I came to steemit looking for a place to share my writing but more than anything, I want to connect with others based on similar ideas and similar approaches at making the world more accurately reflect our passions and our dreams. I have found many people who resonate with what I have to say. The chats have also added an extra dimension to all this. But I am always looking for new ways to connect, cooperate and bridge the gap between idealism and realism.
steemit.chat rooms
The steemit.chat is a really fun way to shoot the shit with other steemians and meet new people. But for all the different channels, most of them are for post promotion, and the few channels reserved for chat (minnowsunite being the one alternative to the general chat that I know) are also tied together by the fact that there are steemit users. It's kind of like a popular bar. It's nice to go and have a beer and see what kind of randomness occurs. I've had really great conversations there, no doubt. But it's all chaotic and unfocused.
Discord chats
The discord chats are more focused around specific purposes. I love the people in whaleshares, they were some of the first real connections I made here. 
A New Alternative
These are all great places to meet others, no doubt. But they all revolve around specific projects, not necessarily around ideals. So I'd like to organize a new community based around the ideals that I try to express in my Optimism at the End of the World series, spirituality and the values of the occupy movement. That is not to say that they will be entirely centered around me or my posts, on the contrary, I would like to create a strong community based around shared ideals without any hierarchy. I will simply be working to consolidate a group of people who share those ideals to a large extent, this is my role. At first I thought of making the group private and entirely word-of-mouth. But I think that would be hard to sustain at this point, being that steemit is still a young community with young connections.
I hope the chat will become like a cafe or a bar where you know the regulars are all awesome people that you'd like to know more about, where you know good things can happen, but we have more in common than just steemit.
Here are the ideals I'm speaking of, feel free to discuss your opinions of them in the comments:
A desire to make real connections with others through deeper conversation
A desire to find a place where idealism and realism meet, where selfishness and selflessness don't contradict.
Cooperation to solve problems through direct and casual means.
Dreams and a drive to realize them, share them and help others with theirs.
Spirituality, I am personally interested in discussing the law of attraction and how to make sense of it, but any form of spirituality is invited as long as it's not preachy
Artistic expression - painting, music, sculpture, dance, writing, you name it
some of the values of the occupy movement (consensus, avoidance of hierarchical relationships, equality, freedom, as few rules as possible, experimentation)
a place for some of us who stray from the mainstream can feel at home and help each other out
Money and competition taking a backseat to honesty and cooperation
Those who are looking to become the best versions of themselves
no bots in this chat. Obviously no spamming either, as much focus as possible on deeper topics of conversation, of course there will be a place for sharing posts but I hope post promotion really takes a backseat here!
The goal is not to bring in as many people as possible but to build a tight knit community, or even a bunch of tight knit communities.
This chat will be in no way competing with existing chats, you do not have to choose one community or the other!
No ass kissing
For now we will have one general chat. In the future we could add different sub-channels for specific topics, anything from "psychedelics" to "gift economy" to "Christianity" to "conspiracies", but only once there is a group of 3 or 4 people looking to chat about such things, the main purpose always being chat and connection, not self promotion. The chat may be a little quiet at first but stick around :-D
Many new members have asked me how to do well here at steemit, there is a long answer but the short answer is simple 2 words: BE AWESOME. 
So come and BE AWESOME:
seems it was the wrong link before, here is a good one.
Please comment and share your ideas and opinions!