Why Feminine Energy + Cryptocurrency Can Transcend What’s Broken About Capitalism
A Theory of Why The Current System is Failing Us + A Feminine Path to Economic Abundance
Author and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff shares an idea I find interesting in this Quartz article, the foundation of which underpins much of his recent work:
“Technology is not driving itself…Rather, there is a market expressing itself through technology — an operating system beneath our various computer interfaces and platforms that is often unrecognized by the developers themselves.
This operating system is called capitalism, and it drives the antihuman agenda in our society at least as much as any technology.”
As the female founder of Seeds, a social good cryptocurrency tech startup, and a former futures and equities trader, I quite agree. I’ve experienced shit tons of antihuman sentiment, in the form of misogyny, in both the tech and finance sectors.
But based on my experience in these industries, as well as on revelations that have come to me in long hours spent practicing Vipassana meditation, I believe that Rushkoff’s theory can be extended.
As tech fails us because its OS is capitalism, I believe that capitalism is failing us because its OS is patriarchy. And this foundation is hurting us all.
But what *is* patriarchy?
The working definition I find most useful is as follows: Patriarchy is a social system that trains humans to undervalue feminine energy, and overvalue masculine energy, in themselves, in other people, and in everything humans who have not healed this have created to date. Patriarchy enables all forms of manufactured hierarchy, and is the springboard to all manner of othering, to all methods of discrimination.
Humans of all genders have both masculine and feminine energy, and every human on earth is currently living within a patriarchal social system.
But what exactly are feminine and masculine energies? In his book, The Trauma of Everyday Life, Harvard-educated psychiatrist and decades-long meditation practitioner Mark Epstein calls the Divine Masculine — the masculine in its healthiest form — the “doing energy,” and the Divine Feminine the “being energy.”
To our great detriment, patriarchal conditioning has taught us to overly emphasize the“doing,” and this is especially true in the West. How many of us have been conditioned to feel guilty about “not being more productive?” How little space has this system allowed us to practice “the being” — receiving via modes like meditation — as often as we’re engaging in “the doing?” The balance for most of us is enormously skewed in the masculine direction.
What’s more, the current design of the tech products we engage with near-constantly has us focused on the external, on image and striving — other manifestations of the unhealthy masculine. Work culture within the current capitalistic framework is similarly engineered, leaving us feeling the need to inauthentically appear “busy” all the time, using substances to prop ourselves up or bring ourselves down so we can feel some relief. Wounding us.
To be clear, this is not intended to be an indictment of late-stage capitalism. After all, the OS of communism is also patriarchy. Rather, this is a call to every human to reflect on the masculine and feminine energy balance within ourselves — and to then take steps to bring this balance to wholeness internally, on an individual basis, and by extension to the systems that comprise our outer world.
Seeds as a Tool of Abundance: Powered by the Feminine + Cryptocurrency
To that end, I offer you Seeds.
When I was a stock trader, I was struck by the manufactured, zero-sum, extractive construct of that industry. When I made $1, it meant that someone else had to lose that same $1. This stupid design perpetuated the falsity that in order for one person to “win,” another person must “lose.”
Later on, I came to understand that this was the very nature of patriarchy, because it embodies a scarcity ethos. Patriarchy pits us against one another because it tricks us into believing that there’s isn’t enough for all of us.
But here’s the thing about money: it isn’t scarce. There is an abundance of it everywhere, flowing all around us. It’s just that the patriarchal gatekeepers have built dumb barriers, blocking the flow of money in all manner of unnecessary, poorly conceived ways.
At Seeds, I believe we have created a new economic system — powered by cryptocurrency — that transcends this scarcity paradigm, building abundance for all involved.
Here’s how:
Anyone can redeem a Seeds token to ask for monetary help, and receive it as a gift from our community, with no strings attached. One Seeds token = One Request for Help.
The Requests for Help are shown through mobile, web, and Smart TV app partners that have integrated our free front-end tools, as well as via our own platform. Turns out, making it easy to give $1 to someone in need via an app you’re already using is the most effective payer conversion method in existence, so apps can see a boost in revenue of up to 30% from this tool. Seeds also receives a portion, and when fully sourced, the funds are then gifted to the requester.
Thus, instead of a system of winner-take-all, we’ve created a paragon of win-win-win.
If you’re interested in giving Seeds a try, visit our website and Pay What You Can for 25 tokens — even $0 — and half of what you spend will go to people in need.
You can then redeem a Seeds token via our Ask For Help form, which takes just a few minutes to fill out. When you redeem a Seeds token, your request is then activated and can begin garnering contributions automatically… with no further, patriarchy-style hustling from you.
You can also give directly to someone who has redeemed a Seeds token to make a Request for Help here. For gifts given in ETH, we’ll send you Seeds tokens in thanks.
To date, the largest Request for Help that has been granted was for $2200. In the future, we have dreams of folks using Seeds tokens to pay for, say, 6 months of living expenses so that they can quit working jobs that they hate, and focus on self-healing. We want filmmakers, artists, and startup founders to utilize Seeds tokens to source capital, so that they don’t have to waste precious time and energy banging on patriarchal dams that have stopped the money flow.
What if you could use Seeds tokens to pay for your dream home? What if money was no longer a scarce asset — for anyone — because we abandoned the old ways for a transcendent system that created a bigger pie for all?
It should be said that there are no guarantees. Once you’ve submitted a Request for Help, it is up to our community to decide whether or not it resonates with them, and in turn give. But we believe the sky is the limit when we’re working together to care for one another in a structured, well-thought-out way.
After all, that is the very embodiment of a healthy balance of the Divine Masculine + Feminine.
If you’d like to learn more about cryptocurrency and its relationship to the Divine Feminine before diving in, we’re offering a course in January of 2020! You can claim a pre-sale discounted rate of over 50% off when you register here today. Your purchase will include $100 worth of Seeds tokens — and we’ll teach you how to use them!
