I'm Gwynne. Right now, I'm sitting in bed, using my laptop to write this. The laptop I ordered with the money I fundraised for after I got hit by a truck while riding my bike, resulting in the tibial plateau of my right leg being shattered. That took two surgeries to repair, and two months after the accident, I'm still on doctor's orders not to put weight on that leg at all.
Who am I?
Honestly? I'm still figuring that out...
I thought I'd already had that figured out, but then I found myself with everything I'd been working for in the last decade and didn't know what to do with myself, or who I wanted to be next.
Thus 2024 became my Year of Identity.
Figuring out who I want to be, and what I need to do to become that me.
My Autistic self took "know thyself" and turned it into a special interest decades ago. But knowing myself doesn't mean it's easy to describe myself to others. I'm just... me... Crazy cat lady. Full-time philosophy student. Content Creator. Spiritual Shitposter. Queer Heretic Nun. Contemplative Sorceress.
But those are just labels, words that give you some ideas about me, but aren't really me.
I'm a hermit by nature and by vow. I am bound by no religion - I adore religion, another special interest, but they're all too rigid and hierarchical for my anarchist heart. Even as a child, I preferred solitude and had few friends. I am just not a people person. I like to be alone with my cats and the internet where I can follow my curiosity and learn whatever I want to learn.
I created and took my hermit vows in December 2020 and I re-evaluate and renew them every year. They're single words: Study, Structure, Simplicity, Stewardship, Stability, Sustainability, Service, Sanctuary. I shift which word I'm focusing semi-seasonally, aligned with the neopagan "Wheel of the Year", though I no longer really consider myself pagan as my theology is completely my own, and I use a lot of practices inspired by early Christian mystics and the early practices of monasteries - Ignatius Daily Examen is a fantastic practice for self-development, for example.
I joked for years that if I'd been born Catholic, I'd have become a nun. Conversion wasn't really something I wanted to pursue. I thought about it shortly after my first divorce, but not really a fan of the priestly hierarchy and the rigid adherence to conserving toxic traditions while minimizing access to the powerful mental tools that developed in those monasteries and convents of old.
So for many years, it stayed a joke.
I was drawn to monastic living. Particularly cloistered hermitage monastic living. To be alone all day long except for communal meals was bliss! Even when I lived with people, I spent most of my time alone, in my room, on my computer. I'm awkward around people, and people drain me. I prefer my connections with other humans to be at a distance as much as possible, so the idea of becoming a nun in a cloistered monastery where I'd have set rituals everyday, set working hours, and then could spend the rest of my time studying whatever I felt like? Oh, sure, I didn't connect to that god, but I could fake it for solitude, right?
Finally, in 2019, I decided that I was just gonna be a nun. I'm a woman living a solitary contemplative lifestyle in devotion to a goddess I call Paradox. I'm not a priestess. I'm not preaching the Word of Paradox to convert people like a priest or preacher would. I spend my time in devotion, and my devotion is to learn as much as I can about where I'm led to learn, either by something that catches my attention or some curious question my brain spits out. My devotion is to Paradox - a goddess that I made up, and who curiously has started nudging other people, too... I have theories about that... but my theology is complex and I'm still scouring the web to see if anyone else has similar ideas... but anyway...
I announced to my audience that I was going to be working fully on a Pay What You Can and donation basis. I avoided Patreon and similar platforms. I started doing Service Days which were posts where I simply asked if people wanted to be included in the intentions of the Contemplative Sorcery I was doing that day, and offered the option to tip. I created downloadable workbooks and set them as pay what you can. I offered 1:1 sessions on the same basis, with a suggested donation, trusting that those who could give more would to balance out for those who couldn't give any.
It worked. With a core following of less than 150 people on Facebook.
I've lived that way ever since. The label I chose is Queer Heretic Nun and Contemplative Sorceress. My username, @TheCuriousHermit, comes from my branding on Facebook. Because curiosity is a driving force in my life and devotion.
Lately, my curiosity is leading me to learn how this whole crypto/blockchain/web3 thing works. Mostly because one of the random deities who may or may not be real - Juno Moneta - nudged me to start looking into it. Because of that accident that led to my broken leg, I'll likely be getting a hefty settlement in the next year or so. I also live in Flint, and the settlements are getting closer for the water crisis. So getting a grasp on the vibe and flow of this growing blockchain ecosystem now will prepare me for handling that money in a way that continues to benefit me in ways that just spending it all in a short time wouldn't.
Of course, once I really started to dive in, I started to immediately see so many other possibilities, particularly for a chaotic creative like me. I've got this story that I'm struggling to write because I'm not sure what format to put it in. The first 8 chapters are done, and they're in a serialized format, but I'm not happy with any of the ways to serialize fiction online which do not make it easy to get flow of funds. With Amazon, you're waiting two months for your royalties. Trad publishing is even worse.
But I can put it on Zora, a chapter at a time, free to read, those who want to collect it can. I know from experience that a generosity-based income can work - I've been doing it for five years now. It hasn't made me rich, but I'm improving my life bit-by-bit. And having it onchain means I'm not splitting with a publisher or Amazon. If I collaborate with others, we can set the splits right in the contract and it's automatic forever from there.
A big part of my business ethics, what with the Nun thing and all, is that I want my work to be freely accessible to as many as possible, while making room for those who are moved to give to do so. For five years, I've been living under that income model, and with onchain publishing tools like Paragraph and Zora, I can continue to do that.
I'm an anarchist. I bristle at hierarchy. I don't want anyone to tell me what I can and can't publish. I'm tired of censoring myself for the algorithms. As a leftist, it feels a bit awkward entering a space that seems to be dominated with those on the right-wing led by profit motive, but I've been pleased that there's not a very adversarial vibe even in the political channels, which is refreshing given the polarization on the major social media platforms. But as a leftist, I also see the potential that crypto has for economic freedom for anyone who even just participates in the echo system as a consumer of content. The upcoming launch of Moxie on Farcaster really excites me as creators and audience will all benefit.
Be interesting, get rewarded in the attention economy.
The way the major social platforms are treating creators is making it more and more difficult to sustain my established business income model, but the existence of the web3 ecosphere is showing me ways that I can not just keep living that donation-based lifestyle, I can expand it more and more, keeping my work still accessible, but also mintable for those who want to give and support more creativity.
Gwynne
