The last six weeks have served as a reset for me in terms of clarity and confidence for my next chapter, and I'm noticing ideas and situations that confirm that line of thinking.

The first was a trip down to the northern corner of California to see the giant redwood trees. These old-growth forests are breathtakingly, astoundingly beautiful, and difficult to capture on a phone camera!

For people, just like the giant tree in the header image for this post, which has spread its roots over and around its fallen arboreal comrade, personal growth is a constant process. As we navigate through life’s ups and downs, we constantly learn, adapt, and evolve. The lesson for me in the Grove of Titans was that growth happens regardless of what I might perceive as obstacles — in fact those things are probably there to contribute to my development and nourish my spirit.

Similarly, a blog post I read this week convinced me that perception must not be afforded too strong a grasp on reality, because it can strangle. The blog is one of my favourites, one of the few I read without fail. It's by Oliver Burkeman, who writes about personal productivity in a way that often helps me get out of my own way. Oliver's blog is called The Imperfectionist and I highly recommend it; this week's post is titled The goose in the bottle and I'm including the opening paragraph to make you want to read the rest of the piece:

Here’s a riddle, adapted from a Zen koan: imagine you’ve come into possession of a live goose, trapped in a large glass bottle. (Don’t ask how or why.) The animal has plenty of room in the bottle, and air to breathe, but the neck of the bottle is much too narrow for the goose to pass through. Your job is to remove the goose from the bottle without harming it, and without breaking any glass.

Did you read the answer? I hope so, because it affirms that overthinking can trap us. Directing personal growth requires introspection, awareness, and deliberate actions, and I'm a big fan of those, but just as easily this line of attention can become confinement in a web of 'should'. I want to remain open to the possibilities life brings, and not censor myself for the sake of perceived boundaries — whether they be societal norms, ingrained personal fears, or imagined unfavourable outcomes.

That's what being a DAOpunk means for me, and every time I read the DAOpunks Manifesto I'm proud to be part of this community of free thinkers.

Thank you for your company on this Cohort 4 journey, and see you on the trail.

Over the last century, we’ve complicated supply- and value chains to the extent we’ve almost forgotten there’s a creator behind the things and the content we consume. The Creator Economy is a digital and global version of a world we used to know—one where we support and celebrate digital artisans directly.

The 2021 Forbes article gives a brief mention of NFTs as one enabler of direct payments from fans to creators, and that is what I’ve chosen to muse on this week. Last week, I wrote about the fact that blockchain technology is still so early, and I decided to take the plunge by creating some collectible image posts here on Paragraph to capture some of the enthusiasm I’d seen from people responding to the Oregon landscape images online.

Well … apart from some much-appreciated comments from the ever-positive Marvel, it was a pretty 'meh' response. Each image post (yes, Marvel, these are NFTs but Paragraph calls them Collectibles) has had only a handful of views, so realistically I didn’t even generate enough audience attention to worry about how many people would collect one or two. None of the images were collected, despite the fact that the very low gas fee on Base was the only cost.

This may sound like a whinge … maybe it is; I had hoped to get some support from the DAOpunks community and/or my followers on various platforms which would signal that the time spent selecting and creating the posts would be worthwhile. Now I must accept that the photos just aren’t interesting or special enough to collect, but I also think this is indicative of a broader reluctance by those already in crypto to adopt practices which truly support the creators of music, images, video, and other art forms.

Farcaster

Jesse Pollak 🔵 on Warpcast

every time i mint or buy or somehow transfer value to someone else on @base, i like to think it's a micro grant that will encourage them to bring more of their creativity and energy onchain only possible in the onchain economy.

This cast by Jesse Pollack from Base, and the replies, gives the sense of what is possible, but I don’t think we’re there yet. I say this because since feeling all the feels about last week’s lack of engagement, I’ve realised I am part of the problem.

Here’s what I’m getting at: if you have a web3 wallet and a token balance, how willing are you to spend a minute and the equivalent of around a dollar minting an NFT simply to support the creator? I don’t mean financial support — not on a zero-cost mint; I mean as a signal that you enjoyed their creation and appreciate their effort. I think this is the leap that many are not yet making — the leap to supporting creation for its own sake.

Although I have collected Paragraph and Mirror posts that I find particularly well written, and minted NFT art that I really love, I’m definitely guilty of passive appreciation, particularly on work I simply like 'in passing'. It's similar to encountering a busker and thinking how great they sound but not pausing to leave a tip. I do this, and I usually try to avoid eye contact when I do. So this isn’t a complaint, because I get it.

There are many reasons why someone chooses to mint a particular NFT. Basic economic principles dictate that individuals often apply ‘what’s in it for me’ reasoning to decisions involving expenditure of time or money. Even paying for NFTs 'because you like them' is usually driven by the desire to acquire, more than the desire to convey appreciation.

Here lies the altruism aspect that I infer from Jesse Pollack's cast. To “grant” someone your onchain support as a gesture of encouragement, whether financially significant or not, is to suspend the need for a ‘return on investment’ and simply show up for their sake.

