The System Is Broken
It seems like not a day goes by that someone isn't saying, "The system is broken. We've got to fix it. We need sensible reforms now."
In fact, it's so pervasive, it's like cheap cologne, or an artifact in a museum. Hearing people claim over and over we need to do this or that—while nothing ever really changes—gets old and stale, real fast.
STEEM isn't without it's fair share of reformers. Since the beginning, there's been calls to better this, or do away with that, and if those calls fall on deaf ears, people come up with their own workarounds, or they quit, or they trudge on feeling disillusioned or unsatisfied, or they find someway else to deal with it, which might include waiting for some months before bringing it up again.
END OF FIVE MINUTES
I originally came to STEEM hoping to create. I still want to create. I try to put out something I feel is creative as often as I can, which right now amounts to maybe two or three times a week. In the past I've had a regular serialization of fictional writing and a comic book I made 30-odd years ago. I'd like to get back to that kind of a schedule.
In the meantime, like quite a few others, I find myself providing what apparently is my quota of STEEM/STEEMIT related posts. It's not quite like a natural reflex—I do have control over it—but I do have to fight it, and I can find myself wasting an entire day because I can't get past what I want to say about someone's, or a group of people's posts.
Like today. There's been a few related and somewhat related topics flying around over the last several days that I keep thinking I need to address. Problem is, I don't need to do anything. I can respond or not respond as I please, and the only one putting any pressure on me to do it is me.
Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. The problem is trying to see what the point is in any of this. What's actually going to change if I do? How many people are actually going to see what I wrote, let alone feel the same way? The way searching for posts work around here, I'll be writing it all for posterity.
"Oh, come on. That sounds like a royal cop out. You won't know unless you try, Glen."
I've been trying. It's like screaming at the void.
"Then, get over it. Walk away for a while. Come back when your head is clear."
This week has kind of been like that. An unplanned break.
I'm going to stop. This is supposed to be a five minute freewrite after all.
Image source—Pixabay
This post was inspired by six prompts from the daily five minute freewrite. You can find them in italics. For more information on the freewrite, or if you'd like to participate, please click here.
It's tough to get the balance right. I'm working on it too :)
Hey, @buggedout.
You mean the balance between what you want to write and what you think you need to write because of everything everyone else writes? I thought I was the only one with that sad malady. :)
Well, not exactly. I do feel compelled to write updates about things I've written about previously - especially when there are developments (which often others are writing about)
So it's a slightly different sad malady, but similar enough for me to empathise with you :)
I am not sure I have gotten into a "rhythm" on steemit, I bitch, I complain, I point out, and I also post, and comment. There is a lack of response on some post, okay well on most of mine, and I am certainly under no illusions that all the voters actually read or even take time to look at the post.
When it starts to sort of bother me I just figure my post is one small article in a doctor office magazine that sits on the table for 2 years before being tossed in the circular file 13 container. The doctor or office manager likely subscribed to the magazine and never even cracked the cover open, yet there could have been a lot of people that read my article, just did not say anything or vote on it or anything like that. Well that is how I try to see it sometimes. Sometimes it is with a different vision, but we wont go to the dark side with this post or many at all.
I did like how you got all those words in your five minutes. I think this week come sunday I will be out of the mid 50's range, I seem to be commenting a lot this week.
Hey, @bashadow.
Maybe we'll trade places then. I've not been doing much commenting at all this week. :)
I'm probably not there yet, but I'm feeling like I should be at a point where I have a decent amount of people reading my stuff every post. That's simply not happening. Last week I wrote a post that most people only looked at the picture before commenting on. I knew it because the picture wasn't what people thought it was. I didn't even do it deliberately, but people would have to read a good ways down the post to see what the picture actually was.
I guess that was more disheartening than I thought. I'll get through it. I guess I'm back to expecting too much, and I know better.
I think it was the beetles had a song about paperback writer - okay I had to go find the video:
Attention span on steem is rather thin at times. I am still surprised when I make a post and I get two comments. Most people do not read the post just look, comment and maybe vote in hopes of getting a vote back, that has been shown time and again by people throwing in little easter eggs and no one noticing even when it is spelled out in the post.
Most of the time I fully read, some times I skim, and sometimes I just move on after a full read. You know how to put money in and take money out of steem fiat conversion, I have yet to learn or really even have a desire to figure it out yet, so a different outlook maybe.
I doubt I will get in the 20's this week, but better than 57-48 range of the past couple of months, maybe lucky 33, but if I make it there that number will be changed or something.
Enjoy the oldie, I really don't like the beetles much, but still know some of their songs.
I actually like a lot of Beetles songs, so thanks for the musical interlude. :)
I don't really skim anything, but there's plenty I don't read after looking at the title, or a first line or two. There's also plenty I do read and then basically upvote or not without a comment because I don't have anything to say.
As a writer, I'm trying to come up with things that engage, but it's tough to know what that is, so I try to shotgun it a little bit. I think the target keeps moving because people keep coming and going.
I'm not sure I got this part, but yes, I have invested some money into STEEM, which means fiat to alt coin to STEEM. I've yet to take any of it out though. I'll need to at some point, but I'm concerned what taxes are going to look like.
I am still not sure any crypto coin has real monetary value, I still see it all as monopoly type money. I know one day I will change on that, I am slowly changing on that point over time, I keep looking at the Value of my account and sometimes it goes up, goes down, and just kind of hangs there.
