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Welcome to GreatInsights. I'm StJohn Piano, CTO @ Solidi Exchange and a Blockchain Advisor @ Tela Network.

Here are two quotes that I really enjoyed.

The first is from Theodore Dalrymple.

The successful politician of today seems to have no mental or cultural hinterland, no real character other than ambition and desire for the limelight. This is not an entirely new phenomenon: Maynard Keynes was once asked what he thought Lloyd George, the British politician, thought about when he was on his own, and he replied that when Lloyd George was on his own, there was nobody there. In other words, he needed an audience to exist, even for himself.

Such a type is brought forth by the possibility of a constant audience, and therefore has never been a time more propitious for the multiplication of the type than the present, when the possibilities of mass communication for all have resulted in mass narcissism. Never in the field of human history has so much drivel been communicated to so many with such persistence.

Source:
Bleak Options
Theodore Dalrymple
February 17, 2024
https://www.takimag.com/article/bleak-options

The second quote, really an excerpt, is from Rob K Henderson.

There’s a scene in the 1999 cult classic film “Office Space” where the protagonist is asked what he’d do if he had a million dollars. After a few crude jokes, he pauses and says, “Nothing. I would relax. I would sit on my ass all day. I would do nothing.”

Most men, particularly young men, would far prefer this mode of living as opposed to, say, being a domineering tyrant or a responsible authority figure.

Mature masculinity is artificially induced through culture. Mature men do not naturally emerge like butterflies from boyish cocoons. Rather, they must be carefully encouraged, nurtured, counseled, and prodded into taking the actions necessary to achieve mature manhood.

Gilmore writes, “Manhood is a cultural construct based on group needs that overlays and counteracts a hesitant and resisting nature.” In other words, manhood exists to push against the default setting: self-indulgence and avoidance of responsibility.

Social conservatives often assume men naturally want to be good husbands and fathers. If that were true, ancient Rome wouldn’t have needed laws against bachelorhood. It took serious effort to get men to take on those roles. Progressives make a similar mistake, assuming men desire power and control. But most young men today aren’t power-hungry. They’re increasingly checked out.

This is why cultures around the world created rituals to shape boys into men. As the psychologist Roy Baumeister has written, “In many societies, any girl who grows up automatically becomes a woman. … Meanwhile, a boy does not automatically become a man, and instead is often required to prove himself, usually by passing stringent tests or producing more than he consumes.”

Source:
Charisma on Command, Manhood, Narcissism
Rob K Henderson
AUG 26, 2025
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/charisma-on-command-manhood-narcissism

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
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Question

What does a bank's website communicate and how?

Objectives

• Interpret the UI/UX design of Lloyds Bank's website (https://www.lloydsbank.com/) into 'vibes'.
• Analyse how the UI communicates those 'vibes'.
• Break-down specific elements of UI and justify choices.
• Explain the UX and possible motivation behind it.

Contents

1. Context
2. Vibes
3. How are these vibes achieved?
4. User Interface: Detail
5. User Experience

Context

Lloyds Bank is major UK retail and commercial bank with a focus on traditional financial services like mortgages, savings, and business banking.

Screenshot of landing page on the 27th of September 2025.

I suggest you scroll through the screenshot above before reading the analysis.

All the sections and details referred to will be featured in specific screenshots.

Vibes

Homely, familiar, classic, serious, established, approachable, fresh, helpful, quaint.

How are these vibes achieved?

Homely & familiar:

• The first thing a user sees when entering the page is a small dog in a cardboard box with a sofa and a houseplant in the background.  It's quite literally a picture of home comforts: a happy pet, a comfortable living room, and the open cardboard box (associated with presents, new things, moving to a new - better - home). An image primes the user to experience the rest of the interface in a certain way. It's important to understand the associated experiences certain images will evoke for users and imply in regards to a product when choosing them for UIs.
• The colour palette used in the website is calm and soft without being diffuse. Medium sea green (#11B67A),  black (#000000), white (#FFFFFF) scheme. Touches of gray for specific sections: #F1F1F1, #7F7F7F, #303030, etc. Green is nature, dreamy, growth, understanding, and more. The UI's colour scheme on this page associate finances to tranquility and life.
• Mention of "home" in main call: "Your first home is closer than you think". It anchors the user to think of home - of comfort, calm, and sense of belonging. This has a double purpose: 1) Lloyds is pushing the sale of mortgages, so it wants the user to think of a future home, and 2) it predisposes the user to experience the website with a positive emotional backdrop: home, comfort, belonging.

Classic & serious:

• Lloyds Bank's logo is a side-profile of a horse rearing up. The horse has Ancient Greek-like indents on the back its neck, running down it's back - like a race horse or a mount out of a heroic myth. We associate a horse like this with nobility, with legitimacy. The two-dimensional pose is also right out Ancient Greek vase art, as well as neo-classicist paintings. This helps associate Lloyds Bank with elegance, high-status, and permanence.
  
  It's worth mentioning that this logo clashes with the rest of interface and UX, which prioritises a helpful, familiar, and approachable image. However, the seriousness and classic feel that the logo evokes could work to reassure the user that behind the approachable brand there's a serious, establishes
• Font-background colour parings are black on white, black on green, black on grey, and white on black are very readable combinations. Text is readable. Information is clear. Serious, no-nonsense design.

Established:

• The top of the page has four tabs: Personal, Business, Private Banking, & International Banking. A quick scan of this will inform the user of the banks' well-established, broad customer base. Anchored as the user is to think of the bank as a familiar and classic brand, the four areas of the business, laid out as if they hold equal weight communicates that the bank is a well-run enterprise. The user can be confident in trusting them with their savings, mortgage plan, etc.
• "Join our 10 million customers who already use our highly rated app." The app (and the bank's offering) is tried and tested. Popularity is taken as a shorthand for trustworthiness.
• The page includes a "Independent service quality survey results" section near the bottom of the page. Rankings help users determine whether to use a business, just like ratings. And although Lloyds Bank is not in the top five of the ranking, just their presence on what reads as an independent survey of customer satisfaction adds to their perceived legitimacy. It feels like the sort of ranking an established bank would be on, regardless of their actual rank. Of course, it does help that they are number 6 on the ranking, and not at a lower rank.

Approachable & fresh:

• The other photos included in the page are of young, good-looking people, fashionably dressed and/or with a nice car or bike accompany each of the Products. The website is targeting first-time home buyers, which will likely be young people. Having earlier associated that brand with popularity (by pointing out ratings and the amount of users), it's good to put a face to these users that you would be customers can associate themselves to, even if aspirationally. By including handsome, well-dressed, attractive photos of young people, the UI is appealing to a certain kind of customer.
• The green colour palette creates an inviting atmosphere, especially when tied to the youthful people featured in the photos. There's a fresh, spry feel to the product being offered because of the image and colour associations.

