Hello People of Steem,
My name is Omar, I was born 40 years ago in Gent, Belgium where I still live today, I do my best but please forgive me my spelling and grammar mistakes as I am no native English speaker.
My mom was from Belgium and my dad came from Algeria to Europe by himself after his father had died to work and send money to his family, he was only 12 years old. I also got 3 sisters. My parents got divorced when I was 6 but I was very lucky for the freedom they let me have and the inspiration they gave me, both died in recent years and I miss them both very deeply.
I would call myself an explorer but most of my friends will call me the pc-guy or the artist. Since I was little I was always creating stuff or reading books and by the time I was 12 years old I was reading at least 5 books a week and drawing like crazy. That year I got my first computer, a C64 and instantly books got swapped for floppy's. Later I got an Amiga and programs like PhotonPaint and DeluxePaint that got me really psyched. I studied classical art because there was nothing with new media but my real passion was always the new possibilities the digital techniques made possible.
I have always believed in human creativity and technology to better our lives but a few years ago I started entertaining myself with the idea to go completely without technology, no more pc's, no more smart-phones, just me, my brain and my body. At the same time I also started to meditate, did some DMT and changed my diet completely. When I finally did go tech-less I discovered human being are so amazing and capable of so much more. Something while meditating also changed, instead of quiet it got very vivid, I call it the Innernets.
Since then life became pure freedom, dissed most of my possessions, even my art. A few years without using any ID or bank and always meeting people who are creating alternative ways of doing stuff outside of mainstream economy without using money. I also met many people that wanted to create communities with perma-culture and off-grid power. We were already making plans to move to Portugal and join some friends that had bought a piece of land over there.
Suddenly tho I had this realization that if all the people who wanted to preserve would leave the cities the ones that remain would have no opposition and they would destroy nature even faster. Change has to come from the inside. So I decided to stay in my city and try to reconnect with the society I had left behind. This was not as easy at first but eventually I even got my ID back and I also fell in love with the most beautiful woman and her amazing son.
I build myself a new Pc about a year ago and went back on-line, I was so amazed by all the new things. Most of the time I was getting my Gimp-skills to the level they used to be in Photoshop, call me crazy but I actually find it better then PS. Then a friend was going on and on about Monero, he was also mining it. I was intrigued so I did my own research on cryptocurrency and also started mining. Soon I discovered Ethereum and smart contracts.
My interests shifted to platforms that could actually do more then just be money, like IPFS for example.
So when someone showed me STEEM and I read the whitepaper it was a no brainer to me that this platform has an almost unlimited potential for growth and can develop into something extremely useful and profitable for it's users and even the whole world,
together we will have amazing times ahead.