First world problems. Steem rants. I know.

I hope not to be too ranty or offend anyone. But I need to say something, so you understand my (often mistakenly perceived) distance at times.

I've been seeing a problem here ever since day 1. Or, well.. for me something probably like day 100+ since because for the first 4 months I ignored the blockchain entirely.. because it seemed weird.

Ironically, that was exactly the precise moment in time when everything was climbing up to the all-time high. I signed up last September. Left entirely, never even peeked back at the site again until February. It is so super typical of me to miss out on all that excitement and money.

The whole thing will probably forever crash and burn now. Remember in The Lion King, that phrase.. "Everything the light touches is ours"? Well.. everything Serena touches DIES. Wheeee!

^{Welcome to the Show by Jeffrey}

I kid. I don't really kill things. I don't even kill flies. Or ants. Or spiders. Or neighbors. But, yeah. It's fine. If I must take credit for the heartbreaking decline in the value of Steem, I will do it. I heartily apologize.

BUT I do have a tendency to stick things out and do kind things in the meantime and then maybe from the results of good karma someone gives me a free coupon for some breath mints or something.

Serena karma for the win, everybody. Hell, yeah. Coupons are coming. So, you don't have to hold your breath anymore. Let it out. It will smell good eventually.

But I do have a tiny little complaint.

In the Steemit world there is the widespread encouragement to be social, to comment on posts and to reply to comments on your own posts, and to read every post by every person you follow and to upvote and resteem and give cocaine cookies for SBD and to conduct bank robberies for steem (probably these are things of truth.)

And, well.. good Lord! If you're new to this place, you need to prepare yourself to become offended when your followers don't read your posts or watch your videos. I mean I've been troubled before. I can admit it. I mean, true story.. this was me one day after I uploaded an open mic..

"Why didn't anyone listen to my song yet? OMG! Steemit HATES me."

Yep. That happened. But, to be fair, I'm pretty sensitive. I'm really just actually very downright moody sometimes. I mean.. I hold grudges and I can't let go of things.

For instance, I don't like it when people don't pamper their animals. I become disgruntled when people throw cigarettes on the ground and when someone tailgates me if I'm driving too slowly, I wish (at times) that they would suddenly have a flat tire and be stuck on the side of the road for the whole night. (I have to drive slow on some roads near here because squirrels running in front of cars is a problem.)

It's funny, though, because I'm also very laid back and mellow about most other things. I get this from my dad. He's the exact same way. Look at him the wrong way and he won't talk to you for days, but he'll also chill out and watch the sunset for its entire duration and never even wonder what time it is.

Are you still with me? I know it's hard.

It's like this. I don't want people to come over and read my blog because they feel like a bad follower if they're not up to date on everything I'm doing. And I don't want to feel the same way in return, either. If I am following you it's because I think you are cool and I enjoy seeing your posts pop up in my feed.

But as much as do like to tell myself otherwise, I'm not blessed with very many magical superpowers. I can't see everything all at once. I can't reply to everything in one day and I can't grow a furry tail and use it to balance on a tightrope. Sometimes I'm a social disappointment. I get it.

But I ask you this

When it becomes a social obligation to reply to everything and to comment on everything, where then does the genuine interaction exist? If I don't comment, sometimes it just means that I was tired. Sometimes it means nothing in your post really resonated with me and sometimes it means I just didn't see it and sometimes it means I might have even rolled my eyes at your weird thoughts. (But don't fret.. usually the eye roll is me wondering why i didn't think those thoughts first.How'd you beat me to it???)

Sometimes I really love something that was posted so very much but I don't ever get around to commenting.. because LIFE. And sometimes I get too many replies at once on one of my posts and I don't reply to one comment because I then feel like I need to reply to all of them or I'll seem rude. So there are times when my posts fly by without my interacting to even a single comment on them. I mean, honestly, I know that's just bad manners on my part. I should comment back to every reply. But this is just who I am. I am not perfect.

Not that too many comments on my blog is ever usually a daunting thing. And I love every single comment I get. I really do. I even love teasing the bots and the spammers and the scammers. I flag people a lot if they're spammers. Like that account that sells bibles. That one really ticks me off. Is that really what Jesus would do? Am I going to get religious bot comments now from saying Jesus? I wonder.

^{Here sits a spontaneous random old playground giraffe picture for no reason.
Actual title is upload by Osamu Iwasaki}
Am I making any sense to anyone? I can hear the lectures I'll get already and the justifications of why it's good to always interact. It's just good business and it's just the polite way to behave. But is it really beneficial to the community to put so much pressure on ourselves to be always so socially decent?

That sounds awful to say. But I really mean the question. You wanna know what though? If I tell you that I like something you've done, it's because I liked it. If you look around at my comments on this platform, you will not see me tell someone that a crappy song sounds good. I won't say a 20 word poem about a pile of dirt sounds like Shakespeare wrote it and, unless I'm just being weird, I won't say it's raining if the sun is shining.

So when I do comment and reply, please take it for what it is. It's my gratitude and my sincere admiration. And when I don't comment or reply, please don't feel upset or overlooked. Sometimes I walk through the fields when I go back home to visit my parents and I walk through so many wildflowers and it's legitimately impossible to notice all of them.

You are like the wildflower fields, my friends. Sometimes I'll take your picture, and other times I'll just enjoy your company in silence as I so very often do. But just please know that I really do love you, even if I think your song is trash. I'm not going to tell you it sucks, but I'm not going to tell you it'll win a grammy, either.

Not that grammy awards are any any way indicative of what good music really is. That's a whole other rant, lemme tell you about that someday.

So, please do not ever feel socially obliged to comment on my posts. If you're doing it, I want to know you're really doing it because you wanted to, and not because you feel it's just the proper thing to do. I will never ask you to comment. Maybe if I got a new haircut I might ask, "Did you like my haircut?" But, really.. I can't see myself doing that nowadays either. I haven't paid for a haircut in years.

Lots of love..
♥ - Serena