A little bit more about me. (This is *not* the AOL I remember :-)

I just figured out that I've been Steeming for just over 30 days now!

How exciting! This seems like a good time to reflect and take a re-cap.

^{(Art by: @woodywood143 in Fractals)}

I've been studying the Social Skills for a few months now. It began out of desperation, and stumbling upon an awesome podcast that started me on this journey. This is me, dragging myself out of depression, as well as a host of bad social and mental habits.

I can hear some of you thinking, "Social skills.. you are studying Social Skills?" Maybe that's just the mean voice in my head, but it is kind of weird. Or at least I think it's weird, but not because I think that studying social skills is weird. It's weird because, why wasn't I taught this in school? Instead I was taught to hate myself. I was taught that the system didn't care about me, because I am different. It's a sink or swim world out there as far as social etiquette goes. The only kind of education I ever got on that was people being mean to me because I didn't get it. Since it felt like everyone hated me anyways, my choice was pretty easy.

I dropped out. No, not out of school, out of "society". More like the "Tune in, Turn on, Drop out" of Timothy Leary. My guitar in hand, and a greyhound bus ticket to anywhere. I spent the next 10 years Hitch-Hiking, Dumpster Diving, Busking and Pan-Handling. I even hopped on a freight train or two, and lived in Hawaii for a while. I've been almost everywhere in the USA, which is why you'll often seeing me commenting on peoples posts about cool things in whatever neighborhood they happen to be posting about.


It seems like those things should have helped me learn to be better with people... But, in a way, traveling all of the time has kept me from developing close relationships. It's always easier to keep moving than to work out the difficulties. Add to that copious amounts of LSD and other party drugs, and well... I never got better.

Geeze, I thought I wanted to open up a bit more, but now I'm not so sure. It's sad because a lot of the problems I've had in my life were the result of a lack of knowledge and understanding. Or as they used to tell me in the city where I grew up, "boy, you ignant." It's funny how our people skills are one of the most important factors for getting along with the world, but are apparently less important than than the propagandized drivel that is passed off as an "education".

So.... I've been in a kind of a hole for the past year or so... more like my whole life... I'm just grateful to be on the other side and beginning to learn how to get along with the world a bit easier.

I've been thinking about getting into writing for a while, because I love reading so much. But, ya know, it's kinda hard to get paid to read. Maybe, I thought, it's a little easier to get paid for writing. Besides which, there are so many things that I've learned while reading that I can't have an intelligent conversation about, because I haven't really learned them. I've been planning to write for educational and perhaps financial reasons for a while. At least, when I've written about something I can go back and have something for my own reference, besides hundreds of books and podcasts. When I found out, on Reddit, that there is a social media site where you can get paid to write, I thought "Where do I sign up?" Not just to get paid, but for the learning.

I've always been a computer nerd, except for the last 10 years I've spent backpacking around the USA, and turning wrenches on whatever broke down vehicle I managed to buy. So yeah, I have a bit of catching up to do here on the web. I made my first website when I was 10, nothing super fancy. Back in my day I used to dial into a local BBS or three and a couple of free-nets. Didn't have the internet until the AOL free trials. But yeah, the world has moved on since then, and that's a good thing.

All of this rambling comes together to the following point. I love computers, and the internet, and books. These are the things I grew up with... The fact that I can do something I love, on a new frontier of the internet, while giving myself a free education, while making a bunch of awesome friends, aaaaaand if I bust my ass (and I do) I can even get paid to do it :-)

So, here I am. This is my job now. All that matters is beer, cigarettes and wifi. Ideally I'm cutting back on the beer and the cigarettes. It's amazing to have a financial incentive to write, even if it's not much right now... I've studied, researched, and written more than I have in a long time. It feels good.

Thanks for having me Steemit. <3

_{(logo by @yusaymon via Steemit Wallpapers)}


I intended for this post to be about my adventures in the steemiverse so far, but looks like I've digressed a bit from there. I'll work on that a bit tonight and try to have it ready tomorrow.

Much Love and Gratitude for all of you wonderful people and this wonderful place.

Steemit is part of a new beginning for me, it's such a blessing to be here!