One of the most important journeys we need to embark on throughout our lives is the journey of self-discovery.

I truly believe that many people make big mistakes in their lives due to not having dedicated enough time to themselves and really understanding what makes them tick and what they need to be happy.

Enter Personality Tests

One of the best bang-for-your-buck investments in learning about yourself is to take personality tests. There are many free or cheap ones available online and they can bring out amazingly accurate descriptions of you and your skills.

Tip: Always show the results to someone who knows you well and ask them whether they feel it’s an accurate reflection of your personality. Sometimes we are completely blind to elements of our personality that are very obvious to others who are close to us.

My Results

Here are the tests I’ve tried out and the results.

My 5 major strengths according to the Strengths Finder test:

• Focus
• Futuristic
• Restorative
• Discipline
• Significance

My dominant tendency according to the Grethen Rubin Four Tendencies test: Questioner.

Another popular psychological test is the Myers-Briggs test. My result is INTJ, which stands for Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging.

According to the Enneagram test I’m an Achiever.

According to 16Personalities, I am now classified as INTP-T (Logician), whereas a few years ago I had been classified as an ENTJ-T (Commander).

Another psychological test you might want to check out is the Big Five Traits test.

How Have Personality Tests Helped Me?

I have used personality tests in multiple ways.

Understanding Myself

Together with other self-discovery practices, like retreats and working with a psychotherapist, personality tests have helped me unearth my internal programming and understand what drives me. This has really helped me to understand what my close circle of friends should look like, as well as what I need to be doing on a daily basis to feel fulfilled.

There were also some behaviors that I saw in a negative light, but within the context of the results of the personality tests, I discovered they are actually strengths that I should potentialize rather than try to suppress, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Lessening Conflict within the Family

Unlike our spouses and close friends, we don’t get to choose our family members, and while typically we feel somewhat similar to our parents and siblings due to genetics and upbringing, there can also be some glaring differences between us.

Within my family, they have helped bring more understanding to certain behaviors that caused clashes between members. They have allowed us to know that there is no malicious intent when someone speaks or acts in a certain manner, but it’s simply a result of how they are internally wired.

On the other hand, once you understand why a certain behavior can be annoying to someone who is wired differently, you can adapt and be better equipped to avoid conflict.

Hiring People

I like to hire people primarily based on their character and not their skill set. I find it extremely hard to work with people who don’t share the same core values as me. Personality tests help achieve an initial understanding of candidates from a mindset perspective and help discover what their aptitudes might be.

Have personality tests helped you? Do you know of any other good tests? Let me know in the comments section below. 

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve come to realize that I really enjoy going on multi-year adventures where I dive in really deep into one topic and strive to become world-class at it.

I guess that in a way it’s similar to those journalists who decide to write a book about a specific niche or industry and spend months or even years getting to know the ins and outs of it, interviewing people etc. Authors like Michael Pollan come to mind as an example.

Through my exposure to NFTs, I slowly got really interested in art and art history. I’ve always been a very visual person, but discarded any interest in art early in my life as I felt that I couldn’t really draw, and art meant drawing in my head.

This interest in art is totally new to me, as I had previously always been more interested in technology, and later on in life in finance and investment.

In recent years I’ve taken an interest in world history, and art is really an integral part of that as well. I feel that the great art pieces that have survived offer us windows into historical daily life and important events, but without knowing how to look at art and appreciate what the artists are trying to say, much of that knowledge is inaccessible.

I’ve since discovered that the art world is so much broader than “drawing” or “painting” – there are many roles to play and art history is deeply fascinating in its own right. As I started to educate myself and dig into the history of art I learned that the art we create is a very sincere reflection of the collective thoughts, struggles and trends of each generation.

I became fully engrossed in learning as much as possible about the art world – the history and different art movements, famous artists, the financialization of art, art fairs etc.

