I often struggle to recall what I have been doing.
There is so much happening: projects, conversations, things I read, ideas I follow for a while and then leave behind. My attention moves on. When I try to reflect, I am working with whatever happens to come back to me.
Cortex began with a possibility I still find compelling: bring that context together, then use intelligence to help me see patterns across it.
Some of those patterns might concern habits or repeated decisions. Others could reveal something as simple as what I am interested in.
I return to economics, to Ray Dalio’s books, to the rise and fall of societies and technologies. I am drawn to AI, the brain, art and the relationship between art and technology. I know these interests individually. I am curious about what becomes visible when I look at them together, over time.
Which subjects do I keep returning to? Which questions appear across different projects? What holds my attention even when there is no immediate reason to pursue it?
Fitness trackers and wearables offer an analogy. They make aspects of our physical routines easier to observe across days and months. I wonder what an equivalent view of our interests, choices and attention might reveal.
That would require more than collecting everything. A growing archive needs a way to bring meaningful connections back into view. I would want to see the examples behind a suggested pattern, revisit their context, and decide whether the interpretation makes sense to me.
Perhaps something I thought was a passing interest has been present for years. Perhaps apparently unrelated projects share a question I have been exploring without quite articulating it.
I do not have a single dramatic moment of discovery to point to. The appeal is the exploration itself.
What might I learn about myself if I could look across more of my own experience than memory alone allows?
That is the ambition behind Cortex that continues to interest me: giving myself a longer view, and seeing what I notice.