So this is a little nudge for me, to start intentionally communicating my appreciation. I don’t have endless funds, so I’m not going to mint everything, but I’m at least going to let the person know when I have enjoyed their work. So often it feels like we’re posting and creating into the void, but receiving a comment or knowing someone went to the effort of collecting the work makes it so much more rewarding.

If we want the paradigm shift to a creator-driven economy, we need to make a habit of supporting creators from the ground up. Blockchain empowers us to do this through direct micro-payments and/or onchain engagement but we have to take time away from riding the charts and speculating on airdrops to show that we care.

PS: A note on the accompanying image: It was pure chance to discover this mandala in the sand, which epitomised impermanence and yet gave me a memory that I can treasure for years to come. The creator/s were nowhere to be seen, but by sharing the image with you I hope to contribute to the widespread appreciation of their work.

By the way: check out Australia’s The National Blockchain Roadmap, Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources; it gives me hope.

I’m also thankful for the support from the DAOpunks community for this grant round, Cohort 4, which contributed to the kitty for my attendance at ETHDenver and some beachside time in beautiful Oregon.

I’ve been taking so many photos of this beautiful landscape and have already shared some here and there, including on Warpcast in the  /naturephotos channel. I had a positive response (thanks BPetes!) so I started wondering whether there might be interest in minting the best images as NFTs.

I created one on Zora earlier this week and for some inexplicable reason the image turned sideways. So, there’s a little onchain and quirky mistake which will forever serve as my reminder that having a go is what matters.

I decided instead to create these as collectable posts here on my Paragraph ... ‘cos don’t ya love it when you don’t have to switch to yet another platform or chain to mint something cool!

It was hard to pick my favourite six images, but I can always create more. You’ll find the beauties I chose in the six posts following this one!

Do you think of yourself as a creative person, or are you someone who crosses themself off that list? I believe everyone is able to be creative. This recent cast on Warpcast about creativity suggests it will come and go like rain, which strikes me as more accurate than the prevailing idea that some people are creative and others simply aren’t:

The assertion prompted me to think: if creativity comes and goes like rain, then how do we know we have the right conditions for it to pour when we need it? Ideas are often described as a ‘spark’, so how do we attract that lightning strike? I think that when we saturate ourselves with interesting ideas and experiences, we provide fertile ground for our own creativity to flourish — I don’t mean through a process of copying; anyone who knows me knows I am very against plagiarism! I mean through a process of synthesis.

There are many dictionary definitions of creativity, and the aspect they all share is the ability to come up with original ideas. But these ideas don’t usually arrive out of nowhere. We all bring our own set of filters and experiential inputs to the process of thinking. We sift, we muse, we ponder, we dream, and all the while our brains are working in the background (or in fact up front, in the frontal lobes).

“What makes human thinking so powerful is that we have this library of concepts that we can use to formulate an effectively infinite number of thoughts,” he [Professor Joshua Greene] continued. “Humans can engage in complicated behaviors that, for any other creature on Earth, would require an enormous amount of training. Humans can read or hear a string of concepts and immediately put those concepts together to form some new idea.” (New study reveals clues to how thoughts take shape)

As two-time Nobel prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling noted, “the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” This Forbes article, 12 Ways Leaders Generate Ideas, gives some tips on generating ideas in organisations, which could be useful for DAOs just as much as traditional companies.

There’s another step that must follow coming up with a creative idea though: expressing it. For many of us, that’s the stumbling block. How many times have you been in a ‘brainstorming session’ and realised you’re radically self censoring?

The same Forbes article says that one common organisational characteristic blocking creativity and ideas is the voice of judgement; and this is what resonated with me when visiting Meow Wolf. I kept looking at the amazing objects and surreal scenes around me and thinking how courageous the artists had to be to execute these ideas, despite the ‘WTF factor’ (my words) evident in a mere verbal or written description of their artwork. Seeing is believing, as the old saying goes, but with the support of the collective, they were each empowered to bring their concept to life and the results now bring joy to those who see the exhibit every day.

This doesn’t mean every idea is a great one; context is everything and part of the creative process is refinement (perhaps art is one of the few areas where context can remain subjective):

“... once these subconscious processes have generated a set of possible actions, they are submitted to systems of evaluation so that we can exercise our will in order to select one of them, based on how well we think they’ll turn out for us.” (The One Thing Our Brains Rely on to Generate New Ideas)

DAOs offer excellent opportunities for people to raise ideas — and to some extent, suspend judgement, thanks to the lack of other barriers which often reduce creativity in the workplace: hierarchical structures, resistance to change, or time pressures.

So let it rain. Believe in your unique creativity and cultivate your ability to express new ideas. Collaborate with others who might challenge or further your thinking. This is how we change the status quo. This is how we DAO.

