2024 was such a trip of a year. I named it the Year of Foundation Building when I put together my goals and dreams sheet back in late 2023. That certainly seems to have been what it was for me, although if you had told me that I would be sitting here in two feet of snow in Northern Japan in a house I own at the end of it back then, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
I’m not sure why I still maintain Vagobond.com – it doesn’t make any money. It has very few readers. The algorithms mostly ignore it. And yet, I do. I suppose I do it to keep track of myself and also as a way to sort of give myself a bit of a shot at immortality. I guess I also still have this mad deep seated belief that at some point my thoughts, my ideas, my stories, my work, my life – that all of it might matter in a broader sense than it does. Don’t misunderstand me, I know that I matter in the life of my daughter. I also know that there are people who would cry if I were gone, but for nearly everyone but my kiddo, those tears would fade and their lives wouldn’t change much. I’m grateful that I matter in a life changing way to at least one person on the planet – but that’s also a huge responsibility because it means I have to take care of myself and hopefully help her to reach a solid point in life where if I die and disappear from this mortal coil, she can go on like everyone else would. I mean, I think she is there, but I know that I still have an important role to fill in her life. So I continue. And as for Vagobond – I’ve shared this before – and this is in regards to all the things I’ve shared online. I have a massive digital footprint. More than most people, I think that what I’ve put out there could be used to compile an AI version of me that wouldn’t be too different from the actual me. I’m not entirely sure that hasn’t happened already. Meaning, even as I am conscious of sitting and writing this, I am aware that I may be a construct that is reliving a memory that the original me sat and wrote. I’ve been digitizing my thoughts and ideas and creations and life since the 1990s and putting it where bots or algorithms or aliens or future humans could find them and reconstruct me. My mistake, of course, was including things like angst and self-doubt and moments of suffering – but then those things made me who I am – although I do think I would be happier without them – a sort of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Back to 2024 – let’s start with the personal level. The year began with a great hope in terms of crypto markets and a resurgence of NFTs and equity markets. I found myself living in an expensive Honolulu shoebox and not having ever had the security of owning a place that I could call home. I was drowning in trying to pay my own living expenses and in helping my ex-wife and daughter to maintain their life. I decided I was going to use the momentum of bitcoin to cash out because I didn’t trust that it would continue. I sold my (expensive) Bitcoin at a bit of a loss (from my purchase price) to start the year but I had been in light negotiations with a guy who was selling a cabin and property on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was just the right price that selling my BTC would cover it. I sold. Bitcoin exploded and doubled in price. The guy on the Big Island suddenly decided to also double his price. I was left in a losing place. A loser. A bag of lemons.
I turned those lemons into lemonade. Japan’s cheap houses had been on my radar for a while. That’s when my life really changed. I’d already had a trip to the Big Island that was amazing and fun. Now I booked a trip to Japan to see if I could find a home there. I won’t rehash the whole journey that led to me living in Hokkaido in a house called Satoshi Manor, but suffice to say at the end of 2023 I determined that 2024 would be the year I finally owned a home of my own. That determination came to pass.
2024 felt like the longest year of my life. I mean, it’s still going on as I write this. The trips, the house, the huge changes in life. On a different note, a few days ago – I found out that my father has entered hospice care. The hospice people and those around him seemed to think that he would only be with us for a short amount of time, but I’m not so sure about that. His father, my grandfather, defied expectations and lasted years after those who knew said there was no hope. My dad and I aren’t close. That’s not for a lack of my trying but at least we aren’t alienated. I spoke with him a few days ago, I guess I should say to him. He’s non-communicative at this point (in a fully literal sense though I would say that he’s never been very communicative) but my sister told me that he had his eyes open and seemed to understand what I was saying. It was put forth as my last chance to talk with my dad. It’s also been put forth that it is likely I will never see him again. So 2024 is that too.
I had the chance to bring my mom to Hawaii and give her a ‘once in a lifetime’ dream vacation before I left. The best part of that was being able to spend time with my mom and my daughter in Hawaii – doing all the tourist things. My daughter and I had a great year together – we swam with manta rays, we camped in the Oahu mountains and on the Oahu beaches, we hiked and swam, and took trips to the Big Island and to California. We walked in the redwoods on Thanksgiving with my sister and her kids. I’m so grateful for that time. Truly this year has been so much.
I re-edited a novel I wrote in 2023 called ‘I, Watch‘ and started an agent/writer/publisher relationship with Rionna Morgan of Whitney Morgan Media. We published my novel The Keys to the Riad. It wasn’t a huge success like I had hoped it would be, but it’s a beginning. Throughout 2024, I was creating art and writing. Our collaborative anthology Future World will be launching with a Kickstarter campaign in a few weeks. I wrote two new novels in my house here in Japan Kitsune no Haru which is a sort of fictionalized account of my journey to get here, mental health, and imaginary worlds – I’m not sure I can ever publish it. The other book is perhaps the best thing I’ve ever written. Aisha and the Pearl Path is my Japanese answer to Harry Potter. It really feels like it could be the most impactful book I’ve written in terms of gaining traction. In terms of true impact, I still have to say that Notes from Nowhere is the most important. The ideas in that simply need to be out in the world. I’m truly sad that the NFT literary scene never took off the way that so many of us hoped it would. Also in 2024, just towards the end of it, I wrote The Mountain Manifesto – which sadly just feels so incredibly necessary to be out there – which I’ll get into in a second.
