Answering Your Questions Pt.3

Hunger makes itself known to you just as you come upon a nondescript taco stand. What do you order?

The only time I’m near taco stands is when I’m in Tulum, Mexico. The only time I’m in Tulum is when I’m preparing to go to Kumankaya to work, which means I’m on my preparation dieta and can’t eat tacos. No meat, no oils, no fried food, no junk.

Pangs of hunger and frustration wash over me. I reconnect to the medicine experiences and my commitment to this path, and walk on, looking at some of the fun stores along the main strip in Tulum. Probably buy an overpriced t-shirt.

😉.

Do you think the world is fucked on a 20-year time horizon?

No. In two ways:

The planet will be fine. It was fine far before humanity evolved, and will be fine long after. When people equate ‘end of humanity’ with ‘end of the world,’ it's self-absorbed hubris.

Humanity is not the entire planet. Earth will be fine.

Is humanity fucked over 20 years? Also no. Too short a timescale. People need fear—it’s the basis for most of their excuses in life, so there’s always going to be some manufactured catastrophe around the corner. It's also the most effective tool for increasing totalitarian control. It’s necessary.

But don’t underestimate the collective willpower to 'keep things the way they are.' Barring a megavirus or total nuclear war, things might continue to get messy, but I don’t see any post-apocalyptic setup in 2 decades.

I don’t believe humanity is ever fucked. We are resilient, bold, courageous, and beautiful. The future is bright, and this period will become a brief moment of forgetting in the human timeline.

No black-pills ‘round here, partner.

Who are your most influential role models today?

Great question. I’ve had this as a draft outline for months now. Thanks for the push to get it out there:

• Jamie Wheal. Author & Founder of Flow Genome Project. Recapture the Rapture is one of the best books of the last decade. Huge inspiration. Grounded science, poetic language, core competence and confidence, and truly incredible cultural/anthropological takes on life, history, God, humanity, psychedelics, etc. He strikes me as a truly balanced human. Deep science/spirituality, professional/playful, technical/poetic, successful/humble. My biggest true role model.
• Jack Dorsey. Founder of Twitter, ran Square & Twitter simultaneously as CEO. Directed his attention to Block, building open-source Bitcoin hardware/software and contributing to the NOSTR decentralized social protocol. Dude is incredible, true to the hacker spirit.
• Satoshi Nakamoto. Obvious. Creator of Bitcoin. I believe he/she/they gave the most selfless, advanced, and impressive gift to humanity of our entire generation. Technical mastery with selfless service.
• Shi Heng Yi. 35th Grandmaster of Shaolin Temple Europe. Probably done more to bring the wisdom of the Shaolin to the world than any single human in history, aside from the original masters. I love how he carries himself and shows up in the world, despite pushback and hardship.
• Cameron Shayne. Multi-degree black belt in multiple martial arts. Creates a renegade movement language with his wife. Built a beautiful movement/tribe/community over the decades. Love his entire vibe.
• Dr. Zach Bush. Probably the most holistic Doctor on the planet right now. Triple-board certified, deep natural harmony. Great dude, huge respect.
• Remi & Ashley Delaune. Owners and healers of Kumankaya. Proud to call them my teachers. Two of the most beautiful folks I've ever met.
• My Mom & Dad. A long, loving relationship. A beautiful home and family. They've given me everything I have. I think a lot of my work is born from a desire to make sure innocent, good people like my parents don't suffer from the shenanigans of the world. Trying to repay the gift of life I was given.
• Steve Jobs. I miss Steve. It’s surprising how much the world has forgotten him. A true visionary. A real character. I will never forget the moment he pulled the first Macbook Air out of a manila envelope on stage. Only computer I've ever had since that day. Genius. Gone too soon. Thank you for everything.

Who is John Galt?

"I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." — John Galt. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

One of the best speeches in any book: “This Is John Galt Speaking.”

Who is a historical figure you feel you would most enjoy listening to lecture or speak on a subject? Any particular subject, or just let this person riff?

Honestly, Alan Watts.

Hearing an original Alan Watts lecture in person would be an ecstatic experience. He was a huge influence on me; still is.

His wily, zany, organic Zen, paired with fierce intellect, study, and passion, was a beautiful combination. His words and writings inspire me. It sounds a bit ‘basic’ to write this, but I mean it.

