Personal

100th

I’ve written into Roasted Reflections every week for almost two years and this is the 100th entry!

I put a lot of thought and energy into every one of these friendly jolts, each brewed to keep you building in different ways. Whether it’s taking the time to read, sharing a quick reply, crafting a caffeinated contribution, or just paying the good vibes forward, I want to thank everyone who starts your Wednesdays with me. As I reflect on this literary journey, here are things I’ve appreciated along with way.

– Writing helps us understand ourselves.

– Translating ideas into words is easier the more you do it.

– Verbal dictation can produce a base, then a round of editing brings things together.

– Having a home to organize your writings is more lasting and easier to share anywhere.

– It’s challenging to keep writings concise, but this makes more impact in less time.

– Attention is hard to earn, let alone keep. Stay curious, listen to those you seek to serve, and diversify content creation to stay interesting.

– If you’ve written a book, a complimenting library of shorter entries make it easy to connect ideas back to the book while sharing organized thoughts based on the context of any conversation.

– The thesaurus is a fun tool thats helps us learn new ways to express ideas with fresh vocabulary.

– Publicly publishing your art creates connection.

– I enjoy encouraging others to write.

– Writing is not free. It costs time.

– Without much financial capital involved, the ROI of this type of initiative comes in the form of intellectual, human, cultural, and network capital that churns evolving layers of satisfying value.

– Even so, doubt creeps in. I find myself wondering if I’ll run out of meaningful things to write about every week. Would anyone care if I quit sharing these reflections? If I do decide to quit or reduce the frequency, what’s my why and how might I change the way I ship this art? Would I miss the sense of connection or somehow lose momentum? Perhaps there’s peace knowing the impact can continue being made without weekly additions? I plan to push through these dips as long as I continue to enjoy the challenge, but it can be lonely when we give our best, so please know that I always welcome support from those who have walked this path before.

– Consistency requires sacrifice.

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By Ben McDougal, ago

Training Wheels

When training wheels come off a child’s bike, it’s a breakthrough moment.

Learning to ride a bicycle was not as easy as it looked. The early excitement of that new bike was bolstered by the comfort of training wheels. These little stabilizers provided balance, but eventually became self-limiting. Whether you remember learning to ride a bike or have helped a little one figure it out, the urge to remove such limitation forms fast.

Removing training wheels only takes a minute, but then fear sets in. The challenge of staying upright, maintaining speed, avoiding obstacles, and falling without getting hurt feels overwhelming. Even with the support of others, success seems out of reach, until it clicks. Like magic, trepidation transforms into gliding independence.

Moving beyond the comfort zone that training wheels provide children, reminders us how wonderful it feels to overcome hardships. Considering how easy it can be to leave training wheels on too long, also awakens thoughts of how contentment can lead to complacency.

Being content without becoming complacent is a constant test. One moment you’re grateful for all that is, then soon you’re wondering why you feel oddly stuck. Perhaps this is because the more complacent we become, the more rigid we get. This rigidity often devolves into a stronger fear of change. When the movement that comes with change becomes associated with risk, it’s common to feel stuck, stagnant, or even irrelevant.

If training wheels are holding you back, initiative can set you free and persistence will keep you moving. When movement is gratifying, even when it’s hard, you’re set free to keep shifting gears as you ride toward what’s next.

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It was energizing to see so many friends at #TSDemoDay! This was a community celebration and milestone moment for entrepreneurs pushing beyond their own comfort zones, as this 2022 class emerged from the Techstars experience.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Birding

Bird watching is a peaceful place.

I enjoy the variety of flying colors, the sounds, the squabbles, and if you watch long enough, you’ll see a symphony of movement unfold. My local favorites are the goldfinch and blue jay. Birding is a simple pleasure, but that’s the point, eh. Quiet appreciation for the small things invites us to settle into each moment.

The world is wild and endless distractions make us feel frantic when there’s so much to do. Birding, or appreciating whatever the understated beauty may be, can help us stay centered. As this layer of mindfulness becomes part of your practice, it gets easier to slow things down just enough to ensure we don’t miss life along the way.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Replicants

A friendly futurist and DAO developer within our web3dsm community shared this Ray Kurzweil interview that triggered my continued curiosity toward our neon future.

One tangent they take is interacting with replicants. There’s no single definition for what a replicant might be, but I imagine my replicant to be an artificially intelligent, bioengineered entity that has consciousness rooted in the human (or machine) it originated from. This humanoid would index everything I ever created, map the complexity of my network, understand the difference between internalized vs. externalized thoughts, have empathy for how I matured over time, and gain contextual insight from storytelling to form a foundational identity. This identity would support an operating system with core characteristics, essential rules, and different permission levels to guide autonomous growth.

With seemingly limitless advances in technology, interactions with different versions of our past and future self seem inevitable. We’re already speaking to holocaust surviving holograms, watching monkeys play video games with their brain, growing synthetic realities, and experimenting with nanorobotics. As the bandwidth of technology reaches escape velocity, what’s stopping us from pressing the record button to store every angle from every moment? At that speed, how can the linear evolution of humanity’s intelligence fuse with the exponential trajectory of machine learning? Even when it’s possible, do humans want to extend our lifespan?

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Days feel long, but years fly by.

There are more questions to ask and variables to consider, but as we think about futuristic interactions, how might we reconsider the way we spend our time? Would you live your life differently knowing future generations may interact with your own replicant? I have to think our thoughts and actions would be less careless with such a forward-focused mindset. It would also seem that staying in the moment would be more natural when every byte counts.

With a future that gives humans an opportunity to merge with machines, let’s avoid the numbness of endless distractions as we collectively consider ways to transcend time with purpose.

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“…if tomorrow I wake up and I’m sixty years old,I hope when I look in the mirror and ask have you lived,I look right back and say, “shiiit, you tell me!” -Machine Gun Kelly

By Ben McDougal, ago

Feng Shui

Welcoming the unpredictable forces of life, provides ease and creates space for energizing adaptation. Peace awaits those who appreciate all that is, without worrying so much about all that is not. That said, we know this doesn’t mean everything just falls into place. It takes initiative, consistency, awareness, and sacrifice to find your own version of equanimity.

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It’s not a rainy day. It’s free water.

As I felt the warm wind of this sunset cruise on a glass lake, Kid Cudi mentioned feng shui and got me thinking about this week’s writing. Similar to how one may setup the space of a home to harmonize with nature, we can connect elements of our own career portfolio to feel the universal benefits of feng shui.

The places you visit, the people you’re with, and the art you generously create all connect through you. Over a lifetime, you become an environment for others, and this becomes your legacy. If there’s passion, diversity, intellectual humility, and overall harmony within your environment, your impact on the universe can be serendipitous and my hope is that the way you spend your time, will add up in the end.

By Ben McDougal, ago