Hey Busy Bees!
I guess it's that time of year again where we analyze if we accomplished our goals or not and set new ones for the coming new year...well maybe I'm just getting started early. What were my Hive goals this year after starting my new account? To reach 1000 hive. How did I do? Well I have some 870 accumulated, a little short but pretty close nonetheless.
Obviously I take full ownership of tho slight shortfall being due to my lack of commitment and inconsistency, I haven't been engaging in the way I used to, just not feeling that peoply. I'm already aware and at peace about that part of myself. Write when I want and don't when it feels like a chore.
As far as judging Hive and my experience since my return and also comparing my newbie experience with my 2017 newbie experience of the platform we don't speak about. I have to say being a hive newbie in 2023 was SSSSSOOOOOOO MUUUUUUCH better than the former, thankfully.
The bigger players made a commitment to operate in a more organic and community promoting atmosphere meanwhile curation teams assembled committed to highlighting the content that stands above the rest in an unbias way, from both big or small, new or old in order to help with retention. Has it helped with user retention? I'm no expert with the numbers but it does help with user experience and encouragement along with discovery so it must.
The dividing into communities obviously implemented for a few years has been a game changer overall in a major way into making Hive even more enjoyable compared to it's nearly dead origins we do not name. If you weren't around that far back (2017), consider yourself lucky, that place was filthy in so many ways and rife with spam and scams. Starting fresh with new values was the best decision the community could have made. Looking back, we were all scared but went to the unknown even if it meant letting go of our prior attachments and progress.
Taking a rough look at my shit here, I earn about .3 to .4 hive daily just with inflation and curation alone. I know nothing to brag about haha, just for future reference to recap on my account's growth over time. My other account had almost 8000 so it would be nice curation, that account gets about .7 hive per day inflation alone. Every time I go up 50 hive here, I notice immediately as the daily stuff increases, I didn't see that so much with my other account. Putting both accounts in their current state, that's roughly 400hive per year with minimal effort. Sounds better than what any bank is offering.
I could probably still reach my 1000 hive goal for the year but realistically, I would have to start writing something of value EVERYDAY with all my dilly-dallying omg, lol we all know I don't have that sort of ambition but I can at least try to get to add another 50 before the end of the year. I think that still sounds realistic enough and achievable in a few half-decent posts, although I wont be all that distressed if I don't make it there but I should really continue getting thru them left over mountains and not let them go to waste. If you don't set goals you don't really move forward much...haha.
I have been focused on reading an 800 page book anyhow. That takes a minute to do. With the spirit of Christmas around the corner, I don't really celebrate the material aspects of it but I thought I would be nice and read up on more of my enlightenment literature related to Jesus. This book is called Nag Hammadi Scriptures. Gnostic in nature originated and translated from Greek text. I have been wanting to get into it for a bit but I do have a lot to read and try to switch topics so I don't get bored or complacent with reading too much of the same thing. After reading 850 pages of tiny font of old testament apocrypha that felt like 2000 pages I was a little bibbled-out for a while.
I switched to something more earthly based with various aspects of North and south American Shamanism and it's tools towards learning our environment both physically and spiritually, I still plan on sharing that series, I have just been lazy about it. Count it towards my goal of 50 more hive by years end, one chunk at a time.
Back to the current read tho, I'm not done, a little over 300 pages in and to set a goal of 50 to 100 pages a day depending how I feel. This certainly is the bible contraband I was looking for. This would be considered heretic text by the catholic religion and certainly contains a smack of controversial views to the some of the traditional stories commonly told for centuries.
The text isn't so much bible related but a more personal view of Jesus according to his disciples via discourse similar to Hermes' Divine Poimandres, a style I really enjoy. For those unfamiliar, it's a series of questions from disciples or siblings and answers provided by Jesus about different concepts of life. It has a style similar to the Jefferson Bible but much bigger with even more context. The text highlights the wisdom of every day life and his perceptions the man possesses rather than focusing on sensationalized miracle version we can't really wrap our brains around or his public life or all the additional characters to distract.
The dinky little thing next to the book is some sort of arts and craft set that was just randomly sent for free but not on any inventory so one of those weird freebies. Maybe amazon is concerned that at the rate I'm reading, they will soon run out of titles for me better get ma a new hobby, quick! Looks like needle point with beads instead, never done but can't be that hard. My fat fingers might not like something this finicky, never know.
The book offers an introductory explanation about the provenance of each of the text before getting to the goods along with footnotes to help with additional information or bibliography and is translated in a modernized easy to understand to most readers. My goal is to finish reading it by the end of the year...50 pages at a time. I noticed, If I read one really thick book and a couple of small ones in between as a visual palette cleanser, the bigger books somehow look less intimidating!
With my birthday having just passed and Christmas being on the way, it's time to expect offerings to their favorite goddess (jk馃槅). I thought books would be a good ask...yes I have so many already but hey, I can't turn down sponsored knowledge by my loved ones. back on the hunt to amazon I went. 
The book is called Testament of youth, about a woman's journey as a nurse during WW1 and her personal thoughts as she experiences the devastation of war. The book itself was hard to find and kind of expensive so I let that sit in my Wishlist for now until I can find a reasonably priced copy. With that being said, all isn't lost, I managed to find a consolation prize with Chronicles of youth, the rough diary the book is based on. With that and watching the movie should give me a similar perspective as we all know movies lack compare tp the written version. Does it still count?
Obviously I didn't just get one, I got 5 more total so far, some of the pricier books had been coveting a while were on sale half price but we'll get into them later. What type of gifts do you like to ask for for holidays? Do you prefer a complete surprise?
Ethan Halabi(top 2 photos), second pro fight, young man just 18 with a promising boxing future in the ring.
What are my Hive goal for next year? Perhaps I can reach 2000 hive total with this account, reasonable to assume a similar posting rate as the last year and maybe I can push myself a little more. All and all, I think that is still an easily achievable target, I can probably achieve more if I re-adjust and be more committed to my blog and other interactions.
Edmonton has a new title thanks to this big guy, Blake Anderson aka Shake N' Blake took the title for Light-Heavyweight Canadian National champion.
As far as to what experiences I will seek to photograph, well that's still a mystery. Obviously, I would like to continue with the boxing stuff but I never know what to write about it so I never post them here, I'll post a few in this post without saying much, maybe there is a few sports fan kickin around. The boxing photos are part of my Ringside experiences of an Edmonton Pro boxing club with PPV events.
I believe his name is Connell and he is fairly new to the pro division but he's a really good fighter with long reach. He's pretty fun too, tons of personality!, the whole club is pretty entertaining actually.
I did get another appearance in my backyard I didn't speak much about, my pileated woodpecker, I don't have much to say and figured you were probably not into another 2000 words on my 20 ft by 20 ft backyard experience so I thought I would just post the pics and a brief explanation with this year-end hodge-podge of a post. Nyways, he's bigger than a crow and seems to be a new regular, he's fond of suet. 3 types of woodpecker feed in my backyard now. gotta love all this wildlife coming to me.
Well that's enough of nothing for now. I should get back to reading. xox
Photographer credits in the photo, Naranjito/707 Fight Photography (top photo)