• There's a large photo of beaming young woman leaving a house through the front door, looking ahead and slightly upwards with warm-toned jumper, next to "Trust us with your next mortgage deal". The low angle the photograph is taken from and the upward gaze of the subject lead the viewers' eyes high and to the right. Like a right-facing arrow, this is associated with something new. And something higher is something better. The subject of the photograph is looking out at something better. The natural sunlight and the fact that the subject of the photo is standing at an open doorway also invite associations of a new venture. The bright colours, large jumper, and hip tote bag evoke feelings of comfort, youth, vigour, and optimism.
  
  Associating these colours in this image with the call to action "Trust us with your next mortgage deal" directs the user to associate the emotions evoked by the image to the product they are being sold. In this case, mortgages.

Helpful:

• There's a large section of the website dedicated to "Customer Support". The largest subsections is highlighted in green - an inviting colour, and features an icon of a seagull on a life ring. The image brings some levity to the consumer decisions a user is being asked to consider. It's followed up with the question: "Looking for help?", phrases earnestly and conversationally.
• The other subsections offer advice, disability support, and materials to assist with the consumer decisions. The well-populated support section communicates that there is help available, even eagerly at the disposable of the user. It also asks the consumer to place themselves in the position of someone thinking of buying a mortgage, which helps sell the banks primary offering.

Quaint:

• The photo of an over-sized zucchini on a stool in a vegetable patch garden with a red "1st Prize" ribbon  next to "Your Credit Score" is a great follow-up to the support section. It carries on the levity of the seagull image with a picture that, while comedic, also evokes the nostalgia of old, green England with its grannys and country-farms. It's wraps all the way back round to the homely, familiarity of the dog at the start.

User Interface: Detail

The way the UI is designed, the first thing a customer will see will be the dog in the photo, then the hero text "Your first home is closer than you think" and the white button below it, and thirdly, the company logo and name, then working down the page in a left-to-right sequence.

1. Tabs are easy way to visually show that your website (and your business) have different customers they can cater to. It makes it easy to track what area you're looking at and to move to and from another area in a single action. Putting it at the top of the page makes navigating the page quick and easy. Tabs imply that everything below is related to the area they represent.
2. Horizontal lines by a menu are a shorthand for the button to click when you can't see what you're looking for. Being immediately below the tabs and beside the company logo, both aligned to the left of the screen, means that what the customer will see if they scroll to the top is the name of the company, the areas it covers, and the button to click when they need extra options.
3. A lock symbolises security, and very common for bank interfaces to use them as icons next to their access button. People are also quick to associate locks with entry points and it effectively communicates the privacy of access as well - one key, one lock.
4. The primary call-to-action, slogan, and/or value proposition an enterprise wants to communicate that is visually elevated in the UI is called the 'hero text' - here, "Your first home is closer than you think". It's worth analysing how the choice of words frame the UX. And it's a quick way to know what the business wants you to think it's selling.
   
   There are two direct calls to the customer, "your" and "you", immediately making the sales pitch and their product about the could-be customer. It also makes the pitch more human, less corporate. "Home", not a mortgage, is the product, and "closer" communicates that the product is achievable - it's the "and, you can have it" part of the pitch. It's optimistic to wary customers. "First" reveals who the desired customer is: first-time house buyers. Finally, "think" is a subtle way to prime the customer, you're now thinking about a first home, whether or not you were before you read this sentence.
   
   The words don't do this by themselves of course. As a sentence, "Your first home is closer than you think" is very powerful. It's conversational, not corporate. It's direct and appeals to the attractive fantasy that a first home is more achievable than you expected. The phrasing even emulates a playful jest, as if what they're offering is a gift they know you'd like - it's something that you think about.
   
   The support text beneath it is "Just a 5% deposit needed. Lending is subject to status.". Consider the effect of "just". It primes the customer to intepret the "5% deposit" as simply achievable, but remarkably so. I assume that regulations force the bank to include the second sentence, as it breaks from the conversational tone that the two preceding sentences use and doesn't do anything to elevate the sales pitch.
5. The primary interactive element tin UI/UX design is called the CTA (call-to-action) button. In this page, it says "First time buyer mortgages". As a general rule, you want to have one button per page that you, as the designer, want the user to press. Often that's "Sign up".
   
   Lloyds Bank's CTA button stands out by using black text over a white button over a section of the background image with darker shadows. Contrast is visually satisfying and draws the gaze. The CTA button is a rectangle with rounded edges, a shape that other buttons on the page copy. It's become part of the shorthand in visual design to make rectangular buttons have rounded edges, and its good to use these shorthands to make the UX more seamless.
6. Right-facing arrows imply progression. Including them on items of a page can help identify them to a user as interactive. Here, they have been included on secondary buttons which stand out less than the CTA button at first glance, but can be recognised as interactive elements at second glance.
7. Using your app interface in your website design does several things. It sets a realistic expectation for the user in how they will be using the product. It ensures there are no surprises during the user journey. In this case, Lloyds Bank is highlighting how the practical experience of their services will be through an mobile application. On a deeper level, it makes Lloyds Bank seem helpful to a prospective customer. They've predicted their queries and are immediately walking them through the process of using their services. It also subtly moves past the whether the user will become a customer, and starts showing them what perks they'll have access to as if they had already agreed to sign on.
8. The app interface is also an opportunity to highlight some of the services that the company is keen for the user to remember. Every part of the UI design flows towards the main offer being made to the user. In Lloyds Bank's case, lending money to first-time house buters. So, the app interface is an opportunity to highlight its lending services: "Borrow" and "Platinum Credit Card".

User Experience

The UI/UX of Lloyds Bank's website is made to sell mortgages - not exclusively, but primarily. The UI creates a UX of homeliness, comfort, trustworthiness, and simplicity. The pictures of home, young people framed by markers of success (e.g., expressions of joy, attractiveness, fashionable clothing, sports), and domestic aspiration (e.g., household pets, cardboard boxes in a living room) appeal to the desire to have a home. The product being sold by the UI/UX is not mortgages, it's home.

The could-be customer scrolls through the website, and comes away with a feeling of Lloyds Bank as a helpful, approachable, dependable company that will help them build a home.

