Year of Discovery (Week 45: Creativity and How to Engage in Web3)
Being reimmersed in a learning environment of curated content and brilliant teachers, connected with great friends, and having the time to deep-dive into technologies that will drive the future has made the last month one of the most energizing I’ve had in a while. Though the ebbs and flows are still there, equally as present is the immense gratitude I have for being alive and for the time to explore.
Today, I’m trying a new layout for my YoD posts. I’m refocusing to have a section on the Self, the World and Ideas to Action. Please share feedback and let me know what you think!
Self (on Creativity)
Georgia O’Keeffe: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant [because] making your unknown known is the important thing — and keeping the unknown always beyond you.”
John Lennon: “Every song I’ve ever written has been absolute torture… except for the ten or so songs the gods give you and that come out of nowhere.”
Graham Wallas: “Voluntary abstention from conscious thought on any problem may, itself, take two forms: the period of abstention may be spent either in conscious mental work on other problems, or in a relaxation from all conscious mental work. The first kind of Incubation economizes time, and is therefore often the better.”
The World (in Web3)
The world of blockchain, NFTs, cryptocurrency is dominated almost entirely by men. Here is a collective for women and nonbinary people creating a “no-bro zone for the crypto curious.”
I ordered Chinese takeout and excitedly opened my fortune cookie. Inside, it told me to buy bitcoin. My fortune cookie told me to invest in Dogecoin.
The gaming industry continues to lead the way in creating more use cases in Web3 through Play2Earn. Yield Guild Games seeks to increase access to Axie Infinity for players globally who didn’t have the capital to buy their first Axie and generate income from game playing. In September 2021, YGG was paying out over $1mn US dollars a week to players within its community. An interesting trend in the future of work. Listen here.
Ideas to Action
2021 will be an exciting year where we embrace the unknowns and frustrations in the creative process (as O’Keeffe and Lennon share) and experience the emergence of creation based on a new philosophy for how we own, operate, and engage. Many workers and content creators have burned out from the unjust pay scales that do not reflect the value of their contributions to society and the early philosophy of web3 seeks to decentralize power, decision-making, and ownership. But how do decentralized organizations work in practice? Where does expertise come in? How will roles in today’s organizations change as we embrace more decentralization over time? What does it mean for organization leaders to serve more as politicians rather than traditional CEOs? How do we value digital artworks over time as people flock to create new NFT collections or invest in them?
The reality is that many people are seeing the implications of the new financial and organizational structures as they are building them. So jumping in and embracing the messiness of the creative process will be more important than ever this year. The point is to get started if you believe in a more equitable world and see where the momentum leads you. Engage in dialogue within the creation of new ecosystems, nation-states and ways of thinking.
Those who engage in creation today (even by having critical conversations) will ultimately influence the foundations that we take for granted in the future.
What I’m Listening to This Week: The Future of Decentralized Banking