And they were, so I will, and you can too. I’d recommend browsing the ETHDenver YouTube channel to catch a range of interesting presentations from the 2024 event. One in particular caught my eye when preparing this post  — The Next Era of The Open Internet with Chris Dixon. You may have seen the buzz about his recent book release: Read Write Own, which (to paraphrase his description) contextualises crypto within the history of the internet and lays out a vision for an open internet enabled by blockchain. He notes in both the book and the ETHDenver talk that the mainstream media focuses too much on the “crypto as casino” narrative, which is a small part of the vision that many of us share:

“... the core thing should be about ownership  — enabling [and] empowering users, empowering developers, empowering creators through a new architecture of digital services … that shifts ownership to the edges of the network.”
(The Next Era of The Open Internet, 8:31)

I was lucky enough to be given a copy of Chris Dixon’s book by the fabulous Diego when we met up at ETHDenver. I’ve known Diego for a couple of years via the chippi NFT community and also we both contributed to Good Morning News for some time. Diego has a kind heart and an infectious smile and he generously gave me one of the free copies he had collected by doing quests around the ETHDenver booths.

Farcaster

Chris Dixon on Warpcast

My new book Read Write Own is available in bookstores starting today. 🟧 I wrote this book to help everyone here that’s working in crypto recruit more people to join you, and explain to your friends and family how blockchains can build us a better internet. https://youtu.be/9O1dc2TNlFk

I’m only a short way into reading the book, but so far I’m enjoying the historical perspective that Chris Dixon provides in the first section, and the way he articulates the problems caused by an overly centralised internet. There’s a helpful explanation of digital networks, why they matter, and the way in which the two ‘types’ so far — protocol and corporate  — accrue and distribute value. What he sees as the “third act”, is blockchain networks, through which the users of the network have control over its value:

“When it comes to blockchains, a key simplifying concept is units of ownership called tokens. While people often think of tokens as digital assets or currencies, a more accurate technical definition would describe them as data structures that can track quantities, permissions, and other metadata for users on a blockchain.” (Read Write Own, p. 72).

This concept is what first attracted me to blockchains; in my work as a librarian I already had a strong appreciation for the value of metadata. We often refer to metadata as a love note to the future, so I immediately understood the benefit of storing such information onchain as an immutable record. What I’ve since learned about how this capability empowers the people contributing to the network only inspires me to continue exploring, and I’m so thankful I get to share this exploration with a community of amazing people through DAOpunks and beyond.

PS: A note on the accompanying image: It reminds me of the cover of Read Write Own but also, it’s seriously beautiful!

Here I am, post-ETHDenver, spending time in beautiful coastal Oregon, and writing my first update as a successful DAOpunks grantee. Somebody pinch me: I feel so lucky! As promised, I’ll be sharing the highlights of the trip to Denver, with a DAOpunks spin of course.

Without a doubt, my most thrilling moment during ETHDenver week was meeting SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who attended a fireside chat on the main stage where she highlighted the importance of self-sovereignty:

“... we're a country about people making decisions for themselves and their families; they know best, they know their circumstances best, they know their limitations best and their strengths best and it really isn't about the government coming in and telling you what you can do with your life. The government is supposed to work for the people and that's a fundamental American principle …”

The fireside chat was held on Thursday afternoon, but I was lucky enough to see and interact with Commissioner Peirce on Wednesday evening when we crossed paths at the British Bulldog, a British-themed pub in Denver where BanklessDAO folks gathered to share ideas for the next iteration of the DAO. With my sociable and fearless friend HiroKennelly, I said hello to  Ms Peirce as she was leaving — in fact we then moved onto her vacated table, haha.

It was such a brief encounter — no doubt she has many just like it — but I found it equal parts inspiring and validating. I told her that even as an Australian I appreciate her stance at the SEC, which I had become aware of through my work on the Decentralized Law newsletter via BanklessDAO. She thanked me for saying so and seemed genuinely pleased at our interest.

What I find inspiring about this short meeting is the serendipity and the solidarity. I mentioned in the pre-cohort AMA space that I had been inspired by fellow applicant Eureka John’s comment about creating space for things to happen simply by getting out there and trying stuff. I believe the meeting with Commissioner Hester Peirce was one such serendipitous moment because it inspired Hiro and I to consider restarting the Decentralized Law newsletter, and who knows where that could lead?!

Regarding solidarity, it was incredible to see the support for Hester’s stage appearance, but it was equally inspiring when our small group ran into her again, this time at a small winery. We didn’t speak directly this time, but as she was leaving one of our group called out a compliment. As gracious as ever, she popped her head back in the doorway to acknowledge this and I took the opportunity to start a round of applause. The whole place erupted for her and many people called out and cheered; evidently we were not the only ETHDenver escapees attendees on the loose that afternoon!

This solidarity of belief in people’s right to make informed choices about their lives was on display again and again at ETHDenver and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is clearly a beacon of hope, not only for U.S. citizens but all of us who watch and wait for good sense from government decision makers.

I’m a DAOpunk because I believe DAOs offer opportunities for people to innovate through serendipitous connections and to grow in solidarity as a global team. Watching that happen in real time at ETHDenver was a blast, and I’ll look forward to writing more about the conference in my next update.