I spend a lot of time on my work, and to keep myself from overworking, I made it a rule of thumb to almost never refuse a catch-up with friends when they ask. Chatting at cafes are my usual favourite, and at one of those catch-up sessions with a friend, a familiar topic came up.
Crypto.
The Conversations That Stayed With Me
Some of my friends had already known that I have spent a fair amount of time in the crypto world, so I was more than comfortable to talk about it with him. A few talking turns later, I had felt that we had lost each other somewhere in the conversation. He started to seem more lost and confused. I started to feel some frustration when trying to clarify. Even though we parted ways that day as per our usual, I noticed that what happened that day had gotten me thinking a little more.
Fast forward half a year and many more catch-ups, the topic of crypto would show up every now and then, and whenever it did, I would notice something interesting. The questions were usually different from friend to friend, meeting to meeting, but the feeling left with me afterward, it was usually the same. It would feel as if we had been discussing the same topic, yet somehow we hadn’t discussing the same things, but had been talking past each other.
Dont get me wrong. The conversations were genuine; The curiosity was genuine; I had tried hard to put jargon away, to ask questions… and yet, even after all that, something still felt missing. The more I reflected on it, the harder it became to blame the disconnect on any single conversation. It got me thinking hard.
Why Curiosity Wasn’t Turning Into Understanding
Looking back, crypto as a topic wasn’t what those conversations were about. So what WERE they actually about? I did not have a clue back then. All I felt I knew was:
- I had encountered the topic more than once at coffee and catch-up with different friends;
- I would leave feeling off; and
- My mind continued to drag me back to getting answers.
So to finally get myself some peace and quiet in my head, I decided to give this matter some attention.
Without any clear direction, I began by recalling those conversations and some of the patterns I observed. The topic would be broached by the friend. After a few talking turns, questions would arise, and clarification would follow.
It was here that my interest heightened. Those questions would keep branching into other questions. Clarifications often required more clarifications. Curiosity was present, but it didn’t lead to confidence growing. Something definitely was going on. So I dug in deeper. The conversations were accumulating information, yes, but they were not building understanding. Connections were made, appreciation followed, yet certainty never seemed to follow. These were not disconnected. They all seemed to be pointing toward something.
And then there was the aftertaste that they left me with. What was that?
The lack of satisfaction. That was what I had been feeling. The same was probably true for my friends. Our conversations had ended without anyone feeling fully satisfied. Not me. Not them.
The more I reflected on those conversations, the less interested I became in what had gone wrong, and the more interested I became in what would have helped.
Getting To The Other Side
If I wanted to figure out what would have helped my friends, I needed to also look at what had gone on from their perspective, and to do that, I put myself in the shoes of each of my friends once again. I imagined what it was like for them during and after those conversations. The confusion was real. The frustration was real. The uncertainty was real. Even with all the sincere curiosity going into the conversation, those conversations were by no means easy them.
Then perhaps the problem wasn’t anything to do with curiosity at all. Perhaps what was needed wasn’t more curiosity, but something that could help it take root, help that interest grow into understanding.
And so my attention slowly shifted away from the problem itself and toward a different question entirely: What would those conversations have looked like if they had gone well?
Questions would have resolved instead of triggering further burning questions. Likewise, clarifications would have felt settling and not have been left wanting. Information would have begun to fit together over time. We would start to have the same maps of crypto in our heads. We would start to feel confident that we were talking about the same things. At the end of it all, both of us would have left with a sense of progress, and for them, a sense of having received something tangible in their hands.
Each conversation could have helped my friends find crypto a little bit more familiar, like getting a bit more familiar with the roads each time they drove by. With each drive on the roads of crypto, they could have had something new to drive home with. Each drive could feel like a refreshing leisure ride with a friend, and not with a boss or a driving instructor, but with a buddie. Ultimately, I wished there was a space for all of this. This was something I could not stop thinking about.
Eventually, I Could Not Ignore It Anymore
Sure, I had gotten to the bottom of what went on in those conversations. Realistically, no one was asking for more than that. However, there was also something else that also kept circling back into my mind:
Why did my friends even choose to talk to me about crypto?
Yes, they were trying to make better decisions for their future and needed a way for the scattered pieces to start fitting together, but they were not asking casually. Each of them had trusted me enough to ask, so it certainly was more than simply a set of awkward conversations. That mattered enough for me to go beyond just wanting answers to scratch my own itch. It made me want to get down to building that ideal space, not just imagine it.
There’s Room Here, So Come On In
If you’ve walked this far with me, something probably stuck with you. That’s good. You’ll probably find more of it where we are headed.
Headed where, you might ask?
To a different sort of conversation. The sort that welcomes you to lead with your curiosity first. No one is going to know everything right from the start, and nothing you find here will expect you to.
Put a little firewood on a fire and it gets warmer. Put too much and you extinguish it. Curiosity is just like a fire, and information, assumptions, and jargon are like firewood. So for me to keep your fire going steady, each time you read something here, you’ll be met with a bite-sized piece of information, packaged so that it is memorable and digestible, that you can come away with feeling a little more oriented and capable. If and when you do return here, a bigger picture will form over time, each bite-sized piece helping it come together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Where will I be in all of this? I’ll be trying to describe things not as if I am way ahead, but just a few steps ahead, so that I never lose sight of what it feels like to be standing where you are.
So have a look around and see what you like. Pull up a chair, grab yourself your favourite tea or coffee, and get comfortable.