2000? Where did that come from? My future on the STEEM blockchain and how the hell I got here

In just less than two years, I've managed to crack 2,000 followers on Steemit, something I noticed following my recent XCOM Stream. With this post taking note of that, I'll probably have three people unfollow me, and I'll end up back at 1,999 instead, and look quite the fool for this post.

That's okay.

This post will not be an indepth retrospective of the time I've spent on Steemit, but rather a review of how I managed to get here, and why I produce the content that I do produce.

11BS (Before Steemit (like AD, or BC) (Approximately Eleven years ago)

When I was nineteen, studying at university; my father died suddenly. I didn't have a great relationship with him, but it was on the mend. I was studying visual arts, and wanted to get into something that could help me develop games, tell interactive stories, and focus on the profound.

Instead, I found myself confused at the rigid structure of art school, something that was meant to teach creativity, and how to express yourself visually. With a death in the family (my parents were divorced, and my father living interstate) - I didn't even really get the social "click" of university. I made friends, but they were fairly transient.

Those relationships were appropriate for that time.

Half way through my degree, I landed a job working as a video game community manager. It was wonderful. I got paid to help people host servers, answer questions about a game I loved, and lurk on forums, jumping out and helping people eagerly. I also got into alphas, betas, and other early-test stages of games, as well as getting sent a great care package from the attached publisher.

Then, after writing a series of guides, and having these published in a few places, I got the invitation to write news and reviews for a video game website.

9BS

The Set-Up I had nine years ago.

Un-ironically, I had written in my grade 9 English Journal that I wanted to review video games for a living. At the time, about 6 years on from that, I was doing part time video game reviews, while studying visual art full time. It was a glorious time - getting paid to do what it was that I really wanted to do anyway. It wasn't enough to live on, but it was enough to sustain me. I was living at home.

I remember the first time the government took my money via a tax return. That's when it stopped being a hobby.

Then, I commenced my Masters Thesis, and writing fell back to being a hobby that didn't see me obtain any real monetary value.

The Present

A recent picture of my set-up

I have enjoyed writing, enjoyed providing bits of opinion on various topics, and insights on so many different things. To me, expressing myself through the written word allows me to explore the profound, and share with an audience (and myself) what it is that I think about.

The fact that it is on a block chain called STEEM makes the catharsis of writing no less enjoyable.

I'm truly baffled, flabbergasted, and yet; overjoyed, with a dash of confusion as to why 2000+ people, at some point thought "let's see what this person's got to say next", like it was a good idea.

I don't think I've known the names of 2,000 people at any point in my life.

So what's next?

Contributing to the STEEM block chain will be seen as a hobby. Something that I do for fun if people enjoy that, then great. If people engage, even better!

I've often said that there's an enormous problem that I have - the hope, and wish, to do everything, which often leads me to feel spread too thin. I work a full time job during the day, and the volume of work I've produced on the block chain concurrently reminds me of my time in high school, trying to get a 20/20 for Visual Arts, to enable entry into the same discipline at university.

I like to document things prolifically, and as my profile here explains, using words. For I like words. I like writing them, I like reading them, and I like not using them correctly in many circumstances.

It's all about the characters, silly

The best thing about this block chain are the relationships that it helps you forge. Outside of Steem, I've known @mattclarke for almost six years. In the two year's we've shared the same block-chain space, I'd have to say that my relationship with him as a human being has flourished immensely.

We certainly don't have the same opinions on a number of topics, but that doesn't matter. Through our disagreements on topics, and discussions about these, we enlighten one another's views. Without discourse, and with only a safe space, to which traditional social media, and politically correct traditional media are flocking like diseased pigeons, there is no opportunity for progress.

You have to disagree about something to make that thing a better thing in the future.

That's what Steem is all about at its core.

Thanks for having me, and not getting sick of me and my ramblings.