Materialism - Calley - Unfolding the Soul (pu043w8NZRQ)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=pu043w8NZRQ

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Unfolding the Soul. Today, my guest is Kelly. I’ve known her from the, a little bit later than the early days of the Awakening Dominion Crisis Discord server, where she’s been hosting a lot of rituals for us at the start when we didn’t really have our own practices, and she was like giving us a feed up into getting actually something actually going. So that was that was really nice. And her chosen subject is materialism. It’s a subject that is talked about a lot, right? Like it’s been identified as something that’s at least problematic to have a good relation to. And I think Kelly’s story is going to exemplify the trouble of trying to get right relationship with the materialist aspect of our lives. So yeah, Kelly, like, do you want to say something about yourself? Yeah, thank you so much for hosting me. This is great. It’s really cool to see the progression since we met and worked together on different community things and, you know, now putting content together. It’s very cool. So yeah, let’s start off with this idea of materialism. Maybe give us a bit of what your conception of it is and how you found out about it. Like that is something you have to relate to. Materialism is often kind of pitted against spirituality in this sort of polar oppositional way. My upbringing was pretty, I guess, more geared towards materialism. So it seems like there have been several points in my life that have been kind of flipping between the two or contrasting the two. You know, so growing up and leading up to choosing a career and location and direction in life was very utilitarian, I guess you would say. It was very practical. It was, you know, go get a good job that’s going to pay a lot and do all the savings and 401k. And, you know, very traditional. My dad is pretty straightforward about those things. I actually, you know, through my teenage years, didn’t have too much of a rebel streak as far as wanting to be unlike my parents or wanting to go off and do something else at that point. But once college got rocky and pretty early on, it became really obvious to me that that was a scam and not such a good thing. And it really flew in the face of my upbringing, which really valued education and valued hard work and sort of that Midwest work ethos, which was just, you know, if you put in the hours and do the grind and, you know, save up and do these things, it’ll all work out. That got dissolved really quickly early on in my life. Graduating into the recession and being interested in the architectural field was sort of a pretty bad combo at the time. I was already working in construction and then the housing bubble burst and that whole crisis was like, hmm, maybe architecture isn’t the right way to go. But, you know, I had all these, you know, all kinds of different directions, both spiritual and material, saying, you know, follow what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about and just, you know, go with that thing and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And so I did. And that was a big mistake. So I kind of had a little crisis and was like, screw it, I’m going to run away. And I went and I lived in a pagan commune for a while and was very involved in spiritual community. And I really felt like I had found where I belong. You know, the sense of community was really strong at a pretty early formative time in my life. And eventually, for better or for worse, you know, the the leaders in that community and the people that I was working with and looked up to kind of convinced me to take another crack at it and go back to the city and go back to school and try to finish the first. I had only wanted an associate’s degree and my program actually got canceled just short of me graduating from it. And there was no way to complete it, even though they were supposedly obligated to make sure I could do that. So I kind of rage quit. I was not happy about that. But they kind of over the over the course of that community experience, it kind of wore me down. And it’s like, oh, well, you know, don’t be so impulsive. You know, don’t just quit because things are tough. It’s not really that bad. It’s not that the whole educational system is corrupt. You just had a it was a bad apple. You had a bad go of it. Yeah. So I came back and it was pretty much more of the same only worse because I ended up having to go to private school. So it was just like, no, no, that was the moral of the story. Don’t don’t do that over school. So that was kind of a shock. I want to take a break. That’s actually pretty analogous to me. Like I took a break of two years and then I go back to the university and I was like, oh, my God. Oh, no, no, it’s the same. Yeah. Well, yeah, even worse, right? Because now it’s the second try and something changes in the way that you experience that. So to go back to this idea of materialism, right? So you come in this in this pagan cult, right, which pagan means spiritually oriented, at least the way that I understand it. Right. So so is that where you get introduced to the framing of materialism and spirituality? I would say like that’s that’s been kind of the battleground is in different groups. When I was younger, I was in a different one that was kind of more druidic and orientation. And those things were always butting heads. And I actually worked for the people that I was in that growth with. So that was like they were my employers. We had this very materialistic relationship, but also they were, you know, working with me spiritually, like we were trying to study in advance and study history and anthropology and all these other things. And so they became kind of hopelessly entangled. And I thought that was good. I thought that was like, oh, well, these things are balanced and integrated in my life. But, you know, it just kind of made things more messy and entangled when things kind of went south with that. So so so what is it? What does it mean to have an entanglement like? Like, is do you do you see that those realms have different functions and therefore should be separate? Or or do you think that like there’s a way of managing that they weren’t actually able to do that? I think I think that there’s definitely I mean, going through my journey and learning what I have like now I’m in a good place where I can see where those things can be complementary to one another and not be at odds. But, you know, at that time, in the midst of high school, it was it was very either or they weren’t, you know, coupled very successfully at that time. And there was a conflict of interest, basically, because there’s so much intensity around that time. You know, the demands are very intense. There’s a lot of things vying for your attention and there’s a lot of pressure to get it right at that time. And nobody really tells you when you’re that age, like to enjoy the journey at that stage. You know, there it’s a big rush, you know, to get established and grow up and get a car and get all these things. And so it presented a conflict of interest, especially in the spiritual domain, because so much of studying spirituality later on as an adult became, you know, this lesson about acceptance and this lesson about patience and enjoying the process and the journey and, you know, taking things as they come. And that was so at odds with the force of the materialism at that time, where, you know, there were all these boxes that had to be checked and everything had to be done just so. And, you know, don’t do something frivolous like having an art career. And, you know, there are all these really stringent advice. And, yeah, I think too much of the spiritual stuff got entangled in that same procedure. Like the process became similar because I wanted to be successful at spirituality. I wanted to be ordained. I wanted to do these research projects and publish. And I wanted to, you know, be valued by other people and approached for opportunity, you know, and it was like, I guess I was so wrapped up in that process with my regular material life that I didn’t understand that those things should be conducted maybe differently. That maybe both of them should be conducted differently. But, yeah, differentiating was difficult at that time, just because of the pace of life, you know, it took a long time to slow down. It sounds like you were playing two games, right, like the materialist game and the spiritual game, but you only had the skills or the rule set for the materialist game and you just applied that into the spiritual frame. So I’m a little bit interested in, because you said they were competing in some sense. So how did you decide the priority? Or like, was there more a sense of like going with what’s there? Like, how did you do that? Well, for the next leg of it, when I joined the other group, you know, when I moved into commune mode, I think I was able to more easily give priority to the spirituality and the social and communal aspect, which I had really neglected in high school, unfortunately. That’s one of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t spend more time networking and just having friends and spending time, you know, because… Is that as a consequence of the materialism? I think so, yeah. Like you just got tunnel vision and zoned out on that? Yeah, and everything just felt so limited and it felt like, you know, every moment had to be spent perfectly and, you know, just enjoying others company. You know, I know now how important that networking is for business and for materialism itself, but like it’s not obvious what that connection is at that time in life. So being able to step away from that and just take some time and, you know, have days where they were pretty unstructured, you know, let the social stuff really shine through and allow me to see the value of it and form those things more organically and not be so rigid. So that I think helped me understand the priority. There’s a priority beyond either spiritual or material. There’s the social priority where this like this human connection, you know, and equality relationship priority that was up till that point kind of not on my radar, you know, because it didn’t fall into either of those two camps. And also there’s no metrics for it. So it’s a lot more difficult to navigate. There’s no how do you be successful at relationships? There’s not, you know, some bank till that will give you an answer for how you’re doing. Yeah, and there’s also no bank that says what is success, right? So now you got three realms and you said that there was a competition between the material is in the spirituality and that was also in that the people that were facilitating the spiritual aspect were also your employers, right? So, so yeah, how do you see that? Yeah, well, after after that stage, I left that growth and then the covenant I was with instead of my employers, they were just my collaborators, you know, but we were still involved in business and I still had business opportunities through them and was able to learn a lot through more of a mentor situation rather than direct employment. And that that social realm really bridged the gap between the two where there wasn’t really a conflict. It’s like, you know, I could sell spiritual things and be kind of immersed in that. And being learning and providing that service, especially like reading tarot cards, like, it’s a little weird and hokey, maybe at that age, but like, what business did I have in advising anybody about anything? But I learned so much by doing that and being immersed in it and being around people who were also making their craft of that. So it like it really bridged the gap between those things and made them not be in conflict anymore. So I was doing both at the same time while not sacrificing the social realm. But unfortunately, that would very soon explode, you know, the social dimension of that completely. There ended up being a lot of infighting and that whole organization fell apart. So that kind of caused another crisis where it was like, oh, well, I thought I found the answer. I thought that the community was the solution and was the bridge between these two conflicting worlds. And now I have to go back to this really awful place where I have to pick one or the other, you know, and it’s right back to square one. So it kind of rough patch there during those years without the social aspect to bring meaning, you know, to