To the 169 authors I follow.
You've given me hundreds of small windows on your lives. Some raw and personal, some polished and reflective, some recent, some pulled from the distant past. I've enjoyed them and learned from them. Thankyou.
As this platform's user base grows as intended, more and more contributors are going to post quality content, and I'm unavoidably going to miss most of it. I spend a few hours a day on steemit, but I have a family and a full time job. The more we grow, the more I'll miss, both in quality and quantity.
As the white paper pointed out, the "buy" decision has been bypassed by the upvote feature, but make no mistake; I am still your customer and the tide is rising. I'm perpetually aware that reading one of your articles costs somebody else who may be more dedicated or insightful than you, the chance to be read and upvoted.
It also costs me the chance to read their work; to be enlightened, entertained or challenged.
With that in mind, I offer the following warning.
The early mover advantage has landed you in my 'Following' list, but it won't keep you there indefinitely.
I get my fill of rambling, semi-coherent diatribes, clickbait rubbish and chain letters on facebook; and these are people with whom I already share history, affection and meatspace.
If I see a low quality, phoned-in post, I'll go to your blog and take a hard look at your last 5 posts, if you've consistently failed to show respect for my time and my intellect, I'll give somebody else's content a chance at your expense.
I won't notice if they're hours apart or weeks, (you're not George R. R. Martin), as long as you only post when you have something to contribute.
As your customer, I don't want to see content you created; because you haven't posted in 6 hours, or because your gerbil needs surgery. I want to see content you posted because you had to.
An insight that excited you, an idea that captured your imagination, or an experience you couldn't help but share.
As it stands I currently spend half my time in my feed, and the other half in new/hot/trending, looking for interesting articles. As my feed grows, I imagine that ratio will shift. I'll eventually spend the majority of my time in my feed, only reading, and therefore following, additional users when they've been resteemed by one of you. So while you'll continue to have an excellent chance of winning my upvote, for those I don't yet follow, the door will slowly close, leaving you as the gatekeeper; one of the many benefits of having found steemit early.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/73/08/2730887_667e156d.jpg)
There are a lot of people with diverse interests wondering if they should start a second or third account for posting in different categories, to avoid spamming their followers with pieces far removed from the content they originally enjoyed. Feel free to do so, but its not a requirement.
I might enjoy your philosophical musings, while having no interest in your guide to EDM production or stories from crochet camp. As long as they're well written and offered in good faith, I'll probably still upvote them, even if I skim and don't comment, because I'm invested in and feel affection for, the people I'm following. I might just learn something I wasn't expecting to.
I want you to thrive on this platform. I want to build genuine, lasting relationships with real people; people who value my time, and don't punish me for choosing to invest it in their content.
While I realise this might sound a little blunt, understand that most people will do exactly the same, they just won't warn you first.
Respect my time, and I'll give you more.
Have a fantastic day
Good read and such a little cutie in your hand lol :) keep writing good content you will be flying soon
Thankyou. She's my daughter, Evelyn. I'm a very proud dad :)
She's beautiful :)
I totally respect your principle!! Keep the good posts, I'll be reading you :)
O.o nice photo there @mattclarke !
I respect what you wrote and feel that is true, I olso search good content and of course good people to follow and it is sad to admit, but it is true, some dont stay on steemit, some just give up or their gerbil dies like you wrote, but that being said I try to encorage the ones who are on Steemit to remain and neer give up and keep posting good content...because ...even if good content is hard to make ...in the end...it is not for nothing! I follow you now!
And I'm following you :)
Followers are the undervalued asset here, each one is a victory.
I respect your outlook. thanks for being authentic:)
Genuine post and blog. Good read :)
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Oct 8 - Steemit Ramble - Notes on My Favourite Reads by @shadowspub
Heaven? No, I Mean the Real, Ultimate Heaven... by @creatr
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Hey, Matt,
Thanks for being so direct about this... You've triggered a few of my neurons that may at first seem far afield to you; but please allow me to explain.
I find this article of yours quite interesting, because you and I share certain common ideals (e.g. family, anarcho-capitalism, public schooling, banks) although we may not overlap on others, and may be far apart on a few.
Your article clearly expresses precisely the same logic that has caused me as a follower of Jesus the Christ to prefer small congregations over large churches.
