_BLURREDLEYES via @orb

observe not enough in the present and you may find yourself wondering in the future what flew before your eyes.

My SuperRare genesis - originally minted on Sloika’s Montage Space contract it was burned and re-minted to the primary SR contract since being onboarded as an official artist. However, I wish to give the @lens ecosystem a chance to collect this as a show of faith in the system here & to set the example that web3/on-chain social is all we really need as artists to both share our work & support ourselves. At this point, as someone who’s been around for three years & seen all these different platforms offering all these different things, prompting artists to release work for less & less or free while always having to go BACK to 4chan twitter to advertise, I really don’t care HOW people want to collect my art as long as they care to collect it (:

If this were to sell today for the 2 ETH asking price I would earn the equivalent of 584000 $BONSAI but merely offering it for the equivalent isn’t a deal. My all time high in @bonsai is 111111 held by @stani, my second @ 88888 held by @horticulture, and my third @ 77777 held by @princetiwari. All works are great for their own reasons but this piece is truly in a league of its own with all things considered what went into it. Something that took months of coordination, planning + risk of arrest, as I was hanging out the side of a train pointing a camera at the conductor. To be honest I was more scared of serious injury as a couple inches too far & I could smack my hand or head on a pole, gate, or wall as we picked up speed. It results in an image indicative of being present in the moment + avoiding future regret for not having paid attention. A monumental step in my art career so I’m willing to offer it at less than half its current asking price while still setting a new personal best in $BONSAI on Lens @ 222222. When it is minted here it will be de-listed/burned off SuperRare & only exist on Lens for eternity.

1/1
222222 $BONSAI
4 days

4000x4000

@creators @photographers @hey @phaver @buttrfly @kaira @pinsta @ornaart @refraction #GRAMSDIDIT

Rare sentimental post 😂

Heading back to Tokyo on Monday with a lot of happiness in my heart! Feeling very grateful I get work on something like @galverse which gives me a connection to a place I really love.

Australia is very much in APAC and I grew up with all the Japanese media craze -> watching anime before school and churning through AA's on my GameBoy.

When I was 9 years old (yes, I'm the little one there~), we had an exchange student, Nori, visit from Himeji. She treated me like her little brother and brought me all sorts of gifts including Pokemon gear and some origami books!

12 years later, I made my first trip to Japan covering Fukushima for work, which left a deep mark on me, and then spent a couple of months travelling around. I went and stayed with Nori and her family then. She had a couple of young kids. I drank too much, learned to play Shogi, did the pilgrimage up to Mt Shosha and so on.

In 2018 I returned again, in a whirlwind trip, and she had three grown daughters. Her dad replayed the videos from the old days we spent together! My brother even arrived for a night and we had a big party and reminisced.

Galverse kicked off in late 2021 and was a whirlwind. I get to work with and meet people who made all the things I loved as a kid. It has some incredible sense of closure & returning, throwing back to my youth and everything that influenced me.

Nori came back again a few weeks ago, with her youngest daughter, her brother, and a bunch of students. She had fulfilled her dream of becoming a teacher, and I did my best to show them around my home and life here! I even pulled out the origami books she gave me 25 year ago (and now my house is full of origami). Everyone cried reuniting, of course.

And now I'm putting together my Tokyo schedule, and realising the list of friends I want to meet is longer than anywhere, even my hometown, and I really am grateful for what the Galverse dream has created.

Thank you for reading this old man's story 🙇♀️

珍しい感傷的な投稿です 😂

月曜日に東京に戻りますが、心にはたくさんの幸せを感じています！@galverse のようなプロジェクトに関われることに非常に感謝しています。それが私にとって本当に愛する場所とのつながりを与えてくれます。

オーストラリアはAPAC地域に位置しており、私は日本のメディアブームの真っ只中で育ちました。学校へ行く前にアニメを観たり、ゲームボーイでバッテリーを無駄にしたりしていました。

9歳の時（そう、写真の小さい方です〜）、姫路から交換留学生のノリが訪れました。彼女は私を弟のように扱い、ポケモングッズや折り紙の本など、様々な贈り物をくれました。私にとっては天国でした。

その12年後、私は仕事で福島を取材するために初めて日本を訪れましたが、少し心に傷を負いました。その後、数ヶ月間日本を旅しました。その時はノリと彼女の家族と一緒に滞在しました。彼女には小さな子供がいました。私はたくさん飲み、将棋を覚え、Shosha山への巡礼を行いました。

2018年には再び訪れ、その時は彼女には成長した三人の娘がいました。彼女の父は私の初来日時のビデオを再生しました！もう昔のような感じがしました！弟も一晩参加して大きなパーティーをし、昔を懐かしみました。

2021年末にギャルバースが始まり、まさに旋風でした。子供の頃好きだったものを作った人々と仕事をし、会うことができました。それは私の青春時代と影響を受けたすべてのものへの素晴らしい感じの締めくくりであり、復帰です。

数週間前、ノリは最年少の娘、彼女の弟、そして何人かの生徒と一緒に再び訪れました。彼女は教師になるという夢を実現しましたし、私はここでの私の家と生活を案内するために最善を尽くしました！25年前に彼女がくれた折り紙の本を引っ張り出しました（そして今、私の家は折り紙でいっぱいです）。もちろん再会時にはみんな泣きました。

そして今、私の東京スケジュールを組んでいるところですが、会いたい友人のリストが故郷を含むどこよりも長いことに気づき、本当にギャルバースの夢が創り出したものに感謝しています。

このおじさんの話を読んでくださってありがとうございます 🙇♀️