M E M O R Y
Seek the greater truth. Confront yourself, confront your fears, confront culture and the status quo.
I’ve been listening to “Memory” by SKUFL (scuffle) and the intro clip (that I haven’t bothered to find the sample) keeps playing in my head:
”Accept the facts but never ever confuse the facts with the truth. Seek the greater truth. You know, anything that anyone has ever done that has required more, caused that individual to confront themselves. They confronted their fears. They confronted other people. They confronted culture, and had to make a decision that ‘you know what? YOU said I can’t, the SYSTEM says I can’t, but something inside me says what,'I can.’“
And then SKUFL proceeds to crush his verse. That’s not why I’m writing this. That soundbite and the mood of the instrumentation got me thinking about the past 10 or so years of my life. To me, it has felt like a broken pendulum swinging wildly between intent and aimlessness only exacerbated by major moments of greater and greater loss. In short, some days I feel like I should’ve switched places with my father. At least my mom wouldn’t be alone. At least my little brother has a sage they can rely on for advice.
Me? I mean sure I’ve got stuff going on for me but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme. Love is the most important metaphysical state to cultivate and cherish in life. Some people live full lives without knowing what love truly is. Life today isn’t hopeless but tonight feels like it. Despite the dread I’m compelled to continue on largely because life is bigger than just me. I only have this life once as far as I know, and while it’s not exactly what I dreamed it would be, I at least have another chance to make something of it.
I wish I could hear him tell me how proud he is, to hear his boisterous laugh that filled any space it could occupy. I yearn for the thunderous clap when we shook hands (no matter how many times I’d make us do it just to hear that sound), and the warmth of the hugs he gave. I try to mimic it but there’s some level of love I’ve yet to unlock.
Confront Yourself & Your Fears
The past year has been difficult. I’ve felt small. I feel invisible. No matter how many times I shout, I don’t think anyone is listening. And as many times I’ve been proven wrong, I have this unshaken notion that what is real is not. If there were ever a time in which I’d be deemed “delusional,” I’d agree wholeheartedly.
I drank the web3 koolaid until it made me sick. For all the talk about cultural preservation, power redistribution, public goods funding, instilling agency to others, I continue to find myself in disillusioned with what “values” continues to be championed and funded. I’m beyond burnt out. I liken my condition to Tephrosis, a condition caused by severe overheating in which one’s ability to generate flames inflicts great pain to the individual typically burning their own bodies and severe dehydration. Now Tephrosis is a fictitious ailment from the manga Fire Force, the expression “burnt out” takes shape a bit more colorful than how we normally associate it with exhaustion.
Working in a space that seemingly demands all of your waking time and attention is dangerous and costly on all fronts. Combine that with two bouts of COVID, I am in a constant cycle of lethargy. In a way, tying myself to a community has been harder to sever than if the work I’ve done in this space was singular and without co-ownership. I could simply say, I’m fucking tired, see you maybe or never.
At what point do you call it quits? I’m fully submerged in these projects like quicksand and losing sight and oxygen at a rapid place with no end in sight. I admit that I am holding on to the idea that what I’m doing will actually work itself out and that I can live sustainably from the value I’ve brought to the table. But the well is dried up. Maxed out credit, eth broke, 0 value assets—there’s nothing here that I can use to stay afloat. I don’t have a job outside of crypto—no one is hiring. I stopped working on client projects due to struggles with balancing my time (possibly my Achilles’ heel). I’m down to two realizations:
EGO
I realize my ego is pretty big. I don’t think I’m the SHIT, but I felt like I had done some real things in web3 that would realistically get me intros and deals signed. And I got the reality check that I’m not that fucking special. No one cares that you did a good thing. They care if what you do makes money. And to be fair, a lot of the shit I did in the space was not about making money or profit. However, the work I produced on several platforms got those platforms funded, yet my ideas have not.
