Co-Creation is Coming

Thailand reflections Part 2

My first attempt at this post hit 800 words before I decided to take the same approach as the farmers in Myanmar, Laos, and other regions of south east Asia: burn it all and start again.

Call it backwards, call it living in harmony with nature, call it burning season, whatever pleases you. I call it fucking wild. To go from being mildly inconvenienced by pollution to ‘goddamn I need to cover my breathing apparatus before I go out’ is a shock. But a friend of mine lives in Sarajevo, and she kindly shared a photo of their pollution ranking the other day—just behind Kazakhstan, but miles ahead of Delhi! I felt comparatively better.

I’ve relied on ‘better by comparison’ for the last couple of days as I worked through a mild bout of Thailand Tummy. Today is better than yesterday, but not great. Yesterday was better than the day before, but definitely not great. The day before that was terrible, but not as bad as that time when…. You get the point.

I’m not entirely convinced I ate something disagreeable. First, I took a herbal steam bath to release the toxins. Then, I got a foot massage to relax me a little. Then, I rushed across town to receive a massage from a woman made of elbows. Then I received food from an unhappy Thai person (wearing headphones like a hyper-sensitive Coburg/Brunswick child).

The massage got shit moving, but taking food from a person oozing unhappiness in a place where the norm is far above happy is pretty bad juujuu. Lesson learned.

But it’s not all bad. I got to take a water fast for 24 hours, which was on my to-do list for a while (though I didn’t count on water being the only output…), I just finished drinking a coconut, and I’m writing this next to a pool with no less than 7 flies walking across my freshly manicured feet. Don’t wait for me guys, I’ve already made it. The future is bright, even if a little bit smoky.

The Future Takes Form

Ah yes, the future! It’s been a red-hot topic over the past two weeks. A thousand business ideas have surfaced, about 980 were released on the water fast, and the remaining 20 are distilling, combining, and taking their final form. And now it’s getting exciting.

I love the ideas phase as much as the next guy, but there’s a point where you gotta pick something. Perfection is the enemy of good, just like options are the enemy of choice. But the idea phase is SO MUCH FUN. I rarely have a shortage of ideas, and when I’m planning with someone, the tap runs like a waterfall, and it’s all I can do but drown in the ideas.

Until I find a pearl. Last night, on the way to 7/11 to get a delicious snack, I found what felt pearl-like.

On the topic of 7/11 quickly: imagine being born and raised in a South-east Asian country and having this kind of 7/11 as normal, then moving to Australia and being able to get 14-hour old hot-dogs and $27 meat pies. I’d be on the first flight back. But I digress.

The ideas that I had come up with to this point were leveraging learnt skills rather than my natural skills, but it looks and feels like I’ve found the sweet spot.

It might surprise you all that I am a word person. But putting them on paper (or into a blinking cursor) is a learned skill that has been honed over decades. My natural skill is in comprehension and understanding: I hear what people are saying when they speak. Some might describe this as listening, but listening is the first level of what I’m trying to explain here. I listen to what they’re saying, but I’m distinctly aware of the words they are using, and I feel the emotions they are expressing. It’s like listening with your ears, eyes, head, mind, and heart simultaneously.

It makes discussion much more enjoyable, fruitful, and revelatory —not only for me but for the person with whom I’m speaking. The specific words we use when talking about things belie our deeper meanings, and it happens at a level slightly below consciousness. We’re aware of it at some level, but if we aren’t fully present when speaking, we might not be aware of why we used a specific word, or set of words. But when someone reflects it back to us, we can see something different.

So there’s going to be more me talking and listening in the future, but the exact structure of what that’s going to look like still needs to be shaped up before I can carve it in the stone of Substack. My reason for putting it here in this form is to yoke some feedback out from those who read this. Perhaps one, some, or many of you have ideas about how this skill could be of benefit to you, or someone you know. Reach out and let me know if you do.

Death of the Creators

I am firmly of the opinion that the Age of the Creator needs to hurry up and die. We need to move into the Age of Co-Creation. We need to be building communities, supporting group projects, bringing networks into existence, and generally going about dismantling this individualistic culture that has run rampant since Instagram and Facebook exploded in 2012. I don’t think these platforms are going to hold much relevance moving into the future - apart from ad revenue. Skool, Kajabi, and other community-based platforms are where it’s at, and that’s where I’ll be looking when the time is right.

But knowing me, I’ll probably meet a web developer who likes the idea, then we’ll meet a web designer by ‘coincidence’, and they’ll know a videographer, and human connection will create the next iteration of Nick Lets Rip, rather than tech platforms!

I would like to pledge that there’ll be a lot more work being done outside. I am watching one squirrel run along a powerline, while another inches his way up the trunk of a tree unrecognisable to me. It is bloody lovely. I wish that more people can find their transferrable skills, and enjoy the luxury of working a few hours a day in the gentle sunshine, watching animals play, and feeling the breeze on their skin, rather than being bound to a desk and subjected to climate-controlled environments.

Alright, that’s enough of that. I wandered a little, but it felt good, necessary, and productive, so that’s what you’re getting. Now for the expenses breakdown! I’ve been indulgent, no doubt about it, but when in Rome…

Total spend is 16,425 THB (~$769 AUD). Included in this was a 3,000 THB deposit for the scooter that I forgot to mention last time, and that I will get back, and 4,000 THB for a month in a co-working space. I also spent nearly 1,400 THB on the luxuries of steam bath, foot massage, thai massage, and pedicure (the poor lady was appalled with my feet, but that’s another story…) The rest has been on food, water, coffee, and coconuts. Not a bad crack!