Innocence and Corruption

Let’s start at the beginning:

At the age of three, my mother passed away due to terminal cancer. A year after her death, unbeknownst to my father at the time while he was building his business, his girlfriend was mentally and physically abusive towards me. A toddler’s idea of a replacement mother figure turned out to be a horrifying experience. Luckily she was out of me and my father’s life after a year or so, but a crippling anxiety stayed with me for a rather long time afterwards.

That traumatic phase in my life led to insecurities that hindered my way of dealing with relationship conflicts in a healthy and productive way. My overall way of thinking was ridden with fear-based content due to the loss of my mother’s loving/supportive presence and the harsh criticism and abuse taken shortly after her death.

At times, I was unable to open myself up within my personal relationships and handle fear in a rational/healthy way. I still maintained a good sense of humor, I was a pretty social person, and active in school and extra curricular activities. I can thank my father and the rest of my family’s loving support for that. But my potential was hindered because of this fear lingering inside. The loss of my mother was difficult to comprehend. And the thought loops that painted my mind after the abusive period just grew louder as life went on. I never took the time to process it all until MUCH later.

It would behoove me to highlight the good fortune of my upbringing. My family providing a safe and secure environment. And I am eternally grateful for living in the pre-smart phone era. Taking my bike around my neighborhood and knocking on friends doors to just play in the moment. The presence of mindfulness to others was more available, instead of heads down into screens as I’ve seen with the current younger generation. More connectedness. These moments I cherish and they were monumental to my life.

Fast forward to high school. That time of my life brought a lot of fun moments, but many of those moments, looking back, were slightly destructive. Consuming irresponsibly and getting into mischief was a common occurrence. Ridden with egotistical motivations and goals. I was able to get through high school and into a nice college while carrying on these unhealthy habits and drives, but it was not sustainable during college and the few years after college graduation.

I began to rely on external distractions in order to maintain my perceived authenticity and confidence in social scenarios. Living only for the weekends of social hangouts and drunken plunders. This external reliance disabled required performances in the college classroom and beyond. I was terrified of public speaking and presenting in my classes was non-existent. I also chose a major that just seemed sustainable for passing/graduating and wasn’t where my natural curiosity was.

This was due to my internal compass being out of whack - being in touch with my ideas and values had rarely been reviewed. I was a slave to external passions and the environment I blindly chose to immerse myself in. I was unable to deepen friendships in a healthy way and instead continued damaging my overall health. I felt unbalanced and lost. A part of this lack of internal harmony wasn’t solely due to my own decisions. It was also the fast pace of our modern world that speeds up our way of thinking and living.

Living fast tends to lower the quality of decision-making, which results in lower quality outcomes. I was able to maintain the pace of my decision-making reasonably enough to graduate, interview with multiple companies, and land a job right out of college that provided the opportunity to travel and work out-of-state. I built my resume, expanded my network, and immersed myself in different work environments within the hospitality industry. But the bad habits, negative thought loops, and fast-pace living were still there and it eventually led to self-implosion.

For three-and-a-half years after college, I challenged myself in my career and that challenge was to be a leader within various restaurant operations. I’d be kidding myself if I were to say that I was implementing my managerial and leadership responsibilities at the most optimal level while carrying on drinking and unconscious habits that did not serve me, but controlled me. I wasn’t physically dependent on alcohol or drinking every day, but the days of the week in which I did drink continuously broke any momentum I could gain internally. It was digging deeper into the hole of instant gratification I had been shoveling since a young child.

Relying on liquid courage for social events also led to the development of my first serious relationship. In order to feel comfortable dating, it had to involve a setting that revolved around drinking. Forming a romantic relationship in the beginning stages, connecting and getting to know that person solely through drinking environments is a terrible way to judge who you may spend the rest of your life with. To have the repeated thought process of, “I need a drink to loosen up in order to have confidence” can tumble into worse consequences down the road.

Throughout these few years after college, the inconsistent work schedule, no balance of circadian rhythm, unhealthy lifestyle, and the self-deprecating force of consumerism within society brought a defining moment of pain and reflection within myself.

