This is a story about an accident that inspired an idea,
enraged a leveller, fueled a story teller, ignited a writer,
and invented a #CorporateReaper that dreamt of #Revolution.

This is also a story about #Rockhounding.

My name is Lee and I am a Rockhound. I collect cool rocks.
I find a variety of rocks beautiful and breath-taking.

For instance: Agates. There are many different kinds of Agates.
There are Carnelians, Moss Agates, Condor Agates, Mexican Crazy
Lace Agates, and Limb Casts, to name a few. Limb casts are similar
to petrified wood, except instead of being made of petrified wood,
they are made of solid Agate. Much like how wood gets petrified and
becomes stone, hollowed out tree limbs slowly filled with silicates
over millions of years. Then the silicates hardened and formed solid
Agate with various banding, in stunning hues of blue, green, and
pink. Limb Casts are beautiful. Each one is different and unique.

It was September of 2014. Sarah and I had met some fellow intrepid
rockhounders on a rockhounding facebook page. We all met up and
we were camping on some public land that was along the John Day
River, just a couple of miles north of Clarno, Oregon. We were all
there to do some rafting and to collect some cool rocks.

It was mid-September and the weather was beautiful. The only
problem was that it was mid-September and the water flow was
very very slow. So slow in fact, that it didn’t even push our rafts
downstream. We had to paddle and oar constantly if we wanted to
get anywhere. It was easier to just get in the water and pull the
raft with a rope. So that is what we did. We paddled, pulled,
pushed, walked, and swam our way downstream. Slowly but surely,
we were rewarded with cool rocks.

Sarah and I were the slowest of the group. We were the slowest
because I had to scour every single inch of every single gravel bar,
before we could move on to the next one. We were nearly back to
our campsite when the accident happened.

The river narrowed and the current increased. I decided to hold the
raft from behind and guide it while Sarah sat inside and enjoyed the
brief thrill of finally ‘rafting.’ The current began to pull Sarah
and the raft. The water was only a few feet deep. It was going good
until something hit my shin and caused me to lurch forward. I pulled
my leg out of the water to see if there was any damage. Indeed,
there was damage. A triangular flap of skin was hanging from my
right shin. My leg was lacerated and I had no idea what cut me.

Luckily we were almost back to camp. I folded my triangle skin
flap back into place and tied my shirt tightly around my leg and
the flap. We left the raft and rocks and backpacks on the shore
to be retrieved later. Sarah ran ahead to make sure we had a ride
ready to take us back to our truck so we could get to the hospital.
I hobbled along behind her.

We got a ride to our truck and Sarah drove us to the Hospital.
While I was getting stitched up I made a promise/vow to myself.
I would return to the river after my leg had healed and I would
find what cut me. I would remove it from the river so that it
could never cut anybody else ever again. It took my leg a whole
year to heal. At first, it was heavily infected by bacteria.
I was prescribed many Antibiotics. The first week was rough.
I went to the ER three times. I was feverish and delusional.
Then about four months later, it got infected again with
some kind of fungi that was hibernating underneath my skin!

Nobody had any idea what was going on. I had seen a plastic
surgeon and two different wound specialists and they were all
perplexed. It was six months after my injury and my leg looked
like someone had taken a cheese grater to it. On a whim, my primary
care doctor suggested using a fungus cream to see if it would help.
Sure enough, the fungus cream helped. But the fungus was very
persistent and it took several months to fully die.

It was a year after my injury, my leg was finally healed and I
returned to the John Day. It was mid-September again so the water
was low, even lower than before. I went to the spot where my injury
happened and it was immediately clear what had cut my leg open.
It was a five foot long, fungi-infested, rusting metal fence post
that was half buried in the riverbed. The flanges that were normally
supposed to be underground were above ground and they were
pointing upstream. I dug it up and removed it from the river.

I also found four other fence posts. I removed them from the river
too. Then I began to notice tires everywhere. I found twelve tires
in all. One tire was from a tractor and it was six feet in diameter!
I couldn’t remove all the tires from the river. Instead, I cleaned
off the tires and tied them all together. I contacted a BLM Ranger
who was able to go and remove the tires with the help of a volunteer.
He was grateful and he thanked me for my efforts. I was grateful and
I thanked him for his efforts as well.

