February mid-flight freewrite!

After a six month hiatus, I’m starting a freewrite at cruising altitude, 32,000 feet above the Midwest. I’ve relished the time home in Minnesota with @guthrie, @vermillionfox and my @caffetto family. I’m not loving this part. As most of you know, I’m terrified of flying. Ironic that this is such an integral part of my job. I’ll be visiting @roadscape, and a few other friends while I’m here. I only have three shoots booked, which is almost not worth the trip financially. It does, however, mean that I’ll actually enjoy myself. The last time I did this, I was coming off of two weeks on the road, twenty shoots, Los Angeles, Auckland and Christchurch, New Zealand, and Melbourne, VIC. It was blur.

True to the nature of my many freewrite, I don’t have a point I’m trying to make. Just getting my thoughts on the screen, trying to distract myself from my current situation. I wrote a summary of my experience on Voice during two weeks of the closed beta. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a lighting rod for discussion, but of course, I’m glad it is. It’s still on my mind. I’ve done a fair amount of venting in the previous post, so I won’t do that. It isn’t a bad platform, even in it’s beta infancy, depending on the kind of person you are. It’s very sanitary and clean. The community decorum is jovial, even though I feel it’s more of a transaction society than anything [as of now].

If you’re the kind of person that prefers spending your time in dirty coffee shops with second and third hand cups. If Dead Kennedys informs much of your personal experiences. If the vanilla terrifies you far more than the debauchery in life, then it may not be for you. I’m increasingly getting the feeling that I don’t belong there. Not just because of the multimillion dollar UI/UX, but because I feel like me Voicing criticism, [pun intended] goes against the early developing culture of the platform. More than where I feel I don’t belong, I’m aware, more than ever, of where I do belong. I do feel like Steemit is proudly grittier. We’ve been around the block and we’ve been roughed up. We’re survivors.

@dan is pretty active on Voice, which I applaud. One of my biggest Voiced posts was on a recent blog he made, addressing the coming changes to discourage the gaming incentives of the network. He also talked at length about what he learned while developing STEEM. One thing that is cool about Voice, is the winning Voice [think of them as eBay auctions], will be written to the blockchain as a quasi-NFT. In a way, you own the header real estate forever, regardless of who authored it. I was the winning Voice on that particular post @dan made, but not because I was trying to get his attention or win his approval. I genuinely thought that post had historical significance, someone that’s been a Steemit original and was the earliest and loudest critics of what I see as the platforms short comings.

One of the things that I’m irritated most by on Voice is the shameless fanboy culture. If you write a post celebrating the Block One team, the network, EOS, you’re almost guaranteed a bounty. I mean, that’s probably obvious, and some are more gratuitous than others. The one that are, though. Eeessshhh! They’re cringeworthy. That happens on Steemit, too. The regular Steemit personalities I follow, though. They’re not afraid to criticize the community, it’s technology or it’s leadership. When we were at rock bottom around late 2018 and early 2019, @exyle didn’t shy away from saying “...this sucks!”. I remember @anomadsoul and I venting about how those of us that remained would hold a sacred place in the community when things turned around. It was bleak, but it inferred that it wouldn’t last forever. Sober optimism during a very dark time.

With that disclaimer about fanboyism, I am about to do just that. I haven’t been this excited about STEEM, and Steemit, since 2017. It’s been such a miraculous story, and for those of us that endured those dark times, it’s an odyssey of perseverance. The Steemit team that managed to right the ship, just to get us to implementing Hivemind and Communities, really needs the recognition they deserve. As the TRON rumors spread, and were eventually announced, the precautions to ensure the Steemit culture remained in tact, was an enormous weight off of my chest. For the record, I’m still hopeful for the TRON/Steemit partnership. It could be great.,

What I see now, is the users on the ground. The foot soldiers that drive the value of the STEEM blockchain. As artists, creators, publishers, poets, musicians, writers, thinkers, gamers and philosophers. We are the engine, and the proletariat. As an artist, and a three year Steemit veteran, I notice when the user experience suffers, and when it improves. Communities has entirely transformed my Steemit experience. It is no longer a water canon of content and noise. Not only am I seeing the content I want to see, but I’m seeing it [and upvoting it] from Steemian I’ve never seen before. I’m having a lot of “...how did I never know about him/her before today?!”, moments. Not only that, and much of this is attributed to the tireless efforts of OCD, I see the average user earning much, much more. Steemit users that’ve felt undervalued, are being fairly rewarded.

That’s it for now. I’m landing in about forty minutes. I’m going to put my head down and ink some comic book stuff for the rest of the flight. Between these last two posts, I feel much better. During the 2017 bull run, I reached a moment of self enlightenment. Removing the endless bills, stress of utilities being turned off, and where I’d get my next booking, I was able to just “think”. Thank about my place in the world. Where I fit in. What I’d leave behind when I’m going. When the bear market crept in and stayed, I learned you can’t just turn that enlightenment off. I still think, all the time, even as a broke freelancer once again. I love that Steemit allows me to get these thoughts off my chest. I love having a chance to share them with all of you.