I woke up at 2 am this morning. You see for past couple of months I’ve been thinking. How do I want to write my Anniversary post? It was not a question of if I was going to still be around on steemit, but, how do you celebrate such a milestone that so few have?

Here it is in all of its glory:

Nada! Yep, nothing is written as I’ve tried a few times to write it. I hate waiting to the last minute to get things done as well-hmm. I’ve even noticed a few people who have had an Anniversary never even made a post. I ask myself “do I want to be one of those people?” Well, I’m not very big into milestone posts like some here so I tend to just not make them. That, however, seems like a missed opportunity create something to look back on.

A few months back I even downloaded all my comments and blogs of the blockchain after trying to work out how to even do so. Took me days of failures and frustration. I was going to perform an analysis on them of which I’m very rusty at. It would have taken quite a long time to remember how to do things and to learn what I don’t know.

Numbers you guys like numbers right? Well, I decided that just was not good enough. Like many things I’ve done here a few days’ worths of work just dropping it off into the trash can is no big deal. I have some ideas in mind they have more meaning than I could have given that data.

Engagement

I have over 5400 posts on steemit after all. I have been a very busy person here over the past year. People sometimes joke my comments are mini-novels and its true sometimes I’ll write a comment longer than the post I’m leaving it on.

A few months back I just barely made it onto The 201 most prolific commentators on the Steem. My name is all the way at the bottom at 1,242 comments and 436,690 characters. Still, I managed to be competing with quite a lot of spammers and auto-reply bots running around. There are some humans on that list as well you just have to read the comment section to find out which ones are!

In fact, I’ve been taking part in The Curation and Engagement Leagues for a while now. Where every week I do my best and I’m in the top 20%. Somehow week after week I still remain somewhere being listed. It’s not that I go out of my way I just love to comment.

Engagement has always been important for here on steemit. It in fact in my early days it is all I wanted to do. I just wanted to comment and many people were glad that was my focus. It was nice getting to meet new people, learn new things, and not have to stress over creating a blog. They were only comments after and they would be lost in the void even more so than just my blogs are. So the audience I was writing them to tended to just be the authors of the posts.

Some places I’m enjar the time-traveling cat—meow. Some people might not even know this about me other than it saying it on my profile. I’m sometimes a funny guy and that just one way to do it. Oh, the humans and their endless desire to quantify everything they do. Perhaps I’m a demi-god of sorts after all as most cats are. For all you know I shoot laser beams out of my eyes—humans!

Other places I’m that guy that left that really long darn comment and sometimes quite a few of them. Still one of the most enjoyable blogs I ever went on a commenting spree in was If It's Presented As An Art. While I enjoy engaging with that author from time to time it’s not my all-time favorite place to leave comments on. I would share that but good places tend to get overrun by bots and spammers trying to get a few cents.

Needless to say, I prefer engagement with people. Some of the best people to engage with on steemit are also the poorest in terms of voting power. Those kinds of people don’t have a worry or deal with people trying to take advantage of them due to their SP holdings and voting power for the most part. You can have real conversions and things just stay in a very laid back environment.

Big Thank You

I have quite a few things to be thankful for on this steemit journey. Much like that view of the mountains in the photo I took as a kid. It takes a community to get somewhere. Many have made me want to keep logging in day after day and spend way too much time commenting or even on discord than I would prefer. Steemit starts to become something that takes a lot of your time and energy each day but I enjoy it.

Unlike many, I was very blessed to have someone tell me about steemit in the first place. I showed up with some support here and a very kind hearted person showing me the way and helping me along. A very big thank you to @pitterpatter. Often times my biggest supporter in both engagement and just a fun person interact with. She is an amazing creator and she shows you through her editing of photos of just how wonderful the world is.

I don’t think one can ever say thank you enough to a group like @curie. The best I think we can do is just keeping trying to improve and do better. Spend that extra moment to pour in just a little more effort into a post. Try new things from time to time and just have fun with it as well. Their team has encouraged countless amounts of people here to be amazing. Thank you to the guys and gals who spend their days looking for that undervalued content and showing some love and support.

There are many other places as well that have help with my journey and just do there best to support communities around them. One such thing is this crazy AI bot that comes by weekly and says I’m undervalued for that day in a ranking from 1 to 25 and yes I’ve been rank 1 before! It then tells you how much it thinks my post should have made. I’m not quite sure if it's just telling me what I want to hear or what but I rather like it! Thank you @trufflepig for those random showing up and making my days!

