Curiosity

I grew up in a strong nuclear family unit in the countryside of 1980’s democratic-socialist Denmark. Two loving parents, siblings, dogs, loads of nature to rattle around in. My mum was a stay at home mum. My father worked. Later we moved to an 80-acre farm with 45 head of beef cattle, sheep, horses etc. and my mum taught herself arable farming; to plough, sow and harvest the fields, while my father would take care of the animals before and after work.

Bar the odd, insignificant teenage moment, it was bliss. Happiness. More than anything I remember being so curious. Curious about everything. Nature, languages, books, philosophy, music, people. The stars through the bedroom window… That thirst for knowledge humbled me too, and made my quest pure. I have since realised that the mind of the novice explorer asks ‘why’ with the true intent of discovering the answer, and doesn’t just set sail to re-discover and defend an already held answer.

Out of many interests it was music for which I fell the hardest. This eventually led me to spend a few years in North America, and then the best part of two decades in London. Initially it was amazing, and my young cartographer mind was mapping all sorts of new truths. However, it didn’t take long before I could no longer ignore the unsavoury aspects of living in such a polarised place.

The Pursuit of Wokeness

Seeing £250,000 Rolls Royce Phantoms parked right next to seriously destitute people in cardboard boxes made me sad. Being on the wrong end of the worst kind of landlords made me angry. Hearing self-serving politicians pontificate about what’s best for people far from their reality, while they were often discovered to be feathering their own nests, made me indignant. Furious. Candescent with frustration.

I had never felt incentivised to be politically engaged before, but now I was. I became a “political junkie”, and increasingly convinced that the game was rigged in favour of the few. Because of my upbringing my bias was clear. Socialism good. Crony-Capitalism bad. It confirmed my lived experience. Being a naval gazing 20-something, I was now just looking for confirmation bias, and it is an easy thing to find if you’re looking for it.

The worst thing about wanting to help facilitate change in our current system is the impotence one feels when butting up against reality. The complete inability to change the status quo. Yes, you can help in your community. Yes, you can sign a torrent of well-intentioned but futile petitions. Yes, you can vote. Still, no change whatsoever… New people in power. Many false dawns.

Despite being in love with a remarkable woman, despite having a loving family and a quality group of friends, despite being rather successful as a song-writer and winning all sorts of awards; I was smoking myself into a weed-induced stupor, only compounding the frustration I already felt. Curiosity killed this cat. Or rather, perhaps my curiosity had been killed.

While doing my woke-pursuit of the month, Bikram Yoga, I got chatting to someone who had been practising yoga for decades. When I commented that he must be quite the master after all that time, he told me that he used to think so but had realised it had been stopping his progress. He now tried to always consider himself ‘the dumbest fuck in the room’.

It stuck with me and reminded me of the humility with which I had historically approached learning. When my pure purpose for learning went, my personal development had followed soon after. My actual values and way of living had become so misaligned that without changing how I lived, I feared my values would be in danger of eventually dying too.

Blind Spots and Political Tribalism

Across the political spectrum we have a shared desire to change the world for the better, though this isn’t always apparent to those in the opposite trench. Most people come at politics with this intent, yet many refuse to acknowledge that this is also true for “opponents”.

Big government, small government, no government – everyone wants to see a better world for their family, friends, community, and especially for their children. This will come as a shock to “lefties”, but they don’t have monopoly on empathy. It’s not just the right who want a more fiscally responsible society. Academics are not the only people with knowledge, though they would like to think so. No one has discovered all of the truth, and we are all blinded by what we know to some extent, whether we admit to it or not. We have different answers as to how progress is achieved, but ironically our own progress, intellectual or otherwise, is often hampered by our blind spots and preconceived notions of what’s true.

Since my hot yoga days, I have become politically agnostic.

To the amusement of some and annoyance of others, I now define as a ‘recovering, Piously woke Metropolitan leftie’.

In reality I’m probably an amalgamation of anarchist and libertarian with a sprinkling of other things. I don’t really want to define myself, though, and shy away from associating too much with any ism. Being party neutral gives you a vantage point that those in the trenches don’t have. If anything, being partisan exposes the voids in the metaphorical aggregate of the foundation of your thinking.

In most Bitcoiners’ optics, party affiliation is ultimately futile anyway, as their politics and policies are built on the fundamental flaw that is a broken and insidiously felonious monetary policy.

My blind spots wouldn’t let me acknowledge this back then, but it wasn’t just me and my ilk believing the game was rigged. I’m sure many from the right would have had the same notion. Leftists and right wingers pulling on the same proverbial loose thread in society’s jumper - one from the inside, one from the outside, shouting profanities at eachother all the while, never really unravelling anything at all.

How ludicrous. How self-indulgent. How pointless.

Voting With Our Feet

Not long ago, in my mid 30’s, my wife and I had finally had enough. Though I had once loved music, I found it remarkably easy to sacrifice a career I never actually had much pride in. The pursuit of happiness was much more important. We realised that our desire to facilitate change could only be realised by voting with our feet.

Being polyglots that had lived in several countries, borders were not an obstacle, so we decided to retire to the south of France. Here, in the middle of the forest, we can do as we damn please. Maybe I will write about our citadel another time. It seems to increasingly be something that many Bitcoiners aspire to. And if you ever felt impotent and helpless trying to positively change and influence the world around you, living in a little “commune” makes you realise your actions matter and can bring about actual change.

I now look at the Metropolitan-centric nonsense, the holier than thou (what my handle references), self-righteous, woke bullshit, and can’t believe people actually think like that. That I used to think like that! No more. 

I voted with my feet and now I continue to vote with my wealth. I fucking Bitcoin!

Reconnected With the Milky Way

Number Go Up is brilliant and exiting, but it’s gone so far past that now. Yes, many of us will become seriously wealthy from being so early, but sitting here, with forest air in my lungs, listening to the frog chorus, knowing my son is sleeping sweetly after another beautiful day together, no amount of wealth can enrich me further.

Like many of you, I have come to the point where I’m doing it for profound and lasting change. For those I love that can’t do it for themselves. I’m doing it for you and yours. For the future Badders generations I will never meet. I do it because I see this, second only to being a father, as the most important, valuable and influential work I will ever do. It fills me with such purpose and vocation that it often seems overwhelming.

Don’t ever underestimate yourself, Bitcoiners.

We have the propensity, ability and opportunity to affect profound and lasting change!

I am once again living in alignment with my values. Back in nature, this time with my own nuclear family. The curiosity is back, full force. And so is personal development, with every skill we are forced to master here on our isolated, nearly self-sufficient small holding.

It is no wonder I discovered Bitcoin here. And you know what? Finally, when the night has closed in and the sky is as dark as Steve Mnuchin’s soul, I can once again see The Milky Way.

This was inspired by a long chat I had with John Vallis after a few beers and whiskies not so long ago. Cheers John.