Interview: ETHDenver 2020 Awareness Steward – Dmitry Buterin

so my name is Dmytro butyrin and my original connection to the space is through my son Vitalik who has originally created the theorem and around him this amazing community of people has gathered a few well right and I am a high tech entrepreneur I've been all of my life and technology and built a number of businesses and I'm 47 so this stage of my life I've been spending more and more time also on thinking and understanding if you will the human side of things like you know technology is awesome and important and fun but then also technology is built by and for humans and you know understanding their humanity in each one of us from you know people who are building the project people who should be using the project so that's kind of that's what I'm more and more pet what that's what I'm passionate about and my role here the conference is really I see as I'm going around and I'm talking to people about their projects I'm really trying to understand deeply why are they building what they building how is it going in terms of you know sometimes when we want to achieve a certain goal let's say build this project it's very easy for us to get so focused on the result that we just stop realizing we don't realize that we actually miserable in the process and all we thinking about though you know when we get to this wonderful outcome and you know this happens this milestone so many users or so much money in this project and we will feel differently but the thing is like you know it's always a lie and you know we get to this goal and maybe we feel differently for a little bit but then it's the changes again and you know unless we become aware of what's happening with us moment to moment on an ongoing basis then we will never really be in that state that we want to because in my perception really when we build in projects only we doing stuff end of the day we're kind of optimizing for happiness right and consciously or subconsciously so that's kind of like what i'm trying to have conversation with people about is like okay why are you doing this like is it making you happy if not and why not and how can you be more aware of what's happening with you and with this project and so on obviously meditation is one important tool and there are many ways to do meditation right and there success of this little apps like you know headspace and calm and so on it's really amazing that they have millions of people it clearly demonstrates that there are lots of people who are realizing that yeah you know those doing those kind of things as is really helping me in some way and and I think that using those apps is a wonderful starting point but in a way I think of meditation as a Trojan horse you start with something really simple and it's even by spending like one to five minutes a day you can already be way ahead of where you were without it but as you go deeper into this practice and if you can start allocating let's say 15 minutes a day into practices like meditation and you know and there are all kinds of types of meditations right then you actually start to become more and more aware and connected with yourself what are you feeling warm in the moment and and the way I think about this as when you doing this whole new channel of information becomes available to you because normally we just drive things forward with our thinking mind without intellect and you know let's plant this let's move forward but what what's happening when we do that a lot is that we actually stop noticing a lot of things that oh you know we're going forward here but you know what my co-founder is really burned out so he is actually you know his his relationship is breaking up all kinds of stuff and then if we're not nudged in those little signs in ourselves and other people then we end up at this project and then things unexpectedly go and they things fall apart right so really it's about how do we train on a daily basis and you know so yeah and there all kinds of breathing exercises meditation exercises it doesn't really matter what you do any kind of smart person can go online and do a quick google search for you know daily practices of mindfulness meditation breathing right so but the most important thing is like finding the one that resonates with you similar to physical exercise like sometimes people when they talk to people about physical exercise now I've been always a very mindful of my body and you know in the into that and I always tell them the best exercise is the one that you actually do and the same thing was those kind of mindfulness practices like can you find the practice you know maybe it's using this app maybe just do this breathing technique maybe use this in your muse headband there are so many options these days and doesn't matter try bunch of them and then find one that gives you joy then you know you can spend even five minutes a day or maybe fifteen and so they doing this to ground yourself and you know go into your awareness oh I think it's it's really awesome like all in all that's what impresses me about if Denver is that it's not just like some hackathons they're all about people building stuff you know let's gonna head down be without computers but there's so much other stuff happening here this wonderful art and design and people having fun and you know that Zen zone and you know that you know space with music and song so it really gives people an opportunity to engage or their different senses and not just spend the whole day like thinking thinking thinking right but you know then you can do that so I'm really grateful that their organizers have done such an amazing job of kind of like doing this job integration of all these different things yeah like I love it it's really about at least starting to think about this right like am i how am i feeling in the moment right am I constantly feeling tense and just like thinking that when I achieve this result then you know I will feel differently because this is kind of a trap that most of us have been in right and if we can find a way to at least start thinking like can I on a daily basis ask that question to myself how am I feeling today right and you know and from this little one question and spending like 1-2 minutes like just reflecting on that