what I was doing. So I’m interested in this idea of creating distance, right? Like, so in some sense, when you’re employed, like you’re under people, right? Like you’re participating in their structure, right? And then at a certain point, like you’re emancipating to your own position, right? And now your relationship to them changes, not only as a consequence of the distance, but also as a consequence of what they mean to you. So can you go into that a bit more? Yeah, well, for me, I was really fortunate and like some of the people in the community that were my mentors did have a vested interest in me actually, you know, pursuing my things and being successful and like finding meaning in my own work and stuff like that. But the framing was always that the purpose of doing that would ultimately be to synergize with other people and give back. So the, my roommate at the time was going to law school, and then I was going back for architecture with a lot of our emphasis being on like nonprofit work and sustainability. And, you know, we were very like anti-capitalism at the time, very like, you know, fight the power and all that. Fight the power and all that. But it was coming from a place of like providing a structure besides just the, you know, the structure provided by an organization or a coven or something like that, is like being able to have more emergent collaboration and relationships that aren’t dictated by a company or structure or, you know, pay situation. So at the time, that did feel like a, you know, a big upgrade and a big liberation because it was like, you know, we’re, we were coming back to get that, that, those credentials and that, that ability to turn around and provide opportunity for others. So it felt kind of like, okay, well, you know, we’re in the manager position and there’ll be new people who come in and we mentor them. You know, that continuity at the time felt really good. I don’t know, also just like the progression of time didn’t feel as burdensome at that time because it was like, oh, this is the natural course of things. You know, you have these elders and they pass on their knowledge and they pass away, but they’re replaced, you know, and it kind of eased the, the existential dread of feeling like, you know, life was wasting away at that time. You know how it is, you know, mid-20s is like, oh, it’s, oh no. You just have no idea at that time that you have no. Yeah. So, so it kind of like blew up in, in, in the sense that now you were forced to pick sides, like, like what, what, what are you, what are your evaluations at that point? Like what are you weighing? Then yeah, that, it was really difficult to weigh. It was really difficult, you know, because on one hand, there’s this narrative that like, whatever your intuition says and whatever you’re compelled to do and like whatever you do to fulfill your own journey steps helps the whole, you know, anything that you do is helpful for the community because you being authentic is what helps the cohesion of the community. But also there’s, there’s always that material, you know, impression of pick the right thing though, because there’s certain things that are going to be more valuable if we want to have these things. And especially with the precarious nature of a commune where it’s like, there’s a lot you have to, you know, you have to have your cottage industry set up, you have to have your revenue streams, you have to make it so you can actually pay for the thing, you know, and then you have to be careful about the way you structure things and who you allow in, you know, it’s just a lot of, of all the administration pressure that’s so oppositional to the natural flow of the spiritual world, you know, those, those are still at odds. So, so it’s like, oh yeah, there’s a structure that allows things to exist. And then there’s this, this aspiration of self-expression that you’re trying to pursue. And obviously these two are in conflict. And so you said it blew up, right? So, so what, how does that work with the structure and, and is this aspirational aspect? Well, it blew up because there were kind of like two really oppositional factions within our organization that wanted very different things with the land and the person who actually owned it, his aging, his health was not super great and he needed help with things. And, you know, his, his position was more, you know, towards just getting his own stuff secure and not so much the development of this utopian commune thing, you know, so like then there were these three things very much at odds and trying to find my way in that and what the right thing to do was, and like picking sides, that was very, very stressful, you know, it was difficult to figure out what all that meant or what you’re, what you’re really supposed to do. But I think that’s true in lots of different modes. I don’t think it’s, you know, my case seems a little extreme, you know, with a commune thing, but I think a lot of people probably find themselves torn between those things in any kind of organization. So are there things that you reflect on now that you would have done different decisions or priorities? With that leg of it, no, I don’t think there’s really anything that would have gone differently. I pretty much fell out with everybody. You know, I went on living with my lawyer roommate for a while after that, and, you know, we ended up just drifting apart and like, I just wasn’t really connected to anyone in that world. I kind of kept it going in my own way, because after that, we would do, you know, vending and fundraising and renaissance festivals. So I was entrenched in that community as well. So that was kind of my way of continuing and engaging with it. So I went on to do my own event hosting and vending to keep networking with those types of people, but it wasn’t really with the exact same group anymore. So when you’re hosting these things, is that because like you’re running a business or is the business something that supports you and allows you to run these things? Well, I should just throw out that like, I had no idea what I was doing. In theory, I, you know, was doing these things to support my business and to, you know, create opportunity for that. But I never made any money at my own events. I never really was about that. Once I started doing it, the benefits were much more from the networking, the sense of community after having lost the pagan side of it, now, you know, being just on the maker space and the crafter kind of entrepreneur space. Because a lot of people in the pagan community were that too, there’s quite a lot of overlap. But in just continuing to surround myself with that energy and those people and explore, you know, what’s possible with community events and activities. And that was much more where the value continued to be and why I kept doing it for so long, even though I didn’t make any money. Yeah, because, and there were some people that reported they did make quite a bit. And on the whole, like my events were always very positively received, they were very inexpensive to vend at, and they were free to attend. So it’s kind of hard to go wrong. You know, and now looking back after quarantine, it’s just so, that is kind of a shock. It’s like, I’m pretty glad that I wasn’t still doing it when, you know, all of these restrictions came into play, because I would have been completely out of that, you know, by force. But like, it’s so mind boggling. There was such a long period that that wasn’t even an option. And you know, looking at how much of a big part of my life that had become in that culture, and that source of socialization, you know, now looking back, it’s like an alien world. So when I hear you speak, your social organization was privileged to the spiritual frame because you were in a commune, right? Like that was coming together around the spiritual aspect. And then kind of shifted to the more material frame where you’re communing with people over the basis of, well, not so much selling things, but at least living in a space where, I think that dream is kept alive. So did you feel like you were still trying to make it, or were you just trying to do the thing that you wanted? Like, were you actually trying to build a business still at that point? Oh, from yeah, from all of our perspective, like we were wholeheartedly, like, on the business side of things. And like that, I guess afforded the sense of purpose and legitimacy to put in the time. And it was it was it’s kind of counterintuitive. But like, just by doing that and choosing to show up, you know, it created the space for other connections and other meaningful happenings, you know, and good conversations and good, you know, there’s people who are like, really good friends now that I never would have met otherwise, because I did this thing, you know, and you can’t really put a value on that. But those are the kind of spontaneous things that started popping up. And I didn’t really understand it at the time, like what it was about it. I think I had too much of a mind for optimizing it or like, okay, well, we had this, this went well, how do we do better? How do we get more people, you know, it’s still very much in that material mindset. But through that focus, it did bring enough of that magic to together in the same space to create a potential for meaningful connections. So it was very jambly, you know, felt very random, there was just like, okay, let’s try to create the conditions for spirituality to happen. Sometimes it does. And, okay, let’s just keep doing that, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t the kind of like trust and ease that, you know, that I was able to find after that phase of life from kind of just giving myself permission to do things without having a business incentive to do them. You know, because like that was my crutch for a really long time for overcoming resistance to just go to social things, you know, because there always had to be some justification and owning a business and having the freedom that I do is really what paved the way for that. Because when you’re working for somebody else, you’re on clock, you know, trying to justify social engagements. Yeah, it’s rough. It does become this math equation every time, which really sucks, you know, because that’s not what human connection is supposed to be about. But you’re having to weigh, you know, your hourly wage against, you know, how long it’s going to take to drive to a place and go do a thing and hang out with these people. And I hated those mental gymnastics. And, you know, it was it was a harsh lesson for me, like having to completely make myself financially stable and independent through owning a business and taking all of the risk of that and the ups and the downs and roller coaster. It’s definitely not for everyone. So it’s really garbage advice, you know, to be like, oh, well, this will afford you a space where you can now be creative and be spiritual. Like, it’s a terrible lesson, but I’m hoping we can find a better way than doing the whole business thing. But for me, it was that was kind of the boat that was the vehicle that got me to what I probably could have taken a shortcut on and just been more accepting of myself to begin with, I guess. Yeah, so that’s actually leading into the question I wanted to ask. Right. So there’s you said it was a crutch, right? And the crutch can become an impediment as well. Right. So there’s this tension in that it allows you to do something, but then if you’re not spiritually mature, right, like then the means becomes entwined in being able to do it, right? Like, you start confusing them because you think they’re the same thing. So, and I feel like when you say, well, I give myself the space, right? Like that’s you letting go of that entanglement. So do you feel like you needed that crutch or was it just a convenience? I think that there’s just this whole other life rhythm that we have been deprived of in our modern age. I think that there’s just this whole other structure to the way that humans grow up and age and evolve and the rites of passage that they have and the different benchmarks of life are just so different from what we’re kind of force fed, especially here in America. I think like what I went through with my business, you know, should have normally been, you know, in days of yore or whatever, this whole apprenticeship period, you know, and I think that there’s ways to let that unfold a lot more organically, but the way that there’s such an external demand, you know, placed