Hi everyone, I’m Aaron.
My profile has some overviews and links to my website etc. I’m co-founder here, and I dabble in all areas of the project. I struggle between how to delegate and get out of some things I hope others will lead (like coding or legal work) but often end up picking up the slack and just hoping that I’m learning valuable skills or something. I love challenges and learning, so I don’t mind being a novice all the time. But I care about our mission, not whatever I personally get out of being here.
Hard to say what my specialties are exactly. Maybe it’s my tendency to look at the big-picture perspectives that actually made it work out for me to be here in this leadership capacity…
When I was complaining about things that led to my friend David pushing me to start this project, I was procrastinating on reapplying to grad-school in some area of music-cognition / cross-cultural musicology (I had gotten into a PhD program that I put off for family reasons and was planning to return). Despite David’s optimism, I assumed that Snowdrift.coop would be massive enough that it was this or grad-school. Five years later, that prediction held up…
My original story of starting Snowdrift.coop is still the main narrative for me personally. I still teach music lessons for a modest living while working hard as a volunteer here.
I’ve also documented much of the long history of the project and have lots of plans for further blog posts and announcements just to explain to people what’s going on and how we got to where we are and where we’re headed.
I like to joke that I’m working on my honorary doctorate.
joke explanation
I long ago learned that it just doesn’t work to assume people get facetiousness in plain text. An “honorary doctorate” is given to someone like Richard Stallman (okay, technically the term is incorrect, it’s a “doctorate for honor” who has a major impact on the world but didn’t get a traditional academic doctorate. So, I’m joking (in being self-aware of the absurd arrogance of supposing this outcome) that I’m working to have that level of impact on the world.
My intention is that people realize I don’t actually expect either to have so much impact or to be acknowledged for it. So, the goal is to actually seem humble by admitting my doubts and pessimism. I’d rather not pretend to be some grand savior because actually thinking that way would make it painfully clear that I’m delusional. Although, I have heard that optimism is what gives audacious goals a chance, so I dunno…
The chance of really succeeding at the Snowdrift.coop mission to the complete extreme is miniscule. So, it’s some combination of actually wanting aspiring toward the dream and yet not taking it too seriously or too out of touch with reality to distract from the grind of day-to-day work.
The big picture view of all this is overwhelming. Easier to joke about that and just focus on tedious little distractions like writing this little intro (geez, I tend to write too much).