achalmers / Chalmers is on Nostr

Last Notes

2026-03-02 06:56:02 UTC

You can ask for authority
or
You can take responsibility and authority will be given to you

2025-12-31 06:31:24 UTC

Humility is the path to greatness. Quiet work and purpose without needing the constant approval of others.
Moving into a new year it is the attribute of humility in people of capability, passion and vision that inspires me to cultivate humble greatness within myself.

2025-12-26 01:15:36 UTC

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Clever

2025-10-28 20:30:13 UTC

The only thing that helps me with negative emotions is actions toward a resolution of the source of the problem.
That might involve just talking it through. All I know is that thinking about it over and over never helps.

2024-11-04 17:09:39 UTC

No one gets followers by being middle ground. Extreme views create traction and interaction so all we hear are the wild opinions of unbalanced people.
It’s not popular to talk about a balanced diet, it’s vegan or carnivore. You can extrapolate this concept out across the board.
I look forward to a time when the middle ground is appreciated again.
#balance #themiddlepath

2024-10-28 16:58:59 UTC

Bitcoin has a beautiful cyclicality to it. The rhythm of the four-year cycle is bringing a stability into my life that mirrors the four seasons and the corresponding feelings that accompany them. Cycles bring a predictability to life that gives me a focus, and something to work towards. In this way as much as any other Bitcoin has been a positive influence on my wellbeing.  You can look at the four-year cycle as a mirror of the seasons with each season extrapolated out to roughly one year. My journey began in the Bitcoin Fall of 2021, just as prices were approaching their ATH and greed was peaking. It was this anticipation of a harvest that pulled me into my first purchase as I saw those around me bearing the fruits of their labours. My own ignorance of the Bitcoin cycle also led me to believe that demand and price appreciation would only go up from here and it was with the naivete of one who has never seen a harsh winter that I jumped into the cycle late in the day.  The winter following shortly after was harsh. A plummeting fall in price from such lofty heights was especially hard on those who had not enjoyed the fruits of their labours, and the Bitcoin winter which came in 2022 took many by surprise. In my case due to having not actually been through a Bear market, the fall in the fiat price was welcome news and I began the process of steadily storing away Sats over the year that followed. When the winter became especially grim after the collapse of FTX my conviction simultaneously grew that the sun would shine again and I worked my arse off that year to stack as many sats away in my cold storage locker, knowing a great harvest would be mine someday. It was this exact goal that pulled me through a very difficult year and brought hope when all was bleak in the World.  Spring came with a bright bloom of new hope in 2023. The world was opening again, and Bitcoin had survived another Winter. I was no longer a complete newbie and the value of having something tangible to focus on was becoming clear. Spring in the Bitcoin cycle as with the season is a vibrant time. The appreciation in the value of my holdings accumulated during the winter was becoming obvious and my conviction began to grow. I started absorbing more Bitcoin focused content and summer seemed to loom close. This part of the cycle is uplifting for the soul, and I felt in a way I’d never felt before that there was a predictability to this asset class that I could depend upon. The dollar price became less important other than waiting for pullbacks so I could convert more of my devaluing fiat into as many sats as possible. I began to dream of the freedom that BTC could bring me and my family in the coming summer if I could only double down on my conviction and work harder. I did.  When 2024 rolled around I had changed entirely. Not only had I survived a gruelling Winter, Spring had revitalised and encouraged me, and I was using this passion to learn new skills including running my own node, setting up more advanced cold storage, and considering how I would secure my families harvest into the future. Utilising a multi-signature vault was intriguing me, and the value of my assets continued to rise, be it in a volatile manner. The volatility began to bother me less as I started to see with clarity that all that matters is how much I can put away. This summer coincided with literal summer in my work and gave me the energy needed to put in long days with total conviction that something great was coming. It became clear to me that this cycle was going to be a permanent fixture in my life and that winter would return with all its opportunities. Suddenly what was most important was how I would enjoy the upcoming Bitcoin Summer, where I would be for Fall, and most importantly the following Winter. The cycle had captured me and was now a driving force in my decision making.
Midway through the Summer I felt an intense compulsion to change my life and start fresh. Bitcoin had given me a focus, hope for a better future, and a reason to work hard. It had inspired me to dream bigger well empowering me with the means to break free of another cycle I was perpetually stuck in.  I finally broke free in July this year. With my family I left NZ and set forth with the hard earnt BTC locked in a multi-sig vault as a confident assurance that I had the means to start anew somewhere else. Bitcoin is fuelling my current adventure and allowing me the possibility of planting roots somewhere new, ready to sow a late season crop and reap an even greater harvest in the Fall of 2025.  The Winter will come again and the motivation that accompanies it. The Bitcoin cycle is bringing a structure and purpose to my life that I never had before. I look forward to completing a full Bitcoin cycle and the breadth of experience it brings. It is a beautifully un-predictably predictable thing.
#Bitcoin #Bitcoincycle #life #seasons #finance #wisdom
https://m.primal.net/LlBa.jpg

