On December 18-19, 2020, there is a Hive Fest. For those who are not aware, this is a yearly meeting taking place for the last 4 years since this blockchain was conceived. This is the 5th such event (previously they were called steem fest). I am not sure how many of you are aware of this, but the four previous fests were at:
Amsterdam, Netherlands (2016)
Lisbon, Portugal (2017)
Krakow, Poland (2018)
Bangkok, Thailand (2019)
Your home, Virtual AltSpace VR (2020)
I was aware of the Lisbon Fest only barely. I saw a few pictures of people at the Fest and heard some stories from others. But I was too new to understand what it was all about. During Krakow 2018, I was quite familiar with the blockchain, and people wanted me to participate, but I wasn't really involved with the chain that much. I was still a noob. During Bangkok 2019, I knew what was going on, and I was involved with the chain. I had many requests that year to go and attend, and I really wanted to, but December is generally a difficult time for me to travel personally as I take some family vacation during that time. This time around, it is different.
I was unsure if the Fest will happen or not. But thanks to roelandp and many others, we will have a hive fest. Since we are in the 'pandemic' world, we will do it from our home, this time in virtual reality. You can either use a VR headset, or you can download a free application called AltspaceVR and just attend from your computer. Details are here. An important thing to note that it is critical to register before December 07, as you can register for free. It takes literally 1 min to register. Just your hive user id and an email address are adequate. Whether you attend or not, I highly recommend registering.
So, the question is, why Hive Fest matters? For an average user of Hive, why do you care? Why are we even discussing it in Turni's pages? Well, we need our community to survive and thrive. But our community is more significant than our immediate sphere at BDC. We are of course loyal to our immediate surroundings, but external forces can and do impact us. There are governance issues of the chain that gets discussed at the Fest. Since we do not have any central authority anymore, the way this social network will thrive depends on how we govern the chain. It is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in the democratic processes, either directly or indirectly. Since many of you may or may not participate, even after I request multiple times, I have an idea. If you have any concerns about the chain or have some suggestions, you may want to write it in the comments, and I will raise it up in the discussions if I get a chance.
Now, there is no point asking why the price of Hive is low :) Because, believe me, we will be discussing that in gory details. It is critical, though, to make your thinking visible, and I think Hive Fest is an excellent place to do that. With the serious stuff out of the way, you should also consider joining just for fun. The people you will meet from around the world and the friendships you will surely build will be priceless.
-Editor
"Kaka, At long last the house looks almost complete! Quite a hassle building a house from ground up isnt it?"
"Only the tiles and the electrics are left sakib!" And then you can hang around here as much as you want with my idiot!
Said jokingly one of my closest friend's father, while I was visiting they're soon to be new home only a few hundred meters away from mine. A 54-year-old guy, as sturdy as obsidian and as fit as a slick mahogany tree! A well-kept beard let out only half of his smile, which was enough to show someone the oomph his personality had carried. What a good looking man! And the two sons he has, the youngest of which I am friends with, god was quite generous with their genes too! Like father, like sons!
The call came at seven in the morning of yesterday! And from experience, I knew it didn't bear any good news! Actually, none of the calls I got this early in the morning throughout my life has been nothing but ominous. And to strengthen my firm grasp over reality, I was right once again. My friend had called to let me know that his father passed away at 4, right brfore dawn!
While I was sleeping, I was exploring the vast and eternal lands of the dreams where only I ruled. That particular night, I saw Jormungandr, the Jotnar, and the world serpent, Loki's son. A giant godly snake, whose length and width could engulf the biggest city in the world. He was fighting his eternal nemesis, Thor, and was on the verge of bringing about Ragnarok, the death of the gods. Right when the snake was about to bite and swallow Thor whole, the phone had rung, waking me up. But, Ragnarok in my fantasy hadn't ended; it had just switched reality and chose to jump over to the real one.
Within a few moments, I was there, in front of the lifeless body. Just beside him, sitting down on the ground, was my friend, shoulder down as ever, like a fallen warrior of the vikes.
In winter times, the lack of humidity takes quite the toll on people living in this country. Drying the moisture out of the face and making it as pale as ever. When I looked at my friend's face, I could see the wet shirt of his and two quite vivid straight lines coming down from his eyes to his chin! But the eyes were now dry. He had shed it all! But the eyes were trying to push out more of it; that much was visible! I walked over to them, and for the first and last time, I touched kakas forehead with my shaky fingers. Colder than anything I had ever felt. Yet looking as lively as the first time I had met him!