I’ve also decided to teach myself how to draw, as I realized I had never given myself a real shot at it when I was young. Having a young son that is creating his first drawings provides me with the perfect opportunity to learn alongside him and spend quality time together.

Much of my studies so far focussed on the following:

1. Art history
2. The Art Market
3. Creating my own art

The art forms that are most accessible to me as a creator are:

• Generative art (I can code and like to think I have good taste)
• Photography (was big into that when I was younger)
• Simple art with a philosophical message (line drawing and zentangle are of particular interest)

Generative art was how I got started really as it was the most accessible art form due to the NFT connection. I started out by collecting a few generative art pieces as part of my NFT journey, then eventually had the pleasure of meeting some top generative artists whom I found to be really deep humans and supremely interesting in their way of thinking. The fact that generative art is created by code makes it much more accessible to me. In a nutshell, it’s something that I can see myself being able to create, since I’ve studied computer science and spent several years developing software products.

I do know that I am a very creative person, but so far my only real avenue of expression has been writing, and that has its limitations. An image can evoke an instant emotional impact and provide a visual sensorial pleasure that words cannot.

My plan for becoming immersed in this world is as follows:

• Learning the history of art
• Understanding the main art movements to date
• Appreciating the biggest artists and their works
• Cultivating relationships with generative artists
• Experimenting with generative art

I’ve also started my own online community, and one of our subgroups is dedicated to art and NFT collecting, where I’ve gathered a nice group of collectors and artists. If you’re an artist or art collector and want to connect, I’d love to do so, just contact me.

What I’ve done so far

I’ve gone all in on art and am trying to learn as much as possible to get myself to a level of decent understanding. I had zero knowledge of art so far in my life, and I’m working hard to change that. That means reading books, attending conferences and fairs, speaking to artists and collectors, watching documentaries, and doing my own art experimentations.

Keep in mind that, as I mentioned, NFTs were what got me into art, so a lot of what I’ll be doing will probably be skewed toward this space and digital art.

NFTs solve many of the big problems present in the traditional art market. Authenticity, opaque pricing, difficulty in logistically acquiring art, and storing art problems are vastly improved with NFTs. While other NFT use cases are still experimental, the art use-case is the strongest, in my view.

In 2022 I attended some big NFT events, the chief of which was NFT NYC, which was an amazing week. But one of my best highlights was a little-known conference taking place that week, Token Art, where I got to mingle with the exact crowd I was craving: generative artists and early collectors.

I’ll continue to post any highlights of my journey here for accountability and tracking my progress, and also for the benefit of anyone looking to do the same thing.

• Attended conferences:
  • Token Art (NYC)
  • NFT Show Europe (Valencia)

YouTube Channels

I’ve also been going through the following channels on YouTube:

• Antonio García Villarán – commentary on artists and styles (in Spanish)
• Art History School – commentary on artists and styles (in English)
• Perspective – broad analysis of art
• The Conspiracy of Art – explanation of misunderstood things in the art world
• The Coding Train – best free p5js tutorials

Books

Here are some books about art that I really enjoyed:

Art History

• The Story of Art
• Garder’s Art through the Ages

Art Market

• The $12 million stuffed shark
• The Art of the Deal
• Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art
• 7 days in the art world

Being an Artist

• Steal like an Artist
• How to be an artist
• 7 days in the art world

Art and Mathematics

• Mathematics & Art: A Cultural History
• Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations
• The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics

Doodle Art

• One Zentangle a Day
• Doodle Art Club

Websites

There are a ton of websites you can learn from, and Instagram is always a great source of inspiration. Cravepainting has a great post on how to learn drawing where you can find more tips on getting started.

• Cravepainting
• Artwork Archive

Video Courses

• Skillshare
• Khan Academy
• Coursera

Museums

Visiting museums is one of the best ways to learn about art, since they offer you an amazing way to experience art up close and personal, along with snippets about each artwork. Start out by visiting your local art museum, and then aim to visit the leading art museums in the world.

