“an affordance of an enclave from which to criticize capitalism that is not completely influenced or dominated by it, previously these two fields were the subconscious and nature. today these two are already dominated by it.”

“Bentoism’ Matrix! by Yancey Strickler, author of This Could Be Our Future

[top left] What do “we” want/need?

[bottom left] What do I want/need?

[top right] What does future “us” want/need?

[bottom right] What does future me want/need? What is/will be always true of me?

make such big decisions for them selves, given they don’t have insight as to what paths are possible or what they can lead to -em

decision making and logical/emotional/risk frameworks -em

widespread visualizations (design and systems thinking) for possible life / learning / opportunity paths

I feel that we are very much in a “history repeats itself” situation; we may be dissatisfied with things, but unless there’s a mechanism/environment where we can systematically make change and act together, it’s hard come up with alternatives

What type of environments can enable such change?

Building a product a month in order to gain financial and creative independence is a first step in my mind

Books for Reference

I say this because I’ve witnessed really beautiful + powerful + intentional work coming out of folks being fearless and having aspirations

And schools often provided that safe space for being fearless and having aspirations

But the way schools work aren’t currently sustainable, and in many cases, students graduate from schools to go into an environment that often lower their aspirations

Deliberate but sometimes unknowns with our frameworks

Active responses

environments of mobility: namely the social, economic, resource related, and technical -em

On environments and aspirations:

The high-return activity of raising others’ aspirations

At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind.

It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them, and to the broader world, may be enormous. This is in fact one of the most valuable things you can do with your time and with your life.

inequality arises with (in)access to (non)resources and (more/less)time. the earlier people start, the more that their picture of what is possible in their mind, is informed. -em

consumption is a corner stone of informing -em

interaction is a cornerstone of informing -em

I think skills are often built here though. Or are developmentally entrenched -em

authoring is a way to inform others and yourself, about W5H (who, what, why, when, where, how) you have consumed and interacted with (your build up of understanding is a release) -em

An environment that teaches courage

Even though it was a 1-week program, I witnessed some participants realizing that they have greater potential than they thought they did, and those were such beautiful moments

- Andy Matuschak

What’s the problem with this program? It wasn’t long enough for folks to gain momentum in a new career path

So, what’s the environment you have on your mind, Weiwei?

Like I mentioned earlier, maybe it’s time for a new mashup of university, incubator, venture studio

A healthy constraint in this case: scope projects down to one-week-long for fast iteration.

But to ensure rooms for deeper thinking. Perhaps it’s a cycle of 6 one-week-projects followed by 2-week-long explorations.

A heathly measurement: financial independence (or at least start by aiming for financially sustaining everyone) + a great sense of belonging within the group

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Enabling_environments_require_activities_with_intrinsically_meaningful_purpose?stackedNotes=Designing_new_enabling_environments_can_be_framed_as_designing_a_University%2B%2B

what is needed for mobility?

Okay, what are the obstacles?

MOBILITY: ability to move or be moved freely and easily ....... or people’s ability to move between different social levels or professional occupations..opposite is immobility: rest, repose, stiffness, motionlessness, idleness, stagnation, stillness

Most of us are in our mid-20s, and it’s fairly unusual to try and be independent when it’s much more common to join a corporation. So there’s often a mental battle on whether it’s a smart/correct decision to try and sell products to be independent

As a result, we are often told that trying to be independent isn’t a wise thing to do

Because who doesn’t want passive income or independence; it’s not that easy

our prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed until around age 25, sometimes more or less -em

The image below describes this situation quite effectively – to deviate from “the norm” or business as usual is hard, because the naysayers are like gravity that try to pull you down

We need a “wedge” that will support us in being bold and challenging the status quo

This “wedge”, ideally, is a safe environment that shelters us a bit while we try to forge a new path

And once we gain enough momentum, the naysayers won’t be able to pull us down easily

I think what would help tremendously is:

Make this environment more “legit” socially. One way to do it is to bring on advisors that could help us course-correct + navigate the product world while providing a bit more social proof

Another way is to create a Patreon as a collective. If we can commit to launching a product a week, supporters can subscribe for a small $ to access all products we build and their source code

Like Sokpop collective

I think this is all the thoughts I have right now. I hope that some of these make sense.

If it doesn’t, let me know so I can make them clearer!

“I think the desire is there but I think a system needs to be proposed for “meaningful” and “intentional” work to exist, and the output needs to be the current mainstream generations’ interpretation of authentic.”

- Jim Lee

(Some also believe this is one of the dumbest decision I’ve made..)

Being in this fortunate + privileged position has also given me a sense of great responsibility and stress

Am I too impatient? Am I imagining this problem?

I think I’m impatient because I fear losing this motivation/ambition. I feel like it’s going to get harder to experiment/explore alternatives as there are more strings attached when I get older

Colophon