The minute I saw this prompt I thought I knew the answer. What's your favorite Hive highlight, your best blockchain moment from the past year? Hivefest seems like such an obvious answer and of course it was. Hands down.
Except I've told you all already how I enjoyed meeting some new faces, renewing acquaintances, seeing myself grown up so by contrast with the last 'fest I attended all the way back in Krakow in 2018. I knew I wanted to be there from the moment it was announced, largely because it was a perfect excuse to revisit my beloved Croatian coast. It was a hell yes moment earlier in the year, for sure, but it was followed by anxiety. See, in Poland, I'd been excited about all these people I wanted to meet who I knew wouldn't be in Croatia this time around. I thought, how will I get on if I don't really know anyone? Didn't factor in not being 19 anymore. Hivefest this time around worked out fine. More than fine.
It changed me. Unearthed me. There's a tint of art to it, to meeting people so close, so like yourself, from unexpected corners of the world. It was certainly a very interesting experience for me, very full, and one I'm very grateful for.
But as I say, I've told you it already, and it feels like I'd be milking it a bit if I returned to that. I trust the people whose paths I crossed already know what it meant for me to meet them and know them a little better. Suffice to say, attending Hivefest this year, made me feel a little real-er than I do normally, in a world that feels a little too far from my center for my own comfort.
Does that make sense? Maybe not. It's not about that.
Rather, in deciding my favorite Hive memory of the year was wandering through the rocky narrow streets of Split, I got to thinking
Yeah, but how did I get there?
Two years ago, when it was in Amsterdam, I could've gone but the truth is, my involvement with the blockchain was fragmentary. More for the sake of the past, on an altar of nostalgia, than out of active interest.
The past two years, and more importantly, the past year changed that. I became more involved with the 'chain. I started for the first time to see it as real. Before, it was always this mirage to me. Maybe where I discovered it when I was quite young, I've always seen it like a place you can be or not be, an imaginary place, like a nook in the secret forest. Of course, older users know that's not true.
You don't just disappear from Hive. I still wonder, often, at the people who did. Where are they, and why? What did they find that was better, and do they miss it like I miss them? So many cool people who stopped writing here in the interest of "real life" would probably know exactly what I'm talking about. This distinction that's not clear at all between what's real and what isn't.
Anyway. This year, my Hive Highlight wasn't Hivefest itself, but rather the strong, firmly-rooted sense of belonging on the blockchain that determined me to take the plunge and buy those tickets. It was feeling that this continues to be a place where I can write freely, a commodity that's increasingly rare on this Internet of censorship and cancel culture.
When I discovered this place, still in my teens, it was a little bit like magic. This place where I could write anything, that let me talk crazy and watched my tongue twist in my mouth and said sing it, baby. It was a sense of comfort found in other people long before I knew that was possible to find in other people, and it meant so very much to me.
I always knew I was going to write, yet I wonder sometimes, if I hadn't discovered Hive (well. the before-Hive, really) when I was so very young, how different would my writing be? Would I even be writing at all, or would I have given that up for the sake of "real life"?
I don't know, and though I went through some dry spells here on the 'chain in the 7+ years I've been here, these past couple of years, I've found that magic again. That sense of belonging. And it led me to Croatia and to so many more wonderful things, and that's a highlight of such gratitude a lifetime wouldn't suffice for expressing it.
The highlight, for me, has been the most any writer can aspire to - a home for their words. The excellent people, the money, the alcohol, the spats, the love and the conspiracy theories - those are all very welcome bonuses. :)
