I wonder, dear readers: are any of you trapped between two eras of philosophical thought about career, money, and life?  Between the 21st century world of the internet hobbyist, passionately squeezing an income out of multiple electronic sources, and the 20th century mindset of "school, career, life"?

I know I certainly have been for quite some time, from long before I learned about the fundamentals of the blockchain.

It's a bit like playing The Binding of Isaac: it's incredibly easy to learn what to do (IE what you may or may not be good at doing), but it can be incredibly difficult to master and follow-through on successfully marketing yourself to an employer, particularly one who will value you as a worker/employee and treat you like a human being, worthy of dignity and respect.

Every kid has dreams and aspirations, right?  They want to grow up, get married, work their 9-5 at a job they don't hate for a living wage or at least an upwardly-mobile salary, retire to a white-picket fence with a beautiful family and grandchildren.  That's the "good old American dream"!  That merit, hard work, and determination can get you where you absolutely want and are supposed to be. 

I'm not here to FUD, people: the dream isn't dead.  It's just changed and evolved into a new form.  

At the schools I went to, most every kid seemed to have a dream or an aspiration that their abilities complemented: scientists, physicians, lawyers, bankers & financial services people, athletes, mathematicians, firefighters, police officers, engineers, pastors and preachers...  People had callings.  I, unfortunately, did not.

I had interests, but none of them particularly marketable.  I suppose I could have been an eSports athlete, but I was too old by the time that industry came into being.  I love history, and the story that is human civilization at-large, all over the world; but lecturing about anthropology doesn't pay very well, and in order to pursue that path, I would have had to dig ditches in the Columbian jungle for no pay and a gentle stipend for food and shelter. 

That's not the life I'd envisioned for myself; in truth, I did not have a vision, but I knew I had to make money to survive.  I had to work, like everyone else.

Anyone who's been into Bitcoin for any amount of time is capable of tasting the FUD in the air about money, especially government-backed money; "have fun staying poor" is a meme refrain in many communities for a reason. 

The inflation of living costs and owning a home are astronomical right now, a fact especially dependent on where one happens to live.  "Just move" is a common refrain as well, but most people won't be capable of "just moving" without a plan, an employers’ help or a certain amount of capital already established.

I'm writing this to tell all of you, as much as to tell myself: that's okay.  The Bitcoin world taught me, quite succinctly, that in order to succeed, one must take on the risks of losing; without risk, the gains one makes will seem fleeting and somewhat banal...

The same, it seems, is true for life.

My first year within the Bitcoin world has illuminated so much, about the world as it exists today and myself. It certainly reshaped the way I think of money, but because money is the hamster’s wheel I have continued to keep running on, I haven’t found a way to fully capitalize on what I’ve learned, outside of dicking around with some assets in smart contract.

I haven’t made myself rich (yet), but I did keep learning, and I continue to learn more every day.  I may not have cashed in on my newfound knowledge, but I’m making an effort to try.

If you, dear reader, from wherever you hail, find yourself like me: a lost, professionless, vocation-free individual, who knows not what the future holds for you or your employment prospects... you are not alone.  There are thousands, perhaps millions of us.

We are called lazy, without merit, or unambitious.  Though those individual adjectives may describe a few of us, they certainly don’t describe all of us. Anyone who has held down multiple jobs inside the gig economy understands that merit and ambition have little to do with success. You bust your ass in these thankless jobs for very little pay. Does that really seem like the nascent efforts of the unambitious?  

Do any of you understand what the term “gig economy” even really means? Multiple low-paying, risk-taking freelance-style contractor’s tasks that one can do on one’s own time ala GrubHub, Uber and Lyft.  These are poor people doing what they must to survive.  This does not make them unambitious.  

If you’ve worked multiple jobs, juggled multiple gigs and struggled to make ends meet working these gigs... your story is now the norm.  It is likely our parents would not have been able to afford the luxuries they did, were they operating under a similar level of inflation as the rest of us in 2021.

In the 20th century, many worked from cradle to grave doing a single job. That one job paid well enough to buy a house and a car!! It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that many in the generational cohorts who came of age in the latter-half of the century advocate for this path: get a good job, do your daily works and then return home to your family.  This is easier said than done, moreso by tradecraft and technical skill than intellect, education, or qualifications on-paper.

Those of you who, like me, feel trapped in between the 20th and 21st centuries' ways of operation, are effectively stuck in a philosophically "liminal space": a dark, sharply lit, fluorescently-highlighted no-man's-land where no other people can be physically seen, like a hallway in a professional space, deserted in the dead of night.  Is it any wonder that so many of us feel this sourceless dread about the prospect of continued existence?  I'll say this: shit like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter aren't gonna help.

In conclusion, Bitcoin taught me that, like the gig economy that cannot support a living wage, the value of work and the value of a dollar are equally volatile.  Getting paid a fortune for passion work you love is the 20th century goal; convincing someone to give you enough to survive is the new normal. 

If you can get a corporate boss to give you enough to thrive, you have accomplished a feat of great persuasion in a world that only grows more politically and economically complex, even as the megacorps slowly replace workers with robots and algorithms to simplify the bottom line.  It's a hard-to-achieve goal, but it is achievable; that's what all my dearest friends keep reminding me of.

When two dollars could buy the same goods in the 1970’s that cost over ten dollars today... can someone really support themselves on minimum wages in 2021? Even two jobs??  Inflation, combined with the rising CPI since that time, points to a very clear conclusion...

... a conclusion, I suspect, that screams a resounding 'no'.

Something’s gotta give in order for the situation to change, and I don’t think it’s gonna be the 0.01% of the 1% wealthiest individuals.  

I think it just might be the dollar itself.

Thank you for reading, and as always, stay curious my friends...

AFTERWORD: This entry is dedicated to all the fine people of the world who are considered unworthy by someone for some gnostic, arcane reason. We do not always achieve our value or our worth in some tangibly measurable sense.

If you, too, are struggling to find your way, know you have friends and communities ready to help you find it. Don't hesitate to reach out.