My scheduled was packed today. I took several pitches. I spoke with an internet friend about some mutual interests. I did some travel arrangements for a real estate transaction I’m hoping will go my way.
I really felt the need to be busy today. For once I didn’t want to be too immersed in the zeitgeist. I somewhat dreaded checking Twitter. I actually listened to a whole podcast and went for an hour long walk in the freezing winter cold. I spent some time organizing my calendar for next week.
I’m rarely this task oriented. I generally need spaces that are open where I can lay down and soak up the current moment. I’m usually calmed by the drumbeat of information. I thrive on input.
But I couldn’t bring myself to be online. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine is too unsettling. The implications it has for a changing world order. The instability it represents. The second and third order impacts my mind can only grasp out but not fully see.
So I’m going to order some takeout. Maybe something fried. And I’ll watch Netflix. And I’m pretend that I’m comfortable in this consumption mediated disassociation. And I’m going to assume that it’s normal. Because my life is absolutely fine but I’m bearing witness to a tragedy being played live online.
Stress is sneaking up on us everywhere. Just opening up a newspaper or scrolling Twitter is enough to spike your cortisol levels. I’m not quite ready to make jokes about World War III but I can see why people are.
I knew when I started chaotic.capital that folks might think I was a doomer and even a bit crazy. But I was confident that we’d be moving in a more chaotic world. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Merely that in a world with increasing complexity we must all become more adaptable.
But today I didn’t feel like I was at my most adaptable. I felt as if my parasympathetic response was all out of whack. The inputs were overwhelming my nervous system. So I did what seemed most rational and also most emotionally appealing. I snuggled up to my husband and asked for a hug. I needed the oxytocin that is released from touch to counterbalance the cortisol that was flushing my system. If this is the new normal I need to up my oxytocin doses.
One of my friends texted to say “I’m shocked the hygiene theater at EthDenver failed as half my team has Covid-19!” Which is of course sarcasm. But we are all back in action. Consequences be damned! I’ve booked conferences through June. A venture fund that backs my husband just booked their CEO summit for an in person gathering. I have finally started eating at restaurants indoors again.
But for all this ridiculous talk of getting back to normal it’s just a lull. I’m happy to be out there as I’m confident in my immunity and my own risk tolerance based on having had an infection and being up to date vaccines. But it might not remain that way. And for plenty of people their risk calculus can’t be as liberal as mine. We’ve left behind the immune compromised. America doesn’t give a fuck about the disabled.
I hadn’t really meant this as a Covid post but rather it’s an introduction to this striving for normalcy. The pandemic is wrapping up and we can “Get Back to Normal” is more slogan than reality. If only because there is no going back. We’ve got the annoyance of all the second and third order effects of the pandemic to deal with now. And that is going to suck more than the pandemic
Faith in institutions is shaken and probably damaged for an entire generation. Health and medicine will make big strides as we finally address long virus issues. Maybe more chronically ill folks get better care. But for most people their trust in science is shaken. Not sure if the good will outweigh the bad yet.
We’ve also normalized a wide swath of government interventions we’d previously never tolerated. But it’s for our own good! Sure but who decides on the good going forward? What might else it get used for? And more people than I’d expected cheered on this kind of meddling in our daily lives. All for the greater good obviously. But I’m worried what happens when fascists get to decide on what is a greater good. And since we’ve normalized intervention it will be harder to push back.
I really do believe things are becoming more chaotic. We’ve accelerated a whole swath of changes that are going to shift our world. Some of it may be in good ways. I certainly plan to make a lot of money investing in the belief that we will adapt swiftly and positively. And either I’m right and we survive and so I make a lot of money. Or I’m wrong and it probably doesn’t matter. We’ve got to leap into the unknown to find out. But back to normal? Sorry buddy but we live in interesting times.
If you are a media junkie today was chaotic as fuck. Last Friday I was talking to a fellow preparedness enthusiast Josh Centers. We’d been discussing the situation in the Ukraine and how it might affect daily life in America. He’d been considering launching a Substack to help folks approach the topic of preparedness during our increasingly unstable times. I am obviously a keen observer of this space as I do firmly believe the word is getting weirder that I named my venture fund Chaotic.capital.
I’m glad he took the leap and launched Unprepared.life today as his analysis has set my mind at ease even as it looks ever clearer a conflict involving Russia is inevitable. Josh is a crisp clear writer that has a knack for communicating vital information in a crisis without alarmism. I very much recommend you subscribe. I believe in him so much I’ve personally invested.
Much as it pains me I do believe the topic of preparedness is becoming more relevant by the day. The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed America’s power grid and its increasing unreliability. And that’s just one example of how life is getting a little bit harder and a little bit more expensive and a whole lot more unpredictable. But just because there is chaos in the world doesn’t mean your responsibilities are any less. Your family still needs to eat even if supply chains are unreliable. Your work still expects you to deliver even if there is a power outage. The bank doesn’t care if inflation is making your mortgage more expensive. Life goes on even during crisis.
