relationship to it. It’s no stretch to say this technology could lead to our downfall as a species. Or it could be integral to how we come together, solve our most challenging coordination problems, and reach towards our collective potential.

We get to choose which of those stories comes true. And we get to choose which portals we step through.

-Rob Hardy