I found it really interesting as a beginner to read about each era of art and the motivations behind the artists who pursued these styles. I think it gives a great grounding in art history to know these more or less by heart, and makes visiting museums a more pleasurable experience:

• Medieval art
• Renaissance 1300–1600
• Baroque 1600–1730
• Rococo 1720–1780
• Neoclassicism 1750–1830
• Romanticism 1780–1880
• Impressionism 1860–1890
• Post-impressionism 1886–1905
• Expressionism 1905–1930
• Cubism 1907–1914
• Futurism 1910–1930
• Art Deco 1909–1939
• Abstract Expressionism 1940s
• Contemporary Art 1946 — present

I’ve been to the following major art museums:

• London art museums:
  • The National Gallery
  • Tate Modern
• New York art museums:
  • MOMA
  • Guggenheim
• Berlin art and photography Museums:
  • Alte Nationalgalerie
  • Neues Museum
  • Pergamonmuseum
  • Bode Museum
  • Hamburger Bahnhof (Under renovation – terrible in current state)
  • Museum für Fotografie

I’ll continue to populate this post throughout my art journey, and in the meantime, please do let me know of any resources you recommend.

Photographing Art

I was initially going to focus mostly on generative art and drawing on my iPad, but I really fell in love with using physical materials to produce art. The problem I then faced was how to photography that art in order to upload it in digital form to the web.

Luckily, I have the latest iPhone as well as a DSLR with a macro lens, both of which do a great job at this task. The trick was stands and lighting. Again, I used what I had handy, two tripods from Manfrotto and Joby, and 2 Aputure MC lights. Here’s a video showing a setup using these lights.

Products

• Canvas
• Neewer Ring Light Kit
• Phone stands

Articles

• 8 simple Tricks to take great Photos of your Artwork
• 4 Steps to Photographing Your Art Like a Professional
• 4 Tips To Taking Great Photos Of Your Artwork

I’m looking forward to being able to focus more and more on art as I re-align my life around this new aim. This is an exercise that is never easy, and there is typically a big trough of self-doubt when the initial excitement wears off. Time will tell how far I can take this, but for now, I’m enjoying the ride.

In 2022 I launched an online community called The Good Life focused on ideas that I’m passionate about. It’s a safe space for those who seek freedom and happiness through a perpetual search for truth. We talk about health, investing, travel, relationships and self-sovereign ideals, among other things.

The idea for doing something of the sort had been brewing for some time, and soon after I launched, Balaji Srinivasan released The Network State, a book that provided a great deal of inspiration to me.

What I am currently building would most likely be described by Balaji as a startup society, which is the initial phase for building a network state. There is no necessity to go all the way to becoming a network state, a community can find its sweet spot at any point in the continuum between startup society and a full-blown network state. I might add that it remains to be seen whether the network state is even achievable. That would be one monumental milestone in human history for sure.

In this article, I’ll give some background as to why I started the community and what motivates me to nurture it.

I will also post my lessons on running the community here. If you’re interested in joining the community you can reach out to me directly.

Here goes…

Why Start a Community?

It’s important to think about the trajectory that led to me starting a community, so I’ve spent some time thinking about how my experiences have shaped me and how they have generated this need to connect with others in a private, online community.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve been delving into the history of religions, civilizations, and politics, and it became really apparent to me that humans thrive when they are part of some type of tribe that they are passionate about. I saw how the internet had offered us the possibility of connecting with anyone globally, but at the same time, also resulted in humans becoming more isolated in their own online worlds. There had to be a new way of connecting and building tribes for the internet (metaverse?) age.

But let’s rewind a bit more and go through the timeline that brought me to the point of starting a community…

The Influence of Religion

I grew up in a very religious country, and I got exposed early on to the power of tribes that rallied behind a well-defined set of ideas and principles.

During my youth, I was pretty active in a couple of small communities under the umbrella of the local Church, and those groups were very beneficial to me in those formative years. I have many fond memories of the experiences I had and the relationships built during that period.

