In July, 2023 I'll celebrate my sixth year on what is now known as Hive. It'll actually be my seventh, as I lurked starting in spring/early summer 2016 before diving in full-time the following year. I'll use the royal "we" when I say that we've seen all of the various ups and downs over the years, so much so that these cyclical "crypto winters" no longer phase me.

But to answer the question of why I'm still here, you have to know where I came from and the forces that drove me right into the welcoming arms of Hive.

Foundations

You see, one thing about me is that I love to read and I love to write. Born with a curious mind, in my teens, I was interviewing the local prostitutes about their line of work. I was and remain fascinated about how and why things and people work. I wanted to know why the people do the things that they do and the influences that shape perception and help create reality.

When I was in Job Corp, I found out about a group of Satanists, and took the opportunity to talk to them. They were surprised that a Christian would have any interest in them, but I knew this was a rare opportunity to hear from this secretive group and found out about the important connection that bloodlines have in passing these traditions down through the ages.

So if you want to be a writer, you have to be willing to research subjects that many might find offensive. I'm an information sponge who's always willing to learn new things.

With the advent of the internet, the world of blogging opened up to me as a place where I could learn the craft online. In the beginning, I didn't tell anyone about my tech blog as I wanted to work out the kinks and make my mistakes without anyone seeing them. Later on as my skill-set increased, I invited a small group of friends and co-workers to view and give critique on my writings.

Many adventures followed including the theft of my content, which caused me to leave the platform. I can still remember the day when I wondered if someone would ever find a way to combine blogging and crypto, then next thing you know, Steemit was born.

Still wary due to the abuses I suffered on Blogger I instead spent a year lurking on the platform, where I accustomed myself with the policies and the way things worked. Many of the people that you know now as whales, were just regular new bloggers back then and I have been blessed to witness their growth over the years. They're real people who were willing to put stakes in the ground to help get this new thing rolling and they deserve all of the success that they currently enjoy.

But the most important thing to realize, is that they all started out with that very first post - just as you and I did.

While I didn't have the funds to do so, many of them invested in "this thing of ours" on the blockchain, and that taught me the importance of using an accelerant to propel future growth on the platform. Sure, you could grind away without putting anything in, but things really sped up when you had some skin in the game, and they did.

Hive allowed me to reclaim my the sense of ownership over my content that I lacked on Blogger, where in effect, I was writing for them.

With an effective anti-plagiarism cohort, there would always be eyes out to take action against the wholesale theft of my work that I spent years trying to deal with alone. This had the effect of opening up the floodgates of creativity and allowed me to express myself like never before. Six years later, my stake is growing and so am I as a blogger.

The View From Here

So to those of you worried about the current "crypto winter," been there, done that many times before. Use this period as an opportunity to stack more HIVE, HBD, LEO, DHEDGE, SPS, CTP, BRO, SIM, POB, ARCHON, PIZZA, NEOXAG and more.

I take a long-term view and have a rock-solid belief in a bright future for LeoFinance and Hive. In my view, the token itself, is but an icon of the amazing community behind it.

Not to drop names (proceeds to do just that), but when I invest in those communities, I'm investing In Taskmaster, Khal, Meesterboom, Jongolson-Josediccus ("J&J"), Shortsegments, Tarazkp, Anomadsoul, Acesontop, Scaredycatguide, Geekgirl and most importantly, I'm investing in myself and the home I've built here on Hive. And THAT'S why I'm still here almost six years later and looking forward to the next six with a renewed sense of optimism and hope for the future.