In this life, we each have limited time resources. We have to be prudent about how we allocate our time, and therefore who we interact with, and how much, must be carefully prioritized. We can only "expose" our lives to and become authentically involved with a limited number of "others." And so, I thank you for stating these truths so clearly in the context of steemit. ;)
One of the things that I personally hope to write more original material about here is a completely other paradigm; a universe in which the logic you've so cogently expressed does not apply. It's a universe that has been marginalized in the popular mind by having been badly caricatured, trivially labeled as "heaven" and relegated to banal conceptualizations such as cartoon images of white-robed angels floating on clouds and strumming harps in perpetual boredom.
In all reality, my perspective as a Christian and a voracious student of scripture has persuaded me that "heaven" will (in all truth) be a total regeneration of this universe in which all evil has been utterly purged. Scripture calls it "The New Heavens and the New Earth."
I expect, for example, the fundamental difference of enjoying a never-ending life, i.e., infinite time, to completely remove all pressure to allocate our attention in a miserly fashion. Try to imagine a steemit where you were actually able to follow everyone of authentic merit.
The quality of your writing that I've observed so far inclines me to believe that it will indeed be a long, long time before I might unfollow you, if ever. I hope you'll also hold out on "pulling the chain" on me at least long enough to see some of the good things to come. ;)
Meanwhile, although I know not in detail where your spiritual faith (if any) may lie, I'd like to extend this invitation;
If you are ever curious about how and why I can describe myself as an anarchist while simultaneously worshiping Jesus Christ, I'd love to dialog with you about that.
Thank you for your quality work here on steemit, it's a pleasure to follow you.
Thanks creatr. Romans 13 is the big one. I believe its encoded, since it was being sent into the heart of the Roman Empire and was incredibly likely to be intercepted.
If your girlfriend is crazy, jealous, controlling and opens your mail, my letter is going to say, "You should marry that girl, because she's so easygoing, well adjusted and trusting".
She'll pass it along to you, but you'll decode it accurately.
Hey, Matt,
That is a fascinating take on Romans 13; one that I have never heard before. My brain will no doubt be dragging me back to think about it repeatedly... ;)
I do have a rather strong, divergent view of Romans 13 myself that I hope to share with steemit one day. For the moment, I'll just summarize it for you as contrasting paraphrases of the verse one, first the commonly accepted corrupted understanding:
Now I'll , give you what I believe to be the proper spin:
Matt, thanks for responding! :)
There has to be more to it than a straightforward reading would suggest. He says the state isn't a threat to those who do the right thing; just after the state executed, (without charge or trial), the only sinless man to ever exist.
We're used to religious liberty and free, uncensored speech, so we take people's writing at face value. The small, persecuted church in Rome would have been far more discerning as to subtext.
I have at least one friend who does not believe the chapter is canonical. I'm not quite ready to go that far, but I do struggle with the matter. Your notion of it possibly being a cryptic message is appealing. Do you have any sources/references for that thought, or is it original with you? :)
BTW, here is an online Greek language tool that I think is quite helpful:
As a former student of Greek and a some-time teacher, the tool helps me exercise my "Greek neurons" and when I need help, just floating the mouse over a word pulls up all of the lexical information... Very cool! ;)
P.S. Your article here has inspired me to start a new series on the New Heavens and New Earth... I'm sweating over the first installment, stay tuned! ;)
It's all me, and I'm reluctant to make theological arguments because I'm not as well read, biblically as I should be; and the stakes are so high.
I look forward to reading your new article, starting is the hardest part.
Hi @mattclarke, just stopping back to let you know that your post was one of my favourite reads yesterday and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read my comments about your post here.
Thanks mate, I'll have a look. Always appreciate feedback.
I think you see a lot of crap because, for some reason, the more someone posts the more followers one gets. I don't understand it all exactly, I definitely am not following the people that post a paragraph of crap each post, but when I look at their followers it is much higher than mine.
Anyways, I will just keep on producing quality stuff in the hopes that people that appreciate interesting articles will continue to find me. Its a slow grind though. But you got yourself a new follower for this one. :)
Thanks :)
I just assume they've been here longer or brought a following from elsewhere.
Don't lose sleep over it, just do your best :)