Now, the UI isn't doing all the work. Lloyd's is a well-known institution. It has staying power - it's been around long enough to plant the seed in people's minds that "they must be doing something right". The classic-ness of the logo is channeling that assumption. The comfort-inducing familiarity that the UI creates has that foundation - a serious business in the background power. And importantly, nothing about the UI undercuts that. In fact, in connects it with youthful energy, nostalgia for home, and a desire to help.

The resulting UX is of a trustworthy, optimistic service provider that invites you to let it help you build a home.

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

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1. CATALYST

Descripción:
Proyecto editorial con publicación digital, impresión en papel y una conferencia de divulgación y conexión profesional para los autores.

Artículos respondiendo a la pregunta: "¿Qué se debe hacer?" ("What is to be done?") desde el punto de vista de diversas industrias: ej. ingeniería, política, redes sociales, arquitectura, inteligencia artificial, medicina, etc.

Equipo:
17 autores.
1 coeditor.
1 gestor de proyecto (Guillermo Pablos Murphy).

Duración:
Actualmente en ejecución. Impresión prevista para invierno 2025.

Inicio de planificación en octubre 2024, primera publicación digital en Mayo de 2025.

Rol:
Inicio, planificación, captación de autores, edición, ejecución.

Enfoque:
Ágil e iterativo, con priorización tipo Kanban y principios Lean.

Resultados:
(Hasta la fecha) Publicación de página web con artículos publicados en semanalmente. 17 autores adscritos a proyecto, 10 publicados.

Publicación digital: https://readcatalyst.org/

2. Cassinia Environmental (Expansión a España)

Descripción:
Empresa australiana dedicada a la reforestación y la biodiversidad investigando la posibilidad de expansión al mercado europeo, empezando por España.

Equipo:
25 empleados en Australia.
1 patrocinador del proyecto.
1 coordinador de proyectos en España (Guillermo Pablos Murphy).

Duración:
Enero – junio 2025 (fase de planificación finalizada con la conclusión del empleo).

Rol:
Inicio, investigación de mercados, planificación, análisis de datos.

Enfoque:
Fase de iniciación y planificación sin pasar a fase de ejecución. Proyectos tradicionales (a cascada).

Resultados:
Tres planes de proyectos en tres propiedades distintas.

3. 'Digital Forums for Remote Policy-Making' (Tesis de final de grado)

Descripción:
Un foro de deliberación política digital diseñado e implementado como trabajo final de grado.

Equipo:
2 supervisores académicos.
1 coordinador de proyecto (Guillermo Pablos Murphy)

Duración:
Septiembre 2023 - abril 2024. Iniciación a cierre.

Rol:
Iniciación, planificación, ejecución, gestión, cierre, presentación.

Enfoque:
Predictivo y de investigación. Estructurado en fases secuenciales (diseño, reclutamiento, simulación y evaluación), centrado en la planificación y prueba piloto de un prototipo.

Resultados:
Dos instancias del foro fueron simuladas como parte de la investigación. La investigación fue presentada en una conferencia nacional de investigación política en el Reino Unido y en una conferencia internacional en Irlanda.

Resumen, podcast (~11 min) e investigación completa:
https://telablog.com/digital-forums-for-policy-making/

Guillermo Pablos Murphy es un gestor de proyectos con certificación CAPM del "Project Management Institute".
Detalles: https://tela.network/log/49/

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This article is a reminder of our place in the human timeline.

A 'generation' in this article refers to a 'family' generation - a parent is of one, their children of the next - typically lasting 20 to 30 years. This is different from a 'social' generation - a sociological concept based on shared experiences - which lasts 15-20 years.

This article assumes a generation lasts 25 years.

There are two sections of this article.
The first is a timeline of technological developments.
The second is a timeline of major works of writing.
Neither section is exhaustive.  

This article is a living document.

Technology

There have been...

About 17,281 generations since the earliest evidence of archaic humans engaging in ritual burial of the dead at the Sima de los Huesos, Spain (~430,000 BC).

About 11,400 generations since the earliest known processing of pigment occurred at the GnJh-03 Site, Kenya (~283,000 BC).

About 2,920 generations since the oldest known abstract drawing was created at Blombos Cave, South Africa (~72,000 BC). It is one compelling early evidence for the emergence of symbolic thinking.

About 2,800 generations since the oldest estimates of when Homo Sapiens began migrating out of Africa, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans, and establishing themselves as the dominant hominin species (~58,000–68,000 BC).

About 1,041 generations since the earliest evidence of human settlements at Předmostí u Přerova in Moravia (~24,000 BC).

About 481 generations since the earliest evidence of agriculture and animal husbandry, city-like settlements, the formalization of social leadership and hierarchies, and the use of 'shell' proto-currencies and trade networks, all in the Fertile Crescent (~10,000 BC).

About 465 generations since the earliest evidence of monumental construction, itself evidence for large-scale cooperation, at Göbekli Tepe (~9600 BC).

About 401 generations since the earliest known calendar, a series of pits arranged to track the lunar months and seasons, was dug in Northern Britain (~8000 BC).

About 321 generations since the discovery of copper smelting was fully harnessed in Mesopotamia (~6000–5000 BC).

About 301 generations since the earliest evidence of sailing ships in Mesopotamia (~5500 BC).

About 221 generations since the earliest evidence of the invention of the wheel in Uruk, Mesopotamia (~3500 BC).

About 217 generations since the invention of writing in Mesopotamia (~3400 BC).

About 165 generations since the inscribing of the earliest copy of the oldest known law code - the Code of Ur-Nammu, in Nippur, Mesopotamia (~2100-2050 BC).

About 141 generations since the first known phonetic alphabet was developed by the Phoenicians, on the coasts of the Fertile Crescent (~1500 BC).

About 105 generations since the earliest evidence of a standardized, state-backed 'true' currency in Lydia, an Iron Age kingdom in Asia Minor (~600 BC).

About 89 generations since the earliest documented use of a compass in Han Dynasty China (~200 BC).

About 80 generations since the invention of the first true papermaking process in Han Dynasty China (25–220 AD).

About 49 generations since a formulation for weaponized gunpowder in Tang Dynasty China (808 AD).

About 30 generations since the first mechanical clocks in Italy and England (~1277–1286 AD).

About 23 generations since the invention of the printing press in Mainz, of the Holy Roman Empire (1440 AD).

About 10 generations since the development of the modern steam engine in Glasgow and Birmingham, of the Kingdom of Great Britain (1776 AD).

About 6 generations since the development of the modern internal combustion engine in Deutz, Germany (1876 AD) and the lightbulb in Menlo Park, New Jersey, USA (1879 AD).