I’ve had quite a number of people over this year that has to stop by sometimes only once and sometimes quite often till we either just drifted apart or they simply stop logging into steemit anymore. A number I was quite sad to see never return as they lived a different life than I have and had too much to share about the wonder in their life. To those that may never return or one day will find there way back to steemit—thank you for the time we spent together!

For those who show up week after week to comment on my blogs and to engage with me a big thank you to you as well. Not wanting to endlessly mention drop in this post you know who you are. Thank you for making steemit a great place to be a part of. It is those semi-daily engagers that make a place like this truly amazing.

Because of steemit, I’m trying to create my own garden a little bit at a time. Even when I have a week where it goes very bad such as this week War With Things I still want to keep going and trying. It is one of the great things about steemit wanting to learn and try new things. This is one of the things I would just tell myself “maybe next year.” It is easy when life gets to busy to just think one day. Well if you don’t make it happen it won’t.

I’m not quite sure how many these days stop for a moment and just thank steemit overall for at least creating the opportunity of a place like this. It is easy to become burdened down with all the things you want to see changed and you can’t stand here. Yet without this place, I fear many of us would be living a life with much less opportunity and wonder in it. A special thank you to the people in the background that we may never know about that work every day on creating something for rest of us to build on.

My Direction On Steemit

I use to be a very slow writer and I even grew up hating English class so it is quite shocking I’ve written as much as I have here. While many times it still takes longer than I would like and a post like this has been a struggle. I’ve also improved quite a lot. Some posts I’ve made this past month would have taken me triple or even more time to create. Yet somehow the words keep flowing out from my fingertips into the document I work from. Perhaps I’ve just found my direction here. Only took most of a year to do so.

Gaming Niche

It was about three or four months back when I finally decided to settle down more into a niche here on steemit. While I’ve always had some gaming content on my blog it was not always the most predominant. In fact, I left quite a few communities when I felt it was time to settle into something more specialized where I felt I could really do the best I could here. I just wanted to focus on the content and not worry so much about the social aspects of steemit as much. Least that was where I started from.

While I’ll always look for having some kind of daily or a couple of times a week creating content like me playing Path of Exile as I have been for a while now. Such as leveling up a new alt the other day which took me way longer than I was hoping. Like everything in life things will change but for the most part, it will be centered on gaming.

Gaming Reviews

One of the bigger undertakings as far as creating content for me has been writing long in-depth game reviews. I don’t see it good enough to just play a game for an hour take some screenshots, look for the press release for further information and call it a day. I’m a play it for 40+ hours than spend around 10 hours writing something and picking up screenshots I missed and that I feel helps give it the depth I want. While its already been 14 days since my last game review State of Decay 2 it is content I want to be producing more of. I am just struggling to try to find that balance in life and gaming to be able to get these out. Along with other content. Part of it is my own process of doing things and the other is not making the time for it. Will be a while before the next game review.

Archdruid Gaming

@archdruid community logo

I think it was around a month ago or so after pouring my heart and soul into another post. I noticed an opportunity in the comment section. Since I was looking for a gaming community anyway I thought why not try it. I had no idea at the time.

It first started off like anything else in life. I was a nobody and still am for the most part. With a bunch of strangers and so I did what I have been doing. Engaging with their members, supporting great work community members have been producing, and just being an active and involved person there.

As such, they created a new role there and put the more active people into it. It’s a rather new community as far as a place for people to get together and engage with. There are lots of opportunities to grow and build something.

As the day's tick by I find myself spending more and time with this community. I was just grateful to have a community where I felt I finally found the place I fit in with well. I love the people there and it’s great to see the kinds of games others enjoy. In other communities, it was always a struggle for me. Hard to be just me and feel like I could fit in and have others wanting to engage with me instead of it just being a one-way street.

Things have slowly started to escalate. I have no clue where this is going, how much time it will consume of mine, or if things will even remotely work out. All I know is I’ve gone deeper into a steemit maze and taken a jump to see where it lands me. I’ve blanked out certain bits well most of it. Maybe you see something wonderful could be happening and as you can see from the time stamp it was just yesterday. Just yesterday!!!! I can’t take much of the credit for what you can’t read. It was a group effort and we are still working on it along with so much more. For now what you cant see are just small but improving changes as everyone starts working better as a team.

Happy 1 year to me! Who knows a year from now where I could be. What I could be doing. Life is about creating and taking the opportunity. If all you do is sit around and wait for it you will be sitting around for a lifetime. As such I’m going take a day or two off this week and enjoy a new experience as I celebrate when I have the time to. Doubtful I’ll blog about it as that defeat the purpose of taking a small break! May your steemit journey is filled with wonder and new opportunity.

Information

Unless otherwise cited screenshots and photos taken by @enjar.