Quitting vs. Dabbling
Welcome to the 35th entry of my public journal, where I share *some of the things* I've been thinking about, learning about, and exploring across work, tech, wellness, and life.
The stories we tell ourselves (my mom wasn’t a quitter after all)
Last month, we held a memorial service slash celebration of life for my mom, who passed away last year. In preparation, I sat down and wrote about her life—how she came to America as a refugee at four years old with her older siblings and parents, how she raised her four younger siblings when her mother left the family when she was just nine years old, and how being a good student got her a scholarship to college in Philadelphia, where she met my father.
I wrote about all the things she was involved with once she had kids. She started a floral arrangement business for local weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs. She built a pottery studio in our house and taught after-school art classes to young kids. Once we were in college, she worked as an elementary school art teacher in the Philadelphia school district.
Writing down her story, I had a major realization about her life and the stories we tell ourselves. I saw her path in contrast to the one I chose—working full-time continuously from college graduation through kids. When I used to talk about my mom, I would tell people she was a “stay-at-home mom” and was “home with the kids.” We used to poke fun at her with her various interests and changing jobs, calling her a quitter because she didn’t stick with one thing for too long. But writing her story down, I changed my story about her. How could we have made fun of her choices? How great that she could do different things at different times in her life, not being tied to one choice or identity?
If we’re lucky, life is long, and we don’t need to have a single career path or singular focus. (See also: Anna Morris on Farcaster’s recent cast about her dabbling and the value in things she gave up on)
Some of the Work Things
I often describe Tenger Ways as a people-first technology consulting company, but don’t always articulate what that means. In our latest newsletter, we position it in contrast to bureaucracy.
I joined the board of a newly formed non profit called the Jeweled Horse Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to providing aid and support to the people in Mongolia. It’s just getting started but it’s been interesting to see the steps required to incorporate, get 501c3 status, getting set up with a banking account, a brokerage account to accept stock donations, and strategies for revenue generation beyond small donors.
Since starting GM Farcaster in September of last year, we’ve been slowly adding more and more distribution channels. We recently added Twitter/X to our live stream options and our viewership has increased significantly. There’s some irony there. Our current distribution channels are:
Live Stream: Unlonely, YouTube, X
Recordings: Zora (NFTs), YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts
??? Should we add any more?
Some of the Internet Things
Do you want to swim or float? In 1958, when he was just 22 years old, Hunter S Thompson wrote a letter to a friend who asked for life advice. I was skeptical about reading life advice from a 22 year old, even if from the mind of someone like Thompson, but was surprised (though maybe I shouldn’t be) how great it was.
Schlep blindness and building great things. A Paul Graham essay from 2012 that’s still great today. As a founder, you can’t do great things if you’re scared of a little schlep. From an investor point of view, “That scariness makes ambitious ideas doubly valuable. In addition to their intrinsic value, they're like undervalued stocks in the sense that there's less demand for them among founders.” He explains why there are so few Stripes (because there’s a lot of schlep in solving global payments) and so many recipe sites.
Crypto regulation passed a house vote and is on its way to the senate. There were a few points in the a16z explainer on the proposal I think are worth reiterating: 1.) crypto is a technological platform shift, 2.) crypto will improve the internet for consumers, creators and developers, 3.) crypto will help solve massive challenges that come with deep fakes, bots, control over social media, financial inequity. Crypto is fighting a perception problem where most people think of crypto as being for scammers and criminals. Ironically, the lack of regulation has made it so the scammers thrive and honest people are too fearful to build.
This periodic table of elements in pictures is so cool.
Interview with Jack Dorsey about Bluesky, Nostr and the future of social. Bottom line is the future of social media must be built on a protocol because no single company or person should be in control.
Some of the Nature Pics
It’s spring in New York. The peonies bloomed and walks are calming and delightful.
A Note to My Subscribers
I started this substack in December 2022 as an experiment to see if developing a writing habit would help clarify my thinking and/or provide other benefits. You can read about my original intentions in my first post or my more recent reflections after sticking with it for a year.
I write about twice a month and share musings, meditations, and links to things I’m finding interesting as I build out a farcaster-native media company, a modern technology consulting company, raise my kids, and have fun creating and learning in the worlds of crypto, tech, finance, science and wellness.
Thank you for supporting my writing and journey. If you’d like to get in touch you can reply to me here or find me on X and farcaster.
Until next time, keep putting good into the world. —adrienne🌏❤️