Supporting the meaningless

Some people have noted and asked in private about why the support on my posts have seemingly dropped off a cliff over recent weeks. I don't really know what to answer because, I don't really have the answer, however I am not overly concerned with the situation. Yeah, I like to get support too, the financial incentive doesn't escape me and is likely a big reason of why I have continued to do as I do for so long because even though I enjoy it, this is more than entertainment for me, it is my chance to increase my potential.

Money only goes so far and while not having enough is oppressive, having a lot and doing very little with it is a waste of resources. Steem for me has become my opportunity to increase my personal capabilities and do some of the things that I always dreamed of doing. You remember those dreams from youth? I do. Most of mine centered around empowering people and having a beautiful wife. I have the latter already ;)

but empowering people has to be more than words and to to offer more than words requires having more than words to offer. While there might be a future opportunity of some kind of perfect resource balance, we are far from that now and to get there is going to take much longer than I likely have on this earth. Does this mean I shouldn't aim for it? Certainly not, but I shouldn't naively live as if it has already happened either because that helps very little in an environment hostile to it.

I talked to one of my brothers today and he was saying I should get my debt under control and was then surprised to learn that, I am almost there, almost found a zero point other than my home. While there is still a little ways to go, I have smashed myself over the last year or two to get a handle on things Without dipping into what I consider my future opportunity.

Yeah, I could die tomorrow yada yada but unfortunately perhaps, I am more likely to live a long and painful life where several people's own experience in the world depends on how I manage myself. My opportunity empowers their opportunity, at least until the point they no longer need my resources at all. It is not just money though, it is also the reduction in stress from constantly having financial hardship hang over the head - a position I have spent far too much of my life in.

The last time I shed a tear of any kind I was 15 and had just moved 4500 km across Australia only to find that the promises made of a new life were in fact, lies. There we were, homeless. We were not helpless though and it was then I chose not to live a life of reliance on others to provide for me. I failed a lot but, did my best to live without burdening others. The scarcity attitude I have held since a toddler, has never disappeared.

As the support has dropped away, my long-carried scarcity mindset sends alarm bells ringing telling me to panic. I am not going to panic. Not because I believe that everything will work out but rather, what good does it do to stress over circumstances that are largely outside of my control. Very little. But there are things within my control that I can effect. I have seen so many people break apart on this platform that it makes me wonder if I should too. Rant and rave over this and that, the "good old times" when support was awesome...

I have done well on this platform, I have no numbers to back this up, but I am likely one of the highest content earners that Steem has seen yet, it is the consistency that has got me there, not the masses of support. Small steps matter and can add up to great things, my company is even named after this approach to life, because as I see it, a bit at a time is the way the world changes. The greatest accomplishments are never individual massive feats, they are incremental improvements that add up to having the capabilities to do the large. A life of experience working in harmony with the world.

My life is far from harmonious but, there is a strange balance in it where I actually feel that the work done now will have a reciprocal result in the future, where the discomfort of the moment is eventually replaced by a series of small changes that tip the scales. I completely understand that this feeling is likely nothing more than a story I tell myself, something to justify my behavior, but that doesn't matter because I act upon the story still.

We live in a strange world, one where people go to excess in what harms them and minimize the things that could give them the opportunity to live a better life. The YOLO life is holding strong where we eat, drink, buy and play with no ceiling on our desire while we limit the very activity that makes those things possible. This is the balance of work/life; it is whether what we do gives us the resources to maintain what we want to do. Too much or too little of either creates a conflict where we want but don't have the resources or, we have the resources but no time to do what we want.

I haven't found that balance yet, I am resource poor at the moment so I am slowly building up my capabilities to do more of what I want in the future. Resource building always takes time, how much time depends on the type and quantity of resources and what one desires to do. If someone is happy sitting at home on a gaming console, it doesn't take much at all - if someone wants to live a life of Lamborghinis and tropical beaches, it will likely take longer.

I want neither life, I just want a good life. What does that even mean anymore? A life of comfort, a life of pleasure, a life of working at something one believes important. For me, it is the latter because it is a life that leads to satisfy my childish wants of empowering people. Though it is not to the extent I would prefer, I live this life now to a degree but the balance I need to find is the ability to expand my resources to expand my range to satisfy my wanted action.

What I tend to remind myself is, life is meaningless, except to the person living it.

Do I live? A question for another time.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]