Musings In View of Pending Departure

Time-Saving Strategy 1

Sometimes, you think, on a good day, that you could write up two, three, maybe even four or five posts in one go, to have a little stash to post up on leaner days, but above all , to keep you in the swing of things, or in the game, on days to be spent away from Steemit doing …. something else.

Howz about I be getting on with that after I have gone? Would this not be ideal: a come-back with over two hundred short, tight pieces in my pocket? That should take the pressure off. All I would need to do in future, is pull one out at the start of the day and let it roll. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

But it's not how it works: this is an interactive forum and you cannot live in the kind of bubbble that is a private blog. Each new morning comes with a different vibe that asks you for something fresh, or new in response.

With pieces lined up things would be different. I’d have no excuse left not to read thirteen to a dozen fictions, seven economical-political analyses, and as many articles on gluten intolerance, vegan pet care, sceptic tanks next to your compost heap and solar panels for on your yurt as took my fancy. Right now, I am short on time for all that fun.

Right now, if I can get in a Finn, a Californian, a pregnant Georgian (the state, not the country), an Oregonian potter, a Pole, a Serbian, one male and one female Iranian, an Australian, an Austrian cook, a Lithuanian(Irishman), an Indian (Finn), a couple of Italians, three Brits, a Canadian, an American in Mexico, an American in Japan, a New-Zealand-German couple, a Russian-born German, a Russian-American dog-'n-cat lady, a Norwegian, a Swede (but where can I find a Dane?), a Venezuelan, a flying Swiss, a bilingual Ibizan, a poet from Trinidad, a Hungarian, a handful of German-speaking professional artists, a Belgian anarchic ornithologist, a Dutch artist in the Antipodes, a Dutch photographer in Rotterdam, and a Dutchman flying above France, and a Dutch cameraman on an ironhorse, I’ve done my tour du monde and can go to bed.

My Medlar, Ariel

Time-Saving Strategy 2

Another way to free up time, and feel less stressed, would be to limit your presence on Steemit to twice a week, as suggested by #malloryblythe, by way of a compromise to my all-or-nothing approach of the past six months. I can never fail to admire a nuanced and well-considered opinion, always prepared to level out the intensity of my character, but the social nature of this platform barely allows for a reduced presence, unless you are well-established (top 100) or have a Spiel that can be picked up time and again on any following (the photographers, travellers and health gurus notably).

Otherwise, it is true that you are not hired to write copy seven days a week, and the pressure you feel is the nonsensical one you have put on yourself. We do this in part to not let this exercise become similar to a FaceBook experience. I've come across this time and again, that people (notably writers and figurative artists) appreciate the discipline you can practice here.

Nobody kids themselves really that their presence is indispensible. Even your closest following will have forgotten to check in with you after a fortnight's absence (holidays will break your follower momentum for sure) but in principle three days is all it takes to set yourself outside the happening-loop (and we're not even talking trending).

Writers write

which explains the success of the writing initiatives (short stories, daily prompts, competitions, word limitations etc).
It feels bit like school here, sometimes, with all the assignments being handed in daily. I for one don’t have time to mark each paper. With a hundred novels in my bookcase alone that are screaming to be read with concentrated attention, and rapidly failing eyes, I must choose my reading wisely. Were I paid to read you all, I am sure I could, but then I’d be working in a publishing house or as an editor on a paper. I am all for awarding the reader, but to be honest I could do without the standard, well-mannered comment-reply etiquette. Few journalists or bloggers are ever obliged to spend as much time as we are to work our way through the daily postbag (in my case not a very time-consuming thing, but for some this is a day-job or they sensibly leave your comment unreplied). So we end up communicating only with our BFHF (BFharldy forever) and writing letters to the editor in vain. The point being.... You got to just do it and love it (or yourself?!) or there can be no point to staying around other than the fear of that black hole.

Time In Future(s)

When it has crossed my mind that I may continue to "publish" my daily writings elsewhere (a private blog) I do find myself now spoilt with the occasional cent posting to Steemit drops into my coffers as some kind of acknowledgement or validation I find nowhere else in my life. However, by the same token this has brought to my attention how ludicrously hard I have to work though, for less than a minimum wage, doing something nobody asked me to do. In short, there is no demand for what I do, so what can I expect?

Because my life-work runs very close to my posts I don't expect to find much interaction here, since I know that my subject material belongs in a highly esoteric (niche). I am not a very sociable person and never can split my life up very easily into different compartments of professional, social, private, public, mother, woman, sister, daughter..... it is ALL work to me, since I find myself a bit of a life-artist (which barely qualifies me as an artist). Outside a handful of contacts, I find the recurring daily social interaction the most challenging and time-consuming aspect of Steemit, yet, (as a solitary shed-writer).

I hadn't paid it much attention inititially, but trying to decode what is really being communicated with the little means at our disposition here, I wonder if people are telling you something when you follow them loyally (with some quality attention) but they seldom, infrequently or hardly ever make a return visit. One thing is clear of course, you are not that interesting to them, and votes are too valuable to invest for the sake of returns to hand out for moral support alone. Then there are the automatic voters, who when they do not get in touch somehow, some time, somewhere, also cannot cheer the serious writer along much. So it's NOT about the money after all? Make up my mind will I?!

Looking for something that will prevent me from falling in a big black hole, which I no doubt, after a manic six months, I initially will, with no other distractions in my life than the ones I have posted up for you, I have stumbled upon some remarkable collective blog-sites out there (without a virtual coin reward system) where the quality of the writing is outstanding; but I cannot see myself joining up. After all, I have no urgent message and do not appreciate the difference I could make - indeed the notion of influence strokes me the wrong way at present, with far too much emphasis all around on USPs and freedom fighting rather turning me quite passive and pacifist.

Undeniably the reward system has forced many individuals into "thinking something up" by way of a (beggar's) pan that might otherwise better never have been posted to waste our time. I immediately would include myself amongst such individuals. My only justification for doing something so meaningless is that I would have written what I wrote anyway and I never intended to be read in the first place. I was posting entirely for myself - for my healing project for my sister, which she would call selfish, since she never asked for it.

I suppose most of the posts here read like second-hand thoughts and possibly to avoid this and give Steemit more oompf in the future, it would have to be taken out on a more thematic stream in the direction of #calhen's speakfreely-tv, somewhat in the vein of #thenamadicway's very vulnerable, idealistic, and free-spirited ruminations. The rest feels a bit like testing out well crafted chairs: it sits - check. This is truly pointless as a judgement exercise with no further dialogue, innovative intertwining or new aha! moment (merely the same old opinion countering opinion). Still, it is what it is.