upon us, I think like, did it take longer than maybe it could have? I don’t know, it’s hard to say, but also I think the biggest lesson in all of that was that it doesn’t really matter how long it takes. There isn’t like a correct timeline. It’s okay to be old. That’s not a problem, you know, but there’s such a panic that’s instilled in you in your early 20s in America of like, you better not screw this up. You know, you get this one shot and, you know, you’re supposed to kind of screw it. Like, I think it’s kind of natural and should be destigmatized to have that entire first block just, you know, kind of wash. Like, it’s not really about that. Like, you don’t have to have your career figured out, you know, pre-28. Like, really, you know, that’s supposed to be your apprenticeship period. You’re supposed to kind of just be figuring it out and, you know, it should be much more widely accepted. Like, just take gen eds basically till you’re like 28. That’s totally acceptable. We’re in such a rush and I think it creates a lot of unnecessary angst. Yeah, so you bring up this idea of apprenticeship and I assume that the value that you see in there is that there’s someone ahead of you on the path that you’re on and that can provide the structure for you to fail in, right? And then, yeah, like- The context to your failures, yeah. Right, right, right. That as well, yeah. And so you kind of missed that because you were kind of self-responsible, right? And then you’re in this group of people that’s trying to figure out this stuff together, Bob. But that, yeah, that supportive aspect, like, was that there, like, the fact that people actually stayed with you or was it more coming together through convenience? I think that, well, with that group, I think, like, what was so unique about it was also kind of its downfall. It was just, it was really trying to do a lot. It was trying to integrate a lot because we had people from all ages, all walks of life, all faiths. So it was like many different, you know, I had some friends that were Santa Ria. I had some people that were like old school European Wiccan. Like, they were all over the place. And I think that intense openness made it really difficult to take everything in at once. And like the time and the care that you have to show to form deep, meaningful connections with every single one of those things, having them be so very, you know, just the sheer amount of content culturally and religiously to have to, like, understand all the faiths of the world, you know, at one time was like kind of the impetus and the pressure. It was like, you know, you should do this. We want to have as much understanding and compassion for one another as possible. It’s like, yeah, but that’s a lot of books to read. Like, it was just a ton at once. And it felt like you had to do it all at the same time, you know, showing too much, like, preference to one thing or another. It wasn’t discouraged per se, but it almost felt like it was because you’re constantly being bombarded with all these options and all these, like, like you, especially when it’s embodied in a human being, right, when you’re surrounding. And I think you get a similar effect on a college campus or on a, and why maybe that’s part of what’s so intimidating is if you have this, this huge sea of choice, you know, of things to be interested in and people to find interesting and learn about and, you know, explore their way of life. If those are extremely varied, you know, it’s a lot to take in all at one time. So I think that’s kind of what led it to be overwhelming, especially for people coming in towards the far end of it, because, you know, there were all these people who had been established in it for years and they all had these close relationships. And then a newcomer coming in sees this whole thing without, you know, having those stepping stones to, you know, have those kind of anchor relationships within it. Yeah. So what you’re describing to me is also bringing up this idea of relevance, right? Like you get all of this information, but now you have to figure out like what’s relevant to me and like, how is it helpful to me? And yeah, like, like if, if there’s no structure, right, like if there’s no person that’s guiding you, then it’s going to be a competition for these, well, for you, effectively. That’s why it’s so much easier with a study program and why I found it so much easier starting out when I was going through the druidic study program, because it’s like, here is a pathway, here is a program, here is, you know, what you do, and here’s a bunch of people doing the same thing, you know, and we’re focused on this culture. It was much more narrow over parameter, you know, and ultimately I was just impatient and there was support within that group, but it was also unsupportive. They were really unsupportive of my age. They wouldn’t pass me on the program, even though there was no stipulation that you had to be a certain age to complete it or anything like that. I was just kind of getting stonewalled about it. You know, there was all this red tape from the administrators and it was like, well, why are you being agist against me? Like, I work just as hard as everybody else. I participated in the group studies like everybody else, you know, why are you discriminating against me? Because I’m not, and I don’t, looking back, that was very millennial of me to get caught up over. They just didn’t know how to deal with it. They hadn’t had to do it before. So I was being a little forceful and impatient looking back at the time. And I just, you don’t know, you don’t know when you’re that age, how much time you have and how much time it takes and what’s realistic, especially now, everything is so fast paced, you know, but. So, yeah, to go back on the story. So you stepped out before COVID. Like, did something change in the way that you were understanding what you’re doing that made you step out? Yeah, well, I just switched my focus. I wanted to do everything online because I was really, up to that point, invested in having the hybrid business. I wanted to have a physical presence so that people could interact with me and see the product in person and all of these things. But like the overhead of it was just, it was always a loss. It was a huge loss. And, you know, in exploring avenues to have a brick and mortar store or red space in a salon or whatever, like it just, none of those numbers were crunching up. So at one point I was like, you know what, let’s just be online. At least then there’s less risk and less overhead. You know, I’m not going to keep taking this risk. So I quit hosting. I would sometimes still show at events, but that dried up too, just from too many negative experiences in person. Just people can, you know, and any service industry person knows, like people can just be so hateful and so spiteful and so cruel over, you know, what’s supposed to be an enjoy. How do you not have fun shopping at a Renaissance festival? And yet, you know, people were awful examples of human beings and I was done. I was like, I don’t want to be put in that position. So that was kind of the end of this. It was killing my faith in humanity very quickly. So it was like, you know what, for my own sanity, I need to pull out of this. Yeah. So I switched to completely online. And that was- So in that switch, right? Like, so in some sense, right, you had this dirtying, the social aspect, right? And like, you gave that up. And I assume that a whole big part of the spirituality was connected to that. You gave those two things up to satisfy your materialist needs. And did you consider that decision in that way? Like, was that a part of your evaluation? Yeah. I mean, it felt like a sacrifice that needed to be made to get to the level of financial independence that I thought I could then use to facilitate putting more quality into hosting again and maybe hosting things that didn’t have anything to do with money, you know, just doing retreats or whatever. And like, in giving myself more freedom to travel and explore the world. And that was a huge impetus for not wanting the responsibility anymore of, you know, managing vendors and stuff. So yeah, it felt like a sacrifice that I was intentionally making in the hopes of freeing up more energy for that. And, you know, at the time, just studying spirituality on my own was really gratifying. I didn’t need too much socialization to accompany that. I had a discussion group that I was attending with the Theosophical Society, and that pretty much covered it. It was a lot, I guess you’d say, like older demographic, a lot of the people in that group were older individuals, but I kind of liked that energy. I was always the youngest person there, and that was kind of weird. But the discussions were really good. All the topics that we covered were really great. And sharing a both you weight. Yeah, yeah, it felt good. I was always being challenged and people were very supportive of kind of more towards the research side of things. You know, publishing was really important to them. They’re really bookish. Yeah, so I didn’t really feel too much of a loss at that time. But when that broke up, eventually, because the host passed away, that brought in all that existential crisis. And, you know, it does kind of wear you down having people that you really respect and look up to pass away, you know, and mentors, in particular, it’s just like, such a huge loss. When that becomes kind of the pattern that it’s been in my life or happens so frequently, it’s like you don’t want to get attached, you know, you don’t want to take the risk of emotionally investing in the person, you know, that especially that’s older because that’s terrible. It’s a terrible feeling. But yeah, I kind of pulled away after that to take a break, I guess. So, yeah, you were talking about COVID following this up. So did that lead into COVID? That was a there’s a bit in between. So after all of that stuff, I ended up being financially independent enough to take a trip to Europe. And that was pretty life changing, because that was kind of the objective. It was like, well, I want to give up showing locally so that I can see more of the world and understand more of how they do it. And so I framed it as like this, you know, research thing of like, oh, I want to go see how they do it in Germany. But I kind of got attached, which is bad. But, you know, I think it’s inevitable when you’re greeted with that much warmth and hospitality to get a little attached. But that yeah, as that will trip, it kind of reframed a lot of spiritual stuff, too, and being kind of both more communal and more personal, like those things were less in conflict. And so I kind of felt like I was going to be less in conflict, I guess, in that context, because I went to the big LARP event in Germany conquest, and then I stopped in Italy, and I went to Croatia, and Island retreat thing. And just like all of those different spots, and their sense of community was so so such a stark contrast to how things are in America, just the vibe was so completely different. And I expected it to be, but it still surprised me how different the feeling was, you know, and that brought up so many questions. Like, what Okay, so why is the distinction? Um, yeah, there, there was not nearly as much pressure in Germany, like they just the sense of like, valuing every little thing was so much higher, just the like the amount of time and patience and care, like, don’t get me wrong, Germans are ridiculously critical as well. They’re very, you know, but if you’re fundamentally trying your best, it’s almost like they can sense that and they just really give a lot of slack to people that are fundamental. Whereas in America, you can be trying till you’re blue in the face, and it will never be good enough for anyone. And that just gets exhausting. And so I don’t know, like the the energy of that was just so different. And just going around and looking at the way places were just the amount of like, dedication and care that was shown to every, every aspect of life, just the tidiness of everything, and like how the maintenance was put in everything, like we don’t really maintain things in America, but in Germany, everything is like really, you know, you can see people like adjusting all these little things, it’s taking care. The best example was this cool thing that they had in Würzburg, in front of the Merienberg castle, they have this whole hillside in front of the castle. They explained it so that they could stand