Composting the rage of capitalism into the revolution of what’s to come. I just spent 2+ years in corporate crypto, almost 10 years floating through crypto projects. I’ve worked at the center of Ethereum infrastructure and dwell at the beating heart of impact. I’ve seen it all, the good, the bad, the ugly and the possible.

I've seen the light. I've seen how indigenous communities in distant countries create generational wealth and break the strangle hold of colonial finance on their countries. I've seen devs earn sustainable salaries in frontier markets and elevate their entire family. I've seen brilliant young hackers build real world solutions to protect free speech, financial sovereignty and identity.

I've also witnessed the shadows. I’ve seen human ingenuity collapsing under ego, crime and greed. Seen the divine feminine crushed by systemic misogyny. Witnessed innovation destroyed by the cycle of extraction and surveillance that continues to grind the soul of our tech until there's nothing left but centralized corporate infra.

On and on the toxicity continues and thrives in containers designed to bypass the systemic harm in order to achieve the next promotion, the next title, the next job. Women turning their own toxic masculinity on to survive in a world designed to destroy. Women objectified to promote a useless chain or a ridiculous airdrop or ignored because the “gold old boys” network has no space for feminine voices of reason. Men forced to abandon their emotions and their dignity to embrace degenerative behavior to meet their company’s KPIs. Men discouraged from embracing their vulnerability in roles of leadership-- the one place such tenderness is absolutely necessary. On and on the cycles of trauma continue, leaving fingerprints of pain on everyone it touches.

Everything is accelerating towards some unpredictable and unsettling transition right now and we see the last gasps of capitalism mirrored back to us on a daily basis in our Slacks, our Telegrams, our Signals and our algorithms.

What can we do to break this pattern of abuse and destruction? What can we do to open our eyes and avoid the bypassing that makes those golden handcuffs feel so supportive and so justified? What can we do to restore kindness to the human layers of our technological stacks? What can we do to find joy in our work again?

We start by channeling the rage into art.

We begin by naming the cycles of harm so we can start a dialogue about how to disrupt the patterns we are all so conditioned to accept.

We take the first step by naming the trauma and letting it sit in the daylight so the rotting corpse of our harm can decompose into the earth and transform into nutrients for a rebirth.

We grieve.

We let the composting happen. We listen deeply to those screaming into the void. We ensure we do not bypass the harm by making it “all ok” and quickly moving onto the next topic we can all smile about. We give one another permission to be angry, traumatized and vocal. We hold space for the composting to get thick, to take root. We leave guides for those seeking to step outside of the chaos and into the womb of healing. We help one another sit with the healing balm of silence and stillness.

We all need this support. We all must balance the need for innovation with the desire to simply be present. We are all balancing on the edge of a precipice at the hands of technologists. We must open our eyes to the roles we play in enabling these dark triads to weaponize our beautiful tech for their vision of feudalism.

We all possess so much intelligence and kindness. Even at the depths of my own hellish corporate crypto experience, I was surrounded by humans who held great capacities for kindness, strength and courage in the face of leadership so toxic they danced through criminality on a weekly basis. Still, my coworkers allowed their humanity to show and fought to protect what they could, whenever and however they could.

My stint as a leader in corporate America lasted a whopping two years. That’s all my nervous system could handle. And that almost broke me. Well, I guess it did break me. Physically. It cracked me open mentally, but it did not completely break my spirit or my nervous system. While I stretched my system to its limits and am still composting what was left, the cracks of chaos that appeared during my time in corporate crypto taught me more than any Ivy School MBA degree.

My academic studies in ancient yoga philosophies and wisdom are the light that shone through those cracks of chaos. I can now clearly see the connections to ancient traditions and modernity that I was unable to visualize before my studies. I had no direct experience with corporate America. I had no point of reference, no true empathy.

I do now. An empath like myself was never meant for that world, I was only meant to travel through it briefly and gain the experience to help my fellow humans navigate those tumultuous waters.

So now I compost what was. I let it all fester and decay in the sunlight. I sift through the remnants for nutrients and help grow the seeds for tomorrow.

I connect ancient wisdom with modern reality. I channel the rage. I vocalize the harm. I scream into the void and hope someone listens and takes action before destruction happens-- again.

The next chapter is one of connecting the ancient past to the distant future through our collective humanity of today.

Through words. Through language. Through connection. Through culture. Through kindness.

Author’s note: as I typed the last sentence, the sun came out and a rainbow appeared. No bullshit. This essay is free from AI goodness. ;)

Image created by cstreet (me) at the Women’s March in DC post Roe.