About 4 generations since the discovery of antibiotics in London, of the United Kingdom (1928 AD).

About 3 generations since the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin, Germany (1938 AD), since the launch of the first space-faring rocket in Germany(1944 AD), and since the development of the first digital computer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (1945 AD).

About 2 generations since humans first explored space (~1960 AD) and since the development of ARPANET under the USA, the earliest form of the internet (1969 AD).

About 1 generation since the development of the World Wide Web (1991 AD) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Writing

A 'true' writing system satisfies three criteria.

1. It communicates meaning.
2. It uses agreed-upon symbols which can be recorded on some medium and has rules for how to use them.
3. Generally, it corresponds to a spoken language.

These criteria distinguish writing from symbolic communication - signage, painting, maps, mathematics.

Four independent inventions of writing are most commonly recognized:

In Mesopotamia, around 3400–3100 BC. The Sumerians developed cuneiform script.
In Egypt, by approximately 3250 BC. The Egyptians created hieroglyphic writing, a system of pictorial symbols representing sounds and concepts.
In China, before 1250 BC. The earliest Chinese writing appeared on oracle bones, used for divination during the Shang dynasty.
In Mesoamerica, prior to 1AD. Civilizations such as the Olmecs and later the Maya developed unique writing systems, with the Maya script being the most fully developed.

An ancient Sumerian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing:

Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay.

'Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta' (c. 1800 BC)

Perspective

Let’s assume that true writing was created around the earliest estimate, the year 3400 BC. That’s 5425 years ago.

There have been...

About 217 generations since the earliest invention of writing in Mesopotamia. The earliest existing physical pieces of writing were used for economic record-keeping.

About 185 generations since the earliest copies of The Instructions of Shuruppak - moral and practical wisdom attributed to a Sumerian king - and the Kesh Temple Hymn, also the 'Liturgy to Nintud on the creation of man and woman' (~2600 BC). They are the earliest existing pieces of literature.

About 177 generations since the earliest known inscriptions of The Pyramid Texts (~2400 BC), the ancient Egyptian texts inscribed to guide pharaohs in the afterlife.

About 165 generations since the earliest written copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh (~2100 BC), also known as Surpassing All Other Kings or He Who Sees the Deep/Unknown.

About 165 generations since the inscribing of the earliest copy of the oldest known law code - the Code of Ur-Nammu, in Nippur, Mesopotamia (~2100-2050 BC).

About 151 generations since the composition of the Code of Hammurabi, the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East (~1754 BC).

About 143 generations since the traditional dating of The Book of the Dead (~1550 BC), a series of spells and instructions used in Ancient Egypt to guide souls through the afterlife.

About 141 generations since the earliest estimates for the writing-down (~1500–1000 BC) of the oldest sections of the 'Old Testament' or 'Tanakh': the first five books—the Torah—and the Book of Job.

About 141 generations since the compilation of The Rigveda (~1500 BC), a foundational text of Hinduism.

About 129 generations since the earliest portions of The Avesta (~1200 BC), the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism.

About 125 generations since the estimated writing of The Enuma Elish (~1100 BC), the Babylonian creation myth detailing the origins of the world and the gods.

About 113 generations since The Iliad and The Odyssey (~800 - 700 BC), attributed to Homer, were composed. The earliest surviving written copies are from the 3rd century BC.

About 100 generations since earliest start to the estimated period of composition of The Analects, a collection of sayings attributed to Confucius (~475–200 BC).

About 77 generations since the completion of the Book of Revelation (~95-100 AD), the newest text of the New Testament.

About 56 generations since final standardized compilation of the Quran (650 AD).

About 13 generations since the Guru Granth Sahib - the Sikh holy book - was finalized and declared the eternal Guru of the Sikhs (1708 AD).

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This summer, while my colleagues basked in the record-breaking European heatwave, I immersed myself in the cool confines of the university library. Fresh from a lab project, I had secured funding to study "Hot Flows in Post-Flare Loops of X-Class Solar Flares". Despite the intricate technicalities, the experience was deeply satisfying. Yet, a nagging sense that something was missing persisted.

In my quest for clarity, I stumbled upon the concept of Ego Alignment, which struck a chord. Ego Alignment refers to a balance between one’s actions, values, and sense of self. It suggests that true authenticity and fulfillment arise when our behavior and choices align with our core beliefs and identity. Reflecting on my journey, I realized that my personal values and ambitions needed to be more closely aligned with my scientific work—particularly my deep-seated belief in the importance of personal autonomy.

Curt Mecadante outlines four stages of Ego Alignment (source). Here’s how my experience aligns with these stages:

Phase One: Unconscious Victimhood

Initially, I was unaware of the clash between my strong desire for autonomy and the inherently collaborative nature of academic research. My sense of dissatisfaction grew, especially as I struggled to keep pace with leading experts in solar flare research while still an undergraduate. My focus was on the technical aspects of ‘Post-Flare Loops’: studying how material that condenses from the Sun’s corona becomes magnetically confined in these loops and cools significantly more than the surrounding corona. It wasn’t until later that I recognized the underlying conflict between my personal values and the collaborative demands of academia.

Phase Two: Conscious Victimhood

As I delved deeper into my research, I became aware of the tension between my independent streak and the necessity for collaboration. I discovered the need for support from various experts, whether for troubleshooting satellite equipment or resolving coding issues. This awareness emerged as I faced challenges, such as addressing unexpected parabolic dips in my data due to variations caused by daily cycles (which I initially mistook for errors) and navigating the subtleties of team-based research. Despite significant funding and a growing realization of these issues, I struggled with the lack of autonomy, leaving me feeling like an imposter.

Phase Three: Conscious Alignment

Upon discovering Ego Alignment, I began actively working to resolve this conflict. I sought to harmonize my need for autonomy with the collaborative reality of research. I started seeking help more proactively, without waiting for my supervisor’s prompts. For instance, when I identified a miscalibration in the EVE instrument on the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. I adopted a more mindful approach to aligning my actions with my scientific goals. This proactive adjustment was a significant step towards reconciling my values with my work.

Phase Four: Unconscious Alignment

I am still progressing towards this stage. While I often grapple with feelings of imposter syndrome among established academics and still need to overcome my pride when seeking assistance, I am making strides. My ongoing efforts, including writing this blog post, reflect my journey towards a deeper sense of fulfillment and alignment. The project, funded by the University of Glasgow’s School of Physics and Astronomy and the Royal Astronomical Society continues to be a source of fascination and growth as I explore whether the fast flows seen in active solar region loops are also present in post-flare loops.

