Josh dropped this Time Since Launch off early this week that is moving through time at 1,000x speed. Over 23 years have passed in just a couple days.

Long and very unresolved.

We've had a full and exciting week. Highlight #1 was a conversation about clocks with a physicist from IBM Research who builds low energy electron microscopes. We saw images on zoom and the beautiful machine has sections covered in crumpled up tinfoil. #2 was a lunch with Josh and Colin (our studio assistant also a neuroscience student) where we chatted about the definition of consciousness. And #3 we launched our Kickstarter for 55 66 88, which is killing it and we're really excited and grateful.

Grab 55 66 88 on Kickstarter

If you haven't snagged one, you still can!!! We super appreciate your support, grab one for yourself, share the project with your friends! We're hoping to sell as many as possible during this campaign to minimize the # of units we have to store in our studio after the campaign.

Unsolicited advice.

This week, @willy, on our discord posted a revised version of Kevin Kelly's 2008 essay titled 1,000 true fans. I remember reading it back then and finding it inspiring, coming a few years off that book The Long Tail (which was life changing to my 20 something year old brain).

Re-reading 1,000 true fans today made me think back to a few years ago when Che-Wei came back, slightly giddy with lots to share, from a conference where he spent time with Kevin Kelly. In that time, Kelly shared a bunch of insight about life. The one bit of advice he bestowed on Che-Wei that I remember, was to have more kids. And as a mom of two young children, greeting my partner after several days away, my reaction was naturally a big "HA, wouldn't that be nice". I'd be lying if I said that didn't put a small chip on my shoulder towards that probably really kind, smart and well meaning man. But really, who is this guy??? and he should definitely stop putting crazy ideas into CW's brain. Don't get me wrong, our kids bring me more joy than anything, and I obviously want more of that, but I was already way over my head.

Over lunch today we were talking about all of this. CW mentioned Kelly has a new book out. It's called Excellent Advice for Living. Apparently he's been making insight lists since he turned 68 each year on his birthday. CW finds this cool, I come to it with reticence. That said, I do like lists and one bit of Kelly's advice says "You owe everyone a second chance, but not a third."

CW likes this quote... "If you are looking for something in your house, and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it." and this one, which I think he's famous for saying "Don't be the best at something, be the only".

I really <3 Kickstarter these days.

This comes as a surprise to me because over the past many years, I've had complicated feelings about the platform. Those feelings, and this is embarrassing to admit, feel akin to the sometimes unfair resentment you put on your parents. You expect so much of them, and when they aren't every single impossible thing you want them to be you get annoyed.

Also, like with parents, CW&T would not exist without Kickstarter. Which means something.

When Kickstarter started, it brought with it access for ordinary people to bring creative work into the world. Aside from access, which is tantamount, it also brought a way more efficient, less wasteful way to operate a business. Make sure people want the thing before making a ton of it. Good idea.

Over the years other platforms emerged, and as crowd-funding became mainstream it brought with it many of the negative associations we make with crowd-funding today ... manufacturing woes/delays (like our first campaign), failure to deliver, and so on. Along with this, you see established companies using the platform solely for marketing. A lot of it feels cheesy to my snobby ass millennial brain. And I know it's not really all that, and I'm being harsh. There are tons of awesome things on the platform. I'm also admittedly an ass for thinking we're any better or different.

That said, when a tool you're using gives a vibe that's not aligned with to what you're working to build, the calculation to use that tool, and the reality that you need it, becomes mired.

Over the past few months, I've been actively trying to reconcile that resentment. CW is much better at this than I am. He's more like, who cares??? Head down. Do the work. I aspire to be more like him in that regard, but everyone has their own path.

We (CW&T) are going on our 14th year. We have a pretty solid group of remarkable people who follow our work. Around 9K of you subscribe to these ramblings each week. I don't know if that's a lot, but it feels solid. But the reality is, and maybe this offers some perspective, we still need Kickstarter for project launches.

I feel revitalized in thinking about Kickstarter as a tool. It's not perfect, but it's a great platform. And even though I'm not crazy about being dependent on a tool where we have limited control. There's no shame in admitting that we need it to make the things we love, the things we are proud of.