I am in Steemit heaven!

Nirvana is to breathe out, let go and not resist change. So Alan Watts reminds me, this morning as I fix myself some kosher cocoa. (No slaves farmers have been harmed in the making of my favorite brand. We hope.)

I was likening Steemit to a newspaper, yesterday, preparing my post, then I slept on it, and first thing this morning, stumbled upon a (very)old post by razvanelulmarin (I spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to pronounce that name and what it might refer to, with many variations possible, considering many languages).

Were there such a thing as a handy indexing system I could try to find a more recent post (which I no doubt exists, since the problems and queries raised in this old post have not been solved in the intermittant two years, if you ask me). This post discusses what makes good Steemit content and the ethics around reposting; but it also raises further queries into what makes Steemit different to other (Wordpress etc) blogs.

It always begins for me, every day afresh, what DOES make RIGHT content for Steemit? Myself as my own guinea-pig am learning fast what does not work for me, what I don't care to read about. Arguably, was anything ever going to work for social-media sceptic me? But no, really, I embarked on this experiment wit nothing to lose and no intention to gain a thing.

In a glass of Steem

From a personal point of view, it's all proving very helpful and sharpening me up afresh. I hadn't "inter-acted" with anyone for at least 5 years, at all. All I had to share is what that does to you. I could be long or short about it, direct or indirect, and generally I remained as unintelligible as my intentions to myself; but I can now be brief and conclusive: I have nothing to share that you don't already have. I can only show what choice is about (nothing much) and that is all there is to say about it from a personal point of view.

Fact is, I am not a likeable or charismatic person in real life (or I wouldn't have ended up alone, so I figure), so it would be preposterous to expect to be liked as a person here (hence I go only by a pen-name). All that is here on Steemit is my writing. Yes, it is of me, but also not me - that which has been. Not the kind of writing that belongs in this stream. So far, Steemit makes a pretty darn good mirror.

The sap in the Steemit tree

It’s not that I wouldn’t want social media to work, but from this huge distance I am at, I can see too many ignoramuses regards the reorganising principle behind this evolutionary idea, joining the michorrizae acivity under the surface, instead of running through this tree rising up out of the clots of earth, as the true life sap of humanity. People struggle to emerge out of the depths of earth-business but, on the other hand, also (the artists and myself mainly) struggle to accept this tree must have roots in an economy. Generally the fungus is a messenger of a structural weakness or ailment. There is a lot of mould I have run into. Something is structurally unsound for the moment. I believe the aim is to let the money follow the content but it is more the other way around. Go figure how like attracts like now...!

Be Free: Eat Air!

The core problem is that content makers want to be rewarded for their efforts. We have to live, after all, and even the air is hardly free anymore - but for those who are afraid of starving: think of trying breatharianism/inedia, it works for Jericho Genesis Sunfire.

I did not come looking for anything here on Steemit, sent for a different reason, perhaps, than most, not here to make friends or useful contacts, unwilling to teach/afraid to preach, hyper-aware nobody listens to anything much but themselves, anyway. Above all I see no personal benefits (only hindrances) to excessive visibility. A thousand views would wreck me in no time at all unless I had a legitimate stage (which can as yet only be determined by your net worth).

Love, Peace and Harmony

I do not mean to enter a popularity contest, so I also am not coming from a place that can understand why we would want so many of us writers and vloggers and artists gathered in one place if it means having to vie for attention. The collective quality is dubious so if this gathering were to reflect the creative side to mankind, it does so only to promote respect for each individual, like Fröbel and Montessori, but also Steinerian schools might. Yes, it feels a bit like a school here. A school trying to reeducate the most destructive species of our planet (maybe vying for first place with bacteria, viruses and funghi only).

Ideally Steemit has to loose the ones who are here for personal gain, if it is to become an ever stronger river of going with the flow. Yes, why not make this a new kind of "employment model" earning your way by simply being you? But then don't expect to be favored over a whole mass of others - maybe only singled out as a better like-minded one by a few.

Truly Free

Decentralisation is about having a few sponsor another few and creating small cooperatives. To speak in terms of community service is confusing. The support we can give is ultra tailored and dependent on clicks. After all, there is no other overriding incentive to be nice (as there was in a world of money)! We must work on a personal basis and serve individual needs unconditionally. This requires a great amount of trust in the commitment, dedication and integrity of eachother.

The minute a community becomes too big, you steer once more, perilously close to idealist politics and (Communist) systems, equalising all to no purpose other than to control. You cannot build up a reputation by doing "more" or more "visibly" for the community. This would leave slow and quiet workers (veritable backbones) under-rated. The bossy ones would be in charge again. The men with their hard cash would quickly overrun the flowery women, all over again. Steemit must not ask for anyone to fit a specific profile if it wants to discover a New Man. But it is if you allow it to; if you feel pressured to play the game and fit in and aquire the steempower to matter and the currency to proove it to the rest of the world.