You may find yourself grappling with conflicts between your values and professional expectations. I encourage you to recognise that the journey towards Ego Alignment is long and challenging, but it ultimately leads to a greater sense of profound academic achievement. Research often follows a winding path, with goals obscured by broken code and faulty equipment. By aligning your personal values with your research, the path becomes clearer, and you may discover the fulfillment you seek.

The image shows the ‘Post-Flare Loops’ that I am investigating, specifically the loops following the X1.63 flare on August 5, 2023. The material that condenses out of the Sun’s corona and flows down the loops to the Sun’s surface becomes magnetically confined by these loops. This isolation allows the material to cool down much further than the material in the hot corona.

Daniel Keane is a penultimate year Physics with Astrophysics MSci student at the University of Glasgow.

📩 Contact Daniel Keane:
https://tela.app/id/daniel_keane/7769b2

This article was originally published on 'Keane's Corner' in July 2024. (source)

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🚀 Book a paid consultation @ Tela Consulting:
http://telaconsulting.pro

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🤝 Add Guillermo Pablos Murphy on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/guillermo-pablos-murphy

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

📺 Watch a version of this article on YouTube:

"... Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

In Scene Four of the First Act of Hamlet, the young prince is waiting for a ghost.

In the distance, there are the sounds of a drunken party, a party his uncle, King Claudius, is hosting. The same uncle who took the crown of Denmark and married the queen after her husband, the previous King, Hamlet’s father, died.

HAMLET

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

In this scene, Hamlet mourns for the present reputation of his father’s kingdom. He resents Denmark’s current standing among other nations. They think of his father’s kingdom as a nation of drunken pigs.

HAMLET

[…] This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition. And, indeed, it takes

He resents how its current squalid state undermines its noble foundations. Hamlet reflects on how an individual’s flaw, like excessive drinking, can overshadow all other virtues, and how a King’s indulgence overshadows the dignity of the kingdom.

HAMLET

So oft it chances in particular men
That for a vicious mole of nature in them, […]
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault.

He also bitterly acknowledges that, historically, indulgence in these flaws is the norm. Honour is found in breaking with that norm.

HORATIO

Is it a custom?

HAMLET

Ay, marry, is ’t,
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.

On this cold night, while others drink away his nation’s reputation, he is waiting to speak to the ghost of his father. Hamlet is looking for guidance. But this just about seeking his father; it’s also about reconnecting with a time of honour and stability. The ghost embodies a noble past, distant from Claudius’ incestuous and decaying rule. Hamlet longs to return to a time of greatness, before the current corruption set in.

The ghost is an idealized past where the kingdom’s values aligned with the king’s virtues. Hamlet’s yearning mirrors a broader societal feeling of disillusionment—a sense that the current age has lost the integrity and values of earlier times. This might be delusional, but Hamlet feels this, and must wrestle with it. And when Hamlet meets the ghost, he asks:

HAMLET

[…] Wherefore? What should we do?

The ghostly King won’t speak to him; it instead beckons him to follow. And Hamlet does.

HAMLET

It will not speak; then I will follow it.

In many ways, we are Hamlet. Standing in the cold night, we stare into the dark and wait for a ghost to guide us forward; hearing the shouts of a decaying civilization.

I understand the temptation for carelessness and the unconscious indulgence in the face of dissatisfaction. It is not pleasurable to be conscious in a time of strife. And people take what they can get to try to keep themselves afloat.. Being conscious in a time of corruption can be maddening. You feel the ‘perverseness’ in the pressures of the present and, trying to find a way out, can feel very lonely. The world feels corrupt, so distant from what it feels like it could be.

The past is part of us. In Hamlet, the ghost is the past coming to demand retribution, calling until it find someone who can listen and act. Hamlet willingly engages with the ghost. He wants to confront his time with legitimacy. He wants to restore the moral order that has been disrupted. He rejects the corrupt present and tries to hold onto the ideals of the past. Hamlet mirrors a broader human experience: the yearning for a better past in the face of the present.

And yet, there is no going back. We must recognise that pretending otherwise is another vice. To wallow in nostalgia is no different from giving oneself up to the chemical and physical vices. I understand why we do it. Looking forward is difficult. It involves making the past part of you – yes, in all its nostalgic glory, but also in its deep, deep horror. It is taking responsibility for fixing the present, acknowledging that it is yours to carry forward.

Look to the past but make no mistake: The past is a ghost. In that sense, beware the ghost that seeks revenge. Beware a past that will drag you to Hades with it. Speak to ghosts, but don’t follow them.

We live in the time we live in. Chasing the past only leads us backwards. We have the present to do what must be done to reach something better. Walk in the present – you are of your time – but walk forward.

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🌐 Consult with Tela Network's experts:
telaconsulting.pro

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🤝 Add Guillermo Pablos Murphy on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/guillermo-pablos-murphy

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

Sometime in October 2024, I sat down for a conversation with Daniel Muggeridge in Melbourne, Australia to discuss Tela and ask for his advice on growing a tech start-up.

This article contains my notes from our conversation.

Much of Daniel's career has been in consulting, frequently solving business problems with IT-flavored solutions.

Daniel Muggeridge's present roles include:

• CEO at OpenRoad - a digital records and data company for the environmental service industry.
• Founder at 22 Corporate Advisory - a consulting firm specializing in business and financial instrument valuations, transaction advisory services, and restructuring advisory services.
• Co-Founder and Board Director at Oho - an award-winning social enterprise that helps organizations strengthen child safety and risk management practices by automating the revalidation of Working with Children Checks and other safeguarding accreditations.

Daniel's website: https://muggeridge.au/

The first four sections include Daniel Muggeridge's general advice and insights regarding start-ups.

The final section is Daniel's thoughts on Tela.

Advice and Insights

Early Funding and Growth

Business start-ups get their initial cashflow from the ‘Three Fs’ – Friends, Family, and Fools.

This early funding allows them to get a product to market, generate revenue, and grow a client-base.

The ‘Three Fs’ also inform a start-up's early growth – ‘Who can you reach relationally?’

A start-up usually - but not necessarily - has a chosen geographic area. Once sufficiently (/minimally) established, a start-up’s question is: ‘What (/Who) can we reach quickly?’

To which there are two answers:
1.      Upscale to a bigger geographic area
2.      Upgrade functionality in established geography

A growth strategy usually pursues both answers.

Founders

A team of founders in a start-up should be clear on what they want - Exit / Lifelong Ownership / Investors - and on how equity will be distributed among them.

