I quitted my job 10 days ago, and since then I’ve been busy from 8am to 12pm almost everyday, weekend included.

I’ve learnt a lot in a week… Being able to just build.

No hierarchy, no managers forcing their way for signalling, no bullshit tasks to serve marketing without value to the end user, no attendance to placeholder meeting, working from the comfort of my home, not a crowded noisy open space, with an AC dripping on my head.

By doing so, I’m indirectly investing in projects I believe in and own, in myself through learning valuable skills, and in a better future for humanity through the development of decentralisation (especially finance…).

The ascension

I’ve been hoping to reach this situation for a long time.

Since my first disheartening internships in “startups“ flipping a few interns and State’s subsidies.

Where I realised that nobody knew what they were doing, that it wasn’t even even important as long as you were faking it, the grand mascarade.

I refused to bend.

***

Since my first contact with Bitcoin 11 years ago, my first mining Raspberry PI, first Butterfly-labs ASIC miners, paid at the price of eating rice and pepper for months to save these 350e of internship minimum wage.

There, I first though about what was money and trust, and that alternative to the current centralised structures were possible. Hopium!

***

Since my first depression right after joining my first real job. Being overused by a service company, hoping that I would ultimately receive what they promised me if I did this other 10k shell scripting mission.

There, I learned that people were livestock, assets for corporations. And that equally people were cattle, not willing to think or stir shit to improve their condition. That the managers and commercials were the slave masters behind friendly masks, open bars and “team building”.

I refused to comply with the status quo, no bending. The grass must be greener higher up.

***

Since my first open source position, joining prestigious W3C people and Adobe guys. What could go wrong, these were the Linux Beard-necks people I wished to work with for a decade since I first discovered Linux.

There, I realised that I was one of the few actually building, and that all the advisors and board members where doing figuration, lending a name for shilling, reaping an additional effortless revenu stream.

I refused to work for other for a fixed wage, under the excuse of “open source”, that again was heavily subsidised by several States. I could do the same in a more profitable place probably?

***

Since my first quality job, with quality people. Serving million of users. Well this one was quite fun, and enlightening. Especially thanks to a manager that had a philosophical approach to his work. And that had a good ethic. That never got upset, master of his emotions and mind. Very technically able, so were the teammates.

There I discovered that the smartest people, sometimes live the poorest lives. Some, blind chasing the “passive revenue” and other bs, were living in small places on a mattress, eating daily Uber eat.

I refused to settle comfortably, I always need something new anyway. Maybe there is no problem its just me finding excuses to avoid settling?

Time and health are finite resources, that no money can buy back. Knowledge should be cultivated, fully managerial positions refused.

***

Since my first experience in a “family office”, what? The name doesn’t sound friendly? Won’t even mention the 2 years lost there, professionally speaking.

I did invest in my body and mind out of boredom though. I learn to do Lapidary, Silversmithing, I trained Muay Thai 4/5 days a week, practiced meditation daily and studied greek philosophers. (Yes I had that much time. And without these alt skills I would not have made it out sound and sane).

There I learnt to bend the mind, but on my conditions. I also learnt that only I am sovereign over my choices, that I do what tf I want. (I always did anyway, ask my mom, but in a primitive way, without the theory. Now I had Socrates to back me up)

***

Since my latest experience in a Blockchain company, a good one, but that is still a company, mostly focused on pleasing shareholder and receiving fat fundings.

The funniest was that the funding was announced in town hall without any mention of what it would be used for? Nobody asked, and at that point I was too tired to always swim against the tide…

***

Reflecting about the why now…

Why tf would I endure low pay, high pressure and responsibilities (working in C/C++/swift native iOS).

Why would I keep working for other people that were reaping the benefits without sharing much, and I don’t even ask in financial terms, I would have been happy with a warm head petting at that time.

Mostly cowardice, nobody to blame but myself. To disappoint others, to trust my guts, to risk loosing some comfort.

The same cowardice that made me sell my bitcoins 12$. Too scary to not be able to buy cigs, to have to ask people for money (in that order at that time).

Also mindlessness, because who got time to think when your living pay-check to pay-check, drinking and using drugs to relieve stress and because it’s the social norm of where you come from.

Along the way I met a nice anon crypto friend, with whom I still talk almost monthly, although sporadically communicating with each other, he is been kind of a lighthouse in all this life whirlwind. After half a decade I still haven’t seen his face nor know much about the physical him.

Breaking free

Last year I built the free app PointCloudKit, in an intense push, doing Metal GPU code, interfacing python/c/c++ and computer vision with iOS/Swift, on my free time. It was great learning, good tech, and totally unprofitable nor impactful (appart from the monthly LiDAR researchers, architects and students that contact me for feature request).

I was hoping this would work! Why didn’t it work, why the reality wasn’t bending to my expectations? I was a good hardworking boi!

Made me upset. I decided to start… doing what’s needed. Accept reality as it is, stop hoping and start acting.

It’s like having to do the dishes, you can wish you don’t have to, but that’s just stupid.

Just do it.

Just do it.

Thanks to the harshness of Muay Thai, this simple sentence I had heard for two decades now made fucking sense.

Sometimes you just have to do it. If I want to work in a blockchain related job, stop hoping on these Linkedin agents. Just start doing.

Start learning Rust, Solana (sure I’m motivated, but not enough to learn Javascript and Solidity. It’s already hard enough to write just the tests in JS, that even the fucking IDE/Compiler don’t understand).

If only I had acted instead of hoping.

Took me a few more months.

And now it’s me creating my opportunities, building nice things for projects I value, projects I am financially and emotionally invested in.

Just because I acted instead of hoping, because I took the matter in my own hands.

As I heard from Andre Compte-Sponville (poorly translated…)

There is no hope without fear, nor fear without hope. Many people live in hope and so in fear, but the wise prefer to do what depend on him, accept what IS rather than desire what he wish it was, and do what depend of him: building

Hope less, and learn, love and act more.

Reality is rational, everything is explainable. Thanks Epictetus for teaching me this. If the current situation doesn’t fit the grid you’r trying to make it fit through, drop the grid. Embrace the situation, how dire it is. Cause that the first step toward getting where you want.

Not a big fan of these motivational “entrepreneurial spirit” bs, and now I start to feel like this sounds a bit like it?

It’s more about a retard that can barely write a sentence trying to share his experience in case it can help anyone. I don’t know anything, like everybody else. Anyone who seem to have shit figured out is either a fool or probably trying to scam you.

Okay another last quote from our Stoic friend Seneca :

When you’ll have un-learnt to hope, you’ll learn to want.

As with fire came disparities in the Souls, with hope came fear in “real life”.

We are full of hope, and consequently of fears.

By learning to hope less, we free ourselves from the associated fears, and we start wanting and acting.

It’s all coming together. Or maybe I have sugar high, or idiot bias…

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. \n