Tear Down the (pay)Wall!

embodying new/ancient visions of reciprocity

Apr 24, 2025

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“Generosity” painting by Jennifer Master

Dear friends.

I recently began an online course with the Global Eco-village Network. In the class we are exploring what it means to be resilient. I assume we all can agree that the path modernity has us racing along is heading towards some seriously challenging terrain. And if we are going to be able to survive what’s coming we will need to learn what resilience means on a deep level, from myriad angles.

It’s got me thinking about far more than climate change and A.I. As we have discussed here many times before, everything spills over on everything else. All is connected to all. Nothing can ultimately be compartmentalized. We inter-are. So, as I ponder what shape resiliency ought take as we awkwardly trek through the emerging uncertainties now rising before us, I can’t help but consider the reality of the energetics that actually generate and bind together our daily transactions, relations, interactions, etc. in this financially-obsessed, post-modern bardo. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between, I am of course here referring to money.

A quote was offered during our first session that I wish to share with all of you here:

“When we acknowledge that the Earth we walk upon is not just dirt, that the trees and animals are not just resources for our consumption, then we can begin to accept ourselves as spirits vibrating in unison with all other spirits around us. Our connection to all these living spirits helps determine the kind of intimate life we live.”

– The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways of Relationships.

by Sobonfu Some

It may seem like a strange quote to follow the mention of money, but as I look more deeply into this, I can’t help but think of the give and take we here share together, how it “determines our intimacy”.

About a month ago, as many of you know, I erected a paywall. My reason for doing so, though well-intended, came from a cognitive resonance of urgency and fear, forces not generally recognized as mindsets supportive of resilience. I have several friends from Myanmar who have been going through literal hell recently due to an ongoing civil war there. When a friend reached out to me to see if I could help them financially, I felt that if I put up a paywall I could easily raise some money for them. But, soon after I put up the paywall, with the exception of a few generous readers who quickly did become paid subscribers (to you I tip my hat in gratitude and assure you that your cash went directly to the friends I here speak of.), I began losing more subscribers than I ever have throughout the duration of the nearly three years I’ve been writing here on Substack. And after a month of observing the decline I realized too that I had received considerably more financial contributions from readers before I erected a paywall than after. And it made me think.

I believe that people were unsubscribing and/or choosing not to become a paid subscribers not because of a conscious irritation with a paywall per say. Lots of people have paywalls and lots of people pay for them. I pay for several! But what I feel happened in this particular case, was that in erecting a paywall, I was drifting from the initial form of exchange I have always here tried to embody. I feel that people unsubscribed because they could feel the awkward energetic misalignment with my ideals, that by forcing people to pay, I was not trusting fully the world I often suggest I believe is coming again into view, that indeed won’t come into view, if we don’t fully embody what we wish to see. And for that, I want to ask for your forgiveness. I am sorry.

Resilience means many things. One thing it means is an ability to think differently and to actively adapt as necessary. In terms of economic reciprocity, as with everything else, we are beginning to feel here too the need to shift our underlying assumptions regarding the exchange of goods and services. We wish to adapt wisely. We seek resiliency. Some believe crypto currency is a way forward in this regard. I do not feel the same way. Because the world we wish to see come into view cannot do so if we continue playing by the same underlying rules. Bitcoin may seem different, not being “centralized” and all, but from the vantage point of Mother Earth it’s just another monstrous machine mining the last bits of her precious planet, doing just as much damage as any other modern economic system, possibly more so.

We won’t enter into a world of appropriate ecological and/or economic reciprocity until we exchange in another way altogether. And as far as I can tell, the best way to do this is via The Gift.

So my dear readers, I have decided to tear down the paywall! As of today, every single one of my articles, nearly three years of work, well over 100 essays, is free to all. It is my gift to you. This being said, by all means, if you appreciate what I am doing here, I (and my family) will warmly receive the gift of you becoming a founder or paid subscriber in exchange. Heck, I even added a “buy me a coffee” option (*thanks to a reader who suggested this! You know who you are! ;)

My little jaunt in doing the paywall thing wore too much on my soul. I felt awful forcing you all to fork over your hard earned cash to gain access to information, stories, poems, videos and other odd musings that my heart yearns to freely share. Even though my intentions were good, wanting to raise funds to help some friends in need, it still felt a bit, shall we say, off. I don’t want to, as the quote above suggests, view you as resources for consumption. It may seem like I am being extreme when I say that, but this is what it was starting to feel like. Suddenly I was finding myself spending large chunks of time brainstorming how to convince people to pay me instead of allowing The Gift to flow through me, freely, in trust.