Investors

A start-up will eventually need investors. At which point, the business will be asked:

‘How big is the market?’
‘What is your revenue like?’
‘What is your growth of clients like?’

The first of these questions is the most important, and to have an answer you need to know these terms:

Total Addressable Market (TAM) = Overall revenue opportunity that is available if 100% market share is achieved.
Serviceable Available Market (SAM) = Portion of the TAM that can be realistically targeted.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) = Portion of the SAM that can be realistically captured within a timeframe.

Creating Value

"Forget making money. Make value!"

Making money is tomorrow’s problem. If you’re creating clients, money will follow.
Investors will give you time to monetize your work if you have client growth.

A tech start-up is about multiples of revenue, not multiples of profit (as in a non-tech start-up). A tech start-up is about exponential growth – ‘Will it scale to infinity?’

Thoughts on Tela

Tela's mission is to protect your attention online.

This is a good flag to rally around, but the path to achieve that mission may not be the one Tela is currently pursuing.

Tela’s current path: Charge for your attention.

The logic behind this tactic is that online attention is currently treated as if it has zero value. By creating a system that charges a message sender to contact you, we price your attention, which simulates value.

An economy works through signals. A price on attention can create economic behavior that simulates value. Your attention can then be treated as if it has value.

Red flags:

• There is low user growth.
• We do not know what our market is.

Advice

Stay with the problem. Try cheap, different options.

We need to be 'stratactical' (Strategy + Tactics):
Low-cost probes into new directions and quick learning.

Pursue short cycles of innovation, of cheap investment, and show bravery in shifting out tactics.

A question for Tela is “What are the commercial elements around it?”

Look at Tela from other people’s shoes – it is a two-sided market.

Learn what works in pursuing this mission.

Story of the experienced gardener:

An inexperienced gardener will create a garden and lay down paths for visitors to enjoy it. An experienced gardener will create a garden, allow visitors to make their way around the garden, and lay the paths along the routes those visitors unconsciously took.

Tela is looking to change human behavior – 'What will cause people to act as if they value attention?' We should consider bringing a psychologist on our team, with equity, to help us consider the question of 'What will change behavior in this way if not money?'

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🌐 Consult with Tela Network's experts:
telaconsulting.pro

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🤝 Add Guillermo Pablos Murphy on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/guillermo-pablos-murphy

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

📺 Watch a version of this article on YouTube:

[...]
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
 And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
 Those people were a kind of solution.

                 C. P. Cavafy, Nov. 1898

- - -

The barbarians are already here.

Trump wins. It is challenged in the courts. There are riots. It doesn’t matter.

Or, Harris wins. It is challenged in the courts. There are riots. It doesn’t matter.

Neither result will save the USA from failing.

Citizens of the United States cannot secure their futures. The US state, in the 'deep' sense that some people wave to abstractly, secures a future for its own. Its own people do not include the average family, child, or young adult. People in the US and its client states are sown with debt and reaped for their rent and taxes. Their savings go into stocks or mortgages and their pay comes in ever-inflating currency. The US and its clients are a company town, and we are all company workers. The state becomes a fief and work becomes serfdom.

Look at the MAGA slogans: Kennedy’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’. Musk’s ‘Make America Efficient Again’?! Trump’s party may have recognized that ‘America’ is failing, but they won’t change it. They have drunk the (red-white-and-blue) Kool-Aid of “Get out and vote!”. It won’t matter. Not to the people that want change.

Look at the Harris camp. By refusing to campaign on policy (or even personality), she has inadvertently let slip the truth: Presidential races don’t matter. No choice at the US election will have meaningful impact on people’s lives. The event itself will have an impact – and a pretty strong one if it isn’t just rioting – but not the nominee that ends up ‘winning’ this popularity contest.

The mania around this election, and the previous two, is projection. We have seen three “This-is-the-most-important-election-of-our-lives” contests in as many election cycles. Sure, the heat might have built up a bit more, but the actual stakes, the actual consequences of the result, don't match the fervor. Voters want their choice to matter. Nominees want their election to matter. Both parties can detect that it doesn’t. “Maybe if I really, REALLY, want it!” They silently bounce their anxieties back and forth between each other and build up a cloud of frustration and rage. It matters to them. They want it to matter, and they might make it matter. Expect violence.

The barbarians have been inside the gates for some time.

The US is not run by a president. It is run by Congress. If the electorate voted-in a President who was not of the two parties, that person would have no meaningful power to govern. The once-executive is a creature of the once-legislative and now administrative branch. The President is the pet of Congress. Congress administers the US state and Congress is captured. The re-election rate is 95% for the House of Representatives and 90% for the Senate. It’s been the same Congress for decades. When was the last time the President mattered? Look past the media, what did the executive actually change about the US in the last three administrations?

Politics is medicine on a larger scale. A state is always tempted towards power. Leviathan always gorges. The political process is a tool for healing, maintaining, or ‘renewing’ the state when required and where it’s needed. If the political process does not allow for these functions, then it is a captured state. Couple that with a religion-less society, and nothing can be built to replace the captured state. We don’t build cathedrals or communities. We don’t build guilds or factories. We build stadiums and Amazon Fulfilment Centers - the coliseum and the grain dole.

We are waiting for the barbarians to do with us what they will.

Post-election, expect popular frustration. Expect violence. The barbarians are here, and elections won’t kick them out.

Politics is not waiting for the barbarians to do it for you. Learn to and prepare to build once, like the poem said, “there are no barbarians any longer”.

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

🤝 An introduction is one of the most valuable things that someone can offer you.

It can lead to a job, a client, an investor, a friendship, a contract.

But: We're all operating within a cloud of noise.

🔹 Any professional that you might want to contact is dealing with lots of messages and notifications.

👉 Making contact with them through a personal connection is a powerful way to get a signal through that noise.

The high value of personal connections is why we believe that open, visible networks are the future of business.

Tela Network is one of these new business networks.

We're happy to make an introduction for you, but we're putting our name behind you, so we need some reputational currency in return.

🔥 Introductions are business transactions.

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

Here's what you need to do:

1. Create a Tela account.

Go to the app and click "Sign up":
https://tela.app

👉 How to use Tela:
https://telablog.com/how-to-use-tela

2. Contact us on Tela.

📩 Contact StJohn Piano here:
tela.app/id/stjohn_piano/7c51a6

Tell us who you are, who you'd like to be introduced to, and what you'd like us to say.

Please also tell us if we should introduce you as a professional or as a business.

