"Get Poor, Slowly..." by Richard F. Yates

I'm about 3.5 to 4 days into being a Steemian at this point, and I've noticed a few things:

First, it's difficult for a newbie to get noticed---I realize, of course, that starting from zero and building takes time. (More than four days, certainly.) However, I'm bothered by bots and pay-to-play "schemes," which seem dishonest to me. I've read numerous articles that suggest that a new person's best options are to join groups and communities on Steem that share your interests and to leave meaningful comments and create content that brings value to the platform, but this is difficult to do when you only have enough resource credits to post one or two comments in a day, or when your voting power is equal to one-one thousandth of a vote.

I've joined Discord groups and posted that I've got a Steemit account on my other social media (trying to draw some of my friends and followers into the Steem,) and I've gone looking around Steemit for people whose interests overlap my own, but even when I find them, I've found myself composing comments (using proper grammar and punctuation, having worked in a university writing center as a mentor tutor for about 8 years,) only to discover that I don't have enough resource credits for my carefully edited comment to post. (That's happened three times, now---even though I've only posted seven times in four days, and commented about five or six times on other people's posts.)

So with only three or four actions allowed to new folks in a day, how are we supposed to "contribute value to the platform" or make connections with a community of like-minded individuals? I didn't join expecting to become independently wealthy over night, nor am I under the impression that my art or writing are of the finest quality. (I am aware that I draw like a six-year-old, and I'm comfortable with that.) But the ability to "hustle" requires the ability to DO THINGS, and with the limited resource credits that a new user is allocated, it seems impossible to be more than a raindrop in a waterfall. (I am a tenacious raindrop, so I'll continue to fall and make the best rain-droppy swan-dive I can before dissolving, but I think it's fair to express some frustration at the situation...)

Is it essential for me to do most of my hustling OFF-PLATFORM, hopefully driving Steemians who are also users of other social media to add me to their feed? Hopefully the secret to getting a few eyes on my art or writing isn't investing COLD HARD CASH into the system, because I have NO money that can be thrown at this project. (I can't even afford to buy new clothes, and I have, instead, learned to sew to help keep my garments from falling completely off my body. I've even developed a system that I call "conspicuous repair," (in contrast to "conspicuous consumption,") in which I make the repairs that I've done OBVIOUS. I use yellow thread to repair a black pair of pants or my purple backpack. I'm demonstrating the idea, as blatantly as I can, that we don't need to throw away a shirt just because it pops a seem or loses a button...) Where was I?

EYES. How do we, as new folks, get eyes on our writing or art? I've heard that PATIENCE is essential here, and that is proving true. I make one comment and up-vote two or three posts, and I'm out of resource credits and have to wait hours---or days---for my credits to recharge. Fine. Patience. I can do that. But, meanwhile, I post a finely crafted query full of questions, for which I was hoping to get some answers from the experienced users on the platform, and I get two up-votes (and $0.00 dollars---suggesting that the two who voted for my post are ALSO new folks looking for answers to the same questions) but no answers or advice for folks in the know...

I'm a researcher, a former academic, who loves to read and search and dig for answers to complex problems, so I've dug in to the topic, watched a ton of videos about Steemit and Hard Fork 20 and cryptocurrency---and I've read articles, and I've watched the market fluctuations, and I've asked questions in the Discord groups, and I've tried to connect with experienced users who are also present on social media outside of Steemit (on Twitter and such,) and I've made sure that my "votes" on Steemit have been for art and writing that I actually appreciate, and I've tried to only leave meaningful comments (as opposed to a "thumb's up" or smiley face...) I've "hustled." (Only four days worth of hustle, which isn't much---so maybe I'm just being impatient.) I believe I've done what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm not CERTAIN that I have.

It's a strange situation starting from scratch. I've been a blogger on WordPress for about six years and I've got about sixteen hundred followers there (not a lot, but I'm making a niche style of art, so I get it,) so it's difficult to go back to the beginning---start over from nothing. Perhaps this is where the "patience" that's been so often mentioned in the articles and videos I've ingested comes into play. Almost certainly. But it's an odd situation to spend time creating content, post it, and then wave goodbye as it's swept away by the flood of other content in the "New" feed and buried beneath the sediment of digital debris... And NO, I'm not going to pay a bot to fake a bunch of up-votes for me. I'm going to continue, stoically, posting (on occasion) and commenting (when I have the resources) and see where this boat is going.

Maybe nowhere? Maybe to the moon? My crystal ball is a bit cloudy at the moment...

---Richard F. Yates