During my twenties, however, it became all too apparent to me that religious belief was no longer compatible with my worldview, and as I slowly exited all involvement with the Church, I also started thinking about how to recreate some of the best elements of religious life within the secular world.

The Digital Nomad and Expat Life

Apart from renouncing any notion of organized religion, I also left my country of birth (to which I had been very attached) and got married to a person that came from a pretty different culture from mine. Together we traveled extensively in a digital nomad fashion before that term was even a thing.

We eventually slowed down and decided to start building bases for the longer term, thus becoming expats. The experience of marrying into a different culture, and exposing ourselves to radically different ways of living forced me to become much more open to new ideas and experiences.

It instilled in me a deep desire to learn more about the world we live in, the people that have inhabited it over the ages, and the reasons for their behaviors. I must also mention that this period of growth and transition into becoming a citizen of the world was quite painful at times. It’s not easy to accept radically different behaviors, and you’re forced into expanding your tolerance threshold as well as reading up on various topics to try to make sense of those behaviors.

Bitcoin’s Impact on my Views

At some point, I went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and quickly understood that it was much more than an online-native currency. Indeed this was the gateway to a new way of life. It was unsurprising to see people rally behind Bitcoin with such enthusiasm, displaying the kind of fervor commonly seen within religious communities.

Connecting with People Online

At the same time, I was writing more and more articles on this blog, especially around financial topics and social commentary, and was lucky to develop some very deep connections with people who resonated with my writing and reached out to me to talk further and even meet up.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed these conversations, it slowly became obvious that I couldn’t possibly sustain many 1-to-1 chats over the long term, and a better solution was needed. I also found myself connecting people to each other or wishing that we had some space to collectively think through certain ideas that arose in those 1-to-1 conversations.

NFTs & Web3

Fast forward a few years and I got hooked on NFTs. This was when it really became extremely obvious that people are really in need of joining communities and sharing their journey with others. While many people focus on the financial returns or losses related to NFTs, the biggest impact of NFTs on my life was the ability to connect with many like-minded people very rapidly, as well as being an onramp to the art world (I had always felt somewhat excluded from this mysterious but alluring world).

NFTs and Web3 also made me realize that we might be witnessing a shift in how products and services come to market. Rather than a startup founder having a stroke of genius or systematically reading trends in certain cultures and subsequently building products to address the perceived wants and needs, we can now start with building a community first.

Once the community is formed, we next form alliances and small teams within that community and build products and services that directly address the needs of that community. Chances are that those products and services will also be valuable to thousands or millions of people that are not yet part of that community. It’s just a different way of looking at things.

The Network State

Ideas about online communities have been circulating and becoming more insistent and defined in the last few years, especially with the rise of NFTs, social tokens and DAOs.

But one of my favorite thinkers, Balaji Srinivasan, released an amazing book entitled The Network State in 2022 that takes things to the next level. He proposes the idea that distributed states will rival the monopoly of nation-states in the future. This is a very Bitcoin-centric and libertarian view of things, but it aligns a lot with my worldview.

Here’s a short definition of the network state as Balaji envisions it:

A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognised founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.

Of course, there are also intermediate community setups if one does not wish to establish a full-blown new state. A startup society is what the initial community can be described as, and successive iterations and growth will determine how far along the network state model it eventually lands at. Balaji’s thinking encapsulates most of my thinking on the subject and has given me extra motivation to continue building this community and exploring the possibilities that technology is now enabling.

---

With the trajectory well-defined, let’s take a look at people I’m looking for…

Who Should Join the Community?

Right from the start, it was very clear to me that I wanted to curate the membership process for the community.

Therefore I decided to seed the community with people who I have met and who have left their mark on me and my way of thinking. I also wanted to use my judgment to make sure that every new member is a good fit with the rest of the group.

