In what @edicted would rightly put down to "unit bias" we are now at the end of 2021 and heading into 2022, where we tend to reflect on what has passed, where we are and what we hope for the future. Though, not all of this is unit bias related, since we have set up a system where for example, taxes need to be paid. However, from a psychological perspective, the year end and start does give feelings of death and rebirth and like always, I do think it is valuable to reflect on what has come to pass.
2021 for me
Gotta say, this year has been one of quite severe ups and downs. It started off well enough with the bull market cycle starting to move into effect and while many were pretty disillusioned after 2020, Q1 was full of upside, where some of my holdings from all the way back in 2017 and 2018 started to get some traction. Then, the LEO Finance Team entered into the DeFi field and things started to get pretty hectic, considering yields and investigating impermanent loss and such.
During all of this time, my family was living in a renovation construction site, with copious amounts of fiat getting poured from every source we could gather to get work done, and fix what was done incorrectly. And it was during some kitchen painting work, that the biggest down side of the year struck.
It started on a Saturday with what felt like a migraine, but it came on very fast and strong to the point where literally five minutes later, I was showered and groaning in bed, hoping sleep would remedy the pain. It did not. The ambulance was called, paramedics arrived, they gave the all clear and left, saying - just a migraine. This was despite me not being able to remember my wife and daughter's names, even though I knew who they were.
Note: Any neurological symptoms -straight to hospital.
The next day I felt a little better, but on Monday, it happened again and I never get two migraines so close together and tend to not even get one every year. So, I went off to hospital - my wife driving. It took hours there and finally a scan showed I had a Carotid Artery Dissection, but it wasn't until Wednesday when after my wife had commented on my slightly dropped lip and I was saying I was having trouble thinking and speaking, that an MRI showed I had suffered a stroke caused by the dissection and a chunk of my brain in the cerebellum was now dead.
Profound change
I have always talked about wanting life changing results, but, this is not what I had envisaged. Funnily enough, I actually have trouble visualizing anything at all now, which used to be a competitive advantage skill of mine that I could use to think myself through problems rapidly. The stroke has affected fundamental components of my core foundation and now, I feel like someone related, but not the same as me. It is a disturbing feeling to say the least and of course I know that it is "still me", but perhaps in time it will fade and I will learn who this new version is and connect and integrate into them.
This however, has affected my entire experience in life and as such, the path I was on was no longer aligned with who "I am" at the current point in time. The trouble is, without knowing who I am right now, it is very difficult to take a path that feels right for me.
There is no way to describe what I am going through with any real sense, unless someone has gone through similar and had similar outcomes, but what it has done is remind me that I have to ensure that I am able to "secure" the future for my family. There was nothing but luck that the stroke was the way it was and didn't kill me or worse, leave me a vegetable drooling in the corner, unable to communicate.
"Luck" is full of funny contradictions, as people say how lucky I am, forgetting that I also had a stroke at 42 years of age, caused by something I had no control over whatsoever. Lucky me.
But, lucky I was, as even though they are much harder to make now, I still have the opportunity to make my own decisions on my future and, crypto factors heavily into that process. This is because even more so than earlier (and it was definitely there earlier also), I want profound change not just in my life, but in the world in general.
Affection of economy
If the last two years of the way the Covid-19 "crisis" has been handled is any indication at all, it is that where we are headed is not leading to an improvement in life experience for the majority of people. It really is like we are doomed to repeat the past and we have failed to learn. As always, incentive is what drives us and in the society we have built, the monetary economy is the major force driving all kinds of processes that are important to us.
This means that in order to improve the world of human experience, we need to improve the economic conditions, but this doesn't mean generate more wealth at all. We talk about the "wealth gap" being a problem, but don't actually seem to acknowledge that it is a symptom of the economic practices we employ, that don't work. The economy is designed to create that gap, it is designed to empower a decreasing amount of people, it is designed to crush an increasing majority.
A new design
So, what needs to happen in order to empower the majority, isn't a redistribution of wealth as we know it, it is a redesign of the economy into something that redefines processes and applies value to human values. Rather than a system that is incentivized by activities to create profits, profits need to be derived through the incentivization of activity that improves humanity, society, community. The current economy is the antithesis of this.
Crypto and blockchain bring into the mix new possibilities, and much like myself who has to learn who I am what I can do and what potential I have, it is a process of learning what the capabilities are from an economic perspective. Two key factors blockchain provides are, decentralization of ownership and transparency of activity - with these two things spread globally, taking out a lot of the value around knowledge and availability that is only accessible to a narrow few.
