I've probably got a whole journal entry about it.

Don’t try to spice things up. If you’ve been with someone a long time and the “spark” is gone, don’t try to “spice things up”. It will just lead to everyone feeling pressure and frustration. The “spark” leaves when you’ve grown apart, or become room mates, or when the both of you have just stopped trying. And deciding to do some sexual role play scene with your room mate that you’re just not that into really isn’t going to go well for anyone! Instead, reconnect. Read a book together. Go out for long walks. Go on a trip together. Get drunk together. When you can actually see that person again, when you remember why you were so into them… that’s where the “spark” lives.

Banks and banking services still are really valuable to Bitcoiners, and always will be, and please make use of them. The most obvious current example is the wrench attack. There are plenty of people who very famously have ridiculous amounts of money, pop stars, sports stars etc. but a wrench attack is very rare there. It’s not just because they have security teams, it’s also because they have banks… they don’t keep the money in their house! The banks have the vaults, they have the security cameras, they have the security guards. If you are a bitcoiner who doesn’t have the means to or the desire to have all those things, well, you go get a safety deposit box and pay a bank for their willingness to let you enjoy all of their security efforts. Wrench attacks happen when a thief gets the idea that you have a giant pile of digital cash accessible in your home. So Bitcoiners, please don’t be scared of using banking services, pay them for their security services, and please don’t have a pile of digital cash in your home!

If we are God’s children, do we not grow up? I’ve been pondering my relationship with religion and American culture. “Submission” is a core theme in popular religions. It's a popular theme in the Qur’an and it’s seems to be fair to say that it’s a key concept in Islam. The Bible is a bit less intense with the “submission” but it’s still a prominent concept, and certainly it’s a very prominent concept in the teachings of many modern churches. And, likely as a result, it’s a common collective unconscious concept in American culture. And yes we can argue that some of our obsession with dominance and submission is a hold over from our primate past, but there is something a bit more too it with this religious context. It’s is the pervasive understanding of ourselves as perpetual children, perpetually waiting for approval from a “higher” authority. It’s one of the most persistent and difficult things to remove from the back of my brain… the constant sensation of needing the approval of an authority figure. That gets in there really good when you are fed stories of inherent shame and enteral damnation from as early as you can understand language. And looking around at the world I can see that I’m not the only one infested with this. This is why we can’t get out from under our politicians and billionaires. We are still under the impression that we can’t be whole without a stamp of approval from someone “above” us. The idea that we are not capable of wholeness on our own. Growing up means letting this concept go. On an individual level and on a societal level. Do you grow up? Do you trust yourself?

All this talk lately about if marriage benefits men or women more ...it's totally missing the point. Do these people not know what partnership is? If it isn't a huge benefit to both parties, don't do it!

My abs 4 years ago... they don't usually look this fabulous. I think I was just dehydrated that day. But I'll take the opportunity to brag 😁

I haven’t dragged up this topic in a while but today I was thinking about the beauty of being able to deeply trust someone and how confusing trust for ugly things really destroys that beauty. It’s tragic when trust is confused for "submission" or when “submission” is desired instead of trust. You can't trust someone who wishes to have power over you. Wanting someone to "submit" to you destroys their ability to trust you. It destroys the beauty of trust. It's just tragic.

I saw some political commentary on Instagram that I think just nails it. It went something like… Trump is so damaging to our culture because he causes people to abandon civility as a prerequisite for leadership.

Zero sum thinking. It’s a bit of a mind virus that keeps you in survival mode and holds you back. It’s the idea that the world is a fixed pie and someone else might take your piece. If someone else wins, you must lose. If someone else gets ahead, it means you fall behind. If a competitor grows, your business shrinks. There are situations in life that are zero sum! But thankfully, most situations are positive-sum. Collaboration, creativity, markets, knowledge, open-source software… these all grow the pie. Zero sum thinking creates unnecessary conflict, it shrinks opportunity and it leads to defensive behavior rather than curiosity and innovation.

The most interesting this to me about all this Epstein material we're getting lately is the Bannon <-> Epstein connection. ...I'll bet you there is a lot there.

The Bitcoin vibe on Twitter is so sad. All this forcing others to take pills or bend knees 🤢 I’m a big hippie y’all, I’m not here to “dominate” others. I’m just trying to build some cool shit that makes life a bit better… for everyone 🫶🧡✌️

...I am a bit of a vibe coding hater 😬

As always, freedom of speech is wildly important for all sorts of reasons. One of them being that when people can say whatever they want, what they chose to say reveals their character.

Just spent an hour explaining the Bitcoin + Lightning + Taproot Assets stack to my Spanish tutor. Poor lady deserves a raise 😬 I feel like I should get some sort of trophy 🏆 You know you know something well when you can explain it to a novice... in your second language!

¡Me voy a El Salvador en enero! Voy a estar hablando, obvio, del stack de Bitcoin + Lightning + Taproot Assets. ¿Qué es lo que más te daría curiosidad aprender sobre esta tecnología?