Same here mate 🫂💜🧡

Not sure. 🤔

Most pigs lived a happier life than most humans.

Not me. I was happier before. I had actual friends and family that talked to me irl then.

Before Bitcoin, I had so much hate for the system; now I still do, except I redirect that energy into the solution: Bitcoin.

They're truly a blessing

The same!

Absolutely I agree. They give me real hope.

I’m sorry about the (perhaps) self indulgent exposition below, but it’s all I’ve been thinking about while I’ve been sick for two weeks.

Having rejected all of social media for the past 25 years of its explosion across the world, I know I have changed the trajectory of my personal and professional life. Especially considering that many of my jobs have been sales related. But I instantly recognized what the big platforms “are”, after a month or two of testing them: data and personal info harvesting machines, sucking us in and commoditizing human attention.

I had a Facebook account for a couple months in 2008 and instantly reconnected with all of the childhood friends and family that I had fallen out of touch with when we moved across the country when I was 15. But I just couldn’t stand the “look at me” culture that was emerging. The “selfie generation” was firmly bootstrapped. And I could tell that my feed and my time was already being manipulated by “something”. I went dark, and everyone I reconnected with wondered why I was gone. Some thought I had gotten into some kind of trouble and was laying low lol. Meanwhile, I put my head down and worked my J.O.Bs. I’ve made millions for others. And paid at least a million and a half in taxes.

It wasn’t until watching The Social Dilemma in 2020 that I was able to put a name to what made me reject centralized social media. Algorithms, as we all know now.

By then I had tried and rejected Instagram and Twitter after very short stints, because I could tell they were mental illness inducing.

I know I have deprived myself of professional and personal connections that may have allowed me to capitalize more on my creativity and talents in things like writing, computing solutions and process engineering, but I just couldn’t handle the slop.

Maybe I would have found myself surrounded by more like-minded people earlier, and converted my aptitudes into greater professional success, had I embraced what the crowd was doing. Maybe not.

I know one thing, I would have found Bitcoin sooner if I had been more “plugged in”. When I found it, I instantly took to it like a neodymium magnet to iron. And I had the technical chops easily by 2010 to have navigated the early technical hurdles to adoption. Never shitcoined, just instantly 100% in on this shit, thanks to earlier learnings from Ron Paul and G. Edward Griffin. And a healthy dose of 9/11 truth.

The weird thing now is that I find myself and my family in a northern community with incomes that would be great if they weren’t being ravaged by repressive at source taxation and deductions, and a stifling cost of living. Locked in to an insane interest rate on a house we will never own, that has us economically paralyzed for at least a couple more years.

I have one or two friends that “get it”, but are similarly trapped. Every conversation only deepens our despondence at the state of our country and our world. We are focused on waking up our kids and grandkids to the traps that lie ahead of them. And teaching them ways of self sufficiency for the lean times ahead.

Much to my wife’s chagrin, I am encouraging my kids to get the hell out of Canada before they get trapped here by consumer debt and other obligations. This country has become a perfectly crafted prison.

Have we ever missed a meal? No. Are all of our basic needs being met? Yes. But for the life of me, I can’t ignore the fact that it is all being provided with a boot on the back of our necks.

We could be so much more. I have SO many dreams, projects, learning and enrichment of my community that are being held up for lack of capital that has been stolen.

I have reached the peak of what my current company’s structure can provide for advancement and income increase. Faced with a choice to either accept a complete lack of local upward mobility options, or strike out somewhere new in a job market where I will be competing with people two and a half decades my junior, I am seriously considering nuking it all and using what little capital I have amassed to escape to a hermit lifestyle somewhere warm and free of rampant socialism.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is surf, to grow food and raise animals. And be surrounded by my family while doing it.

Sometimes I feel like I would have been better served to have been lobotomized at 30 and gone the route of the majority. But I refuse to ignore all that I have learned about the nature of our existence here on earth.

In short, all I can say is how much hope it has given me to have a self-directed way of meeting awakened individuals in a world gone mad. I wouldn’t want to go through a fourth turning with anyone else. I hope I can meet some of you in person one day.

God bless FOSS

God bless Bitcoin

God bless Nostr

👊🏽