The world trends towards equilibrium. The world trends towards proof of work. It’s rare for fortunes to be created so effortlessly. Therefore, if you see easy money being made, it’s one of the strongest signals that something’s not right. Of course, some people will hit the lottery or be born into wealth. They are the lucky ones. But, most of us aren’t. Most of us have to work for it. We have to show the proof.

It’s taken me eleven years to feel like I am even close to seeing a somewhat realistic path towards wealth (and to be clear, I'm only seeing the path... I'm nowhere down it yet).

The overall message in this article is immensely helpful in dealing with my anxieties around money.

At some point you have to accept that other people’s perceptions of you are as valid as (and probably a lot more objective than) your own.

This may mean letting go of a false or outdated self-image, including some cherished illusions of unique unlovability.

I recently had a talk with Shannon that was eerily similar to the central conceit of this article.

We don’t get to pick how we show up in other people’s interpretation of ourselves. The author’s story about his dad sleeping at the movie theater next to him is a great example.

Well, this completely ruined the magic of trails for me.

But I suppose it also makes me happy that people think about this stuff in order to make our experiences with nature feel more organic and authentic.

Penn Jillette, writing about his then-recently deceased friend Bob Saget:

I want to teach my children what was beautiful about Bob Saget, but I also want to learn from them. Maybe trust and kindness are getting a little too scarce. We might need more unnuanced, unartistic, simple respect. I’m happy my children care so much about how we treat one another.

But I hope their generation, which is pushing to have speech be more careful, can understand that artists like Bob were never trading in hate. He loved the world, and I loved him.

I find myself continually challenged by Penn’s writing, usually in a positive way. I may sometimes disagree with his conclusions, but his reasoning is clearly well considered and articulated poignantly.

I remember watching Bob Saget’s scene in The Aristocrats back in college and not really getting why he was able to be so vulgar.

As I’ve gotten older, the points Penn makes in this short but touching eulogy resonate with me.

I’m a bit older than Penn’s kids, but I feel like subsequent generations are finding a way to appreciate the difference between hate speech and nuanced, subversive political discourse.

In all the texts, emails, and Slack messages I’ve sent in my life, I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve apologized for my delay. But looking back, I can say that only once did I truly mean it: I was a full four months late in responding to a long and thoughtful email I had received from a reader. But here in this public forum, I would like to retract all of my other previous apologies. I am not sorry for my delay, and I don’t expect you to be either.

I’ve been getting better about not apologizing for delays in my messages, but after reading this post (and especially after reading the last paragraph I shared above), I’m going to stop apologizing for delays altogether.

One extremely common phenomenon when discussing issues surrounding blockchain-based technologies is that proponents will often switch between discussing the theoretical implementations of these ecosystems and discussing the ecosystems we have today as it suits their argument.

For example, if you bring up the question of whether the major centralized exchanges could each decide based on instructions from an oppressive government to freeze exchange of tokens belonging to a dissident, you’ll be told that that’s no problem in their theoretical world where a Bitcoin is a Bitcoin and if an exchange won’t accept yours, you can easily find an exchange that will.

But then if you bring up the question of how these ecosystems will handle someone who decides they want to make an NFT out of child sexual abuse material, they will usually point to solutions predicated on the enormously centralized nature of NFT marketplaces that we’ve ended up with in practice: delist the NFT from OpenSea or a handful of other exchanges so that the vast majority of people trading NFTs never see it, and maybe send a takedown request if there is a centralized service like AWS that is hosting the actual file.

I wanted to link to this article because I find it applicable on two levels.

First, if you take it at face value, there are a ton of great points (like the one I quoted above) which illustrate the often hypocritical problems associated with a blockchain-powered world.

But what’s more interesting to me is how many of these arguments can apply to any of our broader systems at large. Politics, capitalism, globalism, religion… the list could go on and on, and all entries on that list could be tried against the spirit of all the arguments in this post.

What I like about blockchain? It’s the next evolution of building a just and equitable system for all. It’s just funny to me how we can analyze that system in real time to point out the ancient flaws that were unintentionally baked into it.

This video sparked a few thoughts in me:

First, I had never heard of Bartkira or the genre Simpsonswave, but I’m excited to explore those two extensions of the fandom I grew up with.

Second, as someone who built a Ralph Wiggum website as a kid, I can relate to so much of what this YouTuber expresses in his video.

It certainly isn’t my nature to create “art” (in the traditional sense, like painting, drawing, sculpting, etc.). However, I’ve made it a goal to better understand art and the process artists go through to express themselves.

How beautiful is it that our generation has this program, which was intended as a subversive commentary on America in the 1990s, which we can subvert to make own own commentary about America in the 2020s?

You can scoff at linking the rise of Trump to income inequality alone. And you should. These things are always layers of complexity deep. But it’s a key part of what drives people to think, “I don’t live in the world I expected. That pisses me off. So screw this. And screw you! I’m going to fight for something totally different, because this – whatever it is – isn’t working.”

Take that mentality and raise it to the power of Facebook, Instagram, and cable news – where people are more keenly aware of how other people live than ever before.

A compelling theory of how we got to where we are (economically-speaking), and a great reminder that no matter how much we think we’re better than [insert subgroup here], we’re all basically the same.

Any time we scrounge away from work is to be filled with efficient blasts of high-intensity exercise, or other improving activities, such as meditation or prepping nutritionally balanced meals. Our hobbies are monetised side hustles; our homes informal hotels; our cars are repurposed for ride-sharing apps. We holiday with the solemn purpose of returning recharged, ready for ever-more punishing overwork. Doing nothing – simply savouring the miracle of our existence in this world – is a luxury afforded only to the respectably retired, or children.

Oof. As someone currently on vacation, this hit particularly hard.

The history of American housework suggests that both sides have a point. Americans tend to use new productivity and technology to buy a better life rather than to enjoy more downtime in inferior conditions. And when material concerns are mostly met, Americans fixate on their status and class, and that of their children, and work tirelessly to preserve and grow it.

But most Americans don’t have the economic or political power to negotiate a better deal for themselves. Their working hours and income are shaped by higher powers, like bosses, federal laws, and societal expectations.

To solve the problems of overwork and time starvation, we have to recognize both that individuals have the agency to make small changes to improve their lives and that, without broader changes to our laws and norms and social expectations, no amount of overwork will ever be enough.