then you can go so much further down down the rabbit hole there all kinds of wonderful books and resources and podcast and spiritual teachers whatnot right there universe is so big and so exciting even just reflect on the facts look around the theorem community there are different communities out there you know let's say generic blockchain community Bitcoin community Tron and whatnot and originally when a theorem community people who came together to build what you know what was their original idea of a theorem actually there was a I know that the group of people one of the things they were like keeping in mind is like oh you know what when we were involved in Bitcoin space as many of them were they felt like oh there's a lot of acrimonious you know anger you know conflict and this kind of stuff so let's try to build this community differently right and I think that you know looking back the last six seven years that actually a theorem community has done a really awesome job of doing that it's not perfect nobody's perfect right but if you feel the general vibe of the community and it's really just it starts with how do you interact with other people offline and online right and if you look at like all their interactions on social media and Twitter right and it's funny like when you see those interactions and people attacking each other right and the thing is like really important to start with understanding that whatever is the way people are reacting to you it's not because of you but it's really because of what's going on with them right and I remember when Metallica started you know on this path and then a lot of people attacked him like you know building like all kinds of you know posting all kinds freako stuff online and he is asking like oh but why are they doing this like you know I'm trying to build this good thing and like why they attacking me and I told him you know what has nothing to do with you they are suffering they trying to do with their own pain and you know like some projections of that and this is the reality right so as long as we now community can do better and better job of recognizing that and being open and like little things like we have if you're in classic at this conference which i think is awesome right that we able to embrace those guys and not see them as competition or whatever and do that and today I saw charge Hoskinson the Cardano guy and you know so like I think it's it's awesome that our can a theorem community is able to embrace that and not be not feel like oh we're this and we're building this against them but it's more like we're building this and how can we collaborate and build something bigger when we are together competition it's funny like many things in life when we pursue them they like butterfly it flies away but when you see it still and you you know have the right energy the butterfly will sit on you right and the reason so vitalik as a person you know which is not the theorem he is quite financially successful but I think the key reason for that is because he never cared about money like until very recently all of his possessions could fit into one large duffel bag right so it's really when we are pursuing that and we're trying to reach that that it's a it's a hard to reach that right but when we actually connect with what's going on inside of us our internal joy in peace and we try to do stuff that makes us happy then we can attract all kinds of you know the right relationships we can attract more interest excess and going back to the first part of your question about human rights and you know there it was a big question - but I'll comment on one direction there is I think that the most important thing every human can do is work on themselves because the more we can increase our own awareness of what's going on with us how am I feeling how am I interact with other people and it just automatically creates those waves of different vibration about around you you know you feel differently you support other people they support other people around themselves and so on so you know we can and we will be changing the world but not in the way that we think that go let me try to do this and this will be their you know silver bullet solving the problem but it's more like let me start with myself and the more awareness I have the more you know I can do for myself for this project for my team for my family for my community and there's all kinds of awesome stuff will happen just from that not just like from some abstract far away a theoretical goal it might but in general like you know I'm not a big believer in government's because government's the level of corruption and all kinds for the stuff like you know people in government they will give lip service to wanting to use those kind of system to do this but end of the day politicians are there just to get reelected and to get more money to power so that's kind of my and and I'm saying that with love and understanding like understand again that it's not like because they evil but yeah that's their travel my speaking right but yeah yeah like you know let's build it in many different ways but let's not try to like oh if we go to United Nations and we convince them to use this technology it'll so nothing will be solved in this way but you know start with yourself with your project with your community and you can change the world for me it's really about finding a way to understand other people and communicate with them right like for example there's this concept of non-violent communication MVC and it's a very powerful concept of so for me it's really whenever we try to achieve anything by force like oh let's set this law and this is how we will you know do things this always ends up backfiring but if we like okay I want this and this is kind of what what's my passion and this is what I feel but let me understand you and let's then try to kind of collaborate to find a way to achieve you know if we can go on our low level understand each other of their foundational emotions versus trying to argue about oh this is my solution oh this is my solution you know my solution is better so if we can go down from the level of solutions to the level of understand each other in this deep emotional level then there is so much more we can achieve [Music] you [Music]