2024-10-13 19:08:23 UTC

It is time to renew the power and passion of ancient mythology, welcoming it back into our collective psyche. For lack of stories about ourselves we are rapidly losing our depth of tradition, character, feeling and expression. We need myths to guide us safely through the transition phase that is happening now and into a brighter future.  Myth is embracing of life in all its rich tapestry of experience. The world of myth refuses to cast strong moral judgments on its characters’ flaws but rather dives deeply into the human condition, embracing and even celebrating the dark, light, and all the shades which lie in between. Myth suits the times we are in, much as it suited the Greeks, Romans and Norse mythologies of the ancient West, or the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Jews of the Middle East, there are moments in History where myth must by necessity find itself experiencing a resurgence. Re-written and interpreted anew to bring back meaning and purpose where we have lost our way.  The person who is comfortable with ambiguity understands that morals are more a concern of Religion than myth and story. Yahweh of the Old Testament is extremely concerned with moral behavior. Zeus on the other hand is not. Religion, especially the monotheistic ones are strictly adhered to and certain interpretations on behaviour and the nature of God and man so concretised as to be almost impossible to shift our understanding on. One such example is that of Solomon. According to the traditional interpretation Solomon’s wisdom was given him by God in a dream, downloaded like a new software program as a reward for choosing the gift of wisdom over wealth and pleasure. As the story goes Solomon then chose to pursue wealth and pleasure anyway and in the end was led astray by his hundreds of wives and mistresses. This can of course be interpreted differently. Solomon more likely developed his wisdom over decades and was in fact positively influenced into a less warlike and more open-minded reign than his father before him through his exposure to all the cultural, religious and behavioural differences of his wives and lovers. This was clearly the experience of the Greek King of the gods Zeus who’s many love affairs, conquests, mistakes and adventures led him to grow in wisdom and understanding over time. Zeus is a nuanced character and Greek mythology can accept that. Christianity on the other hand cannot accept a God who is not perfect, or a man who learns as much through his sin as his spiritual devotion. Hence we have the mythic Christ, made into a real life character who is supposed to be the literal incarnation of a perfect God, intolerant of any moral deviations whatsoever.  At times in history such a mythology as that espoused by the major Abrahamic faiths has been welcomed, relevant and even necessary for society to thrive. This is not one of those times. Hard and rigid ideas around morality, behaviour, relationships, ethics and faith are not what most people are looking for. We understand that rigid concepts can quicky lead us into tribalism, fear and hatred of those with different views to our own. Do we really need to go back here? Mythology on the other hand has no problem with fallible human nature; mistakes, death, hedonism, taboos (incest, patricide, rape and homosexuality) and even welcomes these concepts as deep parts of ourselves that we entertain but do not openly admit. Myth has a way of bringing the dark to the light and exposing our more shameful desires and behaviours for what they are, human. Mythology when followed loosely for its lessons and guiding principles on behaviour does not demand of us to judge others when they show themselves to be flawed, in fact it is our expectation that they are indeed flawed, for mythology has shown us this and taught us to accept and expect it. If the gods are flawed, and the heroes of humanity also, it is no surprise that our neighbours, colleagues and family members are also capable of doing hurtful, prideful and selfish things.  This is exactly why myth is more empowering for culture than religion. It has a lighter touch and in so doing allows for more flexibility and growth of new concepts and ideas. Religion moves slow and struggles with evolution (there are some exceptions of course), in general it is fixed. Myth is fluid and this fluidity opens it up for constant new iterations and additions to the story that naturally evolve as our concepts of the world shift and move. Religion and science struggle to see eye to eye, myth has no problem with it as they are completely distinct and separate realms of thought. It is the same in politics, religion worms its way into it, myth stays separate and is more commonly found in the arts, performance, film and storytelling. There is a beauty to its form and function that more closely follows nature.  At its core the stories of myth change but the essential themes remain. It is to these themes we much look for our inspiration and our guidance. Despite their antiquity they are as relevant now in these modern technological times as they were in ancient Babylon thousands of years ago. We cannot say the same for the religions practiced by the ancients, their archaic behaviours would in no way suit modern Western culture, because religion has a way of getting stuck. It is related to a fixed mindset in a way that myth is not. In the times we are in, fixed mindsets cannot possibly serve us. During a transition phase what is needed is flexible and malleable minds and behaviours that can adapt to rapidly changing environments. Closed and ossified beliefs and ideals will crack and crumble under the pressure of rapid and sustained change, or at best simply become obsolete leaving the individuals and cultures who observe them in the dust of the ones who can pivot quickly to a new way of living.  Let’s reconsider the ancient themes behind the myths, not becoming hung up on the stories themselves but rather on the characters, how they faced challenge, where they won and lost, their successes and failures, and their willingness to embrace all sides of their divinity and humanity. Without the richness of myth and the lessons gained from embedding it into our psyche, culture, and education we risk slipping into religious fanaticism, the emptiness of cynicism or the vagueness of confusion. At worse we will slip backwards into a dark age of violence, tribalism and fundamentalism that undoes decades of progress towards a more open minded, collaborative and equitable future for all humanity.
Myth has power to focus our minds, aid us in accepting our flaws, and bring passion and purpose into our lives individually and collectively. Let’s embrace it, grow with it, reinvent it, and create new traditions and practices suited to the times we now find ourselves in. Myths contain hope for a brighter future.
#myth #wisdom #lifelessons #life #philosophy #religion
https://m.primal.net/LVEE.jpg

