Sunday 20 August 2023 log

the future from here

It has come to my attention that there is an opportunity to trade in crypto, and I don’t know what that means beyond a few ill-informed thoughts and half-considered assumptions:

• crypto is gambling
• shuffling currency around the market is just ‘skimming value’ off the top without actually contributing to society, and it’s immoral to make money without making value ~ to profit from merely shunting other people’s values around
• I deserve to die poor
• you need to be able to maths

I am not great at mathing.

The opportunity might be an opportunity to challenge a few of these beliefs.

At this stage I don’t know the difference between the terms “crypto” and “bitcoin”, I thought they were the same thing, but I do have a sense the ideology will resonate with me this time.

I think the opportunity has arisen due to a shift internally resulting from the work I’ve been doing to change the way I relate to myself and the world ~ these things present themselves when we are ready to embark on understanding them, in the same way we can try to read a certain book and not resonate or get anywhere with it, until one day it just does.

I’m thinking of The Prophet, which I just couldn’t get into despite many attempts until one day I found myself reading the whole thing aloud by the fire with the pet dog of a guy who had taken me in one winter when I was adrift on my bike for a while.

Another thing about crypto is it might change my relationship with money/currency and how it “should” be gained. After hearing maybe 15 years ago that money should only be made by trading goods and services that bring value to the community ~ shuffling existing value around (such as renting property or trading shares or currencies) was just ‘skimming’ off the top of what others contributed to society ~ I latched on to this belief. I still of course value bringing value and being of service and am now just wondering whether the “game” of crypto might be legitimised by the intention to use any proceeds for supporting services to community psychospiritual health, namely the activities falling under the umbrella of Heartwards.

Along the way, if it changes my relationship to the sort of abundance I need and deserve, then great. Because yes I’ve got some big plans and they’ll need more resources than I am accessing by through welfare.

I remember a fragment of a dream now, where a woman I knew was proudly declaring she was free of the welfare system.

Free of the waged-employment system is also important, which makes me want to read more of the Transcendentalists like Henry David Thoreau and explains my curiosity about crypto. It was N K Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy that got me going about this in the morning when I was enjoying the back deck on a Sunday.

The first in the series, The Fifth Season, is a very powerful indictment of imperialism, slavery and exploitation that has got me thinking again about modern wage slavery.

There is no way to get ahead in our economy as someone who sells their time in physical or intellectual labour.

I want to make products and services that are valuable ~ products that sell themselves and services/programs that are replicable, maintaining a turnover of income. One thing that may not sell but would promote the training services and products would be a webinar perhaps about the modularity. People could then buy a self-paced course or recruit me as their trainer. That’s what I’m imagining and I feel it’s practical these days ~ not right now during TAFE but in the present as in the continuation of the future from here.

I’d like to have passive income, to work smarter not harder, but this requires undoing the coding that was written in me by my parents and their generation.

thoughtlogging

A blogging style has been inspired by Dave Winer, one of the OG bloggers from way back when the practice was about logging the web. Thought bubbles dropped in the browser throughout the day are then released at night, just a flow of thoughts and links, if only to keep my browser tabs from overflowing.

humility

Something else alive right now that I just want to note and would like to add to my somewhat daily recitals is that I have an opportunity to make some good connections at TAFE and do some good professional peer work. People are respecting me and valuing me (one of my fellow students even PMd to say so!) and I want  to make sure that as I become more confident, because I am getting such positive feedback, that I don’t tip over too much into arrogance.

The risk of sarcasm and irony is high as well, because there is a lot of joking in class and we’re all mucking around a bit because the content is not very challenging and folk are a bit bored.

And hopefully if something happens and I fall from someone’s high-esteem (say I get too sarcastic and hurt someone’s feelings, as I’ve worried about with one classmate in particular who I like a lot and feel respect for but whose ideology is very different from mine) I am not too hard on my self, recognising that mistakes happen and I’m trying to keep my humility about me as my confidence grows again.

I’ve been through this before when I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne to work as a journal editor in my early 20s and suddenly meet with a peer group who valued and respected me. I didn’t know what to do with that feeling, but I think I did pretty well at not treading on too many people’s toes.

It’s related to something I’ve written about before, where I have an excess of joy to regulate when I come out of the depressive cycle, short of being manic-depressive.

wellness + recovery

I appreciated a peer practitioner saying in a video I cannot find right now, that

You don’t have to be perfectly well, to be in recovery

and, I would add, to hold the lamp for someone else on the path. I found the video👇🏼