Who knows, maybe I’m being a fool (my wife sure thinks so! lol). I understand that we all need to make money. I certainly haven’t figured out a good way to do this yet. And yes, as a father, a farmer, someone living waaaay on the fringes of what anyone in the modern world would deem “normal”, this does keep me up many nights. I don’t know where my next paycheck will come from. Choosing to live differently can come at a high cost.

I understand that for some, Substack is work, not a gift. I want to honor this too. To any fellow Substack authors out there who choose to have a paywall, please don’t take this as a judgement of you. This is merely an effort on my behalf to walk rightly with my own belief, as I hope all of you strive to do. But I will say this, for any authors or, god-forbid, “influencers” out there who claim to be selling something unique… All of us authors are thieves! As

Sherman Alexie

rightly said in a recent “note”,

I always laugh when writers claim to be “decolonizing” literature. Are you kidding? Writers are jewel thieves, bank robbers, and stagecoach bandits. Just ask anybody related to a writer! We shoplift pieces of other people’s lives. We shoplift their overhead conversations. We turn the world upside down and shake the stories out of its pants pockets. Yeah, we’re bullies. We demand your time and attention. And, whoa, I don’t know why anybody ever gets romantically involved with a writer. Your most intimate details are written on Post-it notes stuck on the walls. And history is bloody with the writer-versus-writer wars. Some of those wars are public. Most of them are private ambushes. And, amid all their street muggings, embezzlement, and pyramid schemes, the writers keep writing terrible, lukewarm, and amazing books. Writers, all of us, are colonialists, especially the ones who think they’re not.

Sherman Alexie

So here I am, alongside you all, making mistakes, learning little by little and trying to grapple the best I know how to with ways in which we might be able to usher in a more healthy world, searching deep inside myself for how I can one day hopefully become a “good ancestor” while all the while remaining patient and accepting of the fact that I likely won’t meet most of my expectations. For, like most all of us, I’m just winging it most of the time, trying to avoid extremes.

The Buddhist in me believes there is a “middle way” in there somewhere. Or, at least a bridge between the unbecoming lack of creativity that is modernity and the glorious multi-colored other shore of actual, in-tact Living Culture. I don’t know what all we need to do to heal our world now. We’ve got our work cut out for us for sure. But I do know that I don’t want to participate with business-as-usual. And I sure as hell don’t want money to determine who gets to join me ‘round the table.

I wish to feed all of you with the best of what I have to offer. And what I have to offer, comes not only from me, but from many. As Mr. Alexie referenced, very few of us have a truly original thought. We all borrow (and steal, let’s be honest) from our many exchanges with others. This is what gives us life! I only think the way I do because I have been extremely fortunate to have many excellent teachers, many fascinating friends, lovers, and enemies. I have been blessed to cross paths with countless extraordinary people, from all walks of life, from all corners of the globe. I write the way I do because of what they have gifted me with. And I hope to honor them by keeping alive what they have so generously shared with me. People like

Rowen White

, Martin Prechtel, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Wade Davis, Terrence McKenna, Octavia Butler, Manish Jain, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Sri Aurobindo, Tiokasin Ghosthorse,

Sophie Strand

, Josh Schrei, Jon Jondai, Báyò Akómoláfé, Adrienne Maree Brown, my mother, my wife’s mother and many, many, many others.

Please, let’s share together without barriers. And absolutely, let’s always give what we can, and trust each another. Everyone is welcome here.

Onward!

All blessings, no evil.

Gregory Pettys

April 24, 2025

Koh Yao Noi, Thailand.

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(((As mentioned in the previous newsletter, in the coming days we’ll begin delving into the nuts and bolts of how one goes about aligning the mind with Right View, essential for any genuine “post-activist”, with the goal not being to start a revolution, but to become good soil))) 🍉