The Internet – A Noisy Place

I feel that the internet in general has become an extremely noisy space. Giving a voice to everyone turns out to be pretty chaotic, and we all tend to waste too much time on people spouting nonsense that we shouldn’t be reading in the first place, let alone engaging with.

Secondly, even in communities that are focussed on specific topics, it is still a struggle to keep a cohesive conversation going, and discussion often degenerates into noise and filler talk.

Real Names – Real People

One of the pillars of the community is openness, members must be comfortable letting the rest of the group know their real names, professions, interests, locations etc. Again, while there is a time and place for anon accounts on the web, I wanted my group to be an intimate place where people can feel comfortable knowing who they are sharing their personal thoughts with. This has fostered a very open environment where people are not afraid to discuss sensitive topics or personal issues that others might help them with.

The value you gain is directly related to how much you participate in the conversations. It has been my experience that the more you give, the more you get in return.

Freedom to Speak Your Mind

We are currently living in a world where political correctness and virtue signaling have become extremely important drivers of behavior, both online and offline. People get offended at the drop of a hat, and as a result, it’s become hard to get honest and hard-hitting conversations going. I wanted to hang out in a community where people can speak their minds without any fear.

Avoiding the Echo Chamber

The challenge with having a gatekeeper is avoiding creating an echo chamber.

The solution to the echo chamber problem, as I discovered, is to have people who have a shared set of core values and a specific mindset.

Balaji’s idea is that a society should have one commandment that is shared among all members.

Once we all share the same mindset and values, there is no problem with unnecessary conflict, while at the same time there is enough flexibility to discuss topics where we can individually have wildly different opinions. The fact that the underlying mindset and values are the same enables us to speak freely about our differing opinions while keeping an open heart and mind to what others are saying.

To illustrate via an example, you can have a community that has a growth mindset and whose core belief is that “Bitcoin is the best form of money known to man”. While promoting fiat money versus Bitcoin is bound to cause issues within that community, there would be no problem with a discussion on, say, alcoholic beverages. You could have people discussing their passion for wines while others might be teetotallers, and there is no issue because the merits and demerits of alcohol consumption are not a core belief of the community.

So far, even though the chat channels are very active and a very wide range of thorny topics have been discussed, we haven’t yet had a signifcant conflict arise between members. I am convinced that the shared values and mindset are what enable this.

Community Size

Group size is an ongoing experiment and I don’t have any big conclusions so far. At around 50 members it still feels very cozy and manageable, but I’m curious to see how that will change when/if we hit bigger numbers. One other benefit of the curated membership process is that we don’t have a sudden influx of new members. I can sustainably add members and take corrective action if we see that the chat is getting out of hand or if any other problem has been created due to bigger numbers.

Why Not use NFTs?

In my view, the most important determinant of the success of a community is the people within, and I’ve adopted a different approach to what I’m seeing with most NFT-based communities.

Within the context of what I had in mind, I saw three problems with the typical NFT-based community:

1. Membership is open to everyone.
2. Members can be completely anonymous.
3. The financial value (floor price) of the NFT pass is a big concern to holders.

While I like the openness provided by Web3 and the crypto space in general, I wanted my group to be highly curated. Therefore there is no token that people can buy and automatically gain access to the group; it is invite-only.

NFT communities have the additional burden of keeping everyone happy from a financial perspective. This means that talk within the community is frequently linked in some way to the price members paid for their token and their current state of satisfaction with the perceived value and actual price of that token.

This approach has worked well and is in line with the goals I had for my dream community, but it doesn’t mean that I dislike the NFT community models. They are different approaches with different end goals.

Membership Fee

I originally launched the community on a free basis, mainly to remove the initial friction and get things going as fast as possible. I wasn’t sure whether it would be successful and whether it would be something I want to actively spend time on building.