up on the ramparts with the cannons and shoot the plebs down below who were rioting against the bourgeoisie. So that, you know, historically, maybe not so great, but they turned it into this really cool hillside where they had subplots that were these little gardens. And you could I guess just like rent this as a plot that you have, and you can have a little cottage thing on it, and you can have your garden, and it’s part of a bigger public garden that they had other botanical stuff too. But then they had these privately kind of owned or rented ones. And just seeing all these people out there just randomly in the middle of the day, like who has time for this? Taking care of these cute little gardens, there was almost this sense of like pride and competition between them of like, oh, my little cottagey thing is cute even years or whatever, you know, but like in this very deeply caring way, you know, and all of this was put on display for the public. It was like, you know, people were participating in this private way and expressing themselves by sharing it so openly. And that was that just really blew my mind, you know, because in America, if you have a garden, it’s behind a fence. It’s, you know, a big wall on this private enclave deep in the woods somewhere or something. But there was just like something to be shared and something that was public and communal, and that really shocked me. They were very public about a lot of things, even just like just customs, you know, like bathing together. That’s different. We’re very reserved about that in America. Like nudity was just very the way things were in Germany. And it’s just like, you know, the only other place that had been like that was on the commune when we have designated skyclad rituals, but it was still, you know, an understanding of like, it’s not really clothing optional on the whole of the commune. This wasn’t like a nudist one, you know, but there would be specific instances where that would be something that was explored, whereas in Germany, it was just like, oh, it’s just a body, get over it. Cool. So is that also an explanation why there was less conflict between the social and spiritual elements? I think so. I mean, that’s my guess. It’s really hard to say specifically what, because there were so many things that were different. Just their values on everything. It was really difficult with like my, you know, traumatic background of education, you know, to go to a place where like, you know, education for the most part is free, you know, or it’s like supported and like you can go for, you know, I had all these friends that were doing things like restoring furniture and castles, and I’m like, you what? That’s not real. Yes, that’s real. Like, you could be anything, and they were all valued. And that was just so crazy, because like, in America, you can’t choose the wrong career. Like that’s, you’re dead after that. You just, you don’t get another chance. You got to do it. And yeah, there were so many different areas that really flew in the face of a lot of my experiences. So I can’t really point to a single thing that made those things more unified. But even that, you know, the people that I played the game with, and they were exploring that space still, like even though Germany felt like such a massive improvement over how it is here, they were struggling to make meaning within the community and within the game that they were playing and to figure out how to maintain contact and to work on it outside of, you know, this brief window when there was an active campaign, you know, and exploring like what else it could do. And a lot of the people within my tribe were, you know, social workers and a lot of psychologists and people that were really concerned with like human well-being. And so it was really interesting to hear their perspectives about, you know, privilege and like getting to take a weekend off and go play this game and, you know, spend all this money and time and resource on, you know, creating this immersive world. Like, why can’t we make our real life of that quality and create those experiences for it, you know? And so it was interesting. Like it was obviously work in progress that I don’t think anybody was claiming that, you know, they had it all figured out yet. But there was such an optimistic sense of hope prior to this was just before this was the summer right before lockdown. So 2019. So at that time, there was a lot of like optimism about what these kinds of events could do and what, you know, just community things in general could do and how to repair that. And, you know, there’s a lot of talks, of course, the meaning crisis being a main one. There’s a lot of books exploring community sense of belonging, you know, the crisis and all that. But I don’t know, like being there, it felt doable. It felt like there was something we could do about it. But then coming back to America and looking back around, it was like, do I want to try to host things here? Because originally I thought like, oh, I’m going to go and learn how they do it. And I’m going to apply what I learned. And it just didn’t translate. It just things aren’t the same way. So I can’t just do it the same way. So I have to still come up with a completely different way to do it if I want to try to create those conditions. And that was just like, such a buzz kill. You know, I’m like, that’s, that’s a lot of work right there. I don’t know how to approach that problem. I can’t seem to break that down. And then when COVID hit, it was like, oh, no, this is not the way to go at all. I’m on the wrong, I’m in the wrong book completely. Not just the wrong page. Like, we’re not going to do things in person, maybe ever again, you know, at the time at the at the beginning, you know, you know, right at the beginning of the discord stuff, too, it was like, well, this is our life now. This is how it’s going to be. So that that whole line of thought, as far as like how to apply the learning went away, but it did eventually kind of crop back up again with hosting rituals and doing the dialogos practice and circling in the different activities was like, oh, well, these are this is familiar. These are things that we did, you know, and doing it digitally. Yeah, I mean, certainly, you don’t get some of the same things that you would have in person, but it was still good. It felt pretty good. I think it served a lot of the same purpose. And so it felt very important to keep making that available and, you know, having regular things. And it was, it was cool at that time. Yeah, so, so the internet is has a little bit difficult relationship to to material, right, because it is but it’s also not right because well, one of the things that that’s been problematic on the dispute is, is to keep people to return right, like to participate in in the community. And it’s like, when, when you’re not physically bound to something else needs to bind you. And it’s really hard. And then you have this other problem where if you’re participating in something and digital participation is a little bit more distant, right, because there’s less of intimacy, there’s less of the things around the event, right, like they, you don’t you don’t really get to talk after or make those personal connections unless you you try to force that right. And so there is an element where you have to know, right, like, you already have to be there so somewhat in order to get out of it, what’s really there. And I, yeah, I don’t I don’t know if you you’ve felt that distinction. Oh, yeah, definitely. And it was kind of the same problem as the comedy thing was like there were these long standing relationships and then a new person coming in like onboarding with Discord has been an absolute nightmare, trying to work on this. And, you know, the server I was originally spending more time on before I came to the meeting crisis, was the coffee house and that was a derivative of the portal. And so, you know, that was supposed to be the place where people would go after these wacky hijinks in the portal server and kind of, you know, unwind and have more casual conversations and it’s supposed to be like a cafe, you know, and at first when people were really regular on that, that was sort of happening, it was easier. But if you lose any momentum with the regularity of those things, it’s so difficult to get back to it. And we haven’t really been able to recover the regularity of we used to have it was kind of more of an academic flavor. We had a lot of like classes, we had people giving lectures, we had different like, I think it was geometry lessons, we had different like lessons, we had like psychology lessons, you know, very bookish again. But when the regularity of those things stopped, it was really difficult to try anything else or try anything new. So yeah, two things stand out to me. Like the bookish element is connecting me to the way that you participate in school, right? So it’s in some sense like really low barrier to entry. And then second thing is, well, like when you’re participating in something online, and it doesn’t even matter what it is, right? It’s always in competition what you realize, right? In some sense, it should be in service of your realize. So like, it’s almost impossible to sustain that unless there’s a higher goal involved, right? That keeps you coming back. Yeah, so that’s really problematic. So yeah, like, you’ve gone through that little yourself, actually. So is that also connected to materialism? Yeah, it’s just difficult. I mean, because what I do for a living is so tactile. Still at this point, it’s really difficult to like be on Discord at the same time that I’m doing grind work. It just doesn’t really crunch out. I used to have my setup a little bit different. And, you know, I had the microphone, so I could kind of like half listen in on stuff, or at least be around while I was still working. But it just kind of doesn’t make sense to do that. And yeah, so it is constantly a conflict of like having to choose one over the other. And, you know, we’ve had the struggle in other servers, there’s a lot of art servers that I’m involved in too, and trying to find a way to work together on art or to motivate one another. We’ve had like the Creative Accountability Studio, which, you know, originally was a really positive thing to help keep people regular. And they’ve said that it was very motivating for them, because, you know, you come and be surrounded by that, you know, studio kind of energy and be like, I want to go do my art. And so some of those groups have been had good little runs, you know, but it always fizzles out, you know, because regularity just isn’t there. So it’s like, you just have to have this critical mass of population. It’s just insane to get enough of a turnout at any given thing to keep the thing going along. And the amount of pressure that that puts on the administration and the mods to provide is just insane. Like the burnout of that, as you know, is insane to try to keep the offerings, to keep the announcements. And it’s strange, because if you look at any one thing, it’s like, this is you just click this thing, and you go on there and you talk if anybody shows up. It seems very easy, but it ended up, you know, when we were looking at the hours and looking at the, you know, how much it was taken up, it’s like, administration is soul sucking. And like, that’s the, you know, it sucks that you have to kind of pick some of the members of community to take on that mantle. And then they don’t get to enjoy the community anymore. And they get really burnt out of it. Yeah, they become this focal point, right? Like this lightning rod, like, yeah, there’s a whole mess. Yeah, that’s definitely what happened, especially, you know, here on the dark website, things like, with, you know, Eric and Lex, you know, they were these lightning rods, and they got so exhausted, and so burnt out, you know, having to make these appearances and, you know, being the center of attention. I’m not sure if John Drabicki feels the same pressure. I think because maybe he’s structured it more of that way to begin with, but Lex was definitely shocked. It’s like, it’s, I want to be able to go in there when I want to, just to have fun, you know, just to talk about the things I want to. I don’t want to be on the hook. And no matter how much, you know, we as mods were like, you don’t have to, you don’t have to keep us going or doing these things. Like there was just this implied pressure that I guess was really oppressive to