The water is turgid because we are still too close to the influx. That which cannot float down-stream will have to sink. There is a call to swim against the current. Some such salmon are amongst us, but there are gizzly bears waiting to snatch them up.

I think the moment we build barges here, collective initiatives, to pull eachother back out of the waters we are creating new fears (of going unnoticed) and thereby conditioning people (all over again). People forget they came here to discover if they could swim. We don't want to turn this into a jetty where the rescued can dangle their legs in false security. Accept if you are on the brink of sinking. Reassess and take more lessons in life. You have to be here with some kind of calling. Hand holding days are over. If this is to be like a Ganges you will have all the problems that come with this awesome river. If it is is to be the stream that flows from the tree of life, through the tree of knowledge, down to root you, and up to make you expand your spiritual truth, then we all need to lengthen our exhale. Puff-puff-puff when that gets tough. (Find a mother to teach you.)

Free-spirited, spontaneous creativity (supposedly flowing through one’s day, every day, as demonstrated by the posting) would be about awakening (bodhi) essential principle (sattva). From this perspective, you bring on board the great vessel that Steemit ideally would be, your naked self with all that it necessarily must wear for its mundane journey.

Surrender to Steemit

Steemit is no different to normal life. Not an escape, not a launch pad. It is a way to declare yourself in to a new understanding of what humanity could be.

We have arrived at a level of consciousness, in the individualisation process, that there are enough people sufficiently (if not very amply) aware of the limitations of a self only invested in survival. This makes them prepared to renounce (some of ) that self-obsessedness and invest their self-hood into a larger whole. Just like mum and dad invest their man- and womanhood into parenthood. Some are more advanced at this than others. Some are mothers, others fathers. Kidding. A bit.

Steemit remains a paradox as long as it calls itself a social-media platform (not that I expected it to be). It is also not useful to consider it in the too angular terms of the market place with all its shouting and bartering. It is more like a self-contained household. A pool and a channel for the currency that is man's intention to be his best self. In any case, anything static (with archives and pins or any suchlike) does not belong. We cannot stagnate, hence we cannot debate or quarrel or even sustain long threads. Only that which floats can go a little of the way, the rest must anchor itself back to a social media platform. This is Pure Decentralised I-Am-Journalism! Repost or not: it doesn't matter. The news is never that new. unless everything is new all the time. It matters whether it is relevant to the moment and thus the true you (another great name for this site #thetrueyou seems to get this intuitively).

It takes time to stay in time

More paradox: everything is now and here, but it is not about anything altogether instant or only spontaneous, either. There is a limit to how interesting anyone's free-write can be! The best posts have come from a deeper source. Usually quite fermented. They will linger like a unique cask of whisky, a fine wine from a superb year, or a concert you once heard. It becomes decadent to auction a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem from 1787 as the greatest plonk on earth. It is about making potable wine. Love is only in the making.

Is it easier to put up photos than text? Nonsense. A great photo has a whole story behind it (think of what goes into the making of one with a professional model or a landscape you trekked through; but also if you capture the image in the spur of the moment with your phone, because it fits with something you have been giving quite some thought). All such posts weigh in the same as a crypto analysis or a Tai Chi course. Steemit is all about NOT judging or qualifying content as better or worse. Or even paying out according to the time you spent. It is about recognising intent.

A great post may more often than not have an entire day, if not several other months of writing behind it, edited down to what you read here. Only the brilliant writers will be gifted with ideas out of the blue that work for a broader audience. In this there is no difference with writers hired as copy writers or signed on as authors in the real world.

Join the Brotherhood

It is safest, yet, to liken Steemit to a modern monastery and Steemians to a new priesthood! Sorry for the misfortunate connotations with religion, but that’s the downside to similies, and good writers seldom use them! It’s merely said to reassure the minds that need to grasp onto something familiar, but spoken to the souls who are ready for something new.

The content makers relfect Buddha state of mind. All one can do here is be in flow, exemplify change. Nothing is constant, nothing remains.

Waiting on the corner

I have come out of the cold and wait under the light of the chemist’s shop.

I am the hawker, I am the sweeper, I am the 24-hour check-out guy, I am the chemist at the counter under the light that never dies. I begin again each morning. We know the words by now, the night, the street, the chemist’s shop, a light that never dies.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't bring it back to an esoteric perspective.
Is this why I have been sent here? Not to become a Buddha. But to understand that I have already reached Nirvana and must now return to life to deliver all other beings?

By what authority can one do that? Precisely by renouncing all authority and surrendering the self to what is. All that remains is what happens around me. What I am doing. Somebody is called #whatamidoing and he might have the right end of the stick!

We all have to become much more zen here to make Steemit work. Not zen-masters. No need to go out and buy a mat, #street-yoga would never approve. Just find a bench in the park. Muse. And report back.

Nirvana is where you are - providing you don’t object to it. Alan Watts

Guinea-pigs strip is a pin from pinterest, pinned multiple times with a credit impossible to find. We trust no rodents were insulted in the making of these photographs.