Over the years, people have often asked where I get the drive to keep posting daily from, and while many assume the "money" (crypto) is the motivation, that is only part of the equation. There is quite a lot of complexity into why I post, but in general, it all boils down to opportunity.
It hasn't done much for my physical health, but in terms of my mental health, writing daily has helped me develop a lot and improve in many areas, and I understand why some people get so attached to journaling. What I think is more valuable than that personal exploration in the pages however, is the more transparent sharing of the experience, so that while on "the journey", there is the opportunity to include others in various ways so that there is a compounding effect that again, goes both ways.
Then of course, there is the financial health component too, where participating on Hive has helped me understand what I had missed or wasn't interested in earlier and develop a broader and deeper approach to the economy and my part in it. Economic and financial literacy is vital for everyone to learn and those who know this and avoid it, are doing themselves an incredible disservice and relying on "being taught" by education systems or through society, is a losing game, as the incentive to keep people illiterate is greater than it is to educate them.
And of society, social health is also something that keeps me engaged on Hive, and it isn't just the socializing that I might do here. It is also being part of a global community of many backgrounds and experiences and getting and giving a view of the world that might not be well described elsewhere. Most social medias encourage extremes for attention and generally, that is translated into the negative and drama, as it is easier to polarize the audience to engage them, than to engage in a healthy manner. People are looking for speed of service, even if ultimately, that service is not going to change them one iota.
And, people want things "ready" or close to ready. They want polished content that is flawless, or they will rip into it and pick the creation apart, even though they themselves, have never created anything of substance. But what is substance when people spend seconds scrolling through a feed that is served to them by an algorithm based on what they have previously seen, clicked or lingered on?
It is a question worth exploring, but what is another question worth exploring is,
What are we looking for?
Just think about all of the scrolling we do and all the content we consume, but we don't seem to find anything inspiring enough to stop us scrolling and start us doing. People seem to spend a lot of time defending what they consume as somehow educational, which is fine, but very little gets activated. It isn't really an education, it is more of a collection and, that collection is unapplicable to our day to day lives.
As I mentioned above, the drive behind my Hive approach is about opportunity and part of that is the opportunity to express myself through writing and images. It is a platform on which to apply my experience in life and also present my experience in life. It isn't just a place to drop the things that I have done during the day, but also use what I have learned over the years.
I was asked this in a comment the other day (paraphrased).
Sometimes your write about cryptocurrency and finance. Sometimes about life and relationships. How are you able to write about any topic very easily. Any tip for me as a writer, how to choose a topic or title for writing an article or post? source
And my response:
"Umm, it isn't that hard. My tip is build a wide range of life experiences :) "
But this isn't satisfactory, is it? Because...
It is hard.
A broad range of life experience and skill development is bloody well very hard. It is like looking at a single painting from a famous artist and judging the price tag on the individual piece, without realizing all of the background process, learning, pain, suffering, skill development and everything else that gets consolidated into every piece of work. An artist isn't encapsulated in their work, their work is a stream of who they are and all of that growth between pieces, that leads onto the next. In their collected work is,
The journey.
And that journey has its ups and downs. The weather is never perfect, there is always discomfort and suffering of some kind. It doesn't matter how beautiful the warm sunshine may feel on the skin, the eyes will still squint for protection. And when it gets cold and the skiing conditions are perfect, there is always cold fingers and wet toes to contend with.
There is health and illness, falling in love and broken hearts. There are fantastic jobs and horrible bosses and brilliant friends who die far too young with a knife in their heart. There are all the attempts to learn a desired skill and all the failure on the road to hold it and, the inability to ever be up to standard, no matter how hard one tries. There are the benefits of the perfect words said to the right person at the right time, and the consequences of imperfect words to the wrong person at the wrong time. There are our hopes and dreams and then there is
Reality.
This is life.
The key to surviving it is accepting that it is unsurvivable. It ends for us all and we are only here for a limited time to live it the the way we can, the best we can. What that means might differ between you and I immensely or, it might be close, but there is no "same" for any of us, no matter what we believe to be true, no matter how similar our backgrounds.
The drive for me to be active on Hive is to explore who I am in the context of the content of this world, digging into what I know and discovering what I don't and, being a part of the lives of others who are on their own quests of discovery of themselves and the world they experience. Sometimes we walk together hand in hand. Often we find ourselves completely alone - even in a crowd.
It is a journey of us all.
A key to opportunity.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]