Bitcoin can be confusing. When the price rises I feel happy about my tiny investment growing but also sad about the inability to stack more. So I hope it falls, in hope I can buy more. When the price falls I feel sad about the money I put in and worry, about the little money I put in. And still, a satoshi will be a satoshi. What this roller coaster teaches me is how my emotions slide with ebb and flow of pricing. The ultimate goal is already met in form of a decentralised world currency, in essence freedom. Even if that freedom is only in my mind.

On the path to find a project I need to find a place where I can post what I think, feel or see and then obtain an interpretation of the emotions I might be experiencing. I could say, “hey, that is simply what a meditation is about. Just sit in peace and observe your thoughts and then observe your feelings and emotions arise.” Im looking for something, where I can just post whatever I want to post. In response to my post I want to get a short encouraging response, instead of being directly overwhelmed by information, images or videos. Sometimes no response should the response. In most social media we can express our current state, either through text, a photo a video or a repost. And this information is then classified and maybe, if it contains enough value to be repurposed it is. We then get attention in return or maybe no attention in return. We might get likes, responses and so on. Given the size of social media companies we could argue there is a need to share. We also consume the input of others, by reading what they post, seeing the videos they produce or repost. Sometimes this information is of value and sometimes it is not. But what about a service, where the goal is to feed me something that could be of value to the user. Arguably any social media platform would feed me what is in their best interest. And I don’t judge them, since they have to make a profit. My actions and the actions of the users on the network are what really adds value to the network. This has helped me acknowledge my role as the product and not the consumer. I already knew this, but internalising it is a completely different thing. And with that acknowledgement comes duty to act. To act for my life, my time and my attention. One option would be to just not use social media, which is what I have mostly done. And then there is the duty I have to society. And there lies my first duty to just do something about my life about this issue. My solution would be a place where I can post my thoughts but get a view on where my head is at on a particular moment. More important than that is the direction my thoughts are going towards. This information could be valuable to tell me my underlying needs and maybe help me to think about how I can solve those. Like a coach would do. Currently social media platforms are well able to categorise our emotions, but use this information for their purpose only. Can there be such a solution, free of charge? I don’t know. But if I need it and dont find it, then I have to create it. Or at least try.

On the search for fun and order This is a search for bringing order into my life and to code something in the meanwhile. But why do I want to bring my life in order and learn to code something in the meanwhile ? I guess I want to bring order into my life, since I really need order to have peace of mind. And I want to code something because I really like creating stuff, but also because I feel the need to stay relevant in this world, where things are changing so fast. Things are changing so fast, mainly due to AI, that things, which were thought to be impossible ten years ago are now reality. This feels both scary and exiting at the same time. Maybe just having a simple tool, where I can post my current thought, for it to get categorized by an ontological model, so I can get a categorization of my recurring thought would be an option. So far, carrying a physical notebook has been of great help in noting down my thoughts and taking a moment to observe my thoughts. Yet getting all the adjacent metadata has been missing in my notebook. This has been a tradeoff between noting my thoughts an feelings down in the moment and getting all the additional information I can get. The truth is, I will only be able to stay consistent on a task I am really passionate about or I really find meaning in. Staying deliberate and in the moment is key, it is the most difficult thing there is in life anyway. Some technical tasks I have worked on have replicated existing tools, many of which I don’t use and most of the ones I don’t need. Adding value to a technical project would mean, in my view, to contribute to an open source project I find interesting or maybe I should just start doing something I find fun.

This is a story of hope. When young I would trust news sites and reports. The idea a qualified person researching a topic and presenting me a structured summary impressed me. I never bought a physical newspaper. Initially most news sites offered their content for free. And since I was relatively poor at that time I got along with it. The need to belong and be a part of this world was real to me. To fulfil that need I read the news. Until I realised the similarity of different news sites. The consistent and eloquent narratives I read while first discovering news were gone. And gone was the range of thoughts nourishing my mind. In its place remained a lifeless place, where I would at most starve. Yet social media showed its true side to me from the start, milking my attention and energy. Discovering this community has given me hope, that a global protocol for social communication is possible, without being at the helm of any companies algorithm manipulating my attention and thus also programming my mind. I believe each and every one of us has the right to gain control of the things consumed by our attention and at the same time be able to both profit from the groups consciousness and wisdom. At the same time I feel responsible to foster this new group consciousness and fill it with the best information I can feed it. We humans have so many needs. And being aware of those needs has been an awakening to me. Maybe it has been a late awakening, but it is what it is. I feel hopeful on having found this digital consciousness I can contribute to and learn from. 🌳🍎 Said that I’d very much appreciate any hints on how to contribute and learn from this community.

Learning about nostr and decentralised social media is fun. Thank you @jack for spreading this.

This is my first post on nostr.