Changing Perspectives

This moment had been introduced by the intensity of pain; facing hard truths. The only steps forward were to take determined actions. I began listening to a podcast by Tim Ferriss, along with reading his book Tools of Titans. It was the first catalyzing signal that awakened me towards practicing lifestyle choices and transforming my thoughts that could completely U-turn my character and life path.

The reflection that came due to this awakening signal brought painful realizations:

• Is this romantic relationship truly healthy and right for me in the long-term?

• Are the friends I’m surrounding myself with really supporting me or are they there for the party?

• Is this career path an authentic one that soothes my natural curiosity?

• Who am I, what is my most meaningful purpose as an individual, and how has masking conscious awareness through external desires hindered my authenticity?

• Where do I go from here?

This brought a lot of disruption and the only way I felt I could move forward with optimizing my authentic self and life path was to just drop it all. I decided to step away.

I ended the relationship that I had with this girl, I left the company that brought opportunities of promotion in near sight, which distanced me from all of the friends I had made along the way, and I moved back home with my parents.

You can imagine the “quarter-life-crisis” kind of thinking after doing all of this. I became depressed and had no idea what to do next, nor did I have a channel at the time to express my emotions capably. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to channel it. These big decisions to step away and refresh, to optimize my health and set my thoughts in order, had felt like a HUGE mistake in the short-term and I wanted to retract them. I felt self-pity moving back in with my parents. But flip-flopping on this would’ve discouraged my self-esteem even more and lower the small amount of trust I held in myself.

It became difficult to be productive each morning I woke up. Not knowing what I was going to do next. I had money saved, but only enough for a short amount of time. And I couldn’t get my head out of the gutter. But this pain was truly the biggest lesson of all. It pushed me to the the edge of knowing that I could either tumble downhill or take actionable steps of personal improvement.

There was one interaction I had with my father a year or so before moving back home. I had asked him how he was able to rebound from my mother’s death all the while facing the immense responsibility of being a single parent and being in the midst of building a business. How was he able to continue taking care of me and being a strong father, while also building a business and a new foundation for the family I now have?

A simple response. It was POWERFUL. I’ll never forget it.

Discarding Vices, Returning to Virtues

The time period of being back home with my family was crucially important. To be free to start fresh just for a few months was incremental towards leveraging personal development. To have the freedom of time to reflect on my past and take a breather from working long-hour weeks and the fast-pace force of life. Imagine a decade of constantly figuring out the next thing to do each day while your mind is muddled with victimhood, unhealthy foods and substances driving the way, all while working in a high-stress work environment and not fully resting. The healing and transformation process began with first principles and daily habits that would get my mind and body into shape.

Moving forward from here, each day waking up, I began with the following tasks (guided by Tim Ferriss):

1. Wake up early and make my bed 🛏

2. Meditate for 20-30 minutes 🧘‍♂️

3. 5 minute journal 📓 (Gratitude, Affirmations, Free-Flow thought scripts)

4. Exercise. 🏃‍♂️

5. Take daily greens for nutrition 🥬

6. Read for at least 15 minutes 📚

Doing these simple tasks each morning in a disciplined manner helped ground me and unwind the negative thoughts. It was the first time I was able to slowly become aware and internalize that I had the power to make minor changes in my routine that therefore empowered my way of being. Maybe it was the suddenness of the change of my internal state, but it was riveting!

One of the more difficult obstacles when facing the path towards self-improvement is the social aspect. Many of my friends with whom I grew up with were, and still are, stuck on this hedonic treadmill. They begin to look at you with a disparaging glare because of their own self-conscious reflections that begin to present themselves. Cackling with laughter on how ridiculous the new ideas, actions, and perspectives I portrayed and implemented.

At this point, I took more time to reflect. Would I rather step towards an adventure of the unknown on a more independent path to become a better man, or to shy away from the challenge and remain complacent with the friends I grew up with? The answer was clear as day, but difficult to grasp. Onto the unknown.