Own experience
Own experience now takes on a double meaning, because whilst we are the only ones who can experience our lives, we are rapidly moving into an economy where we are able to literally own our experience, meaning we can invest into what we do. For a long time, people have been encouraged to spend money on *"experiences, rather than things", but now it is possible to invest into those experiences directly also, meaning that there is not only a personal value of the experience itself, but a return on the investment for that experience too.
The previous advice was to "invest into what you know" but I think we are moving into a period of invest into what you use. I believe that this is vital for restructuring the economy, as it intrinsically ties supply to demand based on what we value, connecting the financial value of these things to our real-world activity. Currently though, most of the wealth is tied up in financial mechanisms that have no practical purpose, nor are accessible by the majority of people.
The value of wealth
But, once this paradigm shift takes place, business models are going to have to factor in a return to their users that goes beyond just a simple usecase, a they are also going to be looking for financial return. This fundamentally shifts the economic practice and through incentive, starts to redistribute "wealth" as defined by what we as society choose has value.
We are already seeing through crypto how what we value can change form, where not too long ago the idea of investing into mere digital pictures, was ludicrous - s after all, they can be replicated endlessly. But, just like there can be only one original Mona Lisa painted by Da Vinci, the "scarcity" matters, with all of this being enabled through transparent and immutable blockchains.
Yield to me
But, we are just scraping the surface of what is to come in this redefinition and as these scarce resources get combined with other decentralized financial mechanisms, they can create an endless amount of yield potential. But, in order for that potential to be realized, there has to be demand for these resources, meaning that they need to offer utilization of some kind, not just useless yield.
Yield is of course not useless if it can be used to buy something that has usecase, which is why the various derivative markets are so valuable, as the "yield" from those can be used to invest into products and services that are in demand. The problem of course being, that since only a narrow set of highly invested users have access to that yield, it is they who are able to invest into what we demand, including the mechanisms like the media channels that influence our consumer behavior. This means that the wealth gap has to increase continuously and there is no way to stop it - under current conditions.
But, once there has to be active utility to get the yield for it to have tradeable value, it not only changes the economic flows, but also who is involved in earning that yield, as it includes the consumer as an investor. This means that not only is the consumer a source of demand, they are also beneficiaries as a source of the supply.
Can you see?
As you might realize, I spend far too much time thinking these things through, but despite the loss of my ability to visualize, I do tend to have a pretty clear picture of where things are going from my perspective. This allows me to formulate a strategy and play my game, which is one that looks long and attempts to be where the ball is going to be, with "the ball" being the future economy.
It might all come crashing down and be a disaster for me personally, but I don't see the current economy servicing me any better and rather, it is just going to be a continual decline into economic oblivion for most of us. I would rather be part of a movement toward improved experience, than one that begs for better conditions for us slaves.
2022 is likely to be the year of the usable NFT, which I believe is a necessary step to begin a practical redefinition of what it means to "hold value" and will start combining these tokens with financial mechanisms that will give people limited, but growing ownership over their experience, as they start investing into what they use. As it picks up traction in the mainstream narrative, it will pull more people into the fold and we'll start to see the spread of the new paradigm and the first clusters of components that solidify the foundation, to cement it into the economy as a base to build upon.
2022 has the potential to be a mammoth growth year for the crypto industry, NFTs and the Web 3.0 movement, no matter what the prices are on the market.
Happy New Year.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Wow, it seems I was writing something about this at the same time. By wealth I mean the real prosperity and well-being, though, not the financial means to get there because most of it does not get there at all.
I can see my generation getting eager to trade legacy wealth for quickly perishable money.
If there had to be only one thing that would go into my new unit-bias based resolution, it would have been buy land and plant trees.
Or are those two things?
They are one out of five major paths to be thread upon, though.
I didn't know the full story of the stroke, that sucks man! That shit is definitely crazy, as I get older it's always in the back of my mind if a headache is something more or not.
I'm looking forward to when NFT's will stop being just useless pictures on blockchains and becoming something that you can use like in Splinterlands. The crypto punks crap is annoying, you can't do anything with them that I know of lol I'm not going to buy into the hype of something that is just a few pixels on a screen that I could just screenshot. You can screenshot all you'd like my Splinterlands NFT's but that doesn't mean you can use any of them! I think the utility is going to overtake the silly pictures that have no purpose because gamer's are going to get into it more than mere art collectors.