There was so much more on a personal level to 2024. I made new friends, I visited with old friends, I learned about myself (not always pleasant things), and I had amazing experiences. I traveled, I wrote, I ate, I loved, I learned, and hopefully I grew and am growing into a better version of myself. The spiritual philosophy I launched what seems so long ago – Baoism – has been a key part of that. Here I have to emphasize that I’m a fundamentally flawed human being (we all are) and even though I launched Baoism – that doesn’t make me some sort of saint or holy man. Trust me, nobody should be following me or doing what I do but the ideas of Baoism are sound. They are older than me. I didn’t make them up, I just put them together and gave them a name. Yes, I am a Baoist. I think there are many of us, though the name may not be familiar to all of us. One of the biggest problems with every religion or spiritual philosophy is that people get confused between the message and the man (or woman). I’ve allowed Vagobond Magazine to sort of wind down – not killing it but not putting more energy, money, or time into it moving forward. At least for now. One other thing which may be the most unimportant thing I’ve ever spent time on, or maybe not? Lamsters. In 2024, I largely abandoned NFTs and crypto culture with one big exception. Lamina1 which is the open metaverse project cofounded by one of my favorite writers Neal Stephenson. Stephenson literally created the term metaverse as well as coining the modern usage of the term avatar – so it’s kind of a big deal that he is cofounding a metaverse project. The ideals of the project fit with my own ethos as well. Collaborative, community oriented, open. I created a silly NFT project called Lamsters. They are part lamb part hamster. They sort of took off. We’ve broken all kinds of records with them (higher NFT sale on the Lamina1 chain (just ~$25 but still)) and tried to do all kinds of fun things with the project. We’ve done the largest liquid L1 giveaways in the history of the project and other stuff. It’s all pretty low stakes but fun. The key is that I’m building it with and for the community. Every step of the way I’m trying to give control to the people who are in it. There are some imitators but they seem to be more focused on personal control than community control – but if Lamina1 goes the same way other crypto/NFT things have gone – it will end up being the con-artists, scammers, pretenders, and great suit wearing politicians, lawyers, and accountants who end up taking control and making the most money from it. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case, but past results do often indicate future returns despite what your investment advisor is required to tell you. So there’s that too…
In the real world outside of me – 2024 was insane. Bitcoin shot up to $107,000 (ouch). Right leaning neo-fascist candidates made huge headway world wide. Trump and his best friend Elon Musk seem to have firmly taken control of the US government for the foreseeable future, AI was everywhere doing everything all at once. There were disasters that climate deniers said were just part of normal cycles. Anti-science views and conspiracy theories became the creation theory equivalent of modern times (they deserve equal consideration…lol). There were huge stories that made it seem like aliens might be real – but only after a gunman targeted a big CEO and the narrative had to be shifted away from people targeting the wealthy and powerful. Syria fell. Israel widened its war against the Arab world. Russia and Ukraine became a proxied world war with North Korean troops fighting and dying next to their Russian allies. South Korea briefly declared martial law and other western allies have been having similar chaos unleashed in them. As usual, there were famous people who died and there were movies, shows, and music made – but will any of it have a long lasting impact? I don’t know. I do know that AI and crypto have both changed things in ways that won’t be clear for a long time and that the turning of the world towards darkness will have long term consequences that we will start to see more clearly in 2025.
I’ve often engaged in the reckless pursuit of making predictions. Last year I let an NFT persona make my predictions for me in the December 2023 issue of Vagobond Magazine – which were actually scary accurate. I’ll take credit because let’s face it – they were made by me. Without further ado – here are my predictions for 2025:
- Russia will defeat and occupy Ukraine. There is a whole slew of things that will be a part of this. The US abandoning NATO, Trump changing policy on Ukraine, and more. Ukraine will cease to be an independent country but will become a vassal state of a new Russia.
- An AI will go rogue and begin pumping out fake news at an impossible to stop rate. Trust in the media will disappear. The internet will become unusable as a news source. Corporate media will scramble to bring back things like newspapers, magazines, and live reporters actually doing news.
- The temptation is to doom say about the Trump administrations actions – but let’s just say this – the US will push its borders larger without much in the way of dissent. Mass deportation and all that goes along with it will be a huge catalyst.
- The entire truth about aliens and extraterrestrial visitors will be released and it will be so boring that the public won’t even care. Conspiracy theorists will continue to push more exciting stories.
- An AI musician will top the charts. Its persona will be an anthropomorphic animal.
- Assassination of the ultra wealthy will become a sort of epidemic – starting in the US but then spreading worldwide.
- Tax revolt will become the next big movement among anti-government/anti-vaccination right leaning people. Trump will actually encourage it!
- A major peaceful human rights protest will be violently broken up. It will be a shot heard around the world.
- China, Russia, and the US will broker a landmark treaty that cements the future of the three nations together. Europe, South America, Taiwan and large parts of Asia will be used as pawns and leverage without actually getting much in the way of benefit.
- A teenager will use AI to create a new form of nanotechnology that will blur the line between magic and science.
Onward and Upward. I hope that you all have a Happy and Prosperous 2025. Be Happy!