How To Clean A Marijuana Pipe: An Open Letter to the Steemit Community—COM #22 Judge's Entry: Send All Bribes to @acolucky

I know the stereotype: pot smokers can’t focus. I’ve heard this kind of thing for years. Do you know what else I’ve been hearing for years? Negativity on Steemit.

I know it has only been a few months since the cryptoverse began to darken. But time moves differently here. I learned about this site back in 2016 but didn’t adopt early. Then, a year later, I learned about it again and joined. That was ten months ago. With the ups and downs, it feels much longer. I’ve managed to conceive and raise three children in that time. Don’t ask how. I am as confused as the rest of you.

Up until recently, however, there was a blistering optimism about the future. Some of that was hubris, of course, but for a newbie it was essential. I wonder what would have happened if I had missed the bus a second time and not joined Steemit until this summer. If I had read the many number of critical posts with fresh eyes, with a lack of history in the rearview to ground me, would I have bothered to continue? Probably, in my case, yes. I’d already stuffed my Facebook page into a sack of stones, tied the opening shut, and hurled it off the 2nd Avenue bridge into the Mississippi River. So, for me, there was no going back.

Now, the criticisms are dead on, but I get a little bit cold thinking that the potential future of this site might vanish, like a secondary character in the middle third of a Stephen King novel, because of the hail of despair and anger coming from established accounts.

Here is what you do: boil water and submerge your pipe for five minutes or until your kitchen begins to smell like a meth lab. Use tongs, or other gripping apparatus, and remove the pipe from the blackened water. Now scrape the tar innards out with a bent paperclip. Once purged, the glass will look damn near new and your marijuana will taste better.

This is where I stretch a metaphor in a way only a pot smoker can stretch a metaphor.

That clogged and stinking pipe is Steemit. If we want a quality tasting smoke, something the new users won’t choke on, then keep it clean, exhale a cloud of optimism from time to time, bribe your judges, and remind yourself and one another that this is a long term endeavor and meant to be fun.

Thank you for reading.