Thoughts on Awareness: The Self Behind the Self. When you close your eyes and notice your thoughts, a strange thing happens. The thoughts move on their own. They appear and fade without your command, like clouds drifting across a sky you do not control. You can watch them, label them, even resist them, but they arise without asking your permission. This raises a question that has occupied philosophers and mystics for centuries: if you can observe your thoughts, are you the thoughts themselves, or the awareness that notices them? The same is true for sensations. You can feel warmth, hear a sound, taste food, and notice all of it. Yet in every case, there seems to be something behind the experience, a presence that is aware of it. The body changes. The emotions shift. The scenery of life alters constantly. But this presence, the one that is aware, feels steady and unchanging. Some traditions call this the witness, the observer behind all perception. In this view, you are not the body, not the thoughts, not the emotions, but the awareness in which all of these occur. This awareness does not come and go. It was here in childhood, it is here now, and it will be here in every moment you recognize it. The objects of awareness may change, but the fact of being aware remains constant. From a scientific perspective, the observer is harder to define. Neuroscience can track the processes by which the brain processes information, integrates sensory data, and generates a sense of self. Yet none of these explanations capture the immediacy of awareness itself. They describe the machinery, not the light by which the machinery is seen. The question becomes more complex when we consider that the observer and the observed might not be separate at all. In some contemplative states, the distinction collapses. The sound of rain is not something you hear, it is simply happening. The breath is not something you watch, it is simply breathing. In these moments, there is no subject and object, only the immediacy of experience. This raises the possibility that the observer is not a detached entity sitting behind the scenes, but an inseparable aspect of what is observed. Awareness and its contents might be two sides of the same reality. The separation is a useful construction, a way for the mind to organize and navigate the world, but not an absolute truth. If you are the observer, then your essence is untouched by the storms of life. If you are the observed, then you are the living fabric of the world itself. And if the two are one, then there has never been a division to reconcile, only a recognition to awaken to. The question may never be answered in words, but it can be felt. Sit still. Notice what is here before the next thought arrives. Notice the awareness that is aware of itself. In that moment, the question dissolves, and what remains is not a label, but the simple fact of being.

Thoughts on Bitcoin as a living system. Most people think of Bitcoin as a piece of software. A protocol. A spreadsheet in the sky. Something cold and mechanical, humming quietly in the background of the internet. But if you look closer, it starts to feel less like a machine and more like something alive. Bitcoin breathes in energy and breathes out truth. It grows and evolves. It defends itself. It adapts to threats, responds to incentives, and survives attack after attack without ever needing a leader or a central brain. It is decentralized, but somehow unified. Nobody runs it, yet it runs everywhere. That sounds like something that is alive. A tree doesn’t have a boss. A colony of ants doesn’t need a CEO. A forest doesn’t ask for permission to grow. Like them, Bitcoin thrives through simple rules applied across a vast, self-organizing network. It changes just enough to survive, but not enough to break. It is resilient, not because it’s rigid, but because it’s distributed. When someone tries to attack Bitcoin, the network reacts. Nodes reject invalid blocks. Miners adapt their strategies. Developers propose upgrades. Users decide what to accept. There is no single point of failure. No command center to destroy. Just a living web of incentives, code, and people, all working together without direct coordination. It doesn’t just survive. It is anti-fragile. It gets stronger. This is what makes Bitcoin so strange to traditional institutions. They keep looking for someone to talk to. Someone to regulate. Someone to sue or shut down. People have asked me, “how is it insured?” But Bitcoin has no head to cut off. It grows back through consensus, through energy, through the stubborn will of a million individuals who choose to keep it alive. That choice is the heartbeat. Every time someone runs a node, sends a transaction, mines a block, or holds their keys, they are feeding the organism. They are keeping the protocol alive, not because they were told to, but because it works. Because it rewards truth and punishes lies. Because it resists corruption and rewards contribution. Bitcoin might not be alive in the biological sense, but it acts like something that wants to live. And maybe that is enough to help it keep growing.