Something else happened as a result from my injury. An idea was
born. Sarah and I both thought it would be great if there was a
social media that was dedicated to doing good deeds, like trash
removal from rivers, parks and beaches. Sarah and I realized that
Earth could really benefit from a social community dedicated to
Earth’s activists. A social media of change-makers, for Earth.

Her and I brainstormed and created while my leg was healing.
We discovered that there are a lot of different things that
anyone can do to help Earth. The most obvious thing that anyone
can do is recycle. But also, by conserving water and conserving
energy, you can help Earth. By eating less meat you can help Earth.
By consuming less dairy you can help Earth. By volunteering and
voting you can help Earth. By planting trees, by using your own
grocery bags, by repairing, re-purposing, and reusing, you can help
Earth. Every tiny deed that you do can potentially help Earth.
Above all, by being a conscious consumer you can help Earth.
By not participating in fast fashion you can help Earth. By not
supporting the Industries or Corporations that are destroying Earth,
by not supporting the Corporations that are abusing Earth’s water,
by not supporting the Corporations that are polluting Earth,

You Can Help Earth.

We had hoped to crowdfund our idea. We hoped to create the first
social media, for Earth. A social media where people could document
and track all of their efforts to help Earth, Animals, and People.
Instead of competing for people’s time, this social media would
encourage people to go volunteer their time. Instead of propagating
fake news, this social media would only propagate news of deeds,
people’s selfless acts of kindness, courage, sacrifice, protest, and
resilience. We thought it would be awesome if it could be a game.
We’d have contests and prizes for the most dedicated participants.
No deed would be too small.

This idea changed us. It changed how we view the World.

We know that: Everything We Do Matters.

We understand that: There Are Many Ways To #PROTEST.

We do many things differently now. We Protest and We Boycott.
We are Activists. We are dedicated Non-Conformists. We Are
change-makers, dreamers, truth-seekers, and believers. We Vote,
Volunteer, Recycle and Conserve. We eat much less meat and we
have nearly quit consuming dairy completely. We speak our truths.
We debate, educate, engage, enrage, motivate and persuade.

Earth Needs Our Help.

Animals Need Our Help.

Democracy Needs Our Help.

Though we still dream about creating the app, we understand
that it doesn’t have to exist for us to make a difference.
No app ever changed the World. People change the World.
Dedicated Non-Conformists change the World every day, by
speaking their truths and by owning their actions.

Please Speak Your Truths.

Please Own Your Actions.

There are many ways to #Protest.

You Can Change Anything.

You Can Change Everything.

Thank you for reading.

A sequence of events –

A story (Conspiracy Theory Redux)

This is a story about an idea and the strange correlations
between this idea and TED, TEDx, Litterati the app., Deeds.life,
2020orbust the app., and whatever the heck is going on over in
China with their ‘Social Credit Programme App.’
https://www.litterati.org/ (a basic litter removal app)
https://deedster.com/ (formerly deeds.life)
https://www.2030orbust.org/ (formerly 2020orbust.org/)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 (China)

My name is Lee. In September of 2014, I cut my leg open on a fence
post that was buried in the riverbed of the John Day River in Central
Oregon. I had to get 13 stitches. The cut screwed up my tattoo.
At the time, I had no idea what it was that cut me. While getting
stitched up, my conspiracy theory mind was abound with theories
about what could have cut my leg open. I thought maybe it was barb-
wire that was buried in the riverbed that cut me? Or maybe it could
have been a huge piece of sheet metal or part of a tin roof? A bunch
of chicken wire? A sharp piece of corrugated pipe or an old piece of
serrated culvert? I also thought maybe it was mean little Duck-Billed
Platypus! Even though I know that Duck-Billed Platypi don’t exist in
Oregon. So maybe it was an angry Beaver? While getting stitched up
I made a vow to myself to go back to that damn river after I had
healed. I would find what it was that cut me and I would remove it
from the river for good. I didn’t care if it was the top of a completely
buried Volkswagen Van. I was going to return to that damn river and
dig the whole damn Van out from the riverbed or die trying, I had to.
Anyways, my leg had to heal first and then I would get my revenge.
Little did I know, death was knocking and I almost wouldn’t survive
the next ten days.

