Sorry, my nametag fell off... allow me to introduce myself

Hello Steemians,

My name is Eli and I'm beyond excited to finally join the Steem community. I am a software engineer, an outdoor adventurer, a health and fitness enthusiast and a voracious news researcher who has written freelance for a variety of online publications. When I'm not writing blogs or programming you can usually find me enjoying life on a snowboard or a sailboat.

My goal here is to educate and be educated. I've written about health, medicine, science, technology, and international relations in the past, and while I plan to discuss these topics in Steemit, I'm also eager to learn more about the world and how this intriguing community can help to change it in a liberating way. Your feedback means a lot to me.

I'm one of those people who first learned about cryptocurrency 6 or 7 years ago and dismissed it without doing the research. I still kick myself for not investing early on when I had the chance.

But what's more important than making money speculating on Bitcoin and Ethereum is understanding how the blockchain has the potential to revolutionize our world for the better.

After finally doing deep research into cryptocurrency in 2017 and investing in a variety of coins, I began to seek out real-world examples of how cryptocurrency can benefit our daily lives... and that's how I stumbled upon Steemit.

In addition, I heard about how some of my favorite names in the alternative media community, like WeAreChange and Ben Swann, are using cryptocurrency ecosystems like Steemit to get their viewpoints to the public
-- outside of the sphere of censorship created by Youtube and Facebook.

Paradigms like Steemit give me hope that our future as a species is yet to be written, and that by joining together and supporting each other we can create our own destiny on this wonderful planet and beyond.