Are you a Leecher or a Seeder? What using BitTorrent taught me about life.
1ce before there was time; there was nothing and before there was nothing there were Leechers. Or maybe there were Seeders?
I believe this may be starting off as too paradoxical…
So let me bring us back!
Allow me to explain to you the life lessons I learned in my early days as an young internet pion using BitTorrent, and why the peer duality between Leechers and Seeders has been so impactful.
So what is BitTorrent?
In short, BitTorrent is an open source distributed peer 2 peer file sharing system. Now what makes BitTorrent special is that it works almost as a Content Delivery Network in where peers are not only able to download documents and media, but also serve their peers by hosting that same media for others to consume.
Now, lets dig into the duality of the peers.
The epic of the Seeder.
The raison d’etre of the Seeder is the collective embodiment to the progression of humankind. Seeders are represented as communities ,researchers, teachers, society and philanthropist. Seeders understand that the individual is not above the team, but also that without the contribution from each individual there is stagnant development. The seeder ethos is “One for All”.
The trials of the Leecher.
The epitome of the Leecher is the opposite to that of the Seeder. Their mantra is “All for One”. These individual are as their name says “Leeches” where their most defining characteristic is to pray on the contribution of others to propel only themselves higher in life. Some examples of the the Leecher are as follows:
- Individuals that patent Open Source works or steal others ideas.
- For Profit Schools.
- Intellectual Property Bandits.
- Griffith from" Berserk" <— IFYKYK
Conclusion
So yeah, this is what I took away from using BitTorrent as a kid and how I applied the peer relationship to life. Maybe I’ve been wrong the entire time and life is not that of the Leecher or the Seeder, but instead its an almost quantum state. Schrodinger’s cat to be exact! Where at any given point in time both philosophies are happening at the same time.
But hey! That’s definitely too much of a reach…
So for now.. My totally biased and warranted advice would be for individuals to not want to be Leechers. Instead they should strive to share their individuality, wisdom, passions, creativity and purpose with others as Seeders do. You will never know how much of a positive contribution that could be in someones life and to society as a whole.
As always, if you live your life serving others. Your success will be directly proportionate to that.
Cheers!