2024-09-24 19:29:25 UTC

Power outages are common in Costa Rica. Makes me realise how much I take consistent power for granted. Three times it went out last night and things got humid. Was still off when we woke and I wrote this reflection.
When the power is out
Conveniences taken for granted removed
One is faced with oneself
How pleasant the experience depends on how much one enjoys one’s own company
If nothing remains to distract oneself from thoughts, feelings, body and soul
How is the discomfort, big or small
The larger the resistance the more obvious the internal struggle
The quieter the inner sanctuary the more surrender is evident
When distractions can no longer distract and small comforts are taken away
The truth of one’s reality makes itself known
The truth is always there, one experiences it
When the power is out

2024-09-22 17:31:48 UTC

I’m a spiritual hedonist, found between the flesh and spirit. A theistic Pagan, who believes in God and nature. A lover of masculine awareness and feminine pleasure. I resonate with the God of the Bible, the wisdom of the Mystics, the teachings of Christ, and the wild passion of the ancient goddesses.  Learning to live with the Paradox, the balancing act of holding a polarity mindset that accepts them both is my great life challenge.  Raised as the oldest son of conservative Christian evangelicals, fundamentalism was a part of my life from my earliest memories. It probably didn’t help that as the first child of my devout parents I was born on Christmas Day. I was a wilful child. My nature is curious, experimental and rebellious. I like to try everything and ideally on my own terms. Needless to say my parents took this as a direct challenge and determined themselves to bring me into line with good old fashioned discipline and religious instruction.  It failed. I could be controlled but only for a time. Eventually all the strictness would cause me to lash out and react in a way that triggered and upset my Mum. As a law abiding, socially upright and moralistic christian the things I said and did caused my mother great anguish.   Intellectually I understood God. I believed in Him and in His son Jesus Christ, in my head and my heart. I didn’t seriously question the doctrine until my late 20s. It was just that the desires were so strong I would always cave in, then ask for repentance after the fact. I would have made a good Catholic. I’m a terrible protestant.  One great example of this was my nightly reading. I would start with an adventure or fantasy novel, move to a porn magazine, masturbate, feel guilty about it and finish with the Bible. There was a lot of guilt…  I think God was very much in the background for me, despite being immersed in Church and religious teachings, right through to my mid 20s. I really hit a hedonism peak at University around age 19 and I went at it like a Rock star. Needless to say there are some great stories and also some rather awful mistakes made during the ages of 18 - 22, but I don’t regret any of it and I also met my incredible wife Francesca smack bang in the middle of the debauchery. Needless to say she has the patience of a saint.  Sometime after University and living in Bondi Beach Sydney I felt again the spiritual call and began yearning for something deeper. I was fit and healthy, having fun, but feeling empty and a had a rather constant addiction to pornography, that has had some sort of a hold on me most of my life, I just love sex. I felt empty on a deeper level and Francesca was feeling the same.  