Other speakers I want to hear are the OG’s of ancient movements: the Buddha’s post-awakening lectures, the first Shaolin grandmasters, Zeno and the first meetups of Stoicism, the Dark Enigma hangouts of early Taoism, Miyamoto Musashi on self-mastery, and Alexander the Great.

Do you bias more towards the true, the good, or the beautiful?

I tried to write this answer 3-4 different times. The most honest answer is probably The Beautiful. Here's why:

Who knows what the Truth is? My ego wants to say I'm oriented toward Truth at all times, but I don't know. I have bias, I have shadows, I make mistakes all the time. Do I even know what Truth is?

Similarly with the Good. Do I know what the Good is? I have my theories. I work hard to try and be a good person, according to my definition of the Good. But do I know?

Now, the Beautiful. Beauty is undeniable to me. Beauty is a direct, embodied experience that is virtually absolute. True Beauty hits you like a tsunami, less of a heady concept and more of a direct experience.

In a real way, I believe that if something isn't beautiful (be it a theory, a product, or an identity), it's neither True nor Good as well. Beauty is far less subjective than people want to believe. Aesthetics and Beauty are huge driving forces in my life.

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." — R. Buckminster Fuller

In all honesty, as much as I'd like to virtue signal here, I probably bias more toward the beautiful on a day-to-day basis.

What is the good life to you?

Faaaakin’ hell what a question.

My cheeky response is: the one I have. Life is good. My life is good. All is well. The very fact that you exist is such a preposterous happenstance that it should be immediately regarded as good.

Love. Play. Agony. Ecstacy. Community. Purpose. Passion. Health. Vitality. Challenge. Friends. Family. Full, unfiltered Life.

I'm a simple human, and my good life is pretty simple. I want to live in nature, nested in a community of trust, pursuing meaning and mastery, with a beautiful family, healthy and alive, with good tea and fresh mango. 😄

Curious to hear your definition of strategy.

"Progress in strategy" == "Improvements in outcomes".

What is your strategy for? It's a setup to get to a destination/outcome. The only question that matters is: Are you getting those outcomes? How quickly? How easily? How effectively? How many mistakes along the way?

If you're getting: stable results, better-than-expected outcomes, faster, smoother, with minimal headache, you're becoming more strategic.

Or, maintaining the same results despite less time, more complications, unexpected hurdles, and less effort is also better strategy.

Do you ever worry about technologies like quantum computing creating vulnerabilities in the Bitcoin network? Or is the perspective that if a quantum computer can hack Bitcoin, then it could pretty much hack anything, and we've got bigger fish to fry at that point.

• No. At this point, I don’t have major concerns about Bitcoin. It's one of the most heavily attacked/scrutinized code bases & movements in history.
• The quantum computing problem always presents as ‘the bad guys have quantum computing’, but somehow the legendary developers of Bitcoin Core don’t?
• Quantum computation can just as readily be put in the defence of the Bitcoin network as it could be used to attack it. A couple of BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals) and bam, quantum computational defence of Bitcoin. They will adapt and evolve in lockstep.
• Hacking Bitcoin is self-defeating. Once a hack is proven, the value drops to near 0, and the value of what they stole/could sell becomes worthless. Similarly, if they stole a ton of coins and tried to dump them on the market, it would tank the price. Even hackers and nation states are better off making Bitcoin worth more. Everyone is. Game-theoretic incentive alignment.

I'd love to hear you riff more on agency. It seems to be a central theme of your writing these days. This concept of agency seems to be central to most fundamental disagreements in economics, politics and crucial to self-esteem and spirituality. Does high agency equate to nothing more than discipline? Is it self-esteem? Is it an ecology of transformative practices? Is it simply a choice?

Ability to effect and materialize change. The ability to make shit happen.

"If you were stuck in a third-world prison, who would you want with you to get out?" > Probably the most high-agency person you know.

Agency is the antidote to victimhood.

Victims can't effect change in their current reality, or at least they don't believe that they can. Agency is at least the belief that you can change things, and beyond that, the real ability to materialize those changes.

You can apply that to everything: culture, politics, health, wealth, spiritual development—individually, and collectively.

All the things you listed are some necessary components of agency. Persistence over time (discipline), positive self-regard (esteem), energy management (ecology of practices), and exercising willpower (choice).

With love,
EB. ⛩️