I think people on steem blockchain are still trying to learn how to engage with people and their post. A lot are concerned with critiquing another persons work, because then that person may downvote their comment or make them feel bad about the comment they left,it happens often enough.
One of the nice side effects of Ashers Engagement League is, is that it is allowing people to see that engagement can be rewarding and that while there can be some unpleasant side effects for the most part they are very rare. We are creating the engagement etiquette so to speak with his league. I see his name and the league getting mentioned in more and more post when the post concerns the need for engagement. So as members, even in passing, we sort of are like I said, setting the etiquette.
I still have a hard time going more than 2 or 3 responses deep, but I am getting better at comment/reply/comment/reply thing. (see three deep on this one I think)
I am mostly an optimist, I know things change, but mostly I see the changes as a good thing.
re: crypto
Well, it is like monopoly money, if a bunch of people got together and said monopoly money is worth something. That's all that's really going on. That's all that's ever gone on as far as fiat goes. We just kind of communally agree that the dollar is worth something, mostly because it's backed by the United States government, not because the dollar is actually worth anything. That's not to say the US government's word is worth that much either, so on we go perpetuating a system that's more smoke than anything else.
re: learning
I suppose it's possible we don't even have the real engagers here yet. We have a few bloggers, some artists, musicians, etc., but we seem to have a lot more people who are interested in crypto, blockchain, dev work, etc., which makes a rather uneasy mix.
re: side effects
Rather than side effects, I would rather engagement etiquette be a primary effect, one of the real reasons why the league exists in the first place. And the more Asher's name and that of the league can get noised about, the better.
re: two or three responses
It's tough to do if one or both parties doesn't know how, or doesn't want to. I don't get as many of those as I used to either, primarily because I'm not trying to push a conversation that either has nowhere to go, or that the other person is basically signing off to. So, no worries there. It's not just what you do with the conversation, but what the other person does, too. Now, there are people who just kind of ignore that and carry on the conversation anyway, but I'm afraid I'm not that gregarious. :)
Meant to do this too. :)
!ENGAGE 100
Pretty much it in a nutshell I would say, and thanks for the tokens. I feel we are getting more engagement on post than in the past, and I hope it continues to grow.
Maybe it doesn't take kindly to edits on existing comments. Let's try again.
!ENGAGE 100
Here are your
ENGAGEtokens!To view or trade
ENGAGEgo to steem-engine.com.haha! howdy sir Glen! you could write for hours! What a gift. You have to fight to NOT write. That means this is the perfect place for you!
Well, not when everyone keeps talking about this and that about STEEM. This week it's "What's STEEM?" and "STEEM Memes." Before that, we were back to the 50/50 split so big accounts will do more curating. We've got the ongoing Steem Alliance and worker proposal things.
In my head, I'm going, great, developers are all being attended to. We're starting to get some marketing (although, who knows how effective, and then what are we going to do with people when they get there—there is an onboarding initiative, too, but haven't seen anything from them in a couple of weeks).
I keep thinking it would be nice for people to see my stuff. That hasn't happened really. Still waiting on someone to come up with communities. Keep hearing it noised around. SMTs still popping up, but who knows how far down the road they are, though STEEM-Engine is supposedly getting there with whatever they're doing now.
So, yeah, I could waste my time writing about all kinds of different STEEM related topics that no one will see, the ones who should won't care about it, and I'll be all bent out of shape because I didn't come here to help put STEEM together. I should have waited another year, I guess, worked all of last year, come in after the price dip and then spend what I spent. If I had done all that, I'd be in better shape financially, my wife would be happier, too, and I'd be probably be halfway to an orca right now out of the chute. :)
Wow that's a great case for showing up later than you did! That might have worked that way. But it would still take a long time to build an audience wouldn't it? I guess if you were a large account maybe not!
I thought we had communities already.
The happier wife point is the big one!
I don't know if nearly 25,000 SP is enough for people to stand up and take notice or not. It still can't hand out more than $0.50 USD at 100%, which I know, is more than what we can do now, but still, it's not like what 2.5 million SP could do. :) I don't know. I get tired of the penny ante when those who have it aren't using it other than to find other ways to use it.
re: communities
Well, we have communities that people are forming around different tags, thoughts, ideas, initiatives, ways of life, etc., but as far as the actual visual user interface, we don't. We are supposed to have the under the hood code to support it though.
Sir Glen! holy moly you have 25K in sp? jeez, I finally hit 2,000. lol. The tiny votes are dang frustrating and even they run out almost immediately. You mean the whales never use their big upvotes?
Ok, I understand what you mean about the communities now, thanks. I'm sure someone is getting ready to roll them out if they've got the code ready.
No, I meant I would probably have at least 25,000 SP now if I'd waited and invested what I've done for the 6,800-ish I have now.
I thought you were using OCDB? That should be more than small votes.
It is rather discouraging to see $0.001, especially when that's a 10% upvote for someone. It's like, you can't spread it that thin, can you, and still get something for it?
!ENGAGE 100
yeah, you can't spread it that thin unless you're just doing it for moral support. lol.
I use ocdb whenever I have some spare steem but I'd have to put alot of dollars in to be able to use
it everyday like many people. I'm amazed when I see people putting in 95 steem every single day!
Here are your
ENGAGEtokens!To view or trade
ENGAGEgo to steem-engine.com.Well reading it I guess it is already more than five minute free write to me. Though no time counting to check it verified