him, that he felt like he needed to be there. And because it was his server, it’s like, yeah, it’s the way the discord is structured, it’s really difficult to get around that. I have not found a good solution yet. You know, we’ve been exploring excuse me, to try to revitalize the coffee house. We’ve looked at all these different things cropping up different avenues and platforms and things. And it was really kind of shocking over COVID how, you know, Zoom got a really big boost at the beginning because they were like, oh yeah, we got this, you know, this is what we were made for, you know, and, but they didn’t actually sophisticated at all. Like Zoom doesn’t really have any additional functionality despite huge influx of users. And yeah, nothing really emerged as like a better version, you know, and discord, it’s kind of weird to look at, you know, functions we have now that we didn’t have, you know, a couple of years ago and it’s like, oh, well they’ve actually added a few features, but it’s still not what it would take to make the administration less drudgery. If anything, I think it’s kind of gotten worse with managing. Yeah, yeah, like they should have a separate interface that just allows you to manage and then like, yeah. Or just integrate with Google better or, you know, scheduling at the very least. That’s such a nightmare even to just like maintain a calendar. Like what, it just takes all the fun out of the job. It really does. Yeah, I get it. So, yeah, like let’s take a step back to the materialism. So now you’re in this discord days and like you’re having your business and you’ve also been working on your own projects. So yeah, tell us a bit about that. Yeah, well the discord was really inspiring. Like a lot of the things that ended up coming out of that really pushed me to publish more for my own YouTube channel and was really fuel for the fire for developing some of these things. So right now kind of my goal in integrating the spirituality and the materialism is to get back to that happy medium where they’re actually serving one another and get away from some of the drudgery of, you know, my online store and having to actually manufacture all of the things that I sell. So I started, you know, setting aside blocks of time to invest in more passive income or more publishing type of mediums. And so I worked on a book and I worked on the virtue deck, which was largely inspired by conversations that we regularly have in the discord about meaning and virtue and, you know, how to maintain a train of conscious thought and communicate well with other people and just all of those things. Yeah, we’ve all been hatching a whole bunch of eggs. When on there, it’s like you get all of this information, you’re in this space and it just comes at you and you’re like, oh, like what do I do with this? So you try to incorporate this in some sort of a product, but like, yeah, like how do you see that product? Like you said, it’s a steady source of income, but like, do you have a mission, like some value that you want to express with this project? Well, I think this, the deck project stemmed from just wanting it for myself, just finding myself, you know, constantly referring to the spreadsheet and finding that to be kind of unceremonious and, you know, not very helpful. So I was like, you know, screw it, I need a better way to do these things. It’s like flashcards. That’s, you know, so, you know, flashcards for myself, just for my own organizational purposes became, you know, cards that were actually, I was like, well, you know, they could be pretty, they could be pretty, they could be colorful and helpful besides just like these memorization tools. So I think a lot of the impetus for that was just like, I want this because it would be useful to me, maybe then it would be useful to other people. So in exploring that use, I initially kind of had the goal of it being playable. So, you know, we’ve had on the server, people have hosted like the glass bead game. There’s been a lot of talk about like authentic relating games and things like that. So I originally had envisioned it to be kind of a conversation aid and wanted to go down that road. But I found that it was just really getting, that was too forceful. It was just really getting in the way of just making a good deck. And so I was like, you know what, I’m not going to tell anybody how they need to use this. I’m just going to make it and see what they do. Honestly, most of the time I just sit there and fiddle with it and match up the pretty colors and, you know, notice patterns and that becomes kind of a meditative experience for me. But I think it could still very easily be used as a conversation starter. But as far as developing it as a product and monetizing it in the Kickstarter, you know, I tried to explore its possible usage in connection to other divination methods. And it was kind of hard. It’s like, well, it’s not really Oracle cards, if not a Lenorman, it’s not Tarot. So I ended up deciding to call it a clarity deck because it’s just clarifying maybe a set they’re already working with. Can you expand a little bit? Because that sounds like a value that you’re trying to provide people a means to clarify things to themselves. So that seems to be like, well, a metric is the wrong word, but a way to evaluate what to put on the card and what not to put on the card. So can you go into that a bit? Sure. Well, the card, the set is 144 cards that I wanted to come up with an exhaustive list of all of the virtues, all of the variants without any repeats, without anything that was too vague or ambiguous or crossed over. And I wanted to know if I really sat down to do it, if I could come up with kind of an exhaustive list that, you know, incorporated virtues from around the world, you know, that wasn’t really specific to one faith or another, or one set of values, like what are all of the values that somebody could pull from and generally agree like, yes, this is an adaptive property, it would be good for someone to be able to employ this in, you know, perhaps this set of situations. So when I started to mess with that pattern, I found that 144 was a really complete set. And you know, I have favorites, it’s weird like pulling through them. It’s like some of them, it’s just like, this is my jam. Like I really relate to this, you know, either like the color will hit just right. And it’s different on different days. And it’s like, okay, well, there’s something to this, you know, because tarot really requires like, it’s kind of writing a randomness. It’s like, oh, well, it was the energy and the, you know, was pulling you to this card. It’s like, yeah, I wanted something where it was just like, maybe raises more questions that it answers or like helps with your own process more without being so allegorical. You know, there’s reasons we’re drawn to words that we are, right? They sparkle, right? There, that’s what resonates with us. That’s what it’s pulling us towards, not from randomness, but from intrigue. And so I thought that would be a really cool thing to explore. Like why, why am I stuck on this word? What does this mean to me? And each card has, it’s got the virtue, and it’s got a quote. And then it’s got the definition, because I thought it would be good to just have the definition on the card, because it never hurts to have more vocab. It’s good to have a reminder and not have to look that close to go. If nothing else, it’s a good flash card just to learn some of these things. So this one’s courage, fortune favors the bold. So they’ve all got these axiomatic phrases on them. And I really wanted to explore like how those nuggets of advice or words of wisdom they all often get from like a parent or a grandparent. Like sometimes in the wrong context, or if you’re really having a hard time, they feel so callous and so cold. It’s just like, oh, well, just, you know, get good. And it’s so dismissive. But other times, you know, when you find yourself in a pickle, you know, and you think back, it’s like, who said it, what they said, you know, what the phrase was, what your, you know, grandpa always said this thing, and it makes me feel this way. And it makes me think of him and all of those associations. So I wanted to include as many of those as possible that someone could have like a personal connection to and have something come up that they could then think about and work through, you know. Yeah. So that’s interesting because I’ve been visiting church and they have all these words and I’m like, what are they talking about? Like literally, right? And then what’s going on is it allows you to build like a personal connection to these words, right? And when you get a felt sense of, okay, like, yeah, this is what they’re trying to get at. And that changes your participation, right? So you’re trying to invoke a previously established connection to these ideas with the cards. So that’s kind of established on that already existed. Yeah. And then put them in relationship to one another because each set of 12 is like 12 different flavors from the core one. So, you know, exploring how that virtue gets applied kind of in different contexts and how, you know, really, I really wanted to play with the idea of like, when you’re faced with a challenge, you have so many different ways you could respond. How do you know what is the most adaptive way to respond or what’s called for in that situation? How do we, it’s like you said, you know, the relevance realization, how do you know what’s important to pull from? And so the phrases were kind of a fun way to, you know, we’ve got these mnemonics, we’ve got these memory devices that are these phrases to try to remind us in a timely fashion when we’re under pressure or stress, you know, what virtue we could maybe pull from. And, but so much of the context of that is from like seeing it embodied in a person, you know, we have an association of like, you know, this person was patient. So, you know, this is what this means to me. And, you know, it is, it is, I think, kind of a shortcoming of the deck then, being that it’s as simple in that way as it is, it’s pulling a lot from your prior associations, which may be helpful or not helpful. You know, if you didn’t have someone in your life that’s embodying that, you know, maybe you have a different feeling about that card, maybe it’s a negative feeling that because you’re like, I don’t think this is important, you know, or I’ve never seen this. And then it’s like, yeah, but even that’s a helpful card, because it’s giving you kind of a guide point of like, oh, maybe it’s something I need to work on and take a look at. There’s, I’ve got a lot of cards that are definitely like, yeah, that’s not my strong suit. Yeah, I can’t imagine there’s a lot of cards to see. So, so for Vickie had this idea of maximization, where you, where you create a maxim, which is effectively the things that you’re putting on the card, right? Like ways, ways to remind you of what’s important, right? Like, in some sense, it’s like a crutch for relevance realization, right? Like, one of the things that we’ve been talking about a lot of on the discord is curate your signal, right? Like, everything comes at you, right? Like you’ve had that experience. And now you can’t deal with all of it, right? So you got to, you got to stop some stuff from coming in so that you can have a right relationship or an intimate relationship with the things that you do deal with so that they can be of value to you, right? Because that’s one of the problems, right? Like you were talking about in the beginning of your story, there was this sense of rush, right? Like this need to get somewhere. And when you’re participating in that way, right? Like there’s a lack of being able to connect to the things that you’re doing, right? Like it’s a really shallow relationship, right? And I think these cards afford a space where you can deepen that relationship, right? But then that’s also dependent on how people participate. So this idea of maximization is that you take a set of maxims, right? And then you try to combine them into one, right? And then you expand them and you collapse them, right? So you’re creating a relationship, you’re creating a participation with these ideas. So now you’re making them your own, but you’re also creating like a new personal maxim that has specific meaning to it. Yeah, that was one of the most confusing parts of like trying to have this diverse set of quotes is they’re all true. In some contexts, all of them are really great