Micro-Medici

During the past couple of days, there's been a lot of discussion in some quarters about my pal Jason Kottke's announcement on Tuesday that he had quit his job and intended to devote his attention and energy full-time to his website. In return, he hopes, the website will support him.

Well, not the website, per se, since he's more or less said there'll be no advertising or commercial ventures in his plan. So not the website but the web community that surrounds it—fellow creators of web content, readers and viewers of his pages, kindred souls who believe he contributes something valuable to the web and the world through his work. Jason is taking a major cut in pay and mounting a three-week fund drive to support himself and his art, and he's asked those who believe in what he's doing—and has done on the web for almost a decade—to help with a modest contribution. Dozens already have. I am one of them.

There's been some criticism—derision, mostly—of Jason's plan and, in particular, the fact that he is essentially asking for donations to fund a year away from traditional work obligations to concentrate on his website. Some folks are incredulous. It's unseemly, they say, to beg for dollars. Others are underwhelmed by the prospect of what he's proposing. Why should we pay, they ask, so some guy can sit in a Brooklyn apartment and surf the web all day? When so many do it for free, why cough up bucks so Jason can write a weblog? Still others are mildly interested in his "experiment", but wary. Maybe one fella can make a living doing this, in this way. Maybe a handful can. But it's not sustainable. Everyone can't just quit their job and write on the web. Can they?

I think a lot of the skepticism about what Jason is doing comes from a basic misunderstanding of his goal. He's not just a guy with a weblog or, at least, I don't think that's what he wants to be. Jason is a dreamer, an artist, a fundamentally inquisitive, intensely creative person and I don't think he wants to just write a weblog. I think he wants to make the web. Back when I first started really paying attention to what was going on with the web, one of the first sites I tripped across was Jason Kottke's 0sil8, an occasionally changing, ever-fascinating look at what the web could be: storyteller, artistic expression, community builder, exercise in vanity. By today's standards, it wasn't fancy, but it was intriguing and it was a little voyeuristic. Reading 0sil8 was like watching someone—watching Jason—explore. Learn. Push at the boundaries. Try new things. Sometimes hit a home run and engage your mind for hours poking around his creations. Sometimes strike out with three men on and still have you looking forward to his next at bat.

Jason says he wants to work full-time on kottke.org, and while I haven't talked with him about it, I sincerely doubt he plans to limit himself to a weblog. Or another 0sil8. I think he plans to explore and learn and push at the boundaries a little. He's embarking on a personal journey, an adventure, an experiment, and I can't wait to see what he does. And I'm happy to lend some support while he does it.

The keyword in "spare change" is change

Last year, I started a little experiment of my own.

I use Quicken to manage my finances and I get my salary sent straight to the bank with Direct Deposit. I pay my bills electronically. I use a debit card or a Visa or American Express to make most of my purchases. Most of this money moving happens behind the scenes and even though I don't have a lot of it to begin with, I began to realize I was losing touch with my money. I bought food for the table and paid the house note and yes, there were books and DVDs and vacations that were all duly enjoyed, and I even gave a big chunk of it—more than I realized actually, but discovered while doing my taxes last week—to charities and causes in which I believe.

But something someone said to me offhandedly over a year ago stuck in my mind. "There are no modern-day Medicis," she said. "Corporations and foundations send grants to museums and theatres. Occasionally, a wealthy matron or civic-minded financier will pony up to buy a bust or underwrite a fund-raiser. And the National Endowment for the Arts offers what little it can to artists and musicians. But where will the next Renaissance come from? Who is helping the dreamers make their dreams real?"

I won't pretend that I'm trying to make anyone's dreams come true, except maybe my own. But I booted up Quicken last year and told it to divert a little bit—not a lot, but not an insignificant amount either—from every paycheck I deposited into a separate account. I called it "Medici", told Quicken to fill it and tried to put it out of my mind.

But then, throughout the year, when I saw a chance to help someone on their way to a dream or a passion or a way to bring beauty or interest into the world, I took a little out of my Medici fund and I gave it away. It's entirely self-serving on my part, not because I expect their gratitude, but because I expect that at some point, it's going to pay a dividend to me that can't be calculated in interest points. It will bring a little bit of music into the world. It will brighten my life through their creation or, at the very least, through my being able to share their joy in the act of creating.

I didn't keep a strict accounting and, at the end of the year, there was some money left over in the Medici account so I wrote two checks to zero it out: one to a small local theatre company and one to buy a small pot from an artist friend that I gave as a holiday gift. Throughout the year, a photographer of my acquaintance mentioned he was saving buy a new lens and so I gave him $50. A woman I went to school with told me over lunch that she had hoped to take a painting class in the summer but one of her kids needed braces, so all the money in the household was going that direction. I bought her a gift certificate at the arts center where I used to work. I gave a little bit to a friend who's making a documentary film about her favorite band. I put ten bucks in the guitar case of a street musician I could have listened to for an hour or more if I hadn't had to go back to jury duty.

Those and another dozen or so small donations were all deducted from my Medici fund and given with no strings attached. Maybe they bought paint and canvas, maybe they bought a book, maybe they just paid for a sandwich and drinks before rushing off to dance class. Whatever. I consider it all money well spent.

And this week I made this year's first deduction from my Medici fund to help Jason do his thing. Look ma, I'm a patron of the arts!

I'm not writing this here to brag and I realize that phrases like "funding a dream" and "bringing beauty into the world" sound a little grand and romantic. But think about it, and consider maybe you can have a Medici account too. You don't need a lot of money, you don't need a specific agenda and you sure as hell don't need Quicken to make it work. And five dollars here or 30 dollars there isn't going to make anyone rich.

But my photographer friend and a budding documentarian and a busker in front of the Civil Courts—and Jason Kottke—aren't looking to get rich, I don't think. They want to dream, to learn, to explore, to push back the boundaries.

And if I get to be a little part of that, I'm as rich as I'll ever need to be.

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