It was at age 24, shortly before heading off on a year long travel adventure through Latin America that God came crashing into my life in a most tangible way. Without taking up the next 500 words explaining it in detail all I will say for now is, God suddenly communicated with me in a very real way in very real words and with intensely powerful energy. I had my awakening experience. I felt God and Jesus and overwhelming love and support. I felt freedom, joy and a sense of purpose. I promptly decided to commit to being a better Christian and took all my enthusiasm and pre-programmed fundamentalism and threw it at faith.  It worked quite well for about 4 years. I saw miracles, spoke in tongues, preached in church and lead Bible studies. Sure I still partied, cut loose from time to time and struggled with all the usual desires but I also felt spiritually connected and in communion with God in a way I never had before. It was real to me.  Somewhere along the line I started to see the cracks in my reasoning and the narrowness of the doctrine I was espousing. It wasn’t the God I had experienced but rather a theology I had been indoctrinated with I was falling into. I needed to let it go, eternal judgement and punishment did not work for me, and I felt the need to embrace a spirituality that was more accepting of natural human desire and the feminine. With the birth of my first child, it all cracked away and I began to question everything again.
 From here life lead me to Eastern Mysticism, The Desert Fathers, Yoga, Sufism, Zen, OSHO, and Paganism. None of these teachers or teachings were something I wanted to fully adopt but I learnt something from them all and most of all from OSHO. He literally rooted the fundamentalism of my parents out of me and free’d my mind to explore outside the box.  Meditation has been powerful for finding God within myself and for allowing me to be still when the mind wrestles with everything. God is there, I have no doubt, but Gods nature is still mysterious and I value the intellectual honesty of an agnostic. To say I don’t know is a powerfully humbling place to be.  I’ve learnt to see Jesus with more honesty and less idolatry, without all the layers we’ve caked on top of the man who showed us God with such clarity. I’ve also learnt to tune into the energies than the theistic religions have suppressed for Millenia like the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, who later morphed into Aphrodite. She is the goddess of sexual love, fertility, abundance and war. A true weapon of a being who was much too powerful for the priesthood to accept. She has helped me to accept my hedonistic side and is the balance to Christ for me.  Now I find myself seeking the fine line, the time to feel into it, and the acceptance that I cannot pick one religion or dogma. It’s just too narrow for me, I have to have an expanded mind and heart that will not capture my joy with guilt or bind my mind with judgemental superiority. I seek to live in the Paradox, learn through experience and to help others find their own unique spiritual journey.  I have not found anything fresh on the well trodden path. Only old ruts worn deep by the mental grooves of all who have followed before. I consciously plunge off the trail into the unknown of my inner existence and I seek the balance between fleshly desires and the spiritual aspirations for inner peace and contentment. Have I found it? Not yet, but there are glimpses of the light, and I am most excited about the journey.
https://m.primal.net/KyYZ.jpg

2024-09-04 01:45:06 UTC

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I guess my perspective is greatly influenced by USD price because price is where I’m having to live. Food, accommodation and transport are all priced in dollars and so when dollar value drops in my world I’m feeling the losses.
Certainly don’t expect it to follow my whims. I think it just makes me realise if I’m finding it hard, and I have conviction. Others with less conviction will find it even harder to manage.
It’s a good test. I can still smile about it 😀