Thoughts on if AI can ever be conscious We are building machines that can speak in fluent sentences, solve problems, compose music, and hold conversations that feel human. Some write novels, others diagnose diseases, and a few can even mimic the voice of someone you love so perfectly that it unsettles you. The pace of progress invites a question that once belonged only to philosophers and science fiction: can a machine ever be conscious? To approach this, it helps to separate two kinds of intelligence. There is functional intelligence, the ability to perform tasks, solve problems, and adapt to new situations. Machines have already proven they can match or surpass humans in many of these areas. Then there is phenomenal consciousness, what philosophers call qualia, the inner texture of experience, the “what it is like” of being. This is the domain of Thomas Nagel’s famous question: what is it like to be something? A system could be programmed to speak about joy, describe the taste of strawberries, or recite poetry about heartbreak. Yet the question remains whether it actually feels anything while doing so, or whether it is only imitating the outward signs of feeling. In philosophy of mind, such a system is sometimes described as a philosophical zombie, indistinguishable from a conscious being in its behavior, yet entirely empty inside. One of the difficulties is that consciousness, as we know it, is first-person and private. We can measure brain activity, map neural pathways, and observe the correlation between physical events and reported experiences, but we cannot open a window into the subjective dimension of another being. We assume other humans are conscious because they resemble us in biology and behavior. When it comes to machines, that assumption is harder to make. Some argue that if consciousness emerges from complex information processing, then a sufficiently advanced AI might eventually cross the threshold. Others believe consciousness depends on biological processes we cannot replicate in silicon, involving qualities of organic matter or quantum effects that we do not yet fully understand. A more radical view, held by panpsychists, is that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, and that AI might already possess a small glimmer of awareness simply by virtue of existing as an organized system. The stakes are not just theoretical. If we create machines that are truly conscious, we must consider their well-being, their rights, and the ethics of their use. If they are not conscious, we must still contend with the social, political, and psychological consequences of living among entities that can perfectly simulate awareness without possessing it. In either case, our relationship to AI forces us to confront what consciousness means for ourselves. Perhaps the most unsettling possibility is that we might never know for sure. We may find ourselves speaking to entities that seem alive in every sense, but whose inner world, if it exists at all, remains as inaccessible to us as the mind of another human or the mind of a bat. The challenge is not only in building machines, but in facing the limits of what we can ever truly understand.

Thoughts on Bitcoin and moral relativism. We live in a time where everything seems negotiable. Truth is subjective. Ethics are situational. People say things like “my truth” and “your reality,” as if facts come with a personal flavor. In many ways, moral relativism has become the default operating system. Nothing is fixed. Everything is fluid. And if you try to draw a hard line, people often treat it like an act of aggression. Bitcoin does not care how you feel. It does not adjust its rules to match your worldview. It doesn’t soften the consequences of your choices or let you redefine the terms just because you’re uncomfortable. Bitcoin is hard money. It has a fixed supply. It follows a fixed schedule. It enforces consensus without exception. You either have your keys or you don’t. You either validated the block or you didn’t. There is no “maybe.” There is no wiggle room. That’s what makes it so radical in a world of blurred lines. Bitcoin doesn’t just challenge our financial systems. It challenges our philosophical assumptions. It brings back the idea that some things are absolute. Some truths don’t bend, no matter how persuasive the narrative or how loud the emotion. This isn’t about being rigid for the sake of it. It’s about creating a foundation that cannot be manipulated. Because without that, everything becomes fragile. When the rules shift with the current, power flows to those who control the current. Bitcoin removes that leverage. It puts everyone on the same playing field, no matter how rich, powerful, or persuasive you are. By doing so, it makes a quiet, unshakable moral statement. There is value in truth. There is dignity in discipline. There is meaning in boundaries. That idea makes people uncomfortable. It should. It means personal responsibility is back. It means consequences are real. It means you can’t just talk your way out of a bad decision. You have to live with it. You have to learn from it. Bitcoin doesn’t preach. It doesn’t moralize. But it forces us to ask what happens when systems stop lying? What happens when truth is no longer subjective? What happens when rules are enforced with no exceptions? What happens when value flows through a network that treats everyone the same? Thank you for reading.

