Thoughts on the buildpspace IRL experience

( This is a draft. )

So, buildspace IRL (in real life) has been more than two weeks in the past. I believe a reflection on the experience is warranted. Because a lot happened. Not just in IRL, the six weeks of nights and weekends was, how would I put it, unique.

I tried to explain nights and weekends to some of my friends. But they did not seem to understand what it was; unless I said the word Hackathon. The confused grin turned into wide eyes with a smirk.

"So you will be coding for a weekend on a project?",

"Oh what will you get if you win?"

Uhm... I dont mean to bash the people in my life because let's be a little honest here - it did seem like buildspace was a 6 week hackathon. Code a project, win prizes. Quite remarkably, thats what it started out to be. Later on, they had musicians, artists, dancers and vloggers. Yet, on the plane ride back from the IRL event in San Francisco, I specifically wondered - this was NOT a hackthon. It did not feel a hackathon. What was this thing that I took part in for 6 weeks?

In a pivotal moment in my life suffering years with anxity, I decided to go to therapy. As a MAN, DUDE, whatever you want to call me, this was not a easy decision to say the least. Yes, we as a society, have softened up to the idea that our minds can be in a state of distress. But it took a lot of courage to personally accept the fact that I could not help myself. Two months in, I realized that my mind was making shit up to completely sabotage me. With some great tools, I was able to counteract the distortions happening inside my brain.

In the beginning, 70,000 people showed up to the livestream where they would tell us what we were going to do for 6 weeks. I think people in the chat expected a clear cut plan. Many were concered with how many got in. I mean 70,000 is a lot of people. In that livestream I remember feeling that this event was different from the other hackathons that I have been to. You would start off on a weekend with some snacks, some talks, forming of groups, and then you would code and code and code. Or maybe you would sit there and plan a product and create a pitch deck and present it to the judges at the end. In both the cases, you made a product that was either only a toy or an idea that will never see the light of day. The objective was to impress a person to win some money.

A revealing fact that only 5-7% of the initial group make it to the end. There was the stark reminder that most of us just give up on our ideas after a bad week, hell even a bad day. What keep us going for the things we care about?

I can only comment on what kept me going to finish the not so great idea that I had. The important part of every journey starts with an idea. It is the a priori of what you will be doing for a year or a month, until your deadline. I suppose you can even call this idea the hypothesis.

Another thing that resonated with me is that the initial idea did not matter as much as the iteration that turned that idea into reality. For the world, that is quite radical. Ideas run our world, they are the fuel that burns to propel the human race. Ideas are the figments of our imaginatoin. We make up a version of the world and are struck by lighting with how we can change it. And like a virus it spreads to other minds. Yet, ideas are not in themselves any useful, they have to be