Happy Birthday, Hive! It has been nearly six years since the fork!
The badges of honor, khem… my Hivefest tags! Last year was my sixth in-person Hivefest (yes, I am counting Lisbon and Bangkok)!
Back in early 2017, I found myself on the precipice of needing a change in my life. I found that I am not particularly cut out for corpo life. It dimmed my light and slowly ate away my soul. I was a young pup, fresh out of Uni, brainwashed by the idea that my achievements were the only measure for defining my value. I jumped on the wheel willingly as the trap door closed behind me. I became part of the wheel spinning round and round in circles. All because I did not know what it was I wanted to do with my life yet.
I remember specifically asking the Universe to guide me out of the mess. A few months went by. I was on my way to quit the corpo job when a very specific chain of events occurred. Was it random? No shot! It felt oddly meant for me and as if a clear path was unfolding before my eyes. I still see it even today.
One part of it was meeting 
I hardly knew anything about blockchains or crypto back then. I had heard some stories about Bitcoin and one other coin, but my understanding of the underlying technology was nearly nonexistent. Only now, I fully understand how lucky I was to have the Hive community as my introduction to this world, as there are a lot of schemes and caca nonsense out there. That understanding and knowledge, however, came much later, and it was not the main reason, the gravity that pulled me into Hive’s orbit. It was the people instead!
The individuals of Hive are some of the coolest characters I personally know. I remember some of the first posts I saw on Hive were people writing poems, sharing their art, or their life on their farm. I thought wow, this is so raw and authentic! It was a breath of fresh air after the fake motivational quotes, chewed up, swallowed, and spit back up over and over, zombified drone feeds of other social media places. These are real people. These people are alive.
I wanted to be one of them. I am one of you. For nearly nine years, people whom I have met along the way, through working together or meeting at Hivefests or other gatherings, and now I am honored to call friends, have been my reason to come back and stick around. All of you inspire me in your own unique ways! You value authenticity, the truth, you are unafraid to go against the grain, you are builders, thinkers, creators, and protectors. I would like to think most Hivians are mostly good people, a few bad apples aside, which is, of course, unavoidable with humans. Those bad apples eventually fall off anyway. Weak, pfft!
The creation of Hive solidified my belief that we have something truly special here. I made a post that summarizes my recollection of the events leading up to the split from the legacy chain. It is called “Ain't No Sunshine”, and I reread it from time to time to remind myself of the true power of Hive. The people of Hive.
Imagine a powerful and quite scary party revealing itself to you. They promise you riches as the moon itself. All you have to do is let them take your choice, your freedom away! Let them become the one centralized brain that takes over the community of people who, before, successfully governed themselves and were thriving through decentralization.
Hive saw the absolute bullshit and horseshit of it! We stood our ground against it and came out on the other side stronger than ever! It was an incredible and tough battle! In the end, I can say this - greed did not win!
To me, it says it all. To me, it is more valuable than ten moons combined!
Now that I think about it, it also helped weeding out those who folded over like waffles over the false promises of get-rich-quick! Ha! Good riddance!
Hive has taught me the value of independent thought and authenticity, the ultimate freedom from the clutches of conglomerate demons of the world. It has taught me to focus on what matters to me in my fragile and short human lifetime.
Hive gives me hope in humanity - maybe we are not too far gone despite the twisted views and narratives painted for us in centralized, censored, and propaganda-filled spaces elsewhere.
Hive has given me friendships I value deeply, and my absolutely wonderful partner in life, 
Nine years well spent, I would say! I am proud of the posts and creations I have shared here. I am also extremely happy with the growth and progress as an individual and creative, I can see I have had as part of my record on the chain. I feel I have improved my writing and storytelling skills, my art skills, and overall quality of presentation, and I know it is just a start!
At some point, my goal is to be able to bring even more value and contribution to Hive, and I have now committed to making that a reality, hopefully soon!
Hive is where I belong. I am glad to be part of the community, to keep my account growing, and to power up mostly everything I have ever earned. I cannot imagine wanting to share, create, or engage on this level anywhere else.
Hive is like an oasis and a haven in the sea of complete and utter trash!
Hive on lovelies! ^^ Cheers to many, many more beautiful years ahead of us!
*This post was created for “Hive turns 6 - Tell us your journey!” challenge by 
Song of the day: Underworld - Trim