advice. They might not all be really great advice for what you’re doing right now, but you have to make that distinction. And the way and the process by which you make that distinction is what matters. It’s really just about becoming more aware and more mindful of your own process and how you’re coming to the solutions that you are. And if you can become, sit with those thoughts and look at that process and notice any place where you’re being motivated fundamentally by something maladaptive like fear or shame, that’s how you improve. It’s not by just embodying these things. It’s not just, I’m going to be more patient as a person. That’s not what they’re for. It’s making you more aware of your own process and why you feel certain things are solutions. And if you can notice any point where the solutions you’re applying are actually coming from a place of insecurity or a place of reactivity, you know, or slight or worse, you know, it’s noticing where those things are happening. And those are the things we really don’t want to admit to. So that’s kind of what I think one of the shortcomings of something like Tarot, you know, is they’re really great for talking about relationships between people and happenings and things and context. And that’s what makes the symbolic cards kind of more effective is when there’s a context, but like, that doesn’t really help you. It tells you a bit of what’s going on, but like you already know what’s going on. That’s the only way that the cards work is they’re just like highlighting for you and helping you piece together a story. But piecing together a story, it feels really good. It feels very satisfying for us to do that because it’s a justification, but that’s not going to help you psychologically develop as a human being or be more capable of adapting to your circumstances. That’s just going to paint a nice picture for you. So you’re trying to go into the space of aspiration, right? Like what is possible and open that up a little bit, right? Like, oh yeah, you get a sense of like, oh yeah, you could do this better. And then when you get the sense that that’s actually the thing that you could do, then you can find out a way to get there. Yeah, it’s asking, you know, how am I getting in my own way? You know, if I could just stop doing that, what else could I be capable of? You know, but first of all, I need to stop doing that. You know, I think it’s as far as this particular set of cards gets, but maybe people could find it helpful for that aspiration too, for the road mapping. Yeah, I do have the sense that stopping doing things is often not the right solution. Like the better way to do it is find a better way to do it, which is obviously really, really hard, especially if you’re stuck in a pattern. But yeah, and they obviously don’t have to be opposing each other, right? You can do both. Yeah, noticing the pattern is really hard though. That’s I think most of trauma in life is just like realizing that you’re reacting to all situations with the same response and understanding that it’s going to be right some of the time. So that’s how you’ve gotten away with it this far, but it’s not going to be appropriate for every single situation and you have to learn more tools in your toolbox for the times when it isn’t appropriate and how to identify those. So are we at the present? Like do you feel like? Yeah, that’s the present is just trying to navigate back into, you know, perhaps the hosting space. That’s an aspiration that I have right now. It’s very confusing. Yeah, physical given the ongoing situation, but reimagining that from the learning of the discord, because obviously like that was such a huge experience. It was so different from the hosting experience that I’ve had previously, which was really materialistic and really rooted in the practicality. I think that that’s still important to be integrated. And I think part of why the discord, I think maybe part of the learning from the hosting needs to be applied to the discord. And I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that because I think people are straying away because they don’t have enough reasons to be there. It’s not feeding enough into their material life or it’s just they’re too separate. And it’s not, they don’t have a business reason to be there. They don’t have a practical reason, you know, like the really regular things like the daily meditation, you know, that’s part of what people would be doing anyway. So doing that together makes sense in it as a practice, but, you know, trying to figure out a reasonable, a balanced way to do it, you know, because you don’t want people to be on there all the time. You don’t want to encourage people to just like live on discord instead of their real life. Like that’s always been a conflict too. It’s like, how do we get a healthy regularity where people have opportunity for meaningful connection without it becoming this intrusive thing, you know, and it’s a hard balance to strike. But I think part of it is going to be some level of materialism, some level of practicality where people are on there because they’re working through creating their own content, which I have found is one of the most valuable things to do, regardless of what that content is or what it’s for, like that’s been so much learning within the last couple of years for me, with the YouTube stuff and just learning video editing, learning all the things that go into my scripts, learning animation, you know, it’s been a huge spark, you know, for my process. So I think regardless of the level that people are aspiring to get to with something like that, I think it’s worthwhile to do just like you learn infinitely more by teaching than you do from just straight studying. It’s like, it’s worthwhile to teach even if it’s not perfect, even if you’re not an expert, you know, do it because that’s how we learn, you know, so I think getting back to that mode and encouraging people to do that more in the context of discord could be one of the things that revitalizes it because in the coffee house, one of the most successful things that we ran was something we called Free Form Fridays, where people were encouraged to give their own talk, and they were short, they were like 10 minutes, you know, but anybody who’s been in speech class, you know, or who’s unfamiliar with discord and, you know, talking live and all of that, like, that could be really intimidating, but it, you know, opening the floor for that, showing examples of that, having that become a norm in the culture and really inviting people into that. There were so many people who had never done anything like that before. There were so many people that showed up and they didn’t hang out on the server outside of this. This was like the first, they were a lurker and it was the first time they showed up and they gave this like TED talk level presentation and we never saw them again and it was just like, what just happened? But that was an occurrence that was somewhat regular, you know, that had started to happen and it’s like, okay, what is this? Why is this happening? What is it about this? You know, and so I still think like the bookiness and the academic side is important. There should be a space for that. I think keeping it to just the one day was good. Anything more than that was kind of nuts. But yeah, I really hope to continue to figure out how to bring those things together in a balanced way because I think it’s good to at least have the option, you know, maybe that’s very American of me, but I’m like, you know, freedom, more options, even though the decision fatigue is killing us. Yeah, yeah. So there needs to be option, but there also needs to be integration and the story that you told about these people coming in, right? Like there’s a lot of people who have their eggs, right? And you need a place to place them. So yeah, that kind of explains that. The thing about the Discord is it’s loose in the sense that it’s people from all over the place. And in some sense, a festival is the same thing, right? Like it’s people that don’t have any connection in normal life that just randomly cohere. And then there’s nothing to bind them because they all need to go back to their physicality. So in some sense, it seems that the extension into the digital of that, these people is natural, right? Like if you want to maintain something, then proceeding into a digital community until you can cohere. On the bridges of meaning, they have these estuary things where they try to get together and then try to organize events where there’s like a bunch of people that come from all sorts of spaces, right? So I think this natural thing that goes on where when a community is bound by something other than their physicality, there needs to be this contracting and expanding nature in the way that these things interact. So yeah, you were talking about your lessons from the online and trying to apply them offline and the other way around. So yeah, like where do you see that going? Like, do you have any ideas about that? Well, where I started to conceptualize that was the possibility of hosting something like the rituals in person. And because of everything that happened, the idea of being in that religious space, spiritual space, however you want to say it, being that again, to whatever extent was just like, kind of a knee-jerk reaction in me now because of everything that’s fallen out. But it’s like, no, maybe it is time. Maybe that would be appropriate to do, to try to hybridize that more, to try to build more of an in-person community that would then be online and have those people mix with people who are around the world. And if there’s enough solidity in the relationships of the in-person, then having a discussion group, those things could really cross-pollinate and be beneficial, I think. If you can leverage the regularity of the in-person stuff with the openness and possibility of online. If you can strike a good balance, that could make for a good way to vivify both because part of the problem in the Conquest community, we have a Teamspeak server, but trying to coordinate across the entire tribe was very difficult. It was very messy. I really don’t like Teamspeak as much as I dislike Discord. It’s still miles above that. So trying to keep things going during the off-season was a challenge. And it was like, well, online is the obvious solution. And yet, even though we had these close-knit relationships in person, it just wasn’t translating. Having scheduled meetings, it just wasn’t regular enough. So there’s some other balance between those two that I think needs to be struck. And yeah, so I’ve been thinking about exploring that and applying the learning of the types of activities that we would host online to more of the in-person space. And it’s like, well, why haven’t I done that before? What is the resistance? Why am I feeling weird about even considering doing that? And I think, yeah, when it comes to Pagan rituals, there’s just as open as it is and as enthusiastic as people are about usually trying new things. And there’s still kind of an order to it. There’s a procedure. When you go to church, there’s kind of an order to it. You know what to expect. You have your ritual order. So anything that is not that, I think, is still met with a lot of apprehension. And yeah, so my resistance in anticipation of that is strong. And so I have to explore that. I have to get through that and figure out a way that it could be. There’s this fear of rejection. There’s this fear of like, oh, what if nobody shows up? Because I’ve hosted plenty of events that were not well attended when they, in my mind, should have been. And it’s like, how do you not take that personally? What did I do wrong? I feel like, well, you have to get over yourself and practice detachment. Duh. I never had that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a bridge that could happen. I think they’re, I think part of the learning for me with materialism is that digital is not necessarily not material. There’s very material components to the digital in the forms of like the platforms themselves and the infrastructure themselves and the things that people are regularly accessing every day that are active tools in their lives. And I think what has made some things much more successful than others, the prime example I always cite is Jordan Peterson’s website. He has this interactive tool that you’re going on to use through the self-authoring suite. And so that I think is what really drove that success, integrating