Week 9: Advice for 20s, Left-Wing Politics, and Crypto

Welcome to my newsletter, where I share weekly wisdom on artistry, awareness, and digital autonomy. If you want to check out my essays/long-form writing, feel free to click the link here. Thanks for reading. :)

Personal Updates

In the past few days, I finally got back to music films. Nothing comes close to the feeling of spiritual aliveness I get from composing. The best feeling in the world. No activity comes close. I’m planning on releasing season 3 before the end of 2024 around mid-late December, so this one will be a Christmas-themed film. Location? Vancouver, BC, Canada. First music film in North America. So stoked to share it with y’all.

My biggest podcast guest to date! A few days ago, I had the pleasure of having a convo with Parker Worth, a former janitor now multi 6-figure entrepreneur and writer on storytelling. In this conversation, we talk about storytelling, a problem/solution approach to business, idea generation, monetization, traveling, reading, and much more. If you prefer the audio version, click the link here.

Learnings

1: How I Spent a Year “Strategically Broke”

To be honest, I’m probably going to spend the first years of my 20s “strategically broke.” I don’t have any intention of getting an actual corporate job with a paycheck salary. I’m much more interested in spending my 20s traveling around the world living with ~$1000 a month. While people may look at this as being a “complete failure to society,” I see it as a great way to wander and figure out what you actually want in life.

Ironic as it sounds, I theorize, that by spending your 20s “strategically broke,” you actually get ahead of people in the long game. Yes, you may look like a fool when you start out, but the wisdom you gain from deviating from the well-trodden path of life will be seeds that will eventually blossom into a fully-grown tree. It’s the whole linear vs exponential life: most live linearly, but what would happen if you lived exponentially?

While this whole exponential growth thing sounds awesome, of course, it’s a lot tougher especially in the beginning. Many successful people start off working completely odd jobs (Andrew Wilkinson working as a barista, Shaan Puri working as a sushi chef LOL, Jensen Huang working as a Denny’s busboy), and you pretty much have to endure the “suck” as your friends slowly climb up the corporate ladder getting that sweet paycheck.

2: Why is Everything Liberal?

I’ve debated whether or not I should talk about politics, but since this is just a natural extension of my curiosity, I’ll include it. Cause why not? This essay by Richard Hanania caught my eye, and the question that came up was: Why are so many institutions left-leaning? Yet, when it’s time to vote, the votes between the right and left are pretty balanced 50-50. But clearly, according to this graph, that’s not the case. So why?

Turns out there are two ways of approaching American politics, through the concepts of ordinal and cardinal utility. To sum it up in the context of politics, ordinal utility = one person, one vote. Cardinal utility = one person, how badly they want something to happen. The Electoral College measures ordinal utility. But everything outside of the electoral college measures cardinal utility. Let me explain:

When we vote, each individual represents one vote. Everyone is equal. But when governmental parties run campaigns and rack up donations, they have control over how much influence they want to project on the population. Here’s the catch: if one party simply cares more - where the voters are more invested in the game of politics than the other side - they’re going to exert more power.

There’s so much more to talk about here, but the message stands clear: Don’t vote for a party just because that party is exerting greater social influence than the other. Use your conscience, and think logically about who will serve best for the future of this country.

3: Crypto Confidential

One rabbit hole I found myself recently is cryptocurrency - which many dub: the “future of finance.” After studying a bit of it myself by reading Nat Eliason’s latest book, I now, at the very least, have a basic understanding of how this whole thing works. I’ve also been finishing up The Anthology of Balaji and he hailed crypto as “the great disrupter of tech… the next Silicon Valley.” Perhaps Balaji is onto something.

Cryptocurrency is essentially digital currency. Why is it needed? When Bitcoin was created in 2009, it served as a way to send money across the world without needing a financial mediator, which, in many cases, is a bank. In addition, it’s a very compelling alternative for those who rely on third-world currencies, where their value can be stripped away at any moment (e.g: Venezuela bolívar).

That’s not all. The creation of cryptocurrency has led to the creation of global software in addition to transferring digital money. Allow me to introduce to you Ethereum, a decentralized computing platform that allows for Internet applications to be built on top of. Now, we don’t have to rely on companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Decentralized technology has made it possible to bypass these gatekeepers.

Remember how I wrote, 2 weeks ago, that the future of the world will be decentralized? Crypto is leading this decentralization process. As media outlets become more and more biased, the need for unbiased, trustworthy sources of information is becoming greater. Blockchain technology has allowed many to de-attach their reliance on these big institutions and connect with an institution that isn’t run by any singular company.

Conclusion

Freebie time! Think of starting your own podcast, but unsure of where to start? I spent a few hours creating a Notion template on my entire podcast system. You can get it for free by clicking on this link. Seriously, it’s free. Just let me know if you found it useful. Has everything, from guest tracking, a spicy questions database, setup instructions, cold DM scripts, and more.

Came across this quote from a podcast episode with Chris Williamson and Alex Hormozi. One of these quotes that makes you think hard for a little while after you’ve read it. Here it is:

Determine your own truths,

Jeston Lu