Greetings, Steemit! Who am I? @kennyskitchen Introduced Me! My First Post!

This post is my introduction to this platform of social interaction and content creation. I have had an account for one month shy of a year - after this year of inactivity, I have decided now is the time to start using this amazing enabling technology. Many things have influenced me to become active now, but the two perhaps most important that have actually given me the motivation to write this post are @kennyskitchen and the series he is writing "Getting My Tribe on the #Steemtrain!", and @teamsteem's post "Hello Steemit! Coinmarketcap.com Introduced Me!". Thank you everyone who has been making this site into the place it is today!

Me holding a Wax Jambu (water apple) that I picked at Punta Mona Center for Regenerative Design and Botanical Studies, where I completed a 2 week Permaculture Design Course.

Who am I?

I am a 21 year old permaculture student who is currently signed up for classes at Utah State University. At this point in my life I claim to be my given name: Nathan, and you can call me Nathan. In some circles I am introduced as an "alchemist" although in that world I consider myself an extraction artist-wizard-chemist (artwizchemist?), and leave "alchemy" in the past. I have a wife who I brought with me to Utah from Alabama (where we both grew up)called Popi. I attended public school in Gadsden, AL, and spent my first year of college at the University of Alabama. I love to explore the world, I love to give my eyes new patterns to render. I see my perception as the creation of the universe I inhabit, so I try to throw my perception over as much of reality as I can so as to create a well defined universe for myself. This love of novelty has led me to move to Utah, which I see as a central location to exploring the western United States. I am an amateur content creator, I have recently began wire wrapping crystals and making jewelry, I write poetry and songs, and I like to document the events happening around me. I'm not great at describing myself, I know that the question of who I am will be better answered and illuminated as I continue to post and share my life with you.

Popi and I on a cold beach.

How did I get here?

About a year ago, like I have said, I was introduced to steemit. I first heard our word "steemit" and that particular spelling "ee" at the Jackalope Freedom Non-Event in Arizona, but for my presence there to make sense I have to go back further in my timeline.

The path that lead me here to typing this out today, was one that started at the University of Alabama. This was my first year out of my parents house. I was in total shock from the freedom, previously I had been required to be home at a certain time every night or to tell my parents exactly where I was going to be and for how long if I wasn't going to be coming back home to sleep. The world of independence was very new to me, more so than for most of my peers, who had been without that parental obligation for years longer than I had. I was really overwhelmed with the responsibility of finding myself something to do, and as a result most of my first year at college was spent inside wasting time. After a year of this inactivity and eating unhealthily, my girlfriend and I decided to take our relationship to the next level of communication, in doing so we decided that the best decision for us was to get out of Alabama, and quick. This whole year I had been spending most of my time watching Youtube Videos and reading online and generally pushing my ideology toward radical libertarianism. I was very inspired by one of Adam Kokesh's videos that was filmed at the University of Alabama: AVTM and UA YAL stand up to the police. This video excited me to the point of wanting to change my whole life to find some way to fit into this "freedom movement" that I saw igniting before my eyes. I realized that this was it, if there was a time to act it was now, and I was ready.

We packed up our things, and hit the road with the destination being Yellowstone National Park, where my friend was working for the summer. I hadn't reached out to anyone or met anyone we had heard of on the internet yet. Popi and I both were, so far, stumbling in the dark. Doing what we thought we felt to get to the places where we felt we knew.

We rushed as fast as we could across the states between Alabama and Wyoming, taking the route through Montana to come into Yellowstone from the north. Our trip lasted two weeks and took us from Yellowstone to the rocky desert southwest of Utah. Here, while up late staring at a fire one night, we decided that we could move to Utah. I observed that in this state there was more practical freedom than in Alabama. The public lands of the west create a freedom of travel that isn't present in the east, the endless BLM and forest service roads provide access to almost anywhere you can think of, and you wont be bothered for pulling off the road and camping for a few nights if you want. The public land and the mountains are what influenced me the most when I was making the commitment to moving. This move represents in my life a shift from philosophy to action, it is the titular point where I begin to discover that I could live what I thought.

After moving to Utah, I spent a year getting settled into myself and my life away from familiarity. After one year of being in the West, I realized that I was close to where Jackalope Freedom Non-Event was happening, and I decided this would be a great event to go to and have some fun. Here at Jackalope I met the people who would be my first real life interface with "the freedom movement", here I finally was able to create a clear image of who I wanted to be. Now, a year later, I have an even clearer image of my manifested form. Here at Jackalope I met Kenny (and many others! I love you all!), who was raving about steemit the whole time. When I got back home I created an account, but felt to intimidated by the amount of computer time it seemed like to me that everyone was putting into their content, and was discouraged from posting. Since then, I have been to many more places and met many more people like those I met a Jackalope, I'll share those at another time. Now a year later I am coming into the path I had outlined for myself when I first was given visions of my manifested form, and I feel mentally clear enough to direct my focus on writing.

What's Next?

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting more and more on Steemit. My first project will be a travel blog documenting a tour of the California coast. I also anticipate sharing stories from life that have already happened from memory, and I will be making short posts with little text and a few pictures (because I have so many to share!!). I am super excited, and full of energy to begin this new chapter in my life, the chapter where I actually start to write. I have been telling myself to "just start writing, dammit!" and now here I am, and I feel great.

Lovin' You & Thanks for the Read!

Me, at a Co-op in Sacramento doing an analysis of the diversity of fruits in supermarkets for USU PSC4200.

My Verification!

My wife, Popi in Cisco, UT

• All photos taken by me or Popi