First of all, this:

I’ve hardly played music in the last three years because I felt like any free time I had should be spent writing.

Uh, I am so GLAD you picked up your guitar late at night and made a new song in ... wait for it... "record time" ;) But I also feel a little responsible that my musings mused you to amuse us and possibly took your attention away from all the "bad and ugly" responsibility things you have to handle and manage every day. Oops!

But reading on I began to think about all the horror stories of famous musicians producing under contract, those tales are timeless, frequent and often crazy. The pressure it causes them, the ridiculous things they do because of it on both sides, and on and on.

( https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/musicians-v-record-labels-famous-feuds/ )

And then I thought about how I am working round the clock, night and day, cranking out this new Hive streaming platform, under my own volition, with the only deadline being those I impose on myself to meet my users requests ASAP, at my own frenetic pace which is far more intense than most (but not all, some were inane hours and deadlines) former software engineering jobs I've ever had required of me. And comparing that to working for even the most demanding of my former "professional" contract and wage paying employers.

Then I thought about how my platform will enable media creatives to have another avenue to do it for themselves without a publisher overlord, without a contract to pay them to make media, how it enables even more people to have another place to try to do things on their own, for themselves and their audiences.

And then I thought about how YOU of all people have been paid to create written content and also paid to make musical content, and as far as I know, you've also made some video media.

You are uniquely positioned to talk astutely about all of them and their pros and cons and we should listen to your wisdom.

Then I remembered five, yes FIVE, years ago, when we made a mini-documentary together backed by the happy background sounds of happy people at a happy Hive (well, steem back then) meetup, sponsored by @enginewitty and @thealliance and then I remembered, what that song and our video were titled. It's hard, but it's worth it. Seems to fit the themes here, all of them, from all angles.

So in summary, I enjoyed this post, all the things it made me think about, the perspective it gave me on how you make your living and how it applies to how I am trying to make MY living with software, and well, how it applies to living in general.

Keep going Katrina-Ariel, You are a Mountain Moving Mountain Mama!

ITS HARD, BUT ITS WORTH IT!

-sincerely one of your biggest fans,
SC