The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'elves camping in a forest.'
My birthday is right around the corner so I've been reflecting on the year. This year was great for me personally but not so great for broader society. The web is increasingly censored. The cost of living has spiraled out of control. Half the country is convinced that the other half of the country is filled with enemies endangering democracy. And the election everyone's so worked up about is guaranteed to produce an outcome that drives us further into dystopia no matter who wins.
This situation gives rise to powerful but competing desires. I want to dive in and help, but I also want to retreat from the madness. I want to have hard conversations about improving our shared circumstance, but I also want to avoid engaging at all with people under the spell of control regime propaganda.
What I ended up doing with these competing desires this year was lots of work for WantToKnow.info. Beyond summarizing hundreds of news reports, I helped out with original investigations and video scripts. On my own time, I turned our news archive into a nice clean dataset, put this on IPFS, and developed an app that searches the archive using a simple but powerful data science technique. The end result is that the WantToKnow archive will remain online and searchable no matter what, even if our website is disrupted for some reason.
Although I didn't write a new book this year, I did write a little novella plus many articles and essays. The 321 Incident was handed over to my editor and I put out out an audio version of this novel exclusively for people who hold my Rstory token. Next comes turning the draft of The Brockton Exodus into a real book, to be released in early 2025.
My last several months have of course been largely consumed by Rstory. Writing. Design. Coding. Networking. I've been doing all of that stuff, getting the project to where it is now. This work is challenging, but it's also meaningful to be laying groundwork for a better future.
When I was younger, I assumed that everyone lived life guided by a strong inner purpose. As time went on, I realized that most people had a very different relationship with their inner resources. They basically ignored their own deep knowing while obeying external authorities. For me, the crazier the world gets, the more clearly I feel my own sense of purpose guiding me through it. This has never felt as true as it has this last year.
Many people are not thriving. Even those who are materially secure often seem to be missing something important in their lives. For some, it's social connections. For some, it's spiritual ground. One friend turned to Flat Earth for comfort this year. Another converted to Islam.
To celebrate my birthday, I'll be unplugging and camping out with 
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