Psychedelics and Bitcoin
Almost everyone who gets into bitcoin at some point realizes how it destroys your mental models of the world. You start questioning the status quo and experience a serious rewiring of the brain. This can be confusing and frightening at first. But in hindsight it is mostly viewed as positive and people end up being a different, better person. Less focussed on hedonistic consumption, more focussed on long term health and wealth.
Rewiring the Brain
I realized that psychedelics (like LSD or Psilocybin) and learning Bitcoin had a similar effect on my brain. The closest to my head-over-heels experience down the Bitcoin rabbithole were my experiences with LSD long before I discovered Bitcoin. Both shaped my life in an unexpected but positive way. I can´t talk about psychedelic experiences with most of my family, similar as with Bitcoin. They just don´t get it. And at this point I won´t bother trying to explain it anymore.
Volatility
Then there is the volatility aspect. Psychedelic trips can be quite volatile, you never know what to expect. There is always some level of loss of control and you have to be fine with it. Similar with Bitcoin: You have to be able to stand the ups and downs, one day feeling like a genius, being full of doubt the next day.
Questioning Authority
There are also some historical and cultural parallels between the spread of LSD in the 60s and Bitcoin today. In the 1960s Timothy Leary coined the term "Turn on, tune in, drop out". Large parts of the youth counterculture discovered the freeing effect of LSD on the mind and said "Fuck it, we´re not gonna participate in your wars". They challenged authority and the societal norms. Today, bitcoiners find the freedom of Bitcoin. They like to opt out of the system and say "Fuck it, we´re not gonna participate in your bullshit any longer". Passionate, freedom-loving communities have formed around both phenomena.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you have similar experiences? Did I miss anything?