I got in for money.
That didn't work out.
When I joined Hive back in 2017, I did it for the money. And I thought it was money, as I had zero direct experience with crypto prior, other than trying and failing to buy some bitcoin back in 2011. What a failure... But when I joined we had recently a baby with complications in the delivery for my wife, and issues with our child which left us strapped for money and with monthly bills almost twice that of our mortgage to cover. It was pretty stressful times and a friend said that he had heard about writing for a bit of money, and perhaps I should try. So I did.
It didn't make me anywhere near enough money - or crypto.
But it did introduce me to crypto and the potential.
So, instead of cashing out a few dollars to buy a coffee or two, I kept writing and started to learn about what was actually happening here and elsewhere, and falling in love with writing. I learned how to trade a little (mostly poorly) and how to buy a bit. But what I think was the most surprising part, was that I started enjoying the writing process so much that I kind of got addicted to it, as well as engaging with people on Hive. The largest rewards have come through the changes in me as a person, and my understanding of the world.
What became clear is, the most valuable thing we have in our experience, are our relationships.
Relationships are more than just interpersonal relationships with other people, but healthy relationships are vital for a good level of wellbeing. Yet, we have relationships with everything in our lives, whether we have them or not. A single person has a relationship with a partner, whether they want a partner or not. Money is an easy example, where whether we have it or not, we have opinions and feelings about it, and it affects us, pulls and pushes us, and can make us feel good, or bad, depending - and that doesn't just depend on having or not, as there are a host of other conditions that affect our relationship with money. Like guilt. Or longing.
As my journey progressed through writing and engaging, I also started getting more involved in the economic side of things. While always interested in economics and studying it a bit at university, I never really put anything into practice, but here there is an ecosystem that blends economics, as well as social relationships, and if paying attention, most of human behaviours can be observed here. Good and bad.
Over the years, I have shifted more and more toward a position where financial economics shouldn't be about making money, but improving wellbeing for humanity. This doesn't mean that money can't be made, but doing so should come through building a healthy society, healthy people, and healthy environment. However, most of the ways that make wealth today run counter to a healthy humanity, and many of them do not do anything at all and are just wealth-making mechanisms that don't create any value for humans. Just a tool to print wealth, unavailable to most people, but a cost to everyone.
Last night I was a grateful guest on Hive Thrive and a lot of the conversation after the recording was about the price of Hive, which is understandable, because it is in the gutter. But as people were talking, I was scrolling through the list of cryptos by marketcap and the majority of them are just more financial instruments, not unlike the traditional economy.
The economy thewy were meant to replace.
I didn't dig too deeply, but I don't know of many cryptos that are actually doing something to make life for humans better, other than promising to make people rich. But the problem with "rich" in this context is, it means getting out of crypto to realise it. And the people participating seem to not care about the mess that the current world is, nor the brokenness of the economy or the disparity in wealth - they are just trying to buy a better position on the ladder, using some financial tool to do so. They attract people with APR promise and highest returns, but there is nothing to actually keep people there once another offers a better deal.
And this is the problem, because there is always going to be a better deal offered by some group who will use it to make a fortune themselves, while the majority will make a loss. Other than promise of an APR, there is nothing keeping anyone there or interested. There is no ideology, no improvement of society, just more greed. The same greed that has led us into this highly-broken economy we have globally today.
Of course, it is too much to expect people to behave differently than they are conditioned to behave, which is why all these projects keep attracting users, but Hive does not. People don't want to really understand the issues of the world, their own issues, or how to deal with them - they just think that if they can find a way to make more money, everything will be okay. It will not, because money doesn't equate to wellbeing, even for the people who have it. But when the majority of people don't have it but need it, it is going to create many problems for those with it also.
Yet no one cares.
It is easier to keep doing the same thing that doesn't work, than try do something different and risk it not working also. It is easier to watch all the conflict in thee world and wish something would change it, than actually do the things that need to be done to change it. It is easier to do nothing, than do something. An d that is what most of these financial tools do for humanity - nothing.
Well, that is not true.
They do nothing good.
And like it or not, we all have a relationship with the world we have created.
An abusive relationship.
And we stay.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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