Woodward Forest-Lich
3 min readJul 5, 2022

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NEARly a Master

I want to be the very best, like no one ever was… - Pokémon Theme

Take it from me, being a master of anything is hard. I’d know this very well because I attempted mastery at everything I'd ever been passionate about my whole life. You can take a few guesses as to how well that went. From bojutsu to video games, guitar, foreign languages, computers, and many other things in between have been a consistent reminder of my natural limitations. Absent extreme effort and focus, I rarely found myself standing above and beyond my peers at any task. Well, excluding Street Fighter but that doesn't count; I'm the only fighting gamer in my family…

The Oceans of NEAR ebb and flow as any tide does, we are building daily and gathering our schools of advocates for one purpose. In our mission to gain our bearings and survey all our possible allies to be made, I was tasked with researching a project, freshly born a couple months back. CyberPunk-3000 (CP3K), a sci-futuristic NFT project, intends to build a gathering and resource center for artists. Here they will be given the opportunity to learn, grow and build themselves, both inside CP-3000/ NEAR and within crypto in general. The undertaking is still relatively new, so I'll be keeping my eyes on their updates for more.

NxP is working more as expected these days: that being he wandering around aimlessly doing nothing while they work together in ways I dare not investigate. Amidst my meandering, Metaverse DAO called upon me again. Remember how I submitted a story a while back for them called Entropy? The time came for my next entry, which is fine, except for one caveat. It turns out someone heard an audio rendition of entropy in their DAO; they requested I host the gathering, as their guest narrator. (Bard remember?) I didn't know what to say, I just recently began considering myself a writer and now? A voice actor, a public speaker? Why? I never signed up for this… but why the hell not?

The campfire was lit… digitally speaking. I was a 3d mannequin, with no identifying marks. I have no form; my body is linked to my ETH wallet… and I honestly don't use any but NEAR anymore. But everyone else certainly had a few accessories to ID them. Me? Well, with my outdated interior tech, I did little but sit in front of the Boombox P.A. system and pray my software did not crash mid-story. I spoke; I emoted; I channeled my two years of grade school theater to... silence. I turned everything off including the audio. I wasn't certain how I was received until I opened my Telegram app. They were pleased; is this what I do now? Who I am in NEAR, in addition to these things I've already aspired to become?

As for my charge as a Undead liege lord, the sword of Damocles dangles ever upon me. Being in charge/responsible still sucks. Not that I wish to fail at my responsibilities, but I have grown up around many people in positions of authority. The fact cannot be disputed that no one gets what they want, not to the extent of satisfying them. Worse yet, I'm the one who has to face them and. potentially be the bearer of bad news. But I can only do for others what I would want for myself; to put an amount of effort to assist the Corpses that I wish would be put into my case were I in their position. I'm working on things… for better or worse.

ME? What am I doing aside from work? Little else. I miss all the hobbies i used to have that aren't watching or hearing things while i work. But here I find fun in farming, digging, burrowing? Yeah there's a lot of that with a new app I'm currently playing with, but I'll talk about that a little later when there's more space in the day…

I'm not a master at anything, but I've decided to try to be a master at trying to be a master. I just have to hope that's enough for me, NEAR, and my future….

Signed,

Woodward Forest-Lich

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