About
Oh hello there! However you ended up here, I’m excited that you’ve landed here and welcome you as a part of this endeavor, this community, this experiment.
I am Addy, one of nearly 8 Billion humans living on this Earth in this moment—somehow that scale feels important to note. I've spent the past several years slowly unraveling and re-weaving the stories of my life and of our shared experience as humans. It's been through the willing—and sometimes risky—connections in relationships, I'm now earnestly working toward bringing an economic shift that sees everyone consciously aware of the value we bring to one another in all we do and share in gifts and gratitude.
I’ve am encouraged by fellow agitators in this economic movement who say this moment is one of pivot, of hope, and of revealing a new economy that move us toward a collective liberation. And perhaps you're a person who is asking, “Liberation from what?”. In that case, I invite you to come along to work that out alongside me. And I say this as some kind of teaser, rather as an invitation to move forward with openness, curiosity, and in community, knowing that the journey is all a part of the work I’m doing.
And what is that work?
I am a financial activist. I’ve spent over a decade in the midst of or adjacent to the financial industry and all it’s complexity and opacity, mostly working as a designer or design strategist in digital spaces. I know enough to know that this giant machine is designed to be difficult to understand fully, and perhaps impossible to understand in its entirety (but if you know the person who does... oh man, am I all ears!). And I know the wounds are deep, and have left dark, generational bruises that this system has left on everyone. Over time, I have found joy and healing in making space to openly talk about money, finances, the financial systems, and all the stories, feelings, resistance, and freedom it might bring up.
In my own desire to see a new economy, I’m following the threads of inquiry where they lead me, sometimes it’s shedding light on the legal boundaries and social systems of one small corner of the current capitalist system, and sometimes it’s exploring the fine tapestry Earth has given us to explore and learn from.
Why “The Dammed”?
In 2021, I was invited to be a part of a cohort of 27 other (deeply caring, briliant, inventive) financial activists in a fellowship from the Just Economy Institute. Through this fellowship, we’re connected with a community of supporters, collaborators, and co-conspirators and invited to think creatively about what the economy, what finance could look like.
My thinking big started with a curiosity around building a market or system for people to easily access community investments, something I’m personally interested in seeing built in my community. Let’s be real here, the “best” model we have would likely be the existing stock market, and maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a great idea to replicate this behemoth of racial capitalism. So, my thinking meandered toward the concept of transition, and curiosity on how we might transition from the markets we have—that are so thoroughly entrenched in our dominant way of life—to one that that will set us free. And who better to teach us about transition than all the life that surrounds us[1]. A spark brought me to restoring waterways who had been dammed, and the question of what it takes to decommission a dam.
From there, the metaphor came alive, stories and analogies and intersections and threads coinciding with human-created economies. I’ve found that my learning thus far as taken me from the concept of decommissioning a dam to learning more in depth about river ecology, fluid dynamics, beavers, salmon redds, organizational culture, geopolitics, and there’s no sign of stopping. Now I’m continuing to plod down this path to see what more there is to discover and to share it along the way.
A Note
I notice that in most of this I’m using “I” statements. While I think it’s important to speak for myself and from my own experience, and not to speak over or generalize for others, I’m aware that there’s no part of this work I’m doing in isolation. From sounding boards, to mentoring and advising, to reading ideas and hearing others speak, I am an amalgamation of all who have joined me in this life. For now, this is written by me, on my own, and I know I am open to collaboration and building relationships based on that collaboration.
Also know that I’m incredibly interested in accessibility to what I produce, so much as I have the capacity, and as questions are in good-faith, I’m interested in clarifying concepts, re-stating what feels like it might be obvious, or ensuring that you might connect with what I have to say.
It feels important to share out who I was learning from around that time, as their work, invitations and wisdom seem relevant: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, Edgar Villanueva’s book Decolonizing Wealth, Deborah Frieze & Sally Calhoun's Article on biomimicry and Economics, The Blue Oak trees and their resident birds on Paicines Ranch, and other members of my cohort who were talking about micylium networks, soil ecology, and family farming practices. ↩︎