I checked out back in August, or maybe it was September. I can’t quite say exactly. I can only feel it. I was having the time of my life. The Mariners were finally the team I remembered as a kid. I was living up life. I was free. For the first time since around the time I graduated High School, I felt like I lived in a free country. And I was.
The Ukraine War was still going on, but the media has seemingly moved on from it. I rarely see a Ukrainian flag waving from a window or building. And I am very observant. When I do see one, even in a neighborhood as woke as Capital Hill, it seems the same as seeing a Bernie bumper sticker on a Prius – Like they forgot to take it down. As I sit here, the war is still going on. I am not quite sure who is winning though. Before I checked out, I remember seeing media that suggested the messaging was altered. There’s a part of me that still has one foot in. I know that the war is still going on. I don’t know what’s happening. I am American. When I was younger that was the joke, its still a joke I make today, but it was also a privilege to be able to live in a country with such a great affect on the world that the actions of other countries don’t effect your emotional well-being. There is always a slight scare. That David vs Goliath story that a small power could triumph over the greater power – there’s always those stories to give you a double-edged sword stab in the back. Right behind the shoulder blades, right where the mechanism for stress and anxiety are stored like a pair of wings retracted into an internal storage compartment. Waiting to be unleashed so that you could both ascend above fear and dive through the repressed traumas of life. The narrative seems to be an attack on those wings. To petrify your ability to expand and find community with your neighbor. If you can’t turn away from self-pity and misery, how do you ever trust that your neighbor is your community?
And so, the war is really far away. I don’t understand it enough to educate someone on the affair, nor really anything about the history. All I an do is hope that no innocent lives are harmed. Which I understand is probably impossible. The whole thing is really, really sad. And, I don’t know what needs to be done about it. And, if I did… Who would listen?
If I could develop a way for those who felt they weren’t heard to have a voice, that’ probably what I would dedicate my life to. The task is really, quite improbable to solve. But whoever gets close to solving that problem – and I don’t mean they get so close that 1 single person was not heard, or even 100 people for that matter -will have secured the essence of democracy. That’s pretty amazing. I can’t really think of anything more satisfying than Freedom. It is the ultimate feeling. If society could organize itself to emulate free will, we would guaranty that both dystopia and utopia are represented within the spectrum of demographic organization.
So, with this in mind. I checked out. I am obsessed with this. I checked out when I realized that I finally had a way to fund the project. And, I’m not really sure where I went. I mean, I do. I went to a place of fear. I went to a place where I thought I could find a way to fund myself while building the project and still have time to build. I am not so sure it is the type of work I want to be doing right now. It was rough. I was helping someone with their social media marketing. They were the worst client I have ever helped. But, they were also the first client to tell me they never wanted help in the first place. So, they weren’t the right customer. Obviously, this is marketing 101 stuff right there! But, I don’t want to do marketing for people. I want to coach people on how to do marketing for themselves. The interesting thing about that client, is he illustrated the problem I want to solve: People who own businesses don’t understand Marketing. This is a huge problem. HUGE. Marketing requires that you understand a business is a web of influence. If you do not understand this, you will make the mistakes of the Dinosaurs that are only surviving by feasting on their own flesh. You know, the GE’s of the world. The kind where a guy making Half a Mill per year thinks he should partner with a department store and have a better display than the competition.
Have you been in a Best Buy lately? You can barely walk down the aisles because the retail floor has become a warehouse. Best Buy is literally what the name says it is. Its just a good place to buy the things that are required by post-modern households. It’s not a community gathering place. It’s not a venue to showcase the latest and greatest tech has to offer society. No. It’s a fucking electronic grocery store where the products are all plastic with no variance in organic matter that would require taste of the eye of the beholder like a tomato or apple. It can all be ordered curbside. They don’t even let you walk by the guy at the door without telling him what you are looking for! No browsing at Best Buy.
The dinosaurs are no longer needed.
But, there is no David vs. Goliath story when it comes to business. David grows into Goliath before he can pave the way for future David’s to emerge. And emerge they will. The only thing David is good for after becoming Goliath is reminding you how not to do it. But, isn’t that how life lessons are taught? Maybe this is the way it needed to be. Maybe this is the necessary process of evolution. I think that’s right. I hope that’s right. Because I am not sure it will ever be possible to defeat Goliath from ever emerging. I know I am going to try. But, the problem is three fold: 1. Whoever solves the problem will become enormous, 2. We will always look up to others through our infinity for hierarchy, and 3. We aren’t that different. People will always organize themselves around a shared belief. The beliefs will form hierarchies around their institutions and god-like constitution. The difference is this: if done right the power of the hierarchy should not infringe on the liberty of its neighbor.
This is the most interesting problem to solve. It’s one of those things that I don’t think anyone can disagree is a noble cause. The problem is it may be too bold to suffice as its own solution. Which is kind of what I was trying to do with tied.house. Let’s say the tied.house idea was layer 1. The freedom problem is layer 0. Gardener is like layer 2. Co-PILOT is like layer 3. As is the Brokerage and the Listing portal. Layer 4 might be the crypto. I am not sure though. I’ll need to think about that some more. There was an illustration of the stack in the notebook that I lost. I am still mortified that I lost that notebook. It will be okay. I can do without it. But, there were some notes in there that would be awesome to have. Anyway, all of that is to say that Gardener is probably where I should put my focus. I need to raise money. But, I also need to be earning money. This is the problem I am currently faced with. This is the reason I checked out. I need to discern. But, I can’t seem to see clearly.
