Feeling a bit grumpy today... or at least a little disappointed and disgruntled.
Which I don't much like, as I am generally a pretty upbeat and cheerful sort of cat!
Ya Gotta Start SOMEwhere!
I remain a tiny piece of catfluff in the greater Steemit ecosystem, but I am doing my best to conduct myself in a way I feel constitutes "right action."
Maybe that's one of those Human "buzzwords" that annoys a lot of people, but what it means to me is that I use the tools and infrastructure provided by Steemit in such a way that I benefit, others benefit and the community as a whole benefits.
Not so happy about the state of affairs...
Sure, I post cat photos, but I also mix in real stories, questions and issues, and people generally enjoy the posts (I think!), and I try to interact with others in a social sort of manner.
The idea here is that we have been given an opportunity to build a social content ecosystem, from which we can not only be rewarded, but also make connections and friendships, practice our content creation skills, pursue our interests, share our hobbies and more.
The basis for what Steemit is and appears to have been designed around the "Pay it Forward" principle, which means we basically have a "gift economy" of sorts.
That's not exactly rocket science.
As A Beginner...
As a newbie, I accept that most new things we undertake in life have a learning curve of sorts, and that I — as a beginner — need to learn the ropes.
I also accept that I — or anyone else — shouldn't expect to be doing as well as someone who has been here for two years and has 5000 followers. That's just the natural order of things.
They might make $200.00 for their post; I'm lucky to make $2.00. It's a slow and gradual building process, and I honor that. The fact that even a $50.00 post seems like "another universe" to me is not going to make me start behaving badly.
Finding it hard to sleep this off...
As an analogy... over there we have Tiger Woods winning millions of dollars playing golf, and over here we have my neighbor Fred who started playing golf last September. Does Fred expect to win millions of dollars? No! Of course he doesn't. No sane person would.
For sure, there's a difference between golf and Steemit: You can't cheat your way into the US Masters golf tournament, but evidently you can "cheat" your way to the top of Steemit. Golf is a meritocracy, based on skills and experience... Steemit is a.... a.... well, I'm not sure exactly what.
And that's why I am wearing that grumpy look on my face.
Humans and their Greed
Earlier today, I was reading numbers whiz 
That came right after I had read a post by 
Yesterday, it was Asher's ( 
Obligatory Curator Cat selfie...
These three posts are all worth a read, if you're interested in the future of our community.
To me, they shed light on various aspects of the same mindset that cuts down old growth forests that have stood for 100's of years "because I want to make money selling wood." And then those same harvesters go on to complain that they have nowhere to take their kids camping in the deep woods...
Mostly, I can overlook the basic notion that some Humans are greedy — and especially when it comes this thing you seem to worship, otherwise known as "money."
What's harder to overlook is when that same greed reaches such extremes that it potentially "ruins the game" for everyone else. Or — worse still — perhaps causes the game to fall apart or end.
Greed: Your Own Death Warrant
The silly thing greedy people often overlook completely is how reliably greed tends to lead to death; that is, the greedy person(s) end up killing the very thing that's the "golden goose" that inspires their greed.
Consider a company where an employee starts embezzling.
They think life is awesome because they suddenly have money for new cars and vacations and WOOT! But then the company goes bankrupt because it gradually runs out of money and now the greedy person gets all butthurt because the very thing that was helping them realize their "dreams" (through selfishness and greed) has been destroyed by their actions.
And sadly — much of the time — greedy people will not "own responsibility" for being the cause of the demise.
Maybe I'm being overly dramatic or histrionic here, but it seems to me not all is well in Steemit Land.
Not All is Doom and Gloom!
We have a really beautiful community here with lots of wonderful people who create marvelous content!
I just hope the recent increase in "community backed" initiatives — witnesses, curation groups and more — will grow strong enough that their voices can substantially influence the direction of Steemit, or even overcome the abusers and misusers.
I think I'll leave it at that. Don't want to distress my daily seekers of "cat content!"
Have a beautiful day!