The Outpost is a scaled-down version of The Colony, more of an outgrowth of this website. I'm thinking of it as a stepping stone to the more grandiose concept.
Here are my initial conditions:
- The Outpost is sized just for Sri, not many people as with The Colony.
- The Outpost is still intended to be a welcoming place for people to gather and transact, just like The Colony.
- The Outpost still needs to provide goods and services that appeal to others, but they are more on a personal level scaled to Sri.
A big part of The Colony challenge is developing its culture and governance model, which is pretty daunting. The reduced scope of The Outpost, though, allows me to think more about how I conduct myself socially and professionally, which I think is a good start.
Past Efforts
Prior to having The Colony idea, I had three main criteria for establishing my creative happy place:
- Setting the goal of Creative Independence, where I am supporting myself financially through the pursuit of projects that I want to pursue.
- Finding a Tribe of positive-minded, self-empowered, conscientious, curious, competent, generous, and kind people who enjoyed sharing their knowledge and work experiences as they create together.
- Applying Explore-Learn-Build-Share, which is the synthesis process that feels the best to me.
The insight I had was that I could not do this all alone, as I had severe deficits in motivational energy to do anything like this in isolation. I am most alive when I'm surrounded by other people who share at least some of those above qualities. In the absence of that, I work very sadly and inefficiently. Hence, it's become apparent to me that building the community in some way to ensure this is a huge part of what I'm missing from my life.
The challenge, in general, is to continue the conversations with as many people as possible, which includes reaching out to my friends and friends-to-be. This is in the face of social anxiety that stems from many relatabilty issues that I believe I suffered from as a child.
Outpost Directives
To actualize The Outpost, here are the initial directives I came up with back in February 2024.
- The Outpost is always reaching out to collect information from others to pass that vibe along.
- The Outpost is always producing something, and this is a regular publication to help support reaching out to other creative adventurers.
- The Outpost also has unique takeaways to trade. This requires that the goods and services are stocked for visitors.
- The Outpost is Sri and Sri is The Outpost! I can continue to act as a diplomatic envoy of the Outpost, actively seeking mutual beneficial trades with others.
- The Outpost can have a systematic trading culture based on how I handle Requests for Proposal and Statements of Work; this I have experience with.
And lastly:
- Talking about The Colony and workshopping its systems with other people is always in the scope!