While the community experience was highly rewarding to everyone who participated, there is only so much you can do without funding. Therefore, it was natural to start thinking of ways we could raise funds to build things and provide further value to members. Bridging the gap between free and paid is never and easy, so I thought about this step for a long time, looked at other groups, and most importantly discussed it one-to-one with several members of the community.

The conclusion I arrived at is that the best way forward would be to provide a low monetary entry point to all the current members, making it a no-brainer choice to continue being members if they were actually interested.

This relatively low yearly membership also solves the issue of commitment that I had struggled with during the year. Whenever I added any new members, I would let them know upfront that one of the few conditions to be a member would be to contribute and participate. However, some would simply not participate for very long stretches of time. The most common issue in these cases was that they didn’t use Telegram much, and the second reason was that they were already in other groups or simply didn’t have time to keep up with the chat. Given that participation was one of the requirements for membership, I had to manually remove members a couple of times during the year, and while I had no conflicts, it was an uncomfortable thing to do for me. With the new yearly payment, it is much less likely that members will pay if they have no intention to participate or are not deriving enough value from the group.

Extra services can be released over time over and above the yearly membership, raising more revenue.

Platforms Chosen

The platform choice for building a chat-based community right now lies between two very successful applications: Telegram and Discord.

I use Discord heavily due to my involvement in many NFT projects, and while I like the way a server can be organized and divided into various channels, I am quite conscious that I tend to spend too much time on this app already, and trying to build a community within an app where I have all the distracting NFT project servers competing for my attention wouldn’t be a great idea.

Telegram, on the other hand, is more mainstream and simple. So I kept things simple and went with Telegram. At a certain point, since we realized that we were spending a lot of time talking about NFTs, a topic that did not interest all the community members, we split things into two Telegram groups. Going forward, the main group will serve as the main conversation hall where any topic can be brought up, and we will create new groups if we find that there is significant and long-lasting conversation around a specific topic, that would signal it meriting its own group.

I am currently in the process of building a community website that will include a member directory, recommended resources, upcoming events and other useful tools. I chose to build the site with WordPress since I’m very familiar with the system and it’s probably the most flexible one out there, giving me the agility to pivot features if necessary.

IRL Meetups

I am a big believer that there is tremendous value in connecting with people in real life. I’m certainly not a fan of Zoom meetings with people that matter to me. Online meetings have their place and are a blessing in the work context, but I will always prefer meeting people face-to-face when I want to have a deeper experience with them. I also want to be able to share real-life experiences with my circle of friends, such as a good meal, a sunset, playing some sport, or enjoying time with our families and kids playing together.

For this reason, IRL meetups during the year where we can get together and strengthen our bonds of friendship and have deeper conversations are encouraged.

In 2022 we had our main meetup in Barcelona, where 7 international families got together. It was amazing to see how smoothly things went, especially considering the number of young children present and the fact that most of the people were meeting each other for the first time. The feedback was great and I was impressed that we had zero issues during the whole weekend. To me, this was a sure sign that we have the right kind of people in the community. It was lovely to see the kids all playing together happily, as one of my main ideals is to give memorable experiences to our kids that they can remember and build upon as they grow older.

We also held a retreat in Montserrat, which was a much more intimate experience; only three members joined this time round. We spent 5 days together, working on our own stuff while also spending a lot of time walking in nature and discussing topics that came to mind. I like doing retreats of this sort and undoubtedly this is something we can expand on in the future.

I hope that we can also use these occasions to travel to new places and explore the world, in so doing also broadening our consciousness and understanding of world culture.

A Fun Experiment

I really believe in the network state concept and want to be part of the movement towards such a future.

Many of the intermediate levels of worldwide interest and value-based communities are already a reality, and the technological developments we are seeing will continue to empower founders and builders of such communities. For example, while I spoke in opposition to having tradeable token passes for my community, the idea of soulbound tokens is very interesting and addresses the three issues I mentioned earlier since the tokens are not tradeable. This would also open up the doors to more experimentation with token-gated access to online platforms and real-life events.