It had rained a bit today, only for a few seconds. As if the world was trying to make up and shed some of its own as my friend couldn't anymore with his all empty glands. And then the smell of wet grass had let me know that all of it was real.
There I was, standing in front of the unfinished house, which had somewhat lost its integrity. Cause the man who was building it piece by piece wasn't there anymore. So the responsibility was up to me, up to us to see his dream to be fulfilled. To oversee the shelter, he meant to create for his kin! And so, I was there to tally up the materials and see if anything is missing or not. To fulfill my role in this life by being there for them. Because dying is easy, it's living that is tough!
According to scientists, the ancestry of humans on earth is still being experimented with and dubious in many circumstances. But whether today's human being is evolved animal or not, we are still the best creatures on earth, and there is no doubt about that. Again, to uphold this superiority as human beings, we are doing all the inhumane acts that any other animal has ever done. The people of the world have undergone two World Wars to date, and innumerable people have died in those incidents. Besides these two big wars, there are also wars between nations and countries where many people are losing their lives. It's not just that this war is taking place in our modern civilization, it's that we have traditionally inherited it from our ancestors who once combated with swords.
If you contemplate, you will notice that at present, many countries have the loftiest budgets in their defense sector. This demonstrates that we are getting ourselves equipped to attack others or protecting ourselves from other antagonists.
Was this really supposed to happen? Whether he is a devotee or an atheist, every human being in this world belongs to one of the religions, and no religion speaks of vengeance. Also, almost all regions contemplate people are somehow associated with one another. As per Goutam Buddha-
All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is about everything else.
— Buddha
Again, in Islam, the first man in the world is considered as Hazrat Adam. If so, eventually, every one of us is the successor of Adam. Therefore, every human being is connected to each other in some aspect.
So, are we considering the above words or annihilating ourselves? In my opinion, we are not on the right track. If this persists, the earth will inevitably be destroyed in the near future. We certainly don't want that. So, we have to ameliorate violence towards each other by increasing harmony both inside and the neighboring countries. Only then will our beloved world be more beautiful and livable for future generations.
Fellini's Amarcord has arguably no central theme. A bunch of fascist takes over, life becomes more formidable, but it still goes on with all of its eccentricities. At one point, the audience—me in this case—begins to wonder whether the film actually relies on its characters or creates a personification of the city itself. A collective of all the characters, it sleeps, weeps, dances with joy.
The townspeople and their daily oddity and perverseness feed the incarnation of the city, making it surreal.
That motorcyclist, the town nymphomaniac, town beauty, busty teachers and shopkeepers; the brats at school who'd like nothing more to cause mischiefs and even these construction workers, all of them are alive, making the town a distinct, more sensible reality we, as individuals, can't grasp in our daily lives.
I remember the scene where the construction workers gather wound, and they sing, jokingly—
"My grandfather made bricks,
My father made bricks,
I make bricks too,
But where is my house?"
They all laugh. But is it not their courage that enables them to laugh at the face of truth? And when the fact can be translated to many other trades of life as well? But I don't think there are any better alternatives to capitalism, even though it's flawed. That's the bitter awkwardness this scene left me with. I hesitate to be decisive. Ashamed.
While roaming here and there, one day, I jumped into a new place. Everything is different from the real one. Here we see the outputs of many creative and worthy people who are giving their best to make this place beautiful. Really this one is different from the other trending ones.
In the long walk of this journey, I am getting hindrances in my way. Making mistakes on and on. But some people with the candle showed me how to look into those mistakes, correct them and create a new way to reduce my errors day by day. What is needed to survive in a new place? Maybe proper guidance is at the top of that list. Those people with the candle showed me how to survive here, helped when I got stuck, taught me when I was going wrong, and appreciated me when I was doing good in whole guidance and support to live in that new place with them.
Time is moving at its own pace. Days weeks and months are passing by. Now that new place seems to me as my own place. Now I feel like I am one of them. Yes, I am one of them. From the beginning until now and in the future, I will keep learning from them how to be one of them more precisely and make that place better from my end. Trying to hold that candle for more people like me. I wish and try to light the new souls to show their hindrances and learn from that. We know from our mistakes. So we should keep learning from them and keep moving. That's how everyone is surviving with one another here.