those things and having that experiential component, which yeah, the discord provides the experiential component through discussions and like the expectation that you’re going to go interact with people. But there needs to be more of a solitary experience too. I think if you’re engaging in some kind of community or practice or cultivation, having a thing that you’re accessing on your own that provides some sort of service or structure in your life, whether it’s journaling or a solo meditation thing, those seem to be the things that have been most explored so far, I think because they’re the most straightforward. But I sense that there’s great potential for other products. They are products. I mean, it’s a service. It’s an automated service, which is very comparable to a physical product. So that’s not to say I’m going to get off the physical product bandwagon anytime soon, probably ever, because I think we should have stuff to buy. I just really like that. I like the direct, like you pay this money, you get this thing. There’s no ambiguity. I like that part of physicality. And I think there’s a lot of space for that even in our communities. And I’ve talked to Brett and others about possibilities of merchandising and what that would mean and what value could be created by that, because it’s like, everyone else is going to be doing that anyway. There’s all these companies that are making horrible products with slave labor and unsustainable practices. I think it’s worthwhile for everyone to take a crack at business, even though it’s very material and unspiritual and capitalistic and everything. They’re still learning in it. Learning is what the journey is about, regardless of whether money being involved doesn’t make it tainted, it doesn’t make it less important or meaningful or spiritual. Money is just a construct that we have as human beings to try to create this exchange system for the value of our time. And we’ve managed it badly at times, but it’s still a tool for learning if you let it be. Yeah. So I think a lot of people are wrestling with this question where we need to have a material manifestation that people can go here around and whether that’s through organizing an event or actually having a physical product that reminds you and that allows you to be a part of something else. I actually got stuff from people. They sent me stuff. I got art in my room from people from the internet. In that sense, they’ve come into my life. That does change something. We were talking about, the physical reality has primacy, right? Because you need to live your life there. But if you can somewhat take the digital back into your life and have a part of that, that is obviously extremely valuable. Yeah. That’s still a really unsolved puzzle, how to do that correctly. That’s really big. If we go 10 years into the future and you’ve been successful at trying to tackle this problem, what do you see yourself doing? Well, in 10 years, I’m hoping to buy some land and have a commune again because of patterns. But hoping to apply these things. I think one of the big takeaways from Europe was just lifestyle and having a village, having a much more Dunbar number kind of like inner circle. We really don’t have anything like that in America unless you’re already associated with a university or something. And so one of the questions I’ve really been wrestling with is like, what does lifelong learning look like? What is the future of education? Obviously, from my past, I got curious after all that, what is the future of education? What’s the purpose? Yeah. What’s up with all of that whole thing? And so part of it is like, what is the lifestyle of education? What is the value that it’s affording? And people that had the campus experience, which I didn’t have, they talk about all of these things and it’s much more the environment, I think, than the structure of the college itself per se. It’s the commons areas. It’s the library. It’s the regularity of the schedule, the possibility bumping into each other. And it’s like, well, that’s true in a village too. It doesn’t have to be a college campus. It doesn’t have to be book smarts. It could be crafting. Those things don’t have to be so separate. And I think at least here, entrepreneurship is kind of like the way that people found to try to start getting around that despite not having a lot of support for it and feeling like it’s every man for themselves in that arena. I think those things could be unified much more once again, in more of an apprenticeship lifestyle. There could be another path other than the breakneck pace that we have. So I want to explore that from an architectural perspective. I’m interested in the building of that. But I think that it’s going to require, however ironically, I think the digital is going to be required to get there. I don’t think it’s possible to build a successful commune. And I think that’s part of why the first one fell apart for me, was without the digital, without the regularity, without staying in contact, it’s like you were saying, like the festival thing. It’s ephemeral. It’s a bloom. It’s a flower in the desert and then everything is just gone again. How do you create pervasive conditions for meaningful connection? There’s sustainability in the social sphere too. It’s not just like an eco thing. It’s how do you create sustainable social conditions that aren’t just primed for burnout or falling out or competition? I think we’ve got these patterns that we’re used to in the social blooming as well. And that’s the part of what happened on the servers. It’s part of what happened with the commune, on both the digital and physical sides. Those things have to come into a better rhythm. I think one of the problems too with the digital is it’s really ignorant of the seasonal flow. I mean, because it’s a place beyond time. But the locality still has its seasons and people are coming and going based on the demands of that and like kids’ school schedules and their life demands and Discord just doesn’t have any way to cope with seasonality. But that’s a very real demand of our physical world. Yeah. And there’s also a structure element where it’s like, okay, if this thing is now, I can plan around it. So you need to give that structure to people. So you’ve been talking about this triangle of the social with the spiritual and the material. Do you have a sense of what the ideal fusion of that would look like for you? Yeah, I think ideally I would like to see a future where the digital has some portion and the in-person has some portion because I still want to be connected with people around the world, like yourself, of course. But having that be a much more integrated and organic part of the day, part of why the meditation stuff works so well is like the morning thing is like, you get up, you say your hellos, you do your thing, and then having a rhythm like that integrated and established, I think is part of that balance. For me, just being able to really work only, work on money, work half the time, and then what spiritual or creative work the other half of the time has really been the goal. As of late, I’ve really been able to achieve that and work on a lot more side projects and just peer research. So for my lifestyle, currently it’s pretty much there. I would just like to have the social stuff more integrated as far as a community and an embodied practice, I guess, of that portion. But yeah, money and spirit are pretty good for me right now, but it’s taken a long time to get there with a lot of oscillating back and forth between those two kind of being at odds. But yeah, I mean, a lot of narratives get really focused on the Iki guy thing and the find yours, and the social stuff, and the Iki guy thing, and the find your soul purpose, and spirituality gets really conflated with going to being a guru or giving these spiritual talks. I don’t know that that’s really any more balanced. I don’t think that that extreme is quite the way to go. I think that the goal through all of this should be the mindful presence. If bliss is living in the moment and not having anxiety about the future, not having depression about the past, not ruminating, the things out of all of those realms that bring you most to the present should be, I think, what are emphasized. So for business, what brings me most to the presence is enjoyment of the crafting process. And that’s best contained within a half day workday. Anything above that sort of feels overwhelming. Nobody wants to sit there and grind for 10 hours, so it’s too much. But it’s fine for a couple. So finding that happy medium, and then with the spirituality, having the freedom to explore my own creativity and curiosity about spiritual topics without overdoing it and needing that to be some mark of success in life or that whole virtue signal thing that can some. I think I fell victim to that as a younger person. I really wanted those. I’m so much more enlightened than you. Get those formal stars on your… Yeah. Well, you don’t know. Also, during that time period really was this boom of gurus. That was very… Early 2000s was… That was a huge pitfall because people were able to come up and be so successful. And that was also the boom of startups. And so that whole mentality and that whole impatience that came up from that era, I was unfortunately just really at the right age for it to get completely sucked in and didn’t have enough resilience and self-confidence in my own process to resist the cutthroat game as it were. Yeah. So those happy media and then for the social would be able to have quality conversations without feeling obligated to distribute my time to all these people and fulfill all of these demands and just be able to comfortably come and go as the event calls for. And yeah, having more of a village, more walkability, more of an ability to just stop and have lunch with somebody or… Because right now everything is… It’s open, but it’s still kind of shut down for that. There’s a lot of places that still aren’t open. So yeah. Yeah. I noticed something you said. Finding a balance in the working in your day, right? Like how something is too much after a while. That caught my attention. Do you have something to say about how you find that balance? Well, for me, there’s really obvious physical damage and neurological issue. I got a precursor of carpal tunnel because I work with my hands a lot. So I have to be very careful not to exceed a certain amount. And for a lot of my time with this business, I just took every order I could get. I didn’t really say no to things. I really bent over backwards to try to get things out fast and at the expense of my health. So it’s taken a lot to learn kind of what my limits are and how to feel accomplished in the business and feel like I’m doing a good job and providing good service and all that, but not exceed what’s tearing up my wrists. And part of that is just diversifying my offerings as well and exploring other sculpture. I have a lot of products that are molded. So working in other… Still physical, but doing more mixing chemicals rather than manual labor. That’s been helpful. Okay. Is there something still alive for you that you feel like you want to add in? No, I feel pretty complete. Did you have any other? No, I think we’re at the future. