Photo taken by TWL in Lisbon on Tagus River, 2024

There is a saying: “You are what you eat.” And my variation on that is: “the world is how you sample it.”

Our perception of the world is built upon the information we and stimulus we receive and absorb - the article we read, the Youtube video we watched, or the podcast we listened to. The keyword here is “absorb”, because the amount of information in this modern world of 2025 is abundant, and you are only doing a sampling of it – a fraction of the available information.

Different people can receive different messages and have different opinions about the world. However, even in the exact same environment, two people can form different ideas just becasue they focus or accept different parts of the same message. In the real world out side of Internet, the surroundings can differ a lot, depending on each person’s geographic location and condition. For most people, their Internet world do not differ that much. Many poeple have access to similar news or public data through search engine.

Imagine many people are interacting with the same Internet world. It become clear that, how we pick up the world is really more important because our version of the world depends on how we do the sampling. Our sampling method plays a much more critical role in forming our perception.

We interact with the world based on our knowlege and understanding. How we do the sampling really impact how we live our life. The things we learn from Internet, the perspectives, new ideas, new opportunities - these things influence your ways of life. The question is: how do we pick up things that are useful and enrich our life? my suggestion would be to keep an open mind and learn logic thinking. Abondon the stereotype and free yourself from conventional thoughts. When reading a story, do not be satisfied at the easy answer – also be mindful of what is left out of that story.