There is also the route of charging for access in various ways, and I like the work that Hyper is doing in this respect.

For now, however, I am just enjoying building a community of people I enjoy hanging out with on a daily basis.

Conclusions so Far

The community has been a great success so far, and I am very excited about working to induct more members and add more value.

The initial injection of funds through the yearly membership will help build a pool of capital that can be used to start building things like a website, and has definitely motivated me to think up further things that can be done further down the line.

Here are some things I am thinking of implementing in the near future:

• Small Mastermind groups.
• Access to premium content on the website, curated lists, and a member directory.
• Monthly group calls around a specific topic.
• Periodic newsletter highlighting topics discussed and some other extras.
• Further research and a report on certain topics discussed in the chat.
• An NFT that could later be used to reward early members.
• Events: retreats and city meetups.

Interested in joining the community or discussing the topic? Contact me.

Are you also experimenting with network states, startup societies, and online communities? Drop me a line, I’d love to hear about your experience. You can also leave a comment below.

Further reading

• The Network State
• Vitalik’s thoughts on network states
• CityDAO

It’s been more than ten years now since I left Malta (click here to read my original article about why I left), and in recent years I’ve preferred not to comment much on Malta, both because I had personally moved on from thinking about the country or following its news, and also from a sense of responsibility. Since I hadn’t been spending much time there, I thought I should let others do the talking since I couldn’t be sure whether things had stayed the same, worsened, or maybe improved since I left.

This year, however, I spent a month in Malta with my family. I thought it would be a good way for my young kids to experience the place where I grew up, or at least the good parts that remain of it. I consider myself very lucky to have been born and brought up in Malta. Some problems that led to me leaving have existed for many many years, way before I was even born, but my childhood and teenage years were certainly great, and Malta was, in my opinion, passing through some of its best times back then.

So what do I think of the current state of Malta after having again spent some time there?

Well, I’m afraid the situation doesn’t look pretty to me.

In short, I would describe the country as an anarchic construction site, and certainly, as a third-world country masquerading as a modern and flourishing European nation.

The Locals’ Views are Changing

There’s one thing that has really stood out to me. When I wrote my article on why I left Malta, and especially when I had actually left a few years before, the feeling was that the problem was mine, and nobody else really felt there was any problem with Malta. This feeling of being the odd one out was probably one of the reasons that drove me to leave and try out other places to see if I was the insane one or not, now that I think of it.

However, that has changed over the years. In my recent trip and even other shorter trips before that, I’ve actually had to resort to imploring friends and even people I met for the first time to talk about something else rather than complaining about the state of the country and how they’d leave if they could. There is a shared sense of pessimism that definitely wasn’t there 5 or 10 years ago. This feeling of mine is mirrored in recent surveys done on Malta’s younger generations. Most of them want to leave and think that the future of Malta isn’t bright.

What Laws?

I describe Malta as being in a state of anarchy because even though there are laws and regulations just like anywhere else, people seem to completely ignore them in the most in-your-face manner imaginable. Of course, some people manage to flaunt the law more than others, after all this is a country that has become known for its corruption at the highest levels, as its greylisting indicates. While corruption and nepotism has always existed on this island, the current Labour party has taken things to another level.

One Big Construction Site

As for the construction site part, you just need to spend a few hours driving around Malta to understand why I describe it that way. There’s dust everywhere (forget dust control measures in Malta, nobody cares), and everywhere you look are cranes and bulldozers destroying traditional terraced houses and erecting the next ugly block of flats. Not to mention the building in what was previously green areas, again thank the unscrupulous political parties for that.

No wonder the cases of asthma and other respiratory diseases have gone through the roof. Oh, and I forgot to mention the lax safety standards in place when demolition and construction takes place. A few people died due to their houses collapsing while works were being done on the adjacent buildings, but this is Malta, and the people responsible get to continue living their lives while the victims suffer on.