We'll choose someone to reach out on your behalf, and we'll send you proof-of-contact (e.g. a screenshot).

We can also make cold introductions to someone new. We will introduce both Tela Network and you.

3. Send us your name, your LinkedIn profile, and your Tela contact link.

How to create a Tela contact link:
https://telablog.com/how-to-create-a-tela-contact-link

Additionally, send us anything else that you think is relevant.

Examples: Github, a business website, Instagram, links to podcast videos, project demos, articles, photos of yourself, etc.

That's it ! You're done.

Further steps that we will take:

4a) If you're a professional, we'll create a Tela Consultant page for you.

4b) If you have a business, we'll create a Tela Partner page for you.

This makes you available for paid micro-consulting through Tela.

We'll use the material that you have sent us.

We'll promote your page on LinkedIn and other social media.

Example Tela Consultant page:

StJohn Piano

CTO @ Solidi Cryptocurrency Exchange | CMO @ Tela Network | Blockchain Consultant

Tela BlogStJohn Piano

List of all Tela Consultant pages:

Consulting - Tela Blog

Get advice and guidance from Tela Network

Tela BlogStJohn Piano

Example Tela Partner page:

Matthias Isler, Fractional CTO

“As an entrepreneur, your most valuable resource is often time.”

Tela BlogNicholas Piano

List of all Tela Partner pages:

Partners - Tela Blog

Businesses, ventures, and content creators.

Tela BlogJohn Underwood

👉 How to use Tela:
https://telablog.com/how-to-use-tela

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact StJohn Piano:
tela.app/id/stjohn_piano/7c51a6

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

💎 Check out the Tela Referral Program:
telablog.com/tela-referral-program

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🤝 Add Guillermo Pablos Murphy on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/guillermo-pablos-murphy

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

I recently commissioned the musician FractalNotes to compose some background music for the Tela Network Podcast. I was very pleased with the process and the result of his work.

This article outlines that process.

🎼 If you wish to commission music from FractalNotes - please contact him on Tela:
https://www.tela.app/id/fractal_notes

Contact

I contacted FractalNotes to see if he would be interested in working on some background music for my network's podcast. He agreed to have a meeting using Riverside.fm to discuss the details.

You can watch/listen to a recording of that meeting here (in Spanish):

Order Details

Order requests that were discussed in the video meeting above.

• Background music
  🡢 Style: Calm, peaceful, reassuring.
  🡢 Must be 'loopable'.
• Introductory 'jingle'
  🡢 Must match background music - seamless transition from jingle to music.
• Deliver 'sketches' to show possible directions music could take. Integrate feedback. Get approval before mastering the audio.
• Master audio.
• Deliver files for the jingle and background music.

Delivery Agreement

• We set a price for commission. This includes the delivery of sketches, integration of feedback, and minor revisions.
• We set an additional fee per major revision. (Changes of direction late into composition or major reworks)
• We set a price for audio mastering.

Result

• FractalNotes delivered three 'sketches'. Each had variations on the jingle and the background music. I selected the aspects I liked most and expressed what I wanted to see changed in the compositions.
• FractalNotes delivered a version that incorporated my feedback. I requested a few changes and gave the ‘go-ahead’ to move into mastering the composition.
• FractalNotes delivered the mastered pieces in five files:

1. Introductory jingle
2. Background music track 1
3. Background music track 2
4. Background music track 1 and 2
5. Ending jingle (variation on 1)

Note: Background music tracks flow relatively smoothly from the 'Introductory jingle', between each other, and to the 'Ending jingle'.

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
youtube.com/@TelaNetworkPodcast

☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
t.me/tela_social

📸 Follow Tela Network on Instagram:
instagram.com/tela_updates

💹 Invest in Tela:
tela.network/invest

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy on Tela:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

🤝 Add Guillermo Pablos Murphy on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/guillermo-pablos-murphy

🌎 How to join Tela Network:
tela.network/join

Tela Network is organizing the inaugural issue of a new publication: CATALYST.

This article is an outline of the plan for CATALYST's first issue.

Announcement Carousel:

UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION:

📣 Join the CATALYST Announcements channel on Telegram: https://t.me/+Axr8VcYgUIAyOTNk

📬 Follow the CATALYST Updates Substack:
https://catalystupdates.substack.com/

💼 Tag the CATALYST LinkedIn page on your posts:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/readcatalyst

Aim

Publish a collection of articles under the name 'CATALYST', written by external contributors tackling the question 'What is to be done?'

Intended Outcomes

• Publish the 'CATALYST' online with insightful and actionable material. Create a printed edition.
• The 'CATALYST' conference.
• Create a network of future leaders with a platform and common reference point.

Mission

CATALYST is an online, in-print, and in-person platform for change.

CATALYST exists to tackle the 21st century crisis.

CATALYST exists to point the way.

CATALYST will platform action, reflection, and reinvention.

CATALYST will live as a manual of resistance, a mirror of princes, and a didache.

CATALYST exists to create a collaborative network of agents of change, leaders, and thinkers.

Invitation

You have been invited to be a part of CATALYST's inaugural issue.

We believe your thoughts on the question ‘What is to be done?' are valuable and should be broadcasted on our platform.

We live in a world facing multiple crises. Your area of expertise has not escaped that. We believe we should challenge the crises of our time and create a better world to live in.

The inaugural issue will contain insights into the crises of our era and actionable conclusions to the question What is to be done? as it pertains to each author’s area of expertise.

All authors are invited to propose an article for CATALYST .

A proposal can look something like this:

1. Crisis - point out a problem you care about. The issue you would be providing insight into and proposing actionable solutions to.
2. Importance - mention why tackling this crisis is so important. What could solving it mean?
3. (Optional) Solution - your conclusion to the question: 'What is to be done?'. Catalyst exists as an opportunity to platform your actionable proposals for tackling the crises of our era, but it is also an opportunity to explore a crisis for insights into the nature of the problem. To search for solutions we do not yet know.
   If there is an issue you are deeply concerned about and wish to write about in search of answers, please do not feel you must know the answer to a question you haven't explored yet. Submit your proposal with just steps 1 and 2.

Proposals do not need to reflect the final content of the article. True writing is exploratory.

Proposals allow the authors to draft ideas and receive feedback. They also allow the editors to make choices on whether to commission an article for publication.

Standard articles in CATALYST will run from 800 to 1200 words.
Feature articles will run from 1500 to 3000 words.

