I apologize if it felt like I unloaded. That was not my intent. Really, it's more about the social mores on STEEM that really cause more pain and anguish here than they do any good. I believe very much so that not everything you could do is beneficial. There's a live and let live clause in the Good Book too. And the Golden Rule is something else I like. :)

re: feel bad

I appreciate that. My stake suffers from many things, the greatest of which is low STEEM prices. I can't do much about that, so I do what I know how to do—read, write—and what I want to figure out—upvote.

After that, it's again out of my hands. I could self-upvote, but I don't want to affect my reputation (as meaningless as that may be to others, my reputation to me is important, because I know I'm earning it). I don't self-upvote, because it would take away a vote I could give to some other post or comment that I like. I don't self-upvote because I think those who actually see my work should be the judge of its worth. The fact that others can't regularly see it isn't enough justification to me to do it.

Those are basically the same reasons why I don't go laying links to my work at the feet of the curators in Discord. I think they know who I am now, and I didn't have to go off chain for that to happen. The problem is, they've more or less consolidated their efforts, so it's not really showing up in rewards. I probably need to branch out a little more and get techie, return to being creative, and maybe get a little sciency from time to time. And figure out what utopian is all about and then see how I might right something for that, too.

But in reality, commenting as much as I can on a wide range of users' comments and posts has been the best thing that's happened to me. I am proving that the platform works as it was intended to. It's not super fast paced, it's not 1000% ROI or whatever the ridiculousness people think they're missing out on. And I've put in money to try to keep from dusting my splinter votes.

I don't preach this. I don't bring it up unless it's brought up. I don't expect anyone else to do what I what I do. Everyone needs to feel comfortable doing things they're own way. Otherwise, it won't last, or they won't last. I don't need to be followed or mimicked or copied. It's not an original idea, anyway, and I'm obviously not the only one doing it. There are hundreds if not thousands of us doing it.

My wife isn't going to get it. She just can't. She never got the newspaper business. She just enjoyed the income it eventually generated. She doesn't get social media, or writing, or anything to do with computers. She's a throwback in many ways. Not dumb. She's intelligent and discerning. Hard working to a fault. She would just rather talk to you face to face if at all possible and work with her hands then sit down at a computer all day.