I really don’t want to go back to a Dinosaur. Maybe a startup would be good. Or someone that wants growth. I can’t help shake this feeling that I just need to follow the money. The money is in sales. That’s all I want right now. I just want money. I have a project that needs to get off the ground – it is off the ground – I have a project that needs boosters turned on. I need money for myself and I need money for my startup.
I need to be selling. I need to be raising money.
Those are competing sentences when I need the money right now. Do I sell shares? Do I sell a product that earns high commissions. Can I sell both?
Can I get a high paying job in Marketing and do both?
I don’t know which way to go. But I know that deep down, I know exactly what to do. I am trying to get deep down. I can’t seem to get there. That is depressing.
I’ve been checking back in. It’s fun. But, lately I have found it hard to believe I deserve check ins. I feel like a loser. Not that I am going to be a loser. But, that I am choosing to be a loaner while I figure out this problem. I check back in and play tennis. It’s super fun. It’s my social outlet right now. Which is weird for me to only have one. I feel like I am in an un-natural place. And, maybe that’s where I need to be to feel out what is natural and naturally take the next step. I just need to trust in the process and not think I am a loser for choosing the path I had to go at alone.
When being alone does not feel natural. It feels kind of insane. I wonder what that could mean? I am find being alone. I am not saying that I cannot sit with my own feelings. I am really good at add’ing deep into my thoughts. I LOVE IT. But, I get my energy from people. I love people. I want to commune and have fun with people. Lately, I feel like my interest has been fixated on how to release people from the burdens that make them repress the desire to let loose. And, so maybe sub consciously that’s what I had to do to myself. I went through a period where I felt that my existence didn’t matter to the world. That’s a strange feeling. It feels like there is at once an impending doom and grasping at a thread of hope that it all has meaning blowing in the wind. Like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey. Not knowing if you are the carrot, the donkey, or both. And the answer is probably all three, the carrot, the donkey and their essence. A spirit of non dualistic threads can be felt in this place of internal turmoil created by a flicker of a belief that obsession requires insanity to exist. It’s simply not true. However, one can create their own hell due to obsession and insanity may be obtained. I would caution you to not go there. Do not go to that place where your obsession makes you even wonder if it’s causing you to go insane. If you do find yourself here, seek a spiritual partner to help you see your way back to the light.
I was bobbing up and down in the wind finding threads to pull me back up. When I was blinded by the dark I was able to feel the spirits breath and find the string to grab ahold of to allow me to grab another breath before losing grip and heading back down. I wonder if Lemolo’s album Swansea is the place where you are able to grab a breath but are still submerged in the waters. I wonder as she sings to the listener where to find her, is she too alone? Does she want to be alone? When does someone decide this?
I am not sure when I decided this, exactly. But, I don’t want to be alone. Many of the strings that pulled me up to the surface were thanks to my business partners, Will and Tracy. Reminding me that I am not totally alone. But, I am alone when it comes to my person – my other half.
I don’t really like where I am right now. It sucks. I know I had to be here to feel and really understand what it feels like to be unemployed. On a budget that works but doesn’t always get applied. I needed to feel what it feels like to have such great uncertainty. I had felt this once before for an extended period of time. But that was a different time. That was a different circumstance. What I just went through is an average experience amongst Americans. Wow does it suck. I understand the hierarchy.
That experience of getting laid off, not knowing what the future holds, debt knocking on the door, medical bills, I am still lucky. I wasn’t supporting anyone at the time. I don’t have all the responsibilities that many have compiled on top. I can imagine what it feels like and I know that my imagination is most likely under selling me. I never want to feel that. I never want anyone else to feel those feelings. Not on my watch. But, I am glad that I have felt the uncertainty. I am glad that I was able to see it for myself. I don’t want to go back here. I am in hell. And it hurts knowing that many are deeper in hell than I am. We need to save ourselves from our own doing – the system that we designed for ourselves has some safety measures. Such as unemployment benefits. What it lacks is a trinity of democracy.
Our government is based on a trinity. Three branches make the states united. The economy is also a trinity: the micro, the macro, and the freehand. Our government is a regulator of socio economic transactions. From this emerges a spirit of culture. Culture is under attack. We know this, because right now politics is controlling culture. I would not call it a war. It is not a war between the participants of culture. It is a war on the culture itself – If, you can imagine culture as a shape. The shape is changing and the forces are coming from the politicians who shape their ethics through regulations. Rather, than through a census of demographic organization. The reason is because the voice of the people is not clear. The voice of the people has never been organized to the standards that an engineer could codify technologically. And, its both baffling and trite to reason that such harmony in democracy has never been thought to be fundable. Read: no one knew how to monetize it. Just look at Twitter…
I always wanted to buy Twitter. Obviously, Elon beat me to it. Twitter is the purest social medium we have. Unfortunately, they were trying to Fuck it up. I’m glad Elon bought it – as long as he does what I think he’s going to do with it. Which is turn it into a database controlled by the user. Its the whole goal of tied.house. Twitter was how I envisioned a public channel on tied.house would bata-ize.
Maybe it still will. Maybe I figured out a better way to do it. We will see.
Author: Jeff Donnelly
Game Designer. In both business and life, the potential is limited by the number of transactions available. Life is like a game. Jeff designs games that allow people to realize their full potential.