I said there is always a follow up to the gathering.
I didn’t know what it was when I wrote that. I’m starting to see it, more work to do.
When I wrote the Gathering, I was far from home, away from my family. I’m away again now, for a job. Working the job, then holed up early mornings and late nights, creating things, most I’m still working on. For people I don’t know yet. And for some I’ve known for decades.
When I started, I didn’t know what a database actually did. I’ve made more mistakes than I can count. I’m still making them. Doing this alone is scary. Not a little scary. Scary.
And it’s also the most motivating, fulfilling thing I have ever done.
The dream was always simple.
A place for all of them. My friends. The people I’ve worked beside. Current and former coworkers who became family somewhere along the way, in kitchens and back offices and emergencies at 3am.
A place to be together. To visit regularly. No matter where any of us ended up on a map.
A house in the woods. Like Tom Bombadil’s. Where the door is always open and the weight comes off at the threshold.
Three years ago I started writing a story. As therapy. Out of anger, honestly. Pieces of it have been showing up in these articles the whole time, if you know where to look.
Some of the days that fed it felt like the pit and the pendulum. Strapped down. Watching the blade come lower.
That house in the woods was in that story before I knew it was a dream.
Somewhere in these last months, something showed up in my head. Not an idea. A gap. A black hole. A vacant piece. Just sitting there.
I’d look back over my shoulder, toward where I came from, and there it was.
Dark. Like I’d walked out of somewhere and the way back had disappeared behind me.
I didn’t know what to do with it. So I kept listening.
The LUKSO fam kept talking about cross chain. Multi chain. How game changing it would be. I didn’t get it. It takes me longer than most to understand why something matters. That used to embarrass me.
So I watched. I listened. I learned.
Forever Moments. Phlox. Phlame Protocol. Universal Swaps going away. Universal Page going away. Partnerships forming. Sleek, Mansory.
People talking about Burnt Pix, NFT 2.0 and Controllers and Secret keys being hacked, everything being tokenized tomorrow, or in three years, and wtf is a monad and why does it matter to lukso and why is claude telling me it doesn't recognize or know what openclaw is? 🤯
And I did what I always do first. I avoided it.
That’s the truth. My first move is almost always to avoid. The unknown. The feeling that I’ll be judged. That I’ll mess up, be embarrassed, be dismissed - by the ones who programmed me, and so many like me, to think that way. Stay in your lane. Don’t touch what you don’t understand. Wait to be invited.
Then I go back to the dream. And I remember I don’t get to avoid the scary door anymore.
So I went all in on Burnt Pix. I still don’t fully understand it. I’m learning by doing. That’s how I learn everything now.
Keep creating. Keep building. Even when you don’t know how. Especially then.
All those people I didn’t understand at first taught me something. The opposite of alien isn’t human. It’s known.
Roberto Clemente has been a guiding light since I was a kid.
One of the greatest to ever play. Fame. Money. Everything. And he never stopped going home, to support, guide, build for Puerto Rico and her children and families.
He died on a plane full of food and aid for the people of Nicaragua after the earthquake. On his way to somebody.
I’ve thought about that my whole life. Not what he accomplished. Who he kept going back for.
The forest is still dark. But I’m seeing some light.
And when I look back at that void now, it isn’t empty anymore. Something is forming there. It looks like a bridge.
This is the part that’s hard to write. When I look at it, I think about my mom. Ten years. Ten painful years.
Before she passed, she told me things I needed to hear. I heard her. I didn’t understand her. It drove me nuts. What do I do with this? We always understood each other. That’s what made it so hard.
Her messages weren’t clear to me, and not being able to ask her almost destroyed me.
So I started asking myself what listening actually is. Is listening a skill? And if it’s a skill… then there must be a way to practice it.
That’s when I started writing, drawing.
A friend suggested it.
Didn’t realize that was the key to unlock all those visions, feelings, thoughts and unknowns.
Those questions and conversations started on a piece of paper. Just me and a pen. The paper became words.
The words became my first journal entry. And that journal entry years later became the dream of a living, owned tree.
I didn’t know I was answering her. Or maybe it was her answering me.
Then this community gave me a place to practice. Listening. Being vulnerable. Doing things scared, in public, and not being dismissed.
It taught me something I had stopped believing. That a community like that can exist. And then it hit me. I already have one.
All the people I’ve worked with. Laughed with. Lost with. Grew up with. My people. We’re just scattered. Across cities and jobs and years, no safe platform to gather.
And that thing forming in the dark, the thing that used to be a hole… might be the bridge that connects us all.
Then Mr. In Between arrived. Timing is unreal for that discovery.
Then Gurrumul, a voice in another language, calling me. Speaking to me. I listen.
Then a piece of my heart was ripped out. Not unexpected, just missing someone who is growing, moving on and becoming something more and it is both beautiful and painful. Still working through it.
I didn’t plan any of this. There is no blueprint.
Then more writing, building things on the fly, listening and learning by making mistakes, and putting the feels to words and visions, apps and tools to help people, scary as hell, but less alone, less weight, feeling lighter, but still blurry.
Then Hup.
Boom.
And it got clearer again. I avoided that too at first. Of course I did.
I’ve been learning about myself at the same time. The ikigai work. Asking what I’m for. Who am I? Building things I can’t fully explain to anyone yet.
And one morning it landed. I’m building these things because the bridge needs them, like a forest needs seeds.
So here’s where I am. Looking back. At my mom. At my wife and my kids, home without me again. At the people I miss. At the people I want to bring into this place with me, where there’s been a gathering, where peace is becoming real.
And I get scared again. Because crossing back is just as scary as crossing in was.
When I wrote the dream, the only one I risked was me. Now I’m turning around and walking toward people who know me. Who knew me before. Regular people. My people. Asking them to cross something I can barely explain.
What if they don’t see it?
What if they do, and I let them down?
Nope. Better said: What if I never ask?
That’s the one I can’t live with.
I’m not selling a bridge. I don’t even know what it’s made of yet. I just know it wasn’t there before. And now it is.
Forming out of the dark I was afraid to look at. Out of a piece of paper. Out of a question about listening. Out of something my mom said that I’m only now beginning to hear.
The people who inspire me most don’t just cross. They come back. For somebody, or many.
The dream was the door. The forest was the dark. The gathering was the peace arrival. The bridge is the way back. Still not ready, she needs more.
I don’t know what comes next. Many gaps to fill.
Mom, I’m still listening.
Peace. Love.