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I guess we can visit the products. How do you see your creation of products in 10 years? What do you want to supply to people and how? Well, I have other side projects that I’m working on right now, mostly board games. Really interested in games as a means of learning and the immersion of experience. I enjoy writing as well. I like just books and illustration design, but I would love to really bring that into a more interactive format so that people can go and have their own experiences with it. And so I see myself working on that. 10 years in the future, I’d really like to be making more educational content, I guess, doing more videos and just exploring more about how to make education more available freely online. That’s something I’m very interested in. Yeah. Yeah. So what that brings up for me is the relevance, right? Like you being lost in education and how that was a problem. Is that something that you see yourself solving for other people? That’s kind of, yeah, that’s a big question right now. I think the trick for me has been separating my interests from, I don’t think my role is to solve that problem. I think my role has maybe more to do with the UX design or the interface by which that problem could be solved. I don’t know that I’m going to be the one to do it. I don’t know that my interest is really establishing curriculums. But as far as making the hub or the community or the website or the app or whatever that people would come to, to access that and explore that, I think that’s kind of been a pretty spiritual project for me. That’s really, it’s not really for profit. It’s not for money. It’s more like I don’t want other human beings to suffer in the way that I did. So my way of exercising compassion is to see if I can apply some talent of mine to this problem. But yeah, it’s a huge pitfall because that’s a huge problem. It’s very difficult to break it all down. And see where you could easily become overwhelmed with problems like that. Things like world hunger, like what does that even mean? It’s huge. But for me, the structure has been interesting. Yeah. And the problem is making the connections between the one thing and the other thing in a way that’s also, again, not ending up being overwhelming, right? But still connecting the manifestation in materiality with something that people can navigate and participate in. Yeah. Yeah. The earliest bit of the education crisis was not getting into my school of choice. It was such a shock for me. And come to find out a couple years later, there was this class action lawsuit about affirmative action stuff, and they were preferentially treating out of state students because they could charge more money than I was from in town. So come to find out it wasn’t me necessarily. Didn’t get an explanation. But the amount of personal shame and rejection that I felt I don’t think was justified, I don’t think I needed to feel that way. I really took way too much on myself for being failure and not getting in and bringing shame to my family and all this. And raged out on that topic because this isn’t what I want to do anyway. That’s how you cope. That’s how you deal with that kind of projection. They were good enough anyway. So I did that. But that was over computer science. And that was kind of a big issue because my dad’s a computer scientist. And so taking after him, he actually discouraged me. Despite all the material upbringing and do something practical, do something, he didn’t want me to have the experience that he did with the instability in the industry and having to change jobs and the risk of getting laid off and how much technology moves quickly and it’s hard to keep up with. And he didn’t want me to have that instability. And I didn’t really know, well, there were no programs at the time. There was no such thing as UX design really at that time. And it certainly wasn’t something you go to school for. So if I had tried to go for computer science proper, I would have, that would not have been good, I don’t think. I don’t think that’s necessarily my real strength. I’m not much of a programmer. So I would have been discouraged in other ways and gone down this other path. So I’m sure that that was the universe guiding me towards my better calling. But the impetus for that was still valid. So years later realizing, like, okay, here’s the reason I valued that. Here’s why I wanted to do that or what parts I found important. And it was from the user experience. It was from the value that technology can provide for connecting people. It doesn’t have anything to do with working for some big tech company, Google. But that was the route that it would have gone down because inevitably to pay for a degree like that, you have to justify it with the grind in that way. And that would have really killed my spirit. So now it’s just a matter of reconnecting with those passions or whatever you want to call them. Yeah. And finding those dreams that got lost along the way and figuring out how to just work on the parts of it that are relevant to me and not try to take on the whole thing. Yeah. Just like that. That’s easy. That’s the big question. But yeah, like, we all have to take on the things we can. We shouldn’t spend too much time on the things we can’t do. Nobody can help you figure out for better or for worse. There are some things that are kind of systemic problems as far as nobody gives you a roadmap for good pacing in life. That I think we can safely say. But someone, a mentor, could come in and be like, hey, this isn’t realistic. This isn’t really how life is paced. This isn’t how your body is going to develop. This isn’t how your brain is going to mature. Somebody could come in and say those things and give us better guidance. But nobody can come in and tell you this is relevant to you. This is what you’re calling this. This is what you should be doing. No one can ever do that for you. So that is still the hard part. But if by some part of my work I can help make more of an apprenticeship period possible for somebody out there or just give a better understanding of what education is for, I don’t know. I guess that maybe is a spiritual goal. I don’t know. Yeah, I’d love to see all that. And I think I’ll be trolling along that path with you. I think so. It seems to be. Does that make sense to you that the need for, you know, maybe not so much the physical product at this stage of our community development, like maybe the need for some digital product or service that helps to maintain that consistent connection? We talked about that a little bit before of how to maybe make the vervekis work more accessible in like a guided. Well, that’s what I’m doing now, right? Like I’m trying to find the things that are accessible to people, right? And it’s really hard when you’re talking about a platform like this. Obviously, we’ve heard dozens of people come in and say, well, I got this great idea about this new platform. But it’s really hard, right? Like you can’t make it too complex. And what do you need to do? And then you get too specialized, right? And I was like, well, and then you need to get people to use it, which is maybe even worse than all of these other problems. And like, I don’t see the solution yet. And I also feel like you kind of grow into it, right? Like you start building something and if it works, then it goes bigger, right? And then at a certain point, you have something that’s fulfilling the need. So I think it’s all of these levels that need to be organized in relation to each other and then go here and do the same structure. But yeah, that’s maybe more than 10 years into the future. That’s okay. That’s the thing is like, that’s a perfectly reasonable timeframe. If somebody had said that to me, you know, when I was 19, like, this is going to take 10 years. I’d be like, no, no, I’m not doing that then. That’s not worth it. Like, yes, it is. That’s what life is. You have to be prepared to spend your whole life on something. Like that’s how the really quality things get done. I don’t know how it got in my head that things would go faster. That’s what makes it meaningful, right? Like the fact that it’s lasting. And that’s the thing that materialism got us out of that mindset. Materialist mindset is like, you got to do the thing that works now. And it’s not so much concerned with the future and the potential. Yeah. Insofar in the parts of material, I think there’s a distinction, like the parts of materialism that are trying to help you avoid physicality or like avoid work in some way. Like that’s where the divergence really comes. You know, there’s products and material things that are helping you enjoy more of maybe a thing that is regrettable. Those are really crucial, you know, because they are helping you be in the moment in a better way. But the things that are like, here, just automate this. You’ll never have to do it again. You know, that’s, yeah, I think that’s where the pitfall comes in. And that’s where a lot of that, the get rich quick mentality comes from is products like that. I think understanding the distinction of those things has been really difficult as a business owner. Like what, you know, because at the beginning when you’re just picking a business, because that’s a thing you can do, I don’t know, in my mind at the time was like, I’ll just pick a thing that’s lucrative, that’s, you know, that people need. And then it’s like, okay, well, everybody needs to eat. I should be involved with food. You know, there’s this logic, there’s this game you’re playing where you’re trying to pick the right thing, which is never how business actually unfolds. But yeah, I just, I wish I had had a better perspective on that from the onset about like, I have an understanding of it now because my product I make hair products. And like in having a huge variety of customers and, you know, serving people for years and understanding them and their life and their needs and like what it does, like I at the start just kind of was doing what I thought was cool, you know, or what I thought I was good at or what, you know, it just started, it didn’t really have meaning. The meaning was built out of the experiences with people and particularly clients of mine who have suffered from hair loss due to cancer, like they helped me understand what my business was for. Because I didn’t really know, you know, but it turns out it’s like, well, yeah, this is not really the most sustainable thing. It’s not the most important thing. It’s not the most spiritual thing. It’s hair. But there’s this weird thing that happens when you have a good hair day, when you feel confident, when you feel pretty, when you feel like you’re expressing yourself, that it opens up all these other doors of possibility in your day, where like just that extra little bit of confidence can make you make a totally different decision than you would otherwise. And it’s like, ah, well, that’s where the magic happens. That’s what my day job is about. So I’ve had to really make peace with my day job, which is weird to say, because it’s like, I own my business, I’m already there, as far as, you know, a lot of people would be concerned. And I sound like an ass, you know, complaining about it at all. But it did take a long time to forge the meaning of, you know, what it’s really for. And I assume that being on the internet as a business creates a bigger gap between the meaning manifesting in your actions. It does, but at least there’s a physical exchange, like they’re getting a piece of me, like in a very felt, real physical sense. And I get, you know, they’ll send me cards and stuff, you know, I’ve got, like you said, like I have things from my customers, they send like, you know, they send little like scrapbook things. And, you know, sometimes they’ll send me if they make something like it’s very strange, like when someone’s purchased something from you, you have a relationship. It’s weird, like that level of commitment is kind of beyond even where like a lot of my other online relationships are like, because they have a piece of you. And it just opens up all of these other things and invitations, like there’s customers that I could go visit if I wanted to. That’s weird, right? But it’s, that’s the age that we are in, you know, and I think like the biggest takeaway that I hope people have from watching this is like, you can have that meaning, you can forge that from anything. It can be, you can make buttons, I don’t know, like there’s not a correct product, there’s not a correct business, there’s not a correct business model or anything like that. Like the meaning comes from the life that you create around it and the lives that you impact. So there’s no correct answer, there’s not like picking the right industry. You know, there is only, you know, going at it with an open mind, an open heart and like finding your way. Well, that’s a good place to end this. Brought it all around. We’ll place your links to your store and to your game and everything else. Like do you have some social media that you want to promote or like? Yeah, just right now the art station and the Instagram are the main things that I do my personal work on, which is just the conflicts. You know, I’ll just send you the link. It’s probably easier. Yeah, so can be found below in the description with my awesome description of this conversation. That’s going to be really strange. And obviously we want to hear the the takeaways that you got from this conversation because Kelly gave us her summary, but like I’m always interested in what you took away from it. And it’s important to generate that participation in what’s happening to create the meaning. So yeah, thank you for being on Kelly. I enjoyed it. I think we all learned a lot here. So yeah, bye.