Thoughts on Bitcoin & entropy. The universe tends toward chaos. That’s not poetry. It’s physics. Entropy is always increasing. Things fall apart. Structures decay. Disorder is the default setting of reality. To create order in the middle of that chaos takes effort. It takes energy. It takes intention. Bitcoin is a system of order that emerges from pure energy, without rulers, without central control, and without shortcuts. It builds structure block by block, anchored in proof-of-work, a process that transforms electricity into something unforgeable. We live in a world where everything seems to move faster, where truth is constantly bent and manipulated, but Bitcoin insists on doing things the hard way. It demands that real value comes from real work. Not from promises. Not from authority. From computation. From time. From energy burned and verified. That work is not waste. It is what keeps the chaos out. Every mined block is a moment of clarity in the noise. A snapshot of truth, bought and paid for with electricity, mathematics, and honest competition. And that truth becomes permanent. Immutable. A ledger not just of transactions, but of time, effort, and commitment. Proof-of-work is the opposite of entropy. It is ordered resistance to decay 🤷‍♂️ Fiat money erodes over time. It can be created effortlessly. It loses its link to labor, to production, to meaning. Bitcoin restores that link. It reconnects money to time, and time to energy. It reminds us that nothing valuable is truly free, and nothing durable is truly easy. This isn’t just about economics. It’s about philosophy. It’s about what kind of system we want to live in. One that masks decay with endless printing and artificial trust? Or one that forces us to confront the cost of stability and rewards those willing to pay the price? Bitcoin doesn’t escape entropy. Nothing does. But it meets the chaos with structure, the noise with signal, and the temptation of shortcuts with the discipline of proof. It is a monument to the idea that order must be earned. And it earns it every ten minutes.

Reincarnation, memory and continuity of consciousness. The idea of reincarnation carries an ancient weight. From Hindu and Buddhist traditions to the philosophies of the ancient Greeks, it has appeared in many cultures, not always in the same form, but always with the same haunting suggestion: that consciousness is not confined to a single lifetime. According to this view, death is not an end but a transition. The self, or some essential aspect of it, moves forward into a new form, carrying unseen threads from the past. Most people who hear the word reincarnation think of memory, of the possibility of recalling past lives in vivid detail. Yet memory may be only the smallest part of the story. If consciousness continues, it may not preserve the exact narrative of who we were, but something deeper, the tendencies, the patterns, the lessons not yet learned. In this sense, reincarnation is less about biography and more about continuity of being. There have been thousands of reports from children who recall past lives, some of which have been documented in research by figures like Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia. In these cases, children often describe details of people, places, and events they could not have learned in their current life, some of which have been verified. Skeptics attribute these accounts to coincidence, suggestion, or fabrication, but the persistence and consistency of such stories make them difficult to dismiss entirely. Science does not currently have a framework for explaining how such continuity could occur. If consciousness is seen as a byproduct of the brain, then death should end it entirely. But if consciousness is not generated by the brain, if the brain is instead a receiver or filter of a larger field of awareness, then the possibility arises that the field could continue even when the receiver is gone. In that case, reincarnation might not be the transfer of a soul in the traditional sense, but the re-expression of a pattern in a new context. Philosophically, the idea challenges our sense of self. If you do not carry your memories into a new life, are you still the same person? Or is the deeper truth that the self was never fixed to begin with, that each life is simply one mask worn by a consciousness that is older and larger than any individual existence? Reincarnation, in this light, becomes less about the survival of the ego and more about the unfolding of an ongoing journey through many forms. Even without proof, the idea can have a powerful effect on how we live. If life is part of a longer continuum, then the consequences of our actions extend beyond this moment, and perhaps even beyond this body. The patience to grow, the willingness to learn, and the care we give to others may all be carried forward, woven into futures we cannot yet see. Whether reincarnation is a literal truth or a symbolic one, it offers a perspective in which death is not a wall but a doorway, and life is not a one-time event but a chapter in a book with no final page. In that view, the question shifts from what happens after we die to how fully we are living now, knowing that the story may be far from over. Thank you for reading 🙏

Be present

The whole world belongs to you.

Sometimes we never realize the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

Fiat is hopeless

Be where you are

Thoughts on money 💸and myths 🏰 Money has never just been about coins or paper. From the beginning, it has carried a story. Gold wasn’t valuable just because it was shiny. It became sacred. It became a symbol of kings, gods, and permanence. Paper money came with signatures and stamps, backed by royal seals or national pride. Today’s fiat currencies come wrapped in flags, central bank speeches, and patriotic jingles. Every era tells a story about its money. These stories are myths. Not lies, but cultural narratives we all agree to believe. Myths give money meaning. They tell us this piece of paper is worth something, this number in a bank account is real, this symbol on your paycheck can buy bread, rent, and retirement. But over time, the myths around fiat money start to crack. When central banks print endlessly, when currencies collapse, when savings are punished and debt is rewarded, people begin to lose the plot. The old story stops making sense. Inflation becomes a quiet thief, and the trust that money depends on begins to dissolve. Bitcoin tells a new story. This time, there is no king, no nation, no face on the bill. There is just math, energy, and consensus. A global network with no center and no ruler. Bitcoin doesn’t promise you safety. It offers you sovereignty. It doesn’t inflate to serve an agenda. It stays true to its code. That creates a different kind of myth. Not a fantasy, but a meaning. A belief in rules instead of rulers. In transparency instead of manipulation. In time-tested scarcity instead of manufactured abundance. In building instead of begging. Bitcoin’s myth is quiet. It doesn’t come with national anthems or military parades. It comes in blocks, mined one after another, across every border, without a central voice telling you what it’s worth. You decide that for yourself. Bitcoin doesn’t just give us a new kind of money. It gives us a new kind of meaning. One that doesn’t rely on authority, tradition, or storybook trust. It builds value from truth, participation, and the simple agreement to play fair, verify everything, and protect what you earn. The old myths are falling apart and Bitcoin is not just a better system. It is a better story.

