When Nobody Has to Talk About Tezos

On the shared experiences that bring a community together, and the things that become understood without ever being said.

Ever just sat in silence with someone? Not that awkward moment where neither one of you knows what to say, or even wants to be there in the first place? To be so comfortable with someone or something that no longer needs to be a “thing” to focus on, or a point to argue over.

Even years of shared experience can be a simple facet of the depth and understanding that comes with a comfort like that. Silence is a strange one. It screams the loudest when all you want to hear … is something.

This kind of existence can manifest from seemingly anywhere. Out running mindless errands one moment, a storm forces you to pause as you’re exiting a store. An offhand comment to the person next to you turns into a simple knowing nod. You both get to wait for a moment. Neither of you needs to say anything. Let this pass, and you both will be on your way.

Sometimes it’s just easier with strangers. You don’t need to expect much. It’s often just a matter of politeness. But maybe that’s where the deeper connection really lies. When out and about, going through the motions of the things that need to be done in our lives, it gets easy to get lost in our own world. The small place that exists around us, with only us in it. And maybe when we can find people we feel safe enough to let into that place, maybe then that silence becomes real.

It’s tough right now, in this current atmosphere of virtual jukeboxes blasting all kinds of content from all angles. What’s worth paying attention to? What makes this moment any more than what we subconsciously already assume it is? Sometimes the noise just drowns out the chaos itself, and instead of focusing on the individual notes, it all seems to build together into one roaring, overstimulating symphony.

What do we need to hone in on just to cut through that noise? Where do we draw from to figure out what noise is worth actually paying attention to?

I’d like to think it’s a reflection of ourselves. The reason we surround ourselves with the people we do. Maybe it’s to become just a little bit more like them. Maybe they represent something bigger or different from what we think ourselves to be. These little insights may be all we have when choosing to let anything beyond the door of our forced sanity.

It’s been said we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. The books we read now and the things we do today place our feet exactly where they will be planted five years later. I think this gets a bit deeper than simply pointing out that spending all your time and energy with the right people in the right places will push you forward. There’s a reason we’ve been told time and time again: You are what you eat.

There’s something to be said about the crowds we do travel in. Ever mentioned something about NFTs or crypto in passing to someone and watched their entire demeanor shift? We’re conditioned to respond to things based on our interpretation and understanding of that thing. It’s completely understandable for someone to have heard something in passing, internalized it subconsciously, and now it silently stamps its own seal of approval for everything coming in through that angle.

Ever thought about how what you’re about to say to someone may actually mean to them once you’ve let it go into the world? Or has your focus, like most, shifted to the part where your intended message and reception are assumed as “message received”? Just because it makes sense to us doesn’t necessarily mean it does to them. I wish it were as easy as proving a math equation. But then why do people argue that two plus two doesn’t equal four? I’m sure you have several examples yourself in your own life.

I have that same problem myself when I start getting excited about Tezos. How do you articulate to a stranger the feeling of having this whole group of people you’ve come to understand as a community, with its own system of values, existing online? Away from the normal world. Digital. Intelligent. I start sounding like a combination of one of those guys with a board hanging from his neck, claiming the end of the world is nigh, and it’s all their fault, and that preacher expounding about the sins and troubles of the earth while ignoring the love, patience, and understanding.

Does this even begin to touch on the story of HEN, or the people who worked tirelessly to transition it to Teia? Will it accurately portray the feeling of working together with people from all over the world to come together and bring something to life that now exists because of them?

I mean, at least I’ll be passionate. And if they’re going to read anything from that exchange, I guess it better be that. But is that passion alone enough? I see it regularly in places like Teia and OBJKT. Even the roots of Teia were poured upon with floods of passion just to keep it alive. Today even. Inspiring people to stand up and do something bigger than themselves.

Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be sitting in the middle of a real digital renaissance, surrounded by some of the most intelligent and creative people I’ve ever known in my life. And the passion is real. There is real fire behind the hearts of all of these people. I’m supposed to be sitting in a cubicle, staring at the clock, waiting to clock out to go hide in my life away from work.

But how do you say any of this without saying “Tezos”? You can’t. Because this is exactly what the thing becomes in the first place. That tiny little thing that subconsciously stamps its own seal of approval on everything that has to do with that thing moving forward.

And every community brings along its own understanding of the world and the people around them.

Which makes it so hard to find common ground when talking with anyone about crypto. And I’m not saying Tezos is completely perfect. Nothing ever is. Sometimes the assumptions around what people understand something to be are grounded in reality. We call that wisdom in some cases. Other times, we can get so wrapped up in the small world that only we exist in that the understanding can get skewed.

It gets messy too. People’s reputations, their understanding of how the world works, their word, the list of things at stake gets longer and more widespread than you might think at first. Not as black and white as it may seem initially. People have tons of reasons for doing things, and odds are, the first three you can think of are wrong.

And as things get messier, so do our understandings of these things. That’s where culture and community really develop. When you say something like, “Those guys really went through something there,” there’s an unspoken note of accountability, camaraderie, survivorship, and more. Something exclusive that I wasn’t there for but should recognize and still understand.

Should recognize. But who is going to point that out to me initially? Does it even matter if I’m factually correct about the details in the beginning? In certain communities, you are ostracized and condemned to death if you make the most simple of transgressions against the group. In others, you can get away with anything, and the only way you get kicked out is if you leave.

Accountability and forgiveness. These matter to someone from the inside. They’re fundamentally what these communities exist on. But what happens when someone from the outside stumbles upon a group that’s moved from that excited, passionate arc in their life to the comfortable, silent moment?

So much goes unsaid at that moment. So much gets assumed. What happens when you live inside something for a long time? Little things that mattered the most become an unspoken “just the way it is.” And this silence can read like alarm bells and sirens to anyone who may not understand what it means.

When Nobody Has to Talk About Tezos was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.