Dusting This Thing Off
Speculations is back in action
I just need to get something on the page.
I just need to get something on the page.
I just need to get something on the page.
Despite my adamant initial stance that this substack would be a “low-stakes channel” for me to get my thoughts out quickly and throw caution to the wind on things like production value and subscriber count, the specter of self-imposed high expectations inevitably reared its ugly head and created a sort of mental block preventing me from getting posts out on this page.
But that wasn’t the original intention for this blog. I don’t really know where things went wrong.
I find myself needing a little corner of the Internet to call my own again. I need a space where I can opine on topics I find important, vomit out self-reflections, and flesh out theses on where I think we’re going going (or where I’m going at least) — all outside of the increasingly volatile and roughneck parts of the Internet battleground like Xformerlytwitterdotcom.
I think I am at my best when I am doing these things.
Furthermore, I am currently coming out of a period of tremendous interiority: I do a lot of reading, a lot of research, a lot of listening to talks and podcasts - but I am not doing the proportional amount of writing and discussing and doing.
You can only take in so much knowledge passively. There comes a point at which your retention and comprehension start to decline - worse actually, the inert mind starts to lose structure and dynamism. The passive mind almost begins to question what purpose the learning is actually serving.
So I need the space to write as an outlet, just for the sake of writing. I almost don’t care if anyone even sees it. I just need the space to synthesize my thinking and the threat of a public theoretically reading it to hone the process.
So here’s my triumphant, deliberately unceremonious return to Substack. I had a vision in my head of all the beautiful things I would say to celebrate the return, but instead I think I won’t even send this to your inboxes.
Instead, I’m just going to start posting things here again. Getting shit on the page will trade at a premium for now. Maybe at some point people will see it. Maybe at some point I’ll start shooting the ones I think are good to your inboxes as the substack-gods originally intended.
We are post-Vibe Shift. Twitter is dead. Satoshi is dead. It’s possible the ETH ecosystem isn’t going to WAGMI. The Decels encroach on our ancestral lands by the day. The children of the crypto-verse are plagued with nihilism, they have no memory of our original holy crusade. The old dogs are fat and happy on their ETF money and the cool new builder kids are now busy building nukes and machine gods instead of sovereign money and liquid derivative markets for their monkey pictures. The sexy student protest is over and most people seemingly haven’t noticed.
So I must set out for new shores, but the sea of vibes is dark and stormy. I need Speculations to be my vessel as I set out and navigate the waters once again.
I just need to get something on the page.
I just need to get something on the page.
I just need to get something on the page.
Colin Goltra, October 2024