I’m going to Europe for the month of March. After two years of isolation with my husband it felt like it was time to be on my own for a little bit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And yes the trip will involve work so founders in Germany and France feel free to reach out.
Packing brings back all my childhood memories of never feeling stable. Boxes and suitcases take me back. A common theme in my recurring nightmare is trying to find all the basics I will need for some trip. I’ll be searching for underwear or prescription medication. As the dream unfolds I’ll find a key item only to have it disappear. There is always a countdown.
Naturally I’m a bit concerned packing for a month long trip to another continent after literally years of not packing. But I’m letting some of of the fear go. Jo
I was at my first work conference since the pandemic this week. I had to pack up medication and supplements. Makeup and toiletries for casual and more formal events needed to be gathered and stowed. I needed to account for professional dressing along with a snowstorm and a 60 degree day. I brought a parka and boots along with heels and proper lingerie. It was not an easy packing job.
And to my surprise everything worked. I brought the right mix of attire. I only forgot a few medications that weren’t crucial. I looked perfectly fine and was able to be as casual or as polished as the circumstances required. And blessedly it mostly all fit into my trusty Muji suitcase.
While I feel out of practice, a dry run before I need to really have my act together for a big international trip went great. Maybe I’m actually ready to get back on the road.
We’d scheduled booster shots for this afternoon. Even though we’ve both recently had Covid, I’ve got travel coming up so I needed to get a booster to get into Europe. I probably have never had better immunity to the disease than I do right now so I’m feeling optimistic about being around people again.
But I didn’t realize it was going to snow today. The forecast said it would lightly snow for an hour or two. So I thought it’s fine to schedule vaccines now. I wanted them right before the weekend so I had maximum time to rest and recover.
But clearly the forecasts were we wrong as we headed into a significant storm to get our shots. An hour later as we wrapped it up we were in driving snow with very little visibility. The roads were accumulating snowfall fast. The normally fifteen minute drive hour stretched into triple time.
Thankfully we made it home safely. And we’ve been shot up for the sake of paperwork. I only feel marginally worse for wear.
It’s ok if someone hates me. It’s ok if someone thinks I’m bitchy, stupid, obnoxious and self serving. Hell I’m ok if people think I’m a lesser human being. Which judging by Twitter could be a multitude of reasons ranging from “I’m a woman” to “I’ve got bad taste in tv.”
I am alright with you not being alright with me. My existence is not threatened by your philosophy or personal preferences. My existence is only threatened if you literally threaten me. Call me evil if you like. I’m not offended. Until you take an action against me it’s alright that we disagree. Even if the disagreements are existential.
It’s quite possible this is wrong. I’m open to debate on what constitutes harm. In fact, my entire philosophy centers on that debate being fine. I can take it. I actually pay someone to cuss me out for being stupid and then I pay again to spend time in a group where we regularly tell each other how much the group members anger us. It’s called therapy.
So take that as context when I say I wasn’t particularly personally hurt by Brantly Milligan, aka Brantly.eth aka one of the ENS Foundation cofounders, suggesting women who use contraception are perverts. I’d probably be a lot more hurt if I was a gay trans woman who had an abortion though. But I figure that demo might be used to being called evil by Catholics at this point. Like maybe it’s more of an annoyance than existential threat if you are wealthy and privileged enough to be working in crypto. We aren’t really a population that is hurting
Brantley.eth “homosexual acts are evil. Transgenderism doesn’t exist. Abortion is murder. Contraception is a perversion. So is masturbation and porn.”
The Ethereum community is experiencing this speech with a lot of pain, hurt and anger. Brantley was voted out of his contract with True Names Limited the foundation that manages ENS Domains. But he remains one of the largest holders of tokens and will obviously have plenty of influence over the future of the platform. The debate has become one of cancel culture versus DAO governance working as intended. But the split on that is not clean and it’s not always clear where people will fall. An informal poll on my timeline is pretty evenly split.
Twitter poll asking if Brantley termination is governance working or cancel culture.
I’m tempted to assign him my tokens as a delegate to be honest. Though I won’t because I think he’s unprofessional. But I want to because I don’t love how any of it played out. Brantly doubled down on telling folks to fuck off compounding the feeling of being hurt. That’s unprofessional and not the kind of behavior I’d expect out of my management team. But I also don’t know that simply holding unpleasant or intolerant beliefs is enough. And it shouldn’t be in a decentralized system. I respect that the right voting and governance may have happened here but I’d argue we all want more control spread out over more people for exactly these scenarios.
I think Brantly basically Shrekli’d himself by doubling down on asshole antisocial shit and the DAO equivalent of the Feds coming for you happened. You can’t attract negative attention and be shocked when bad shit happens to you. But I don’t think being a retrograde weirdo is enough on it’s own to get you booted from an ecosystem.
