Wanted to tie up a few loose ends, and thought no better place to do so than in what may be my final post on the Steem blockchain. There are a couple of reasons I have for coming to this decision, and will share them before tying up the other loose end. First, let me say I appreciate so many of you I have had the blessing to encounter here. I have witnessed many acts of kindness and generosity, not only towards myself but to so many others. The work that @canadian-coconut and @markwhittam have done here using their project @familyprotection has been not only humbling, but a blessing to watch. They are one of the many proofs offered here that not everyone is selfish needing to accumulate larger piles of wealth and would see others less fortunate be able to live. There are many others I could name, but I don't wish this post to devolve into one that is a list. You all know who you are, as I have always curated personally and been open in my edification where I see it is due.
The major reason I will be pulling back is my schedule. Life circumstances being the cumulative effect of my choices has led me into reentering the work force some 10 months ago. Having lost my vehicle, it further reduced my options in the employment world, leading me to take a very physically demanding job close by that leaves me exhausted by the time I stumble home from work. It has been a chore spending hours nightly researching, writing and then reading more here to curate. I find this has become almost a full time job around the paying one, and my desire to secure a possible better future based on accruing these Steem tokens has led me to sacrificing the time I can enjoy now with my loved ones. I don't know how many more years I have left here, and it occurs to me that spending so much time writing here in the hopes of payoff at some undetermined time in the future is a trade off that ensures I miss out on what it is I have been working towards.
I will still be coming around daily to curate, although I probably won't be commenting much, if at all. I am at a point where my curating rewards me 4-5 Steem per week ( I have read it would double if I set up an autovoter, but I do everythign manually), so I will grow slow and steady. And it will afford me the opportunity to support some here that are targets without sticking a target on my own back. No post, no comment, no target. Having said that, a message to those who have been sucked into becoming what it is they fight. It has saddened me to watch many of you whom I have grown to love and admire fall into using the same tactics and language as those who have outraged you. Not only is the battle one that is taking place on a battleground skewed to leave you decimated, but worse, your hearts have become infected with the very nature you found an abomination. It is my hope that at some point a reflection will take place for you and you will understand a few tokens is not worth the entry price for allowing that evil to live and fester in your hearts. The world needs your hearts in their pure form, what a beautiful thing it has been to see them shine out to us. And for your own health, YOU need them to be pure and shine. Watching some of you become what it is you fight is the other reason I want a break from this. It's a dis-ease and as we all can witness, it can be communicable.
I believe in the coming months the push for the 50/50 author/curator split will become the new rule. As has become evident to me since joining, human nature suggests that those with the power to decide usually will vote in the best outcome for themselves. This, in my opinion, will be yet further testament on why Steem will continue to stagnate until such a time as apps servicing other visions come aboard. The argument that it will draw more investment in for passive income is not logical, as there is already a nice payoff for those buying in and delegating to vote bots. Large money typically will not wish to spend all day reading and watching videos to vote on, so I can't see where it would serve as an enticement to stop that behavior either. I began a series on programmers building apps for businesses that would help them keep more cash flow or grow cash flow. I alluded to the next one I was to write, but no longer feel the drive to finish researching it. I do feel obligated to give it a mention here in my final post however since I promised it and it has such huge potential.
Targeting Churches For Your Box Program
Churches have one of the largest cash flows as an industry. And it has evolved past the collection plate us older folks knew.
From money flowing across borders into corrupt regions that are known to stealing aid, to local programs in the communities and those within their own church, velocity is huge as well as the methods used to deliver it. Steem would be a perfect fit for security in sending funds across those borders. So many ways Steem could aid the church structure. Just a fraction of the velocity flowing through the Steem blockchain would make the programmer(s) responsible very wealthy, it would send the Steem token to the moon. They could literally buy all the liquid Steem for a fraction of the flow through the hands in one single year. The possibilities here for a programmer of vision is astounding. Helping others is not a difficult process, nor is understanding and discovering what problems others have to help them solve them.
The tactics in the above video couldbe used by any programmer with vision to structure apps that would be in demand.
Thank You
Many of you have been such a huge blessing in my life travel. I appreciate the times I have been helped in shedding some of my ignorance, appreciate watching love manifest among those who understand we are brothers and sisters. I look forward to quietly voting for your energy from a place of quiet now. Blessings to you and yours.
We will miss you.
Thanks for all of your support and hopefully we'll see a comment or two from you every once in a while.
Thank you for your vision and love for others. It has been a blessing to find you and participate in your project.
Enjoy your family time and perhaps that time spent will inspire new chapters. I’m going to miss your kind words soooo much. Though I write here mostly for my own pleasure, it was nice to hear that you enjoyed and valued my thoughts. You’ve been a great source of encouragement to me. I will miss you! Don’t go too far away. :)
J
Eloquently said, as per usual.
Good luck, sir!
Thank you, and likewise with yourself. Your humor usually resonates with me, and has been something I have appreciated. Comedy seeks to lesson the burden of loss and darkness, and in some ways is the ultimate flip of the bird to the darkness that intrudes on us all.
For me personally, it's that very lack of humor (within myself) while spending time on Steemit, that has pushed me to change the way I'm now approaching things.
If I'm not laughing, or seeing the humor in life- I'm in the wrong place.
Good luck, once again!
Spending time with your loved ones should come first and I do understand you also need some rest, but do stick around, please, your voice is always very articulate and you see things as they are... once in a while do post something!
Thank you for your kind thoughts of me, and know it is mutual. Your openness regarding not just your views, but the path that led to your growth and change of vision has been one of honesty and humane. Reading your blog has become a nightly ritual for me, one that will continue.
Not sure what to say here, @practicalthought. I wasn't expecting this. I guess I've missed the hints that work was dominating a lot of your time, and that this was taking up the rest.
I've relied on your perspective on things (along with others who have since moved on or curbed their work here), even though in many ways it's merely echoed my own. I feel like you've emoted things more intensely, perhaps experienced them as such, and so that may have been different at times (though I've also had my share of emoting. :)
Family comes first. Loved ones come first. Being able to experience what you're working for comes first. Otherwise, there's no reason to do it. Those are all things I feel and understand deeply.
And yet, I can't help but feel loss here. :) I've felt that plenty of times with many others who I came in with dropping out or wandering off to some other part of the STEEM blockchain, places where I won't follow. I guess change is the only constant.
I echo your thoughts of the 50/50 split. I've been working on a post of my own. I thought this was a dormant idea (its been around since at least last year, when prices went down), because I hadn't heard anything until you drew attention to this other post.
I wish you well in all your endeavors. No guarantees I will still be around, either, but I intend to STEEM on in the event life changes enough to warrant coming back. Regardless, as long as STEEM exists and someone human without just multiple alt accounts continues to use it, there will be a place for you.
I know you plan to be around to manually curate, but that's not the same as posting and commenting as you've done. I'm grateful to be a part of those who have interacted with you. While I don't really know you, I still feel like I know you more than I know many others here. :) Thanks for everything, and godspeed.
Thank you for your kind words. The feeling is mutual. I look forward on reading your post on 50/50. :)
I am leaving here to because i don't see anything positive happening here. You are one of the few good people I have come in contact with here. I feel that leaving here is the best thing we can do because why waste our time with this foolishness that is going absolutely nowhere. Best of luck with future endeavors. Peace.
I just started here about a week ago, and it's good to read a post like this - explaining the "shadowy" side of how things work around here, and how one can get carried away by spending too much time on the platform at the expense of other, definitely more important things.