I believe that things should be easeful to do.

Meaningful projects take sustained effort to accomplish, but they shouldn’t feel like running marathons with broken legs or writing a dissertation with a pen that is out of ink.

When confronted with really frustrating technology problems, I’ve often found it to be useful to pause and interrogate the mental model leading me to desire a particular outcome.

A useful lens is inversion: I look at things opposite from my assumptions and “common wisdom”. Often, it gets me to a more elegant solution.

Materials have grains: inherent properties that suggest their most easeful usage. With emerging technology this is often occluded as we pattern match old things to new, but by quietening down our egoic “knowing”, we can listen to what the material is asking to be.

NFTs are a great example. A common first-glance question is “why would you pay for this if everyone can see it?”. This question is rooted in our cultural narrative of scarcity & conspicuous consumption that says the only reason to buy something is so your neighbor can’t have it.

I have no interest in parking flashy cars behind white picket fences.

The inversion is that yes! indeed! everyone can see the content! Dancing with this, we realize that “buying” an NFT is patronage, not possession: supporting the creator to continue making their work, and to keep releasing it publicly & freely for the whole community to enjoy.

That is the grain of NFTs.