Everyone, meet Snowpea's new friend Mary!! They just met this week and Snowpea was so happy when she saw Mary as they are the perfect twins with matching red and white outfits and woolly hats. Mary came all the way from Ukraine with a toadstool, and was sent to me by the lovely 
I'm not good at writing what I call fluffy posts, yet Christmas seems to have this effect on me. Especially this year. So much has happened, both personally and around the world. At the beginning of the year, my life was still in limbo. Half of it was here, the other half half way around the world, not knowing when I can piece them back together. Things became clearer last month, that was a big relief. Now I can finally plan to put my life back on track, and look forward to some stability and certainty next year.
Hive has been one of the few stability in my life irrespective where I am in the world. I'm fortunate that I don't have to treat it as a 'job' hence don't have the pressure of churning out content every day for the sake of my autovtes for which I am grateful for. I enjoy lurking around on the chain coz it's fun, but it can also get very frustrated and at times tiring. The line between real vs fake, real vs virtual, fake vs virtual sometimes gets so blurred that I don't know who is who, what is what. Who's real? Who's fake? What's real? What's fake?
Sometimes, things seems to be going perfect on the chain, and then suddenly you doubt everything that you thought was real. And I'm not talking about how Hive can drop over 20% in a few days. That I can live with. What I'm referring to is how much of everything or everyone that exists on Hive is real. Sometimes you think you know a friend on the chain, endless conversations and banter dominate the virtual relationship. You share fun, silly and naughty things（no, I'm not talking about nuke pic or sexting）and build a close rapport. Then suddenly things go cold. Did I over estimate our virtual relationship or does virtual relationship work different from real life？ I don't know what's real anymore.
On a less personal side, the rise of fake news and fake content is another thing I can't deal with. It's starting on Hive and I know abusers will grab this opportunity and milk it to the max. I foresee this to be a big problem next year. How much real content will we see, and do we have to resort to supporting our own trusted circle of friends only? Call me paranoid now. We shall know next year.
I'm not terrific at human interaction, those who have met me IRL will know, but at least I know where you and I stand face to face. And this brings me to the original objective of this post before I wandered off rambling about real vs fake vs virtual. When so much of everything is fake/virtual, and so difficult to grasp, there comes a slither of reality. The Ukrainian war is real, people living without power, heating, water is real. Families torn apart due to the war and death is real. Friends living in a war zone but still sends you their love over Christmas is real.
Thank you to everyone who has made things real for me this year, and have a great Christmas wherever you are, real or fake or vitual.