You see, there were thousands of tiny bacteria inside my leg. Those
little bastards had lots of devious little plans of their own and they
weren’t going to give up on their plans without dying while trying
either. Thankfully, because of several different kinds of antibiotics
and perhaps God, or Universe, or Jupiter, the antibiotics won and
the bacteria were all murdered before they could murder me. It was
quite frightening how those tiny bacteria nearly killed me.

I was literally dying for those first seven days. My leg was super
infected. It was pissing, oozing and swelling. I was given more
antibiotics on day 5, but most of the stitches had to come out
because the swelling just kept getting worse. So the stitches
came out and there was even more pissing, oozing and swelling.
By day number nine I no longer had fevers, chills, nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea, or death knocking. The bacteria was dying.
The antibiotics were winning. I ended up losing a pretty big
chunk of skin, it died and fell off. I was pretty sick for the first
two weeks. I had to see several doctors and there were more than
a couple of Emergency Room visits. I know that I would be a dead
man if I had not received several powerful life-saving antibiotics.
By week number three I was on the road to recovery. But the road to
recovery would be much longer than anyone could’ve anticipated.

Around week number eight it looked like my leg was pretty much
fully healed, but it wasn’t. A few more weeks went by and something
else started happening. A fungus began to creep up from under my
skin. So I began going and seeing more doctors. After seeing two
wound specialists and a plastic surgeon, I had no official medical
diagnosis. Nobody knew what was going on or that it was even a
fungus at the time! There were several weird streaking patterns on
my original wound-site and a lot of oozing yellow liquid. At first,
I used Neosporin for a couple of weeks. Things only seemed to get
worse. I began getting tiny blisters. So back to my Doctor I went.
He concluded that I might be allergic to Neosporin. So I stopped
using Neosporin and started using Polysporin. The tiny blisters
went away, but the streaking sores and the oozing persisted. That’s
when he decided to send me to the wound specialists and a plastic
surgeon. They couldn’t figure out what was going on, they were
clueless. Finally, around visit number 12 or so with my primary
care doctor we were reviewing all of the symptoms from the
beginning of the accident. We discussed the accident itself and
what it may have been that could’ve cut my leg open. I was really
convinced by then that it was a damn mean little Duck-Billed
Platypus! Anyways, we discussed all of the treatments that we had
tried so far. We discussed the ‘behaviors’ and ‘reactions’ of what-
ever it was that was preventing my leg from healing. He came to the
conclusion that maybe it was some kind of fungal infection. He sug-
gested using an over the counter fungal cream. So I used an over the
counter fungal cream and began seeing immediate results. I was
thrilled to relay the news to my wound specialist. He prescribed me
some stronger anti-fungal cream. The prescription strength cream
worked even better. Within a month most of the streaking was gone,
but there were still some open sores. By month six everything was
pretty much under control, but my leg was really dry and flaky and
would often crack open and ooze and bleed. Then finally, one year
later, my leg was healed. I headed back to the John Day River.
I had a vow to keep.

In September of 2015, I discovered it was a fence post that cut me.
It was buried half-way into the riverbed and the metal pointed
flanges were pointing upstream. It was super rusty and there was a
bunch of greenish black fungus growing all over it. I removed that
damn fence post from the river and I removed four other fence
posts that I found. Also, I found, gathered, and cleaned off twelve
tires that were littering the beautiful John Day River. I couldn’t
take all of the tires home with me to be properly disposed of, so I
had to leave them by the river. I tied them all to a big uprooted
tree. In hindsight, I should’ve carried them up above the high
water line and completely out of harms way. But fortunately I got
in contact with a Bureau of Land Management Ranger and he was
able to retrieve the tires with the help of a volunteer.

That accident inspired an idea. The whole time my leg was healing,
my girlfriend Sarah and I were plotting and creating this idea.
We wanted to create a new social media app., for Earth. We wanted
it to be a game that rewards responsible behaviors, like conscious
consumerism, voting, and volunteering. It was going to be a social
media like no other social media that had ever existed. We made
some videos and we tried crowdfunding on kickstarter and indie-
gogo. But we were very inexperienced at crowdfunding and we
never gained any kind of traction. I signed up for kickstarter in
November of 2015, which was just a couple of weeks after a BBC
article was released that described China’s ‘Social Credit
Programme App.’ Coincidence? Sure, maybe. For the record, I
acknowledge that Humble Deeds is similar to what is going on
in China, but what is going on in China is insane, manipulative
and controlling! What is going on in China is authoritarianism,
gamified. Humble Deeds will be very different. We will only share
news of people’s selfless deeds. There will be no fake news.
There will be no manipulation. Humble Deeds will be activism,
gamified. We will encourage volunteerism and protesting. We will
help to defend our Democracy. In fact, we will shake the very
foundations of our crooked and corrupt ‘Democracy.’