Whatever happens in 2022 and beyond, I'm glad to be a part of a crypto space where I can learn a whole lot about things that I wouldn't have previously been exposed to. I think that's critical and one of the ways that we can ensure that we have things of value in many different buckets instead of just relying on slave wages from an employer. Those are the things that will change the economy of the future, we just have to try our best to ensure that it's not a centralized digital version of what's in existence today!
Happy new year man!
Hahaha well, glad to know we are not the only ones with that poignant impression. :D
Indeed this year was full of its ups and downs, but look, we are already ending it today.
Truly, 2022 will be a great year for the crypto industry, perhaps 2021 was only preparing us well for the greater things that 2022 will birth.
Cheers and happy new year in a bit
Can always hope that each year we improve a bit at least :)
Do you have plans to bring in the new year?
Yes, that should be a conscious intention.
Too bad! I already mentioned in my just updated post about not having plans for 2022 just yet. Like something more like goals or resolution but I believe I will do much better 2022, maybe some great plans would come later.
What I really meant was - are you going out drinking and fighting in the streets tonight! :D
Oh, that?🤣🤣 I thought you meant growth plans.
I will be in church fellowshipping tonight
Better year's ahead boss
In as much as 2021 was full of ups and down, glad to say it is still full of lessons whether positive or negative way it was learnt or whatever way and i beleive this is apply to the crypto space also. 2022 still full of surprises though and in as much as i will love to fathom what 2022 really has in bag ahead, i will say my finger is still crossed about it
happy new year friend
welcome to the anticipated year
Fingers crossed for sure, but i m expecting quite a lot of down this coming year, which is going to affect many people's "opinions" as most are still price driven.
Happy New Year.
2021 has been much more easier than 2020 for me. There has been not a big difference due to the pandemic, however we were able to spend much more time outside after lockdowns had come to an end.
If talk about HIVE, 2021 has been my best year of HIVE. I have done the most activity since the membership in 2021. I can say that I came back to HIVE. Also, I met some good new people like you around here.
Happy New Year!
It wasn't a bad year all in all for many, as I think people are getting used to the "pandemic" - we normalize things fast.
I like to hear that you have been more active on Hive and I am glad there are more people doing similar and realizing there is potential here.
Great minds think alike and I must say that without reading this article first I just posted some feedback on a different post stating that utility NFTs will be the real gem of 2022. So many good things can come of NFTs that are shaped by our imagination and given utility in either the virtual or real world.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Staking utility tokens like NFTs are going to be the talk of '22 and hopefully on Hive, we are ahead of the game in many respects :)
Smooth reading, thanks for the info as well as your personal experience. We have a friend who had a stroke at 32 y/o, it basically took his speech and use of his left hand. But with years of therapy and adaption, our dear friend is still the life of the party. He is always happy. Although he has to repeat himself a few times before I understand him, he doesn't get frustrated anymore, he just laughs.
He turned a bad event into miracle or so he says. It changed his entire perspective on life. So precious and fragile life is, we must embrace each day for the gift it is.
Love your photos by the way, your daughter is so huggable.
I enjoyed this post very much, I always come away with a little more crypto knowledge.
Blessings to you and your girls.
Reading then re-reading well where to start, migraines I have never considered being a possible marker for strokes, eldest son almost 40 suffered with since puberty.
Late 2020 we believe he took first panic attack, 6 months later in 2021 a far worse one, many tests have been run, yet still he feel his teeth don't feel part of his body, this happened from before 1st incident From my point of view it was a chemical imbalance, I know weird, I'm trying to understand this not feeling as part of oneself. You have opened my eyes in what you have written, he needs to get the MRI scan which they all reluctant to do. Thanks for detailed account of this and sorry I am unable to say but do hope more comes back to you.
Blockchain technology especially crypto I thought would assist this woe begotten world, slowly eroding. Sadly sharing of wealth will never happen quite as envisioned in the early days, people who don't have simply cannot afford to take any form of risk.
"Watch what you sow" sprang to mind, something my Dad would say, looking back I wonder if more should have turned to self sufficiency in homesteading living off-grid, or pursing a world wide transformation in man, balance has been lost between man and environment, where to start?
No celebrations here will quietly watch one day into the next, look after the dog if people persist/insist on fireworks over the half hour legally allowed here. It is raining so hope it pours at midnight 😄, animals are already terrified with electrical storms going through.
Happy New Year at midnight Taraz, to Wifey and Smallsteps too....
