A thought from mymind on social features

Almost every app or service these days is social.

Your note-taking app encourages you to share notes and invite friends to collaborate.

Your music app shares what you're listening to with anyone following you.

Even your to-do app wants you to connect with friends so they can follow your progress and productivity.

We’re conditioned to follow, like, share and comment. And to an extent, there’s nothing wrong with that. We're social creatures by nature.

But when everything we do is seen by others, we act differently. We start curating our identity, whether consciously or subconsciously. What we end up with isn't us anymore – or at least, it’s not for us. It’s for others, a taxing effort to shape how we are perceived.

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Vanity metrics (likes, follower counts, etc.) are useful when they work, but they also make us anxious. We are constantly deliberating, considering, performing, hesitating, editing, filtering, waiting.

Even a harmless collaboration feature changes the way we behave. There's a certain pressure that comes with knowing someone can see what you're writing and follow what you're working on as you do it. Collaboration is important, but it can also limit your creativity. Who thinks and moves freely when they’re aware they’re being watched?

“When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer–say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep–it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

You might reach a brilliant idea in a group brainstorm, but it’s the time you spent mulling over your thoughts and research beforehand that allowed it to happen.

Creativity, a sense of identity, the freedom to explore and think independently, begins in solitude. And that’s what mymind offers. Your mind is your mind. It's your private place. A place where you can be yourself without the pressure to share, collaborate, curate or edit. 

With mymind you don't have to manage what's private and what's shared with others. You can safely assume that everything in your mind is for your eyes only, by default.

In the landscape of digital tools built today, it’s a foreign concept. But when you get used to it, the sense of relief that comes with having a place only for yourself, the possibilities start opening up.

“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”

— Nikola Tesla

We understand you may want to share a little piece of your mind with a friend. For this purpose, we will soon allow you to create a temporary public share link for single items. The share link will be active for 24 hours before expiring.

This way, you can share something specific, but you'll never have to keep track of what's private or public in the future. After 24 hours, it’s automatically private again.

And it will stay that way. A place for you, and you alone.