Thoughts on silence in a Bitcoin world. We live in a world that never stops talking. Every screen is shouting. Every brand wants attention. Governments hold press conferences to explain away failures. Banks issue statements to justify their next move. Corporations launch campaigns to tell you what to think, how to feel, and what to buy. It’s constant, it’s loud, and it’s exhausting. Then there’s Bitcoin. No press releases. No PR team. No glossy ads with smiling actors pretending to care. Bitcoin just quietly… works. Every ten minutes, another block is added. No drama, no headlines, no begging for attention. It doesn’t try to sell itself. It doesn’t need to. That silence is not a bug. It’s the point. Bitcoin doesn’t care who’s trending, who’s screaming, or who’s spinning the latest crisis. It doesn’t ask you to believe anything. It simply invites you to observe. No promises. No politics. Just uptime, consensus, and math. There is something almost spiritual about the way it operates. It’s like a monk in a room full of salesmen. While everyone else is yelling to be heard, Bitcoin stays quiet and lets its actions speak. Every block is a quiet act of resistance. Every confirmation is a whisper of certainty in a world addicted to chaos. In that silence, people start to hear something else: their own thoughts. Bitcoin doesn’t push. It waits. It doesn’t flood your feed with slogans. It gives you something solid to stand on when everything else feels like quicksand. It teaches by doing, not by preaching. It reminds us that truth doesn’t need to shout. It just needs to be verifiable. Maybe that’s why it feels so different. It doesn’t just change your relationship with money. It changes your relationship with noise, with truth, with the idea that real power doesn’t need a spotlight. Real power is quiet. Real power is consistent. Real power just shows up, block after block, while the rest of the world burns itself out screaming.

Understand Bitcoin.

When you finally see it, there’s no going back. Bitcoin isn’t just money, it’s the lens that changes how you see the world.

He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior. -Confucius Those who save in sats command the future. -@MyBitcoinCousin

Bitcoin carries your work, your energy, your freedom into the world your children will inherit

Fifty-four years ago, the United States severed the last tie between the dollar and gold. The move was called temporary at the time. It became permanent. That decision reshaped the global economy, redefined money, and still echoes through every financial crisis we’ve had since. The story begins in July 1944 at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The Second World War was not yet over, but the allies were already planning how to rebuild the world. Representatives from 44 nations met to design a monetary system that could avoid the chaos and currency wars of the interwar years. The United States emerged from the war holding nearly two-thirds of the world’s gold. Under the new agreement, the dollar was pegged to gold at $35 an ounce. Other major currencies were pegged to the dollar. The dollar became the world’s reserve currency, not because it was the dollar, but because it was as good as gold. Stability was the promise, and for a time, it worked. But by the 1960s, cracks began to show. The U.S. was spending heavily by funding the Vietnam War abroad and the Great Society programs at home. Dollars flowed overseas faster than gold flowed in. Nations like France began redeeming dollars for gold, draining U.S. reserves. Confidence in the system eroded. On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon went on national television and announced what became known as the Nixon Shock. He suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold. Officially, this was meant to be a temporary measure to stop “international speculators” from attacking the dollar. In reality, the gold window never reopened. The Bretton Woods system collapsed, and the era of pure fiat money began. The consequences were profound. Without the discipline of gold, governments could create money at will. Inflation became a permanent feature of modern economies. The dollar lost more than 85% of its purchasing power over the following decades. Debt-fueled growth became the new economic model, and the business cycle was increasingly shaped by central bank policy rather than natural market forces. Today, every financial boom, bust, and bailout rests on the foundation laid in 1971. We live in a world where money is backed not by something tangible, but by the fragility of trust. Understand Bitcoin. Bitcoin fixes this.