Happy Holidays! It’s been quite a busy year for me and I haven’t had much time or energy to write a Substack post. Thought I’d catch you up to speed with what I’ve been up to and what I have planned for the coming New Year. I have a lot of projects and hobbies planned and although I may not get around to all of them, jotting everything down will give you something of an idea of what I want to experiment with in 2024.

First announcement I want to make is that I am now officially done with college! Halle-frigging-lujah. Just finished my last two classes a couple weeks ago and I’ll be attending the graduation ceremonies this coming May. I’ll be walking away with a bachelor’s in psychology, an associates in behavioral science, and a minor in digital media. After five years of higher education, I can say with a certainty that our educational system as it currently stands is a failing institution and either needs to be extensively restructured or simply replaced by a better alternative. That’s not to say I didn’t have some great experiences in college and I am greatly privileged to have access to higher education, but with that said, our education system is clearly outdated and needs to be fixed. This isn’t even mentioning all of the ludicrous politics and repugnant progressive virtue signaling going on. All of this is a topic for a future post that I plan to write somewhere down the line. Needless to say, continuing to maintain the status quo within our universities is doing our future generations a great disservice.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I’ve also been extraordinarily busy with a new job as a customer service representative at an unnamed brokerage firm. The job pays incredibly well and the hours are good, but doing customer service has been extremely draining for me. I can honestly say that this job has been the hardest, longest slog of my career thus far and, between work and finishing school, it’s left me very little energy to pursue other activities I’ve been wanting to take part in, such as keeping up on this Substack. Fortunately, I just recently applied for a back office position where I would transcribe life insurance documents, basically a clerk job. It sounds tremendously boring, but I prefer boring over stressful at this point. My hope is that a less stressful job will give back some psychic energy so I can engage in other pursuits on my spare time. Here’s to hoping that I’ll get picked up for an interview; fingers crossed.

With everything from the past year squared away, I want to touch on what I want to accomplish heading into the new year, both in web3 and in my personal life. First and foremost, and one of the primary reasons I wanted to write this post, I plan to partake in a 30 day digital detox starting right after New Year’s Eve. I will be taking all of my personal devices, with the exception of my phone, and locking them away for an entire month. I went to the effort of buying a Honeywell key-locked fire safe for my devices, and I also bought a time-locked kitchen safe for my phone when I’m not using it for work. I’ll be giving the key for the safe to a loved one until the detox is over.

There are a few reasons why I want to pursue this detox. The primary reason is to break certain habits that have been detrimental to my psychological and emotional health for years. Growing up during the advent of the internet, I’ve always been hooked to some type of digital device with internet access. Within the past few years since I started college, there has rarely been a moment where I haven’t been chronically online, and I feel like so much of my time, energy, and happiness has been robbed by my unhealthy addiction to the internet. I want to change my relationship with technology and fix the behaviors that I’ve struggled with for so long. As a psychology student, I know the best way to break a bad habit is to replace it with a healthy habit and abstain from that bad habit long enough that those pathways in the brain eventually fade away. In other words, use it or lose it. Even after I’m done with my initial detox, I plan to detox regularly to continue fostering that healthy relationship. I’ve dedicated Sundays as my detox days, but I may detox on other occasions whenever I feel it’s needed.

The secondary reason I’m doing this detox is to give myself time to meditate and reflect on where I’m going from here and what I plan to do with myself. I’m at a very pivotal time in my life where I’m finally finishing my education and transitioning into the world of work. It’s a strange liminal space to find myself in, and one where my decisions will have a significant impact on my future. Now that I no longer have to juggle both work and school, I need to figure out what I want out of life and what impact I want to make on the world. Despite the embarrassment of the FTX scandal over the past year and the many failings and flaws within web3, I still passionately believe that this technology can and will bless humanity in ways we cannot imagine. I want to make the world a better place and use this technology to help fix the many crises that our society is struggling with. I don’t want to miss out on the revolution. With that said, there are other options and opportunities to make a net positive impact that don’t necessarily involve web3. I want to consider these options carefully and come to a decision. There is also some personal mental health stuff that I need to work through as well, especially after such a stressful year of work.

Once I’m done with my detox however, I plan to get to work. My current plan is to resume learning code and web development for web3. I tried learning web dev a little this past year, but my life became so busy I had to put my coding lessons on hold. I want to continue my web development journey once January ends. I’ll at least learn the four basic languages: html, css, javascript, and python. I may branch out and learn other languages depending on what type of development I want to pursue and what language I vibe with the most, but at least those four. I also plan to find a good web development course online and start building up a portfolio.

In addition to web development, I also plan to start participating in DAOs again. Although I am fascinated with DAOs, my participation and contribution to them thus far has been minimal. As I am already an active member of Farcaster, I’ve been thinking of starting with Purple DAO. I’m mostly interested DAO governance and participating in proposals, although it would also be an excellent opportunity to do web development work for the DAO and expand my dev skills. The last time I was active in a DAO, I got nervous and backed out. I think the reason for this anxiety is because I felt some ambiguity of how exactly I should contribute and got overwhelmed. I don’t yet know how to grapple with this feeling of anxiety, but regardless, I want to return to the DAO space and learn everything I can about how these organizations currently work, how they are structured, and what can be done to improve them.

There are also some creative pursuits that I would like to try. I’ve been thinking of doing crypto art again. I was very involved in the NFT market during the boom of ‘21, but pulled out after the market collapsed. I would like to resume this hobby as it would allow me to express myself creatively while also earning a little crypto on the side. Also, Warpcast now allows its users to sell NFTs for warps. Since channels have went permission-less, it would be nice to save up some warps to open my very own channel one day. Another creative hobby I want to try is making dark ambient music. I’ve become something of a dark ambiance aficionado recently and would like to conduct some pieces of my own. I know nothing about creating music, but figuring out how would be a lot of fun.

I of course will continue to write more Substack articles. There’s one article in particular I want to write and publish before year’s end so you can expect to see that one some time by the end of the week. I personally like writing as a way to express my ideas. It feels natural to me. Maintaining a Substack is also an excellent way to synthesize and apply what I’m learning. I aim to write at least one article a month following my detox, possibly more if I can find the time.

That’s the long and short of what I have planned for 2024. Again, I may not be able to do everything on my list, but I feel like this is a good start. I feel like this new year will be a big turning point for me and I’m very excited for what’s in store.

If you haven’t, please consider subscribing to my Substack and follow me on Farcaster if you’re on there. I wish you a Happy New Year and see you in the next post!