The entire reason I’m walking you through this sensitive topic today is that I am committing my year to self love. And you might think how does self love and DAO governance overlap. But I really do feel empathy to everyone involved in ENS and the ethereum ecosystem right now. The pain of feeling like you are not seen and loved for who you are is primal shit. This is core human nature “do I belong” to my tribe stuff.
If you don’t love yourself than you are going to have a reactive stance to something that questions your morality and worth. And I’m guessing a lot of people are reactive judging by the uproar. But the thing about self love is that you just won’t be as hurt by assholes being assholes. Because you’ve taken care of yourself first. So whatever the right and just outcome of this ENS governance issue, I think it’s important we all check in on ourselves and why we reacted in the first place. Only then can we get on with the business of design the future and it’s technology.
I am coming slowly into 2022 in its fullness. Perhaps I am living in seasonal time this year. I am feeling the wholeness of what the moment brings and January is about becoming. So it wasn’t surprisingly that clarity of purpose has been sharpening for me. I am ready to commit to self acceptance as the theme of my year.
I felt somehow today that the only thing that really mattered for my success in the world was radically altering any perception I had of myself as negative. That I was here to love even the parts of myself that cause me shame and fear. The only thing that will take me where I want to go is loving myself. That self love was actually the key to all troubles personal and professional.
“You know, loving awareness—even if you haven’t heard the phrase before, you know what it is. Those moments of spacious, calm, thorough, tranquil connection with whatever portion of existence you’re currently exposed to, where nothing is being challenged or conceptualized, but rather is just allowed to appear, in radiant suchness, without resistance or fear.”
I’ve discussed the emotional work I do on the blog at length. The Family Systems Therapy and it’s exploration of the inner child. The shadow work and integrating of the whole of oneself. But I do often reject the crucial step of feeling like I am fundamentally alright. I am ok. I am enough.
I’ve committed to “a bit” where I lavish myself with self improvement and luxuriate in needing to make every measurement better. I’m obsessed with finding metrics to improve. And so I give myself little problems to fix. Maybe I’ll eat poorly so I can feel bad about my body composition. When instead I could just eat what I like and accept that maybe I’ve made other priorities than my figure. I don’t need to agonize over trivial shit.
But equally I don’t need to agonize over big shit. So I’m not a perfectly credentialed super star. I’m more of an eccentric. I don’t live like other people so I see other things. My existence is the selling point. If what I bring to the table is what you want then I am the right partner for you. If am I not then well tautologically I’m not for you. Partnerships are accepting what everyone brings.
So through the end of this year I am going to bring self love and acceptance to my writing here. In letting myself be seen I can more fully bring myself to my partners. Being a startup investor that means I must be present for my founders, their teams, and my own LPs and stakeholders. I’m bringing the full depth of my being because that’s also going to bring the best returns. Because being ok. Accepting the moment and it’s inhabitants? That brings us the creative potential to solve whatever is in front of us without judgement.
Life is a pretty indecisive process. You go through with, at best, some genetic heuristics for truth and a couple half verified data sets. So when the feeling of clarity hits you it’s hard not to notice. The clarion call of seeing reality (which sounds like me mixing two sense based metaphors) is edifying.
When you know you know. Popular culture loves this phenomenon. You get it. Knowing is head to toes and taint to tip stuff. You just get what’s happening in your gut. Somewhere in the shared brain space of your conscious reality and the microbiology of your intestinal fauna there exists clarity.
Surely there is a reason we describe knowing as a process that isn’t strictly data driven. Sure we can have facts and methods and process. But somewhere along the line we can only know if our biology agrees. Your gut knows what I mean.
I had a bit of that feeling earlier today. I got some feedback from someone I like and trust. It wasn’t positive feedback. Me and mine had fucked up something in our approach. But then I had clarity. I knew what we needed to do to fix it. I saw the path that would lead to our success together. And I just knew it. In every part of me. And the best part is when I share it with my partner they will get it too. In their mind and body. That’s clarity.
I have been feeling a little disconnected the past couple days. The rising feeling that the zeitgeist isn’t coalescing around a shared narrative has been unsettling.
I usually feel a strong sense of narrative. Maybe because I’m a veteran of the internet’s propaganda class. I was a mercenary in the marketing and media space for the formative years of the social web. If anyone has natural immunity to disinformation it’s the people who manufacture it for a living.
But I can’t tease out who is placing what stories right now. I can’t even get a read on what stories are common knowledge right now. It’s like nothing is winning. There is no story capturing all our imagination at the moment. At least nothing beyond West Elm Caleb. We can agree that Tik Tok is toxic but we aren’t sure where the pandemic is headed, what politics will prevails, or where the markets are headed.
You’ve got to be careful in a toxic information climate like this. You can easily get suckered into attention holes. The more we fixate on the story of the moment the more anxiety you will feel. The zeitgeist isn’t legible. The only way you can protect yourself is to anchor what you know in core beliefs. Don’t let any one stop dictate your mood or shift your focus. Center yourself and you will be less affected.
