VC #13: Discovering Azurbala Through Creation and Community
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Arnie, employee of the month at !Bala Bikes, was riding home after a long day guiding tourists through some of Azurbala’s most picturesque locations. He was tired and a little hungry. The moon was rising in the distance behind a mountain. He stopped to take a picture.
It’s a small moment captured in Azurbala, but one that changed my perspective on what it means to world-build in Web3.
The mountain in the distance shall forever be named…
Naming something is an act of egotism. This mountain for example. It’s been there for billions(?) of years, existing without a name for 99.99999% of its time here on earth. And then some dude comes along one day and says, yep, that’s Mt. SpaceWalk.
How dare you, ser?!
It’s also an act of love. Naming something gives it greater meaning. We name our kids, our dogs. Some of us name our cars, our plants. I don’t know if we name things we love, or things that we’ve named we tend to love more. Probably both.
And so, on August 5th 2022, as I wrote this little story about Arnie riding home after work and stopping to take in the beauty of nature, I was confronted with an existential moment: Is it ok that I name a natural object in Azurbala without agreement from Tally?
Discovering Azurbala
But do we need agreement from Tally? Do we need permission to discover our characters or the world around them? Do I need to ask them if it's ok that I name a mountain that I discovered in a creative flourish?
One moment there was no mountain, the next Mt. Pengampunan was born. This is what discovery feels like. Magical moments from which existence is born.
It was thrilling. It felt limitless. Exploring my character Arnie also meant discovering Azurbala. 🤯
That’s the power of Web3 generally — and specifically what Tally has built with Azurbala. We’re all exploring, discovering, and creating this world together. Sure, I named a mountain. Many of you have named bakeries, hotels, fashion houses. New characters are created every day. New connections formed. The guilds grow stronger.
Every morning, scrolling through Azurian Twitter, I think: what did people discover last night? Then I think: what can I discover today?!
None of us asked Tally for permission. Hell, we didn’t even wait for our pfps! We went out and started to build something on top of what they built. Amazing.
What’s cooler? When they start to build on top of what we built.
There’s now a mountain in Azurbala named Mt. Pengampunan, which means forgiveness in Bahasa Indonesian — the language used in Bali. I wanted to pay tribute to that amazing island, a place full of rich cultural experiences that I fell in love with eight years ago. Why did I choose forgiveness? Not sure. Maybe it was a subconscious outcropping of this odd feeling that I inserted a reference point into a world that’s not my own. A week later, I feel different. This is our world. Let’s build it — and name it — together!
Some Disclaimers: None of this is financial advice. DYOR. And yes, FilmBook and SpaceWalk are Tally Labs NFT collectors.