  Example Proposal

Generative-AI has permitted the mass-creation of spam online. Fake users, fake news, fake offers, fake information is more convincing and more prolific than ever. The internet can be incredible source of knowledge and life-changing connection to like minds, but that possibility is being drowned by ever-increasing noise. Online platforms may be able to create spaces for genuine connection and collaboration, but doing so will require a combination of hard prohibitions on toxic behaviors and soft 'nudges' to foment healthy ones. I want to explore how a combination of AI filters, reputation ratings, digital signatures, and limiting qualitative interactions might mix to be the soft 'nudge' that foments healthy online behavior.

Offering

Tela Network will publish your article as part of the CATALYST's inaugural issue on TelaBlog.

Each digital article will include the author’s Tela link to facilitate paid inquiries and consultations.

The article will also appear in a limited run of paper copies of the CATALYST.

Your writing will receive attentive editing from Ryan E. Mag Uiginn - Editor-in-Chief at The Carriage Media - and Guillermo Pablos Murphy - CCO at Tela Network and Editor of Telablog.

You will be invited to record a version of your article which will be broadcast on the Tela Network Podcast. You will receive support in adapting your article for video and have access to the Tela Network studio to record it.

Human-made art will be commissioned for the issue's feature articles and cover.

You will be invited to attend the in-person CATALYST Conference as a speaker. Industry and thought leaders will be invited to attend the talks and connect with the participating speakers. The conference will be held in Valencia, Spain after the release of the issue.

Tela Network will broadcast your published article, podcast episode, and conference attendance on its socials.

How to Submit Your Proposal

Email your proposal to guillermo@tela.app.
Include your name and 'CATALYST Proposal' in the subject line. (E.g., Guillermo Pablos Murphy - CATALYST Proposal)

Contingency

Getting the attention of people deserving a platform like CATALYST will not be easy.

If CATALYST cannot publish its issue with pieces by distinct authors, Guillermo Pablos Murphy will compile insights and actionable conclusions to 'What is to be done?' from other authors into a series of articles according to the crises they address.

The authors of the insights and conclusions will be invited to attend the conference, where they can expand on their contributions.

CATALYST will exist, regardless of whether it is drowned out in the Internet of Noise.

📩 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about CATALYST - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy here: guillermo@tela.app

For other inquiries or to book a consultation - please contact the editors on Tela:

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'The Calling of Saint Matthew' is an oil painting by Caravaggio that depicts Jesus Christ calling on the tax collector Matthew to follow him.

It’s a moment found in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 9: Verse 9. It goes:

Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, "Follow me", and Matthew rose and followed Him.

In his painting, Caravaggio depicts five men at a table, one of them being Matthew. Two figures, Jesus Christ and Saint Peter have entered the room from the right of the frame, and Jesus is pointing at Matthew. A beam of light illuminates the faces of those men looking at Jesus. This moment of spiritual awakening and conversion was a common theme among Baroque artists, especially in Caravaggio's work. The stark light – chiaroscuro, meaning ‘light and dark’ – is an iconic feature of Caravaggio’s paintings. Here the light symbolizes Matthew’s destiny beckoning him away from his dark present.

I want to focus on the most mysterious aspect of this painting: “Which of the figures is Matthew?”

There is debate over which of the five men at the table is Matthew, as the surprised gesture of the bearded man at the table can be read in two ways.

Most writers on the 'Calling' assume Matthew to be the bearded man, and see him to be pointing at himself, as if to ask "Me?" in response to Christ's summons. This theory is strengthened when one takes into consideration the other two works in this series, 'The Inspiration of Saint Matthew', and 'The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew' – these three paintings were part of the same commission. The bearded man appears in all three works, with him unequivocally playing the role of Matthew in both the 'Inspiration' and the 'Martyrdom'.

A more recent interpretation proposes that the bearded man is in fact pointing at the young man at the end of the table. In this reading, the bearded man is asking "Him?" in response to Christ's summons, and the painting is depicting the moment immediately before a young Matthew raises his head to see Christ. Other writers describe the painting as deliberately ambiguous.

For my part, I think it’s both.

I read the youth in the painting as Matthew. A young man consumed by the rigour of mindless work. Consider the figure’s pose – he’s hunched over the table at the edge of his seat, flicking through coins, one hand crossed over his chest fidgeting with his shirt, his eyes downcast, shadowed by a well-kept fringe, and hidden from the light of Christ. He’s bored, full of pent-up energy. I can almost hear the quick tapping of his heel on the floor beneath the table. He is a youth doomed to frustrated potential. We can easily envision the future of this life: It lies just behind his left shoulder. An old man in expensive clothes and well-kept facial hair, peering downwards through a pair of spectacles to better see the coins he has been counting for decades. Blind to the divine calling before him. Young Matthew is caged: See his folded arms, how he’s bent over in resignation and how the prison-like bars of his chair imitate that pose, and the man – his doom - leaning down over his shoulder. Young Matthew is a trapped and lonely figure resigned to his fate. A young Jew, counting taxes his people paid to a Roman governor. Bored, caged, trapped, and I’m sure, shunned.

Yet, I also read the bearded man as Matthew, specifically the Matthew of Caravaggio’s other paintings – the 'Inspiration' and 'Martyrdom'. This older Matthew is grown after decades of serving his destiny and looks back at his younger self in the moment just after he receives Christ’s summons. The moment just before his younger self raises his head and follows. I think it's “Him?” and “Me?”. Matthew is pointing back at who he was before and who he could’ve become if he had never followed that call and is looking forward at the light and He that called him.

We see a man recalling the moment he was called forward by destiny. The man considers who he was, a boy lost, consumed by the greed of an alien system, alone. In the older Matthew’s questioning gesture, we see how he still harbours disbelief at his destiny. We can imagine him whisper: “How could this lost youth be called by one such as you?”

Perhaps this is what the martyred Matthew, one hand raised towards sainthood and the angel that offers it, is reaching out towards with his other hand. Reaching back into memory, he holds out for his younger self. That young man; caged with his arms crossed, cold and shadowed from the light of Christ is now grown, and now faces death with open arms. One hand towards God and one hand towards his youth.

There is wonder and the terrible purpose in Caravaggio’s masterpiece painting and the other two that followed it. Yet, I glimpse hope for us toiling away at a wealth-less present. Hope for us awaiting a call.

📩 If you have any questions about Tela Network - please contact Guillermo Pablos Murphy:
tela.app/id/guillermo_pablos_murphy/621afa

☕️ Subscribe to the Tela Network Podcast:
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☕️ Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/tela-network

☕️ Follow Tela Network on Twitter:
twitter.com/tela_updates

🔔 Join the Tela Social channel on Telegram to get every new update:
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