Welcome or welcome back to my blog. I certainly hope this post finds you well and in good spirits. Earlier today I was having a chat with @article61 (AKA Rebel-Dan) on #Discord. He had asked me if I was a full-time Steemian. I explained that, as of now, I more or less am although I'm not making enough to cash out any of my Steem and call it a paycheck just yet. It is largely due to my wife having a well paying job and working extremely hard to keep our family housed and fed while I plug away at my podcasting and blogging career that I am able to do so. For this I am extremely and eternally grateful. It seems we've switched places since my having graduated from a state university and not receiving financial aid, grants and loans currently. Albeit, her job is now much more psychically strenuous than my academic endeavor will ever be. I know that if we keep at it and persevere, the payoff will be much greater than what amount of money comes with it.

I began to tell Rebel-Dan that people tend to dislike how I have been referring to Steemit as a sort of global social welfare system. I started by expressing that I see Steemit as a hustle. I've said many times, in my view, it is akin to a pyramid scheme; one in which the product is your passion, efforts, and creative content, be it writing, photography, visual art, music, what have you. The hustle is in being active on the platform by way of posting, upvoting AND commenting as well as in the many Steemit related Discord Servers. And in order to see the exponential growth in monetary value, one must be consistent and constant in addition to providing quality more so than quantity. Essentially, if your goal is to full-time Steem, you will be living off of other people simply liking and appreciating what it is you do with your day-to-day.

Thing is, people don't like the term "welfare" due to its negative connotations. In the western world, we tend to think of the governmental welfare system which keeps its participants quite dependent on a bare minimum fiat income and, on the other end of the spectrum, the corporate welfare governments provide to global monopolizing industries which mostly negate the needs of individuals and communities. So, I understand not liking the term. However, when I explain how Steemit works, I get little argument.

I've explained in previous posts how I've had to battle my family and friends to justify a transition to Steemit and a few other decentralized platforms exclusively. My wife would have been happy if I simply stopped spending so much time in front of a computer. Well, here I am about six months in and I'm still here and unless "they" hit the internet kill switch anytime soon, I will remain. I've already experienced the exponential growth this platform seems to promise and I see a bright and lucrative future with Steemit in my life. If you are feeling the frustration, and even despair, I did until recently, I assure you that if you are sharing your dreams, hopes, passions, ideas, hobbies, cultures and such, you will surely cross the threshold of success in due time.

In this section I curate fellow Steemians and their blogs which I find interesting or important enough to follow and urge you to do so. This is unlike other curation posts in that I do not point out specific posts, but showcase the blogger and their activity on the platform and whichever Discord servers I may have seen them active in.

I actually don't know as much about @poeticsnake as I'd like to. What I know is that I became aware of her activity here after having one of my own posts Snekked several weeks ago. To be Snekked is to have a post of yours curated by her and her cohorts and placed into one of two weekly posts (Tuesdays and Fridays). After having been Snekked I realized that she is not only a wonderful curator for the platform, she runs a Discord server, hosts The Resteem Radio Show with @ma1nevent on @msp-waves every Wednesday and is quite active in some of the live curation shows associated with Steemit around Discord. I liked what she does so much I became a fellow Snekker! Be sure to follow her and hopefully one day you get Snekked 🐍.

This fellow Steemian is someone whom I've been connected to via social media for a number of years before having discovered so by way of Steemit. @d-vine is a lifelong diehard Raver, DJ, electronic music producer and one of the wonderful hosts of @smacommunity's The Needle on Your Record Show every Wednesday. She is a true embodiment of strength and perseverance as a cancer survivor and proponent of healthy lifestyle choices and a woman succeeding in a male dominated industry. Her musical taste and production style is quite eclectic, full of melody and rhythm to suit any party vibe. I am honored to call her a friend and cohort.

I have come into some Whaleshares to giveaway during my podcasts. I'll award 5 for each trivia question or contest during either of my shows. Thanks to @seveaux for that!

I am going to have to cut this week's Flew Shot a bit short. I hope this post has helped or entertained you in some way. Also, be sure to check out the first feature documentary I shot and edited myself some years ago. I finally got around to uploading it to the blockchain. I will be posting 4 more, one each week in order to fund-raise so that I may be able to start streaming video during my podcasts via #Dlive and return to film-making, something I love doing and have not been able to as of late.