What do you DO?

I am a contemplative Christian; I DO hermit stuff.

I don’t accept donations or live off of offerings as other other contemplative religious orders do; I try to work on my venture philanthropies in free and open source science and research; I make sure that my income is sufficent so that I never have to impose my costs on other humans. I never ever EVER ask for assistance in paying my bills or taxes; it’s my responsibility to responsible for my financial needs, so I generally NEVER get in a position where I need anything – I not only enjoy being entirely self-reliant; I especially do not want to pay exorbitant fees to any service professional.

I am HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY … because I have chosen to be a contemplative Christian living according to my own hermit lifestyle.

I chose to live in the wilderness SORT OF… except I am not really allowed to legally just go out and live in the physical wilderness. Since the span of this physical existence happens in something called the Information Age, I choose to leave the civilized environment of my peer professionals and the wealthiest 1/10 of 1% … I have given everything away in my life three times. I have deliberated chosen to live in something of a cultural backwater or what might be thought of as a bit of a technological resource-deprived, economically-depressed third-world backward wilderness.

There’s NOTHING wrong with where I live … as far as climate, food producing ability or BASIC power/water/gas/comms utilities goes … but NOBODY is probably going to startup a new unicorn … – the closest one is … there’s not enough talent or access to resources, labs, or SMART capital. There’s plenty of low-growth, hyper-risk-averse dumb capital that sees nothing but gloom and doom … but a tech unicorn needs CONNECTED, SMART capital and it requires an atmosphere characterized by GROWTH and continual prowling for opportunities. There are literally almost an infinite number of opportunties to create new companies … there are no end to the new possibilities … obviously, not all of those opportunities are going to be worth pursuing past the ideation phase and of those that are worth pursuing, very, very, VERY few will succeed to the point where they can be added to the new unicorn list … but a few will succeed with absolutely great, breakthrough products as well as a tough, shrewd, tough-as-nails ability to out-compete all comers and do that while providing exceptionally high-paying jobs to talented, hard-working employees as well as generally outsized returns for investors.

If anyone needed proof of this, there are right now more than 1,229 unicorn startups valued at more than $1B around the world … and although some of the unicorns graduate past startup phase, the number of NEW unicorns SLOWLY inches up every year, but it’s probably always going to be limited by population, ie there might be more than one, but there’s not really a way for there to be 2 founders of unicorn per million people … and the distribution of those unicorn founders will tend to cluster … for example, Iowa’s population might suggest there would be 4 or 5 unicorns in the state, but people are far too risk-averse and especially idea-averse so nobody with ideas is going to move to the midwest in order to start a new unicorn … midwesterners do start unicorns, but it is NECESSARY to leave the idea-averse culture in order to get the talent necessary to build a unicorn.

But I have deliberately chosen to use my time for my own health and spiritual growth … especially for SPIRITUAL GROWTH, so that means MOSTLY eschewing participation in growing parts of the economy … so my lifestyle is basically a hermit gig EXCEPT that I still contribute to free and open source science and research projects … and I still sort of watch the unicorns AS A SPORT … others follow the Super Bowl or March Madness – I follow unicorns … I choose to live in an isolated backwater that is as close as I am going to be allowed to living being away from civilization, out in the wilderness.