Upstart or Start Up?

“‘I’m feeling JPEG rich and crypto poor.’” – From the article, “In the Bubble” (The New Yorker: December 5, 2022)

Another cold season is upon us. I am stuck here in Montreal, considering what 2023 is going to bring, besides wishing for an early end to the season (that groundhog better make me smile). My resolutions involve very simple things – exercise, learning a skill that I should have had by now (ice skating; sue me), and finally renewing my driver’s license (did not have much need for it in this city) – and then other things that might be a little trickier.

Oh, money. How little I worry about you, even though I walk to work past enough homeless people for me to consider running my own private charity for the ones missed by the bigger philanthropists. I have had enough money to keep me safe from the prospect of living in a cardboard box in the cold, and I have also managed to put some of it away for a very long-distance rainy day (not a fortune, but something is better than nothing). But I know myself too well. My weekends are not spent in the malls shopping for shoes and clothes, but there is the incredible temptation that is Marketplace, that terrible page on Facebook that allows us all to sell off and get rid of the fashion, technology, books and other trinkets we have gathered. My thing seems to be secondhand books, although I did find a fantastic Valita cafetiere and some footwear – both from Doc Martens – at a reduced price. Clothing, ceramics, and antiques mementos from the glorious past of the Quebecois do not really interest me. So, I am saving money…but am I making money?

We have all heard a great deal about passive income, NFTs and the like, but I cannot seem to get my money to work with any of them. For the passive income, I have a few pages I contribute online – one is a contest page; the other is one that pays based on views…so very little there. I have monthly contributions for an investment account and retirement (what’s that?). I do all of these things…and yet… Am I doing enough?

I mentioned NFTs, non-fungible tokens, and every day, I seem to learn more and more about how much money is changing hands between the creators (?) and the buyers. Along with these stories, there is still the debate about what it actually is. It is a “digital token” and you can own it. Doesn’t this strike anyone else as being suspect? We have a lot of digital things out there that no one is paying a dime for. Remember the music industry? Didn’t it almost die off because people no longer had to buy it in a physical format and could instead download or hear it…digitally? People are using streaming services to watch movies and television…but there are also options out there for streaming and not having to pay to see what you want to see. It is not really a secure environment for anyone who thinks that people want to pay for anything they can actually hold.

You might notice that I left the best for last: crypto! I could see this coming before most of my friends did. If everything else is moving onto the web, then why not the actually means for buying something? The first office that offered this currency was in my adopted town (I had moved to go to grad school), and…it was always empty. That was the first bad sign. Then, when that office was actually opened, the staff seemed…uninvolved. They were drifting from computer to coffee maker to…whatever was in the back of that office (a second bad sign). There is nothing about this digital Ponzi scheme that really surprises me. Some friends made off like bandits – that was possible if you sold things off early – and others still wonder about how they got caught up in this world. So, FTX and the like do not surprise me at all. Every so often, schemers will scheme. And there is always going to be one fish that cannot resist the hook.

So, what to do… Well, I could open up a page on Patreon or GoFundMe and simply ask people to send me money. I am not sure what they would send it for, but I do not doubt that someone would send the money. I have noted that things that I never expected to become popular have become the things that readers will go to, especially when it is simple to peruse and makes them laugh. But I cannot do it. There will always be a part of me that wants to earn my bread by my own labour. I cannot be an upstart attempting to latch onto a trend just for the hits. I cannot start things up without being honest to myself.

Thank you for reading!

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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