Meditation was a very interesting practice that brought in a new perspective. For me, it was a beautiful discovery of being more in control of your conscious awareness. The realization of being a creature of habit, being aware of those habits and transforming them into healthier ones, is an enlightening experience. At the same time, the newfound magnifying glass brings more focus onto the patterns of unhealthy behaviors of others. The people who you deeply care about. It was difficult to ignore and when I chose to touch base on it with them, it wasn’t always communicated in a helpful way. Lesson here: strategic communication with others is a superpower. Praise specifically and criticize generally - a saying I’ve heard before.

The lifestyle improvements genuinely helped in the short-term. They are by no means a quick fix of deeply ingrained heuristics and external reliances. It takes time to dig up the roots of your biases, push away your comfort crutches, and to radically change the world perspective you previously had and the path you may have envisioned for yourself. To this day, I am still refining my actions in difficult scenarios and social settings so that I may embody confidence and act with integrity. It is a moment-to-moment practice of awareness. Pay attention.

As I began to feel internal momentum build up, one block at a time, I pondered on a career path and a form of passionate artistry that I could adhere to in the most authentic way. A job opening with a company whose culture felt more down-to-earth and emphasized taking good care of their employees had arisen in Boston. Receiving a position with said company and diving into an educational path of music production were the next steps for me. It was an improvement from the corporate, “just another number” culture I was previously engaged with and I had enjoyed music since I was a child, so reigniting a musical practice genuinely thrilled me. I was excited for the pursuit of a more fulfilling purpose.

All of the events transcribed above took place in 2019.

2020 was right around the corner.

Culture Shock

Just when I had felt that I was taking on my personal challenges in a more optimal and strategic manner, Covid ensued our lives. The company I worked for let everyone go, I stepped away from the music schooling I was pursuing, and I watched as society within the US and around the globe faced a dramatic turn for the worse. Facing an unknown health factor was clearly destabilizing, all the while watching social outrage heat up and personally not sure how I was going to support myself financially.

As I and many others observed the events that occurred as a result of Covid, it was through smart technological devices and other forms of media. The construction of social medias’ interface, unbeknownst to me at the time, was formed in a manner that made it as addictive as gambling. Stringing in short hit-piece narratives of social calamities, like political theater, covid death rates, ideological tribes, vaxxed vs. unvaxxed, brought, and continues to bring, a dehumanizing feeling to the times. It’s astounding to grasp that younger demographics, and even open-minded adults, could be so manipulated to the whims of social engineering of smart phone technology, data collection, and propaganda. It was hypnotic and brought forth an Orwellian theme. The hypnotic grasp began to cling tight onto my own psyche. The addictiveness of cathartic drama on Twitter pulling me in, but a strong intuitive feeling hit me, with a bit of help from outside resources.

The Social Dilemma was an excellent illustration of the hidden gears turning within the undergrounds of the cultural shock that many couldn’t consciously comprehend. We are the puppets and centralized SaaS platforms are the puppeteers pulling the strings. The eradication of independent thinking is no longer a possibility threatened solely by laziness or flawed academia, but by the manipulation of software within formally trusted platforms that society once relied on as beacons of social connectivity and information seeking.

When scrolling through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. for hours upon the day, are you really able to internalize and ponder on each post critically? Is Graham’s advice to stand back and observe others as useful now with these pervasive technologies taking part of the many aspects within our lives?

The above Joe Rogan episode dives into the recent efforts and work that Dr. Robert Epstein has set forth over a period of time. There is a moment within the episode where they experiment using Google, watching the suggested results that appear within the search engine one… letter… at… a… time. The results brought Google related products and business partners (Amazon being one). Epstein labels Google’s search engine as the most effective mind controlling mechanism humanity has encountered. From the presidential race to search results of basic definitions, data is intentionally gathered and presented to the user based off of the desired perception that tech puppeteers are aiming for. Big Tech has an influence in an astonishing amount of other online companies and platforms around the world.

It became clear to me that in order to successfully pursue a path of authenticity and consistent personal development, I had to incorporate knowledge of how to use tech dexterously. Formatting the devices I used in order to ensure that my use of them were not manipulating information in a misleading way was a crucial step to take. What browser/search engine to use, going from gmail to encrypted email, eliminating social media profiles for a time, etc. Use it as a tool, not to become the tool.

