Sunday Caffeine - Digital Ocean

Welcome back! Another week to make and share our work with the world, another Caffeine Sunday update.

This time from a new desk courtesy of Ikea, and 45 minutes of unpacking and using miniature metal tools with big paper instructions that look like hieroglyphics.

Last week was the most enjoyable community hang out yet, I have a bazillion links to share from it that will likely slip by me as other emails, videos and work take hold.

This week I’ll be at LA’s Blockchain conference. Saturday I went to the second ever Peer to Peer Web meet up hosted at Folder Studio. It felt like I was seeing the birth of the internet. The 30-40 people who attended were all packed into a small windowless gallery space with free spring rolls and La Croix and a host of presentations with projects being worked on.

I need to do a digital Spring Cleaning.

My Mailchimp is full of cobwebs and there are Google docs and screenshots and stray podcast MP3’s, photos etc. that all need to be organized.I want my digital space to be simple, but the web is a firehose and it takes an intentional practice to keep yourself dry.

This week feels like floating on the Sea of Infinity, with many options on the horizon and an accelerating timeline. Using the wind...

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Adjusting course.

Business is a series of pivots, some bigger than others. And if you’re not changing direction, you’re not seeing that the ocean you’re sailing is changing all of the time. But, it’s also a game of context and timing. Sometimes you point your ship at alocation and have to weather the seas for 2, 5 years before you make it to the beach. Either because the market isn’t ready, or you’re, not or a mix of the two. Enjoy leaning into the wind and riding with it, either way, you're sailing.

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Artists Today

Collaboration is the foundation.

Their perspective is that the world is their oyster and that everyone can win.

Hate and criticism are overrated and replaced by collaboration and saying “yes and.”

Are in a mental revolution as much as technological one.

See themselves as able to cross between industries with fluidity, and then bridge them together.

Bring their full self to the table, your opinions, your flaws, your passions.

Use whatever medium they can to shine their light and message through.

Like Virgil Abloh, from architect streetwear to Louis Vuitton and Ikea.

Like Donald Glover, from acting to rapping to producing film scores.

Like Jordan Peele, from Comedian to producing “Get Out."
LikeLin Manuel Miranda.

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Patiently In Between.

I’d take long walks, and bring books with me to the park. Or I’d read at home in bed in the middle of the day. No one knew where I was but me, I could disappear. Not that it was easy, I was totally unsure about where I was in my life, but something told me to stick to a routine. That I was in the middle of a transition and I just had to sit with it for now. So I’d make projects and I’d send out emails to companies and in the open space I rested and thought a lot.

Things like this you feel more in your body than in your head. Over the following months, I’d stay with friends a few weeks at a time, or fly out to other cities and pretend to be local for a while.

A few years after is when I packed all of my things and put them into my car… Then another few months traveling around seeing friends, spending real quality time. A sort of farewell from one stage to the next, even though I wasn't sure what the next was. Then a tough conversation in a Diner with a mentor.

Then a trip to the West Coast...


The most important question:

What am I afraid of?

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You can live with that...!

- David