“How’s that bitcoin thing goin?” is how my mother asks about my Web3 life. I’ve given up, trying to explain that I literally do nothing with bitcoin. It’s just easier to say, “it’s going great!”
Anytime I try to share about what I’m working on in Web3, I feel like I have to translate into English from Blockchain speak. “I helped Carly with a prop in BuilderDAO” became “I helped this person get a grant from this organization that I’m in.” But it just doesn’t sound quite as exciting.
I struggle to merge my worlds. Especially when I have to explain my world. Which I literally do for a living when teaching but that’s a little different because I get to start at zero and work them up to the more challenging concepts. But there's really no one in my day to day life who is also a part-time degen so it feels a little lonely at times.
I do envy those couples or those who have IRL friends that are involved in Web3. I think that’s why I try to go to so many conferences and meet ups because I just like being in a room where I can use the short hand and skip over the explainer. It must be amazing to be able to do that on a daily basis.
I’m about to go spend a couple weeks with family and friends who I see once a year, which means trying to sum up this past year for them. And that’s absolutely impossible because this past year was actually a decade long. And I can say that to all of you and you understand exactly what I mean. You’re probably nodding your head right now.
But when I try to explain something like a DAO to the normies, there’s so much labor involved. And I’m going on vacation so I don’t want to do that work. But I also know there is value to that work so it’s a struggle.
So for now, I’ll straddle these two worlds, and look for opportunities to merge them. And hide in my comfy digital world when the IRL world gets too noisy.