Changing Course

The path of strengthening my character took a lot of hard work and that process was hindered by the pandemic and fear of how I was going to sustain a living. I knew I had much more progress to continue and I didn’t want to lose that momentum.

With the present knowledge and perspective that I had, entering into traditional finance seemed to be the long-term play. Starting in the summer of 2020, I began to rigorously study for my financial licenses. Applying to and interviewing with brokerage firms. I ended up landing a job with a reputable firm.

At the same time that I began this career pursuit, a hidden gem was passed along to me. A gesture from a friend that had found inspiration in one of my posts online that expressed compassion and concern about the direction in which society was heading.

He passed along The Bitcoin Standard.

It was rather interesting timing. At the same time I was studying and working towards a potential position within the legacy financial system, I was also completely flabbergasted by way of knowledge of this disrupting, decentralized form of money that was incorruptible. I remember having my traditional finance books on my kitchen counter to the left and the The Bitcoin Standard to the right of me.

The self-seeking pursuit to ensure a secure financial position by storing my wealth in bitcoin forked into studying the relationship between human consciousness and money. The stigma of money being the root of all evil transformed into the understanding that money, a medium of exchange, is a technology that scales peaceful human interaction. But for so long the past forms of money have been within the hands of government bureaucrats.

The timeframe in which I began reading The Bitcoin Standard was opportunistic. Being unemployed due to covid, I had plenty of time to invest my attention into the book and then onward to other sources. The knowledge that I had obtained led me to connect and explore more literacies online, which there is an abundance of. The declarations from avid bitcoin supporters were proclaiming that the technology is a revolutionary step towards freeing people from a corrupted form of life. To be able to observe these proclamations being debated back and forth helped me continuously understand the fundamentals of why it was a sound form of money. Witnessing others going through the same discovery process and asking these questions online was amazing to observe.

I had been immersed into a comparable experience resembling close to a psychedelic awakening. Now, you may put a hard stop on that last sentence. One may not be able to resonate with what I am describing until you immerse into a patient and dedicated practice of studying the fundamentals of bitcoin and why money, being manipulated for so long, has created an unbalanced proportion of power. This disproportion has led to the deterioration of society and the incentive for governments to not place the wellbeing of their citizens at the forefront of their agenda. You begin to see that money being the root system within humanity reverberates outward into society and drastically affects our way of thinking→acting→living. The transformative perspective established after getting a better understanding of these truths of our past led me to question and explore domains of thinking I had never been entangled with.

And John Vallis brilliantly articulates the transformation that one can experience in his writing Money Messiah: God, Bitcoin, and the Evolution of Consciousness.

That powerful re-framing of values, behavior and perception hit me in a much more impactful way, maybe due to the suddenness of obtaining those resources of knowledge within the current environment I was immersed in. The environment that was, and still is, edging closer to a form of digital surveillance totalitarianism through the guise of a medical emergency, i.e. the pandemic. The contrast of this re-framing process dialed up to a magnificent color — all at once. Unemployed, having tons of time to observe the effects of lockdowns around the world, and learning about bitcoin and the history of money, really did bring radical truth after so much time studying and putting the pieces together. I believe Max Keiser stated, and I paraphrase, “If it weren’t for Bitcoin I would have to care about politics”. And caring about politics was at the forefront of my mind and many others since Covid had infiltrated basic rights and ways of living. This infiltration, without knowing about Bitcoin, would lead anyone with a rational concern about the future to care about political actions and policies.

My natural curiosity kicked into hyperdrive. The force of this curiosity being driven by truth, as well as fear of not adapting to the times ahead. There were nights lying in bed after discovering and learning more about the revolving topics around Bitcoin. I can truthfully say I had experienced epiphanic understandings.

The next course of action was to immerse myself into an occupation that leveraged the Bitcoin network. I felt completely unmotivated to continue to work for a traditional finance job. So I put in my notice with the firm I was with and set my sights on Austin, Texas. Packed my bags and haven’t looked back.

To be continued…