RESPONSIBILITY
Since my father passed, we paid his debts. Islamically, when a loved one’s debts are paid they are clear to journey to paradise. If there was ever a bit of solace in this fucked up world (assuming eternal paradise is real), then I’m happy he gets to enjoy Boogie Nights before the rest of us. Snapping back to the real world, our childhood house is falling apart, bills are pilling up, we’re getting older, and we are wandering aimlessly desperate to cling onto something, anything. It took me nearly two years to the day of his passing to realize I had a parachute amidst the freefall. While it helps me fall gracefully, I’m still falling.
Despite these truths, I want to continue to believe in what I’m doing, I just can’t sustain myself doing it any longer. If I can’t secure funding, I’ve got to let it all go. No web3, no sirsu, no swan song—just an Irish exit.
Confront Others & Culture
I can’t lie here. I don’t like a lot of the representatives of web3. Folks I thought were cool are not, and support I thought I had, I don’t. More important than the feeling of being sidelined, I don’t enjoy occupying spaces that don’t feel like I belong there.
There is a value system here where collectively we thought we would exist in a space devoid of the system. We quickly realized that we were sold on a lie. Used as exit liquidity. Became a punching bag for non-crypto, disgruntled creators who needed a group to pin their shortcomings on (very similar to the AI discussions happening now). Preyed on by scammers posing as fans or agents or folks looking to commission works—only to drain them of everything they had.
Time and again we’d see the lack of care and sensitivity to those who felt a calling to participate in what was branded as “life affirming”, “world changing”, “power shifting” shit. But who really up at the end of the day?
Mostly the same people who were up before. We’ve seen it play out a multitude of times now. With 500 wallets being responsible for more than half of Blur’s trading activity, or the insider trading from an OpenSea employee, to “influencers” withholding information of what they hold in order to manipulate the value of tokens they own to dump on unsuspecting victims later.
Rare are the earnest wins. Even rarer are those who get the opportunities to build to help more of them win.
I’m reminded of Rage Against the Machine’s song “Wake Up” where the second verse has Zach de la Roche yelling,
What do I gotta What do I gotta do to wake you up? To shake you up, to break the structure up?!
There’s too many small pockets of good shit and it bothers me that these small groups fail to get funding, fail to gain traction, fail to gain momentum. I’m not writing this essay because I know how to solve for this. Otherwise I’d be writing checks and living out my days comfortably because my mom is taken care of and my brother doesn’t have to work in an industry he hates just to help stave off the fear we’ve felt since two long fucking Augusts ago.
Part of confrontation is at least acknowledging what’s in front of you that’s pissing you off so it’s not just a “you problem.” The other part is doing something about it. So yeah, I’m deeply upset, wounded is probably more apt. What I’m going to do about it? Hang it up. Get a job away from crypto, design, art…something a lot more quiet. Make sure mom is good. Visit my brother more often. They say your 20’s the time to experiment…I’ll be 30 in Feb so I’d rather do something else with my life. My dad passed in a hospital in a coma unable to fight for his life due to medical malpractice at 56 unable to enjoy his life’s work. I’m not going to resolve myself to a fate like that.
The Truth
The reality is…I’m fucking crazy. Being an entrepreneur is hard and I’m not good at it lmfao. I don’t think I want to be good at it either. I want to be successful, but in a sense where I can enjoy life on my terms. To see the world, learn from others, create a safe space for my family, connect with a local community, participate in a farmer’s market…you know, like real shit. I don’t need shitloads of money, I don’t even want shitloads. I just want to be out of debt, I want my mom out of debt, my brother to pursue music without having to do shit he hates…I want to marry my girlfriend and have the stability to build a family.
All this other shit is fucking meaningless. I can’t just have the internet as my life. It turns out, I’m not particularly great at using the internet to make my life better.
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The beautiful thing about my writing is, you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. They don’t have endings, there isn’t some final resolution of “what have we learned,” it’s just emotions I’m trying to process. Maybe it helps, maybe it informs, maybe it drives you as insane as me.