As a newbie, we get perplexed when we jump over a new place. In reality, everything is not so challenging and complex as we feel in the beginning. It moves in an above-narrated way. It's from the journey of mine with the BDC. That's how our life works everywhere, and we should keep moving with the candle.
If you have not read the first part, please read it here!
This was probably the most hazardous situation I have ever been in! Yeah, I was pretty sure I was not got going to see the morning, but that last ray of hope was what probably made me going even after I was tired. While I was running, I felt the sound was getting closer, but the scenario in front of me was somehow getting familiar. Yeah, the surrounding was of the place where I used to play when I visited my village. Even though I visit my town once or twice a year, this place has some memories in my mind. I am a person who really is not a big fan of supernatural kinds of stuff, and neither do I believe these kinds of things to such an extent. But I heard rumors from people that the graveyard is probably one of the safest places where these sorts of supernatural stuffs tend to be avoided.
Like I said, this place holds some memories, and the graveyard was one of them. This was the graveyard where a few of my relatives were buried. I do not know, but at that specific moment, I thought this is my only chance to survive. No matter what, I have to make it to that graveyard to survive. Somehow I felt a jolt in my body, and I realized I probably gained some speed! I am not sure where that confidence came from, but I started to run much faster than before. Perhaps after a few more steps, I came closer to the wall acting as a boundary between the road and the graveyard. It was approximately 5 feet or above.
Believe me or not, I saw a person walking on that road. I felt so much relieved that I was praising the almighty and started to call out for help as loud as I could. It was a long and straight road. I was calling out for help in different ways and probably as loud as possible. I also realized the sound, which I being chased by, was again fading away. As I approached the person, I was getting a pungent smell. At that moment, I was not even worried about any sort of smell; I was more concerned about how to get out of this current chase.
While he was within my reach, I caught his shoulder and did my best to turn him around. While I saw the face as he turned, I was surprised, shocked and all those temptations of getting that hope of survival vanished into thin air. I was literally not expecting to see what I saw! I will never forget that face, that I am pretty sure about. The best explanation of that face would be, the eyes were trying to gauge out, torn clothes were hanging on his body, and I was very much sure about the flesh dropping down from his body. He seemed like a dead body that came back to life and was walking. As it turned around, I could see some sort of smile on its face, and it tried to catch me. While all these were taking place, I felt like my whole body was numb. I could not move an inch. My voice was not coming out, and neither was I able to react. My entire world was turning black in front of my eyes. I realized I was falling backward, and I noticed that a body was also falling over me!
Immediately after this moment, I screamed and woke up. I got out of my bed, and my whole body was sweating. I was looking here and there, trying to feel that body over me. It took me some time to realize what actually happened! I was so scared that I was still shaking from all these. Once I cooled down, I realized it was the wildest dream that I ever had. I was safe! I was not in my village! This was nothing but a bad nightmare. I probably drank a whole bottle of water and could not sleep for the rest of the night. To this day, I still remember all those incidents that happened to me. Maybe they were dreams, but all those vivid incidents felt so real as if it happened in real-time, with me!!
This here is our piece de resistance. To promote engagement and a little self-branding, we have come up with an initiative that we simply called Featured. And we are very excited about this portion of the magazine.
Every week, one talented author will have the opportunity to contribute a piece for the magazine while showcasing one of their best posts. The willing writers will have a chance to add a few words about any topic they choose and be a 25% beneficiary of the magazine.
The first step is, you have to decide whether you want to get featured or not. Once you've made up your mind, you have to apply by submitting one of your articles from last week. We have a wiggle room for quality content if they are older than seven days. Choose the piece you deem to be your best work for the week, as this will play a significant role in you getting featured or not.
There will be a two-day period to submit your application. It must be submitted by dropping a link to your post in the #Featured-Magazine channel on the BDCommunity Discord Server. One author will be chosen randomly from all the submissions. The featured author for the week will be announced during the weekly voice meeting. They will then have two days for writing a piece and submit.
The author who gets featured in the weekly magazine will be set as a 25% beneficiary, meaning 25% of the magazine's liquid payout will go to the featured author.
Do not forget to join our next weekly hangout at Friday 10 pm GMT +6
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