Sarah and I continued toiling away about the possibilities of Humble
Deeds. We discovered that there are many ways in which anybody
can make some simple life-changing habits and in doing so they can
initiate and influence Oceans of change. Sarah and I believe Earth is
in a crisis and so is small American Businesses, as well as Democracy.
Climate change is rapidly accelerating and we must act now, before
it gets out of control! We believe that we must get rid of the lying
and thieving politicians that are contributing to the destruction of
Earth, by passing ridiculous laws and approving insane Government
Spending. We believe America needs a revolution and Humble
Deeds is a Revolution in the making…

While desperately trying to promote Humble Deeds the app. in our
own naive and idiotic ways, we began noticing some similar ‘ideas’
happening elsewhere in the World.

China unveiling their ‘Social Credit Programme App.’ was a pretty
weird coincidence, but perhaps it was just that, a coincidence.

In November of 2016 I applied for a TED Fellowship. Sarah and I
wanted to get some exposure and share the Humble Deeds idea
with the World. But TED was not interested. Or perhaps they were
interested, but some other forces prevented them from approving
our idea or granting me a Fellowship. Days before TED announced
their qualifying Fellows for 2017, there was a TED archivist who
uploaded a video from an old TEDx talk. The talk was about an app.
called Litterati and I got an email about it. I watched the video
and it seemed like it was a pretty neat app. Also, it was already
on the mobile app. market. The Litterati app. is designed to en-
courage kids to pick up litter and document their actions. At first,
I thought that maybe TED thought my idea was the same as Litterati.
But c’mon they couldn’t be that stupid, could they? Humble Deeds is
so much more than just a litter removal app. I explained everything
to them in detail. There are many ways to Protest for Earth and
Humble Deeds is the ultimate activism app. It seemed as though that
video was uploaded specifically to discourage us from proceeding.
But we were not discouraged. We were pissed off. We proceeded.

Litterati is similar to Humble Deeds, but not nearly as encompassing.
There is so much more that we can do for Earth aside from just pick-
ing up trash in our neighborhoods. There are many ways to Protest!

In 2017, we found out about deeds.life. Oddly enough, there is a man
named Sveinung Skaalnes who is the Builder and Head of Network
at Hyper Island and a Board Member of TEDx Stockholm. Sveinung
is an Advisor of Deeds.life. So my conspiracy theory mind wonders
if TED stole, sold, or perhaps is currently selling this idea?
Or perhaps this is just another coincidence…

In February of 2018, I saw Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight interview-
ing Laughliz Artz who is the creator of 2020orbust the app. Laugh-
lin’s app. is a dumbed down version of Humble Deeds. He claims it is
a game, but it is not a game in the slightest. Also, this guy, Olav
Kjorven is working with Laughlin Artz. Olav seems fishy to me. Olav
Kjorven has got quite the list of credentials. He is the director of
UNICEF’s Public Partnerships Division. He was the Special Advisor
to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Pro-
gramme. He was also State Secretary for International Development
with the Country of Norway. Olav began his career in Development
as an Environmental Specialist with the World Bank in 1992. Does
he seem fishy to you? He sounds like a the perfect tool to me!
Also, Laughlin Artz seems like a good little puppet to me too.
Perhaps, I am wrong. Maybe Laughlin Artz is really doing his best?

So what does TED, TEDx, Deeds.life, 2020orbust the app.,
and whatever the heck is going on over in China with their
‘Social Credit Programme app.’ have to do with Humble Deeds?
I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps you can help me figure things out?
Are you willing to fight for Earth?
Are you willing to fight for Democracy?
Do you dream of Equality?
Do you dream of Peace?
Shall we create a game about Peaceful Revolution?
Or, shall we just keep choosing sides and arguing with each other?

Thanks for reading this conspiracy theory redux.

Please feel free to send me an email at: Lee.e.gonzalez@gmail.com

Once upon a time, on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@humbledeedsguru

Thanks for visiting humbledeeds.com

this page was last updated on 11/11/2024