Grateful to @mistakili for introducing you in his version of Hive story. Reading your post, I now have a taste of the kind of content you have been contributing on Hive. He is right that you are really an amazing writer. There is a kind of spirit beyond the letters that you wrote that I have difficulty to describe. Though I could not relate to the physical setback that you experienced this 2021, I could somehow relate to some extent the emotional and psychological sides of it. Only a man with a great spirit could appreciate a year of governments' heavy hands restricting people's movement on the ground of medical science. I think you reminded me to be grateful for if not because of government overreach, I would never see the missing puzzle that I have been hoping for, for years. Just like you, a man in his mid 50's, I am also thinking of my family's future. I don't know, I am thinking that the crypto space, as God allows, if I will just invest my remaining years, it will somehow provide at least our basic needs during my retirement age. There are times that I feel that I entered the crypto space too late, but reading you saying that 2022 could be a year of tremendous growth for digital currencies, usable NFTS, and Web 3.0, I somehow feel comforted.
Praying for your physical well-being and a blessed 2022 to you and your family!
“ Note: Any neurological symptoms -straight to hospital.”
It really does make me upset when you and your wife saw all the signs and called on paramedics at an early stage and they only realized what happened several days later. It’s hard not to hold a grudge as they should know that it’s better to double check then to just brush it off as a migraine.
But yea it’s not going to change what happens and I must say you seem to be able to handle it very well!
“ I still have the opportunity to make my own decisions on my future and, crypto factors heavily into that process. This is because even more so than earlier (and it was definitely there earlier also), I want profound change not just in my life, but in the world in general.“
Sometimes bad things lead to good things, because we wake up and it lights a new fire that we didn’t have before, and here we can actually talk about drive or hunger like we did the other day.
I had an experience where I almost died freezing to death. I was skiing and I fell off a cliff and flew into a tree. Got a broken twig into my knee right next to the main artery, and damaged both legs. No one saw me fly off the cliff, and I couldn’t get back up the slope and no one could hear me.
After I passed out and woke up I was already freezing. Only by climbing up the same tree I flew into I was able to get up and I had to use all of my arm strength to do that.
Finally I was rescued but my knee got infected and the doctor said during the second surgery that if they wouldn’t be able to clean it properly I would have to be prepared to amputate. Luckily the second surgery was successful, but they told me the knee was heavily damaged and I probably wouldn’t be able to run again.
After a year of training every day I was finally able to run again, but I sometimes still have pain.
Above story is not similar to what happened to you of course. But it did light a fire in me. I looked at each new day as a blessing and it lit a fire in me that I still use these days when things are hard to remind me that I’m lucky to be alive and to be able to share my time with the ones I love. And in the end that is what matters the most.
It takes time to change consumerism habits. Ten days ago my desktop died. I was think that in 2022 I would get a new one. That I can pretty much say is not going to happen right now and I do not see it in my future either.
I am trying to break my conglomerate consumerism up. I have been using my Raspberry Pi for the last ten days. I am having a hard time justifying to myself why I need a desktop. One small change at a time and the ties that bind are slowly broken.
Glad that you are still here to tell the tale, @tarazkp! I know the saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" but all it feels like is how much stronger do I have to be?
"The stroke has affected fundamental components of my core foundation and now, I feel like someone related, but not the same as me. It is a disturbing feeling to say the least and of course I know that it is "still me", but perhaps in time it will fade and I will learn who this new version is and connect and integrate into them."
Wow - that one really hit me hard! Although my brain damage comes from an electrocution injury and CRPS, you managed to sum up exactly how this kind of damage feels. I too am not the me that I was, and having lost control over my mobility and functionality, it does kinda feel like having to get to grips with a new (not better) version of yourself...
My fingers are crossed that your mighty powers of visualisation are not gone-gone, but just waiting for the right time to re-emerge (like a phoenix rising from the ashes)
Happy New Year to you and yours - here's to a glorious 2022!
Ben & Annabelle :)
Looks like you had a full year. Really looking forward to what improvement is to be seen this new year
We can get peaceful mind if we only appreciate the past achievements and look for future improvement. There is a balance which should be in the perfect state,not high nor low;but in horizontal position.. Thats what make us successful in the end.
Right exactly, you figured out, health conditions, financial analysis,market visions and states,experience driven observations and the wholesale scenario of the life you lead up.Looks pretty impressive and I do wish a happy and lucrative year in the future.
Hope 2022 be more enjoyable and charming for you, also pray for me so that I can return to my own comfort zone and regain the lost Glory, I used to have few years ago.
Thanks,, mate..See you again..Nice to read you out.👏👏👏💓