The country has always been very limiting geographically; as a resident or native Maltese, you pretty much get to know every part of the islands by heart, meet the same people, go to the same restaurants etc. On the other hand, in bigger countries, you always have the sense that you can do something new, and that was also one reason why I left. With the destruction of Malta’s natural environment, the increase in population, and corresponding traffic and pollution, it has become downright suffocating.

Greed and Selfishness – A Way to Cope?

The greed and selfishness in the acts of people in Malta are unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else. The interesting thing is that for the most part, these people are not even aware that they are doing something that might be an inconvenience or harm others. In fact, if you talk to some of these people in the street, they might come across as very friendly. That’s one of the paradoxes that really drives me crazy on this island.

I have a theory about this. There is only so much abuse one can watch and suffer on a daily basis before instinctively they will act in a similar way. In this way, people begin to justify small misdeeds, perhaps with a typical Malta “u ijwa” or “mhux xorta?” (meaning “it doesn’t really matter” or “it’s ok”). It’s ultimately a way to cope and normalize life in the conditions that Malta is in right now.

But the Foreigners are Coming in Droves!

Touching on the population increase, today 20% of the Maltese population was not born there. While some try to promote this fact by saying that many expats are moving to Malta because it is so great, the reality is somewhat different. Most foreigners are laborers and occupy low-skill jobs that the Maltese no longer want to do. They move here just because it’s slightly better than the previous place they were based in and struggle to make ends meet. I have made respect for many of these immigrants who not only work hard to earn a living, but actually support the rest of their families thousands of kilometers away in countries like the Philippines, India and Pakistan, as well as many African nations.

So let’s be honest, they didn’t move to Malta because of all the supposed virtues that are trumpeted in the glossy tourist ads, they are there for the money, and will move to another place when things change. A much smaller percentage of expats move to Malta for the weather, and more importantly for tax reasons. Given the destruction of Malta’s environment and climate change making the weather even hotter than it was before, I suspect the weather will become less of a factor, while the Maltese tax system has long been in the EU’s crosshairs and might very well become less attractive if they decide to apply more pressure on Malta to change the fiscal incentives.

Quo Vadis Malta?

Malta the island remains a gem, despite all the harm that has been done to it over the years. There remain a few pockets of beauty but it is getting harder and harder to find them and enjoy them without being disturbed by the actions of other irresponsible people.

As for the local people, I want to stress that there are many extremely friendly, honest, and genuinely great Maltese people, and I have the honor of counting on some of them as friends and family. I admire them for their tenacity in trying to do good things and even change the status quo, despite the adversities. However, the tragedy of the commons is all too apparent in Malta, and the growing number of bad apples ruins the overall pie.

While it’s sad for me to say it, Malta, when all things are considered, is on a steep decline and there’s not much that gives me hope for the islands.

Malta’s two main economic drivers are tourism and the financial industry. These two currently fuel and support the construction frenzy we are seeing, but all this construction is making Malta less attractive for tourists, while the financial industry is heavily dependent on Malta being able to retain its tax incentives. So in my view, both tourism and the financial industry are on shaky territory, and when one or two of those are affected, you can expect a huge construction bubble to pop.

Now that I have kids, the most important question for me has changed from being where I feel the best living, to where I want my children to grow up. And if I was quite confident with my answer to the first question, the second one I can answer even more unequivocally – I can’t ever imagine my kids growing up in Malta.

I’ll be keeping a list of my favorite movies here – perhaps at some point, I will want to rewatch some of these or watch them with someone else like my wife or kids (when they’re older).

Shawshank Redemption

Scent of a Woman

Another amazing performance by Al Pacino. I really identified with both of the main characters. The Coronel and his jaded view of life, scarred by some tragic mistakes he’s done in the past. And at the same time Charlie Simms with an innate sense of doing the right thing even if it means risking it all.

The movie exposes how society works and leaves us with a powerful ending where justice does prevail, although that is not always the case in real life.

2022-11

Tron: Legacy