For the last two weeks I've been getting post payouts that are five to ten times larger than I would normally expect. I've been here seven months and never really expect to make much on my blogs. I try to write one good post a day and was averaging $1-$2 a post. Now I'm averaging like $10, which is pretty exciting, especially considering that Steem seems a bit undervalued right now at $1.27 a coin. The higher the value of Steem and SBD, the more we all get paid out... relative to the dollar anyway (yuck).

In any case, I wasn't quite sure what was going on until @fulltimegeek explained his bots yesterday:

My post It's Not About the Money seemed to get a lot of attention. @v4vapid has thrown me some huge votes; much appreciated. @lyndsaybowes resteemed it and made a nice comment, and I was placed on @fulltimegeek's bot list.

How ironic that a post about money being secondary is what catapulted my account to a much higher payout level.

Thanks! I need it.

I've never had a good job. Ever since I was a freshman in high school I knew I wanted to be a programmer. I'm a pretty smart guy so I just assumed that a job would fall in my lap one day. Turns out, high paying jobs actually have some competition.

The competition to acquire high paying jobs floods the space with incompetent pretenders that can sell their bullshit much better than I can convey my actual potential. I want to be a programmer, not a salesman. I'm an introverted recluse with crippling social anxiety. I've put less than 57k miles on my car in 15 years. How many people like me are out there just waiting for the chance to do something useful with their lives?

I am one class away from a computer science degree. Grinding through school was very difficult for me. I didn't see the point of 90% of the work I did. Now I don't even want the degree. I don't want to bow down to the old ways and say, "Look! I got your stupid piece of paper! Are you ready to give me a corporate job and exploit me some more?"

No

I'll take my chances right where I'm at. I have a garbage wage working a garbage job that should be done by automation. I guess as long as "slave" labor is cheaper I'll be offered this poor opportunity a bit longer. I look at my coworkers and see the wasted potential of the youth and exploited seniors doing physical labor in what should be their golden years.

I work 15-24 hours a week and I spend as little money as possible. All surplus goes into buying these pixel coins. Thanks again for all the support. $300 a month from this blog would literally double the amount I can invest back into the blockchain.

I've always been good with money but rarely ever have any. There's something about getting exploited by the corporate rat-race that bothers me. I've probably only worked 2 or 3 years of my life and I'm in my mid thirties. I've leveraged my abilities with money management to avoid working for the man at all costs. I've sacrificed my credit and played poker professionally on the side to avoid absolute poverty. I've been on food stamps for over five years now. Maybe ten. Who knows. I don't have a great memory and the A.D.D. isn't doing me any favors.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with money. I would horde change in random places; even walked around with a fanny pack full of quarters at one point. Like a raccoon collecting shiny objects I stored over $100 worth of quarters in my parents mini van. My mom spent those quarters one day when she needed the money. Thanks for the life lesson :D

In middle school I sold candy to students. The school sold candy for $1. What a ripoff, so I bought boxes at Costco. In bulk I could buy 36 whatevers (skittles, rolo, starbursts, kitkat, Reeses, Milky Way, 3 musketeers, etc.) for like $12. I bought candy 3:$1 ($0.33) and sold it 2:$1 ($0.50). How much money did I make with that 17 cent profit per sale? Thousands of dollars... you do the math. I even got robbed a few times (talking to you Logan) and started putting a padlock on my backpack. The school even told my dad to tell me to stop (he didn't).

There was even a strategy to it. I had regulars who would buy certain things. I had to guess what people wanted when so I wouldn't run out. The bulk of an item was an issue sometimes. I often had to carry smaller items so I had the room to carry everything. Chocolate would sometimes melt so I started freezing it the day before. Large packs of gum cost $0.46 and I could easily sell those for $1, giving me a better ROI and reducing bulk. Locking two zippers together wasn't enough because backpacks can be manipulated around them to get it open. Had to start doing three. My friend and I also learned how to pick my own lock by looking at the tumblers. It was surprisingly easy, but not more surprising than no one else figuring out how to do it.

The majority of the kids from my middle school went to the other high school, but my reputation still followed me. Instead of candy people were asking about drugs. I had a built in network to sell drugs in high school from a reputation of selling candy in middle school. It was hilarious. However, I never got into the drug dealer game. Sometimes I wonder how that would have turned out. I'm going to assume my chances of staying under the radar on that front were not very good, but who knows? Maybe I'd be a Bitcoin millionaire right now if I had taken that path. I thought Bitcoin was the coolest thing ever when I heard about it in 2009, but I had zero dollars to risk on an investment.

What would I do with millions?

I am not a greedy person and money in my hands is a terrible responsibility. I scoff at America's "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" carrot on a stick.

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress

I scoff at the whole crypto, "gotta buy my Lambo," joke. It's not funny. It's gross. The rich tread on you your whole life and when you finally make it you complete the cycle by doing the exact same thing? Fuck... you.

If I had the resources I'd try to help as many other people as I could get out of the situation that I'm in right now. Is it really that hard to not be greedy? I guess it is.

Steem is a place where I would really like to make a living working for the blockchain instead of the establishment. I have a lot of ideas but it's hard to think of something great that you can also accomplish solo. I even got close to finishing my Cards Against Humanity clone but now the wrapper that I use @steemj is dead... so that's pretty frustrating.

@fulltimegeek says he reverse-engineered a Java solution himself for the Steem blockchain with zero dependencies. I gotta say, I'd very much like to see how this is done so I can continue on.