Since I can't sleep...

Since I can't sleep I am going to write a little. Over the years I have been a very poor sleeper because when my head hits the pillow, my mind starts to whir. What I have found was that it is because I have unprocessed thoughts from the day and once my head has some space, it gets to work. I guess I have some unprocessed thoughts so, let's explore.

Firstly, I have been ill and when ill everything in life is worse however, over the last few weeks or months I have been getting more bullish on Steem, even as price continued to decline. My wife sometimes gingerly asks "so, how are the markets?" and my only reply is, not yet. I know that she is glad that I have found something to spend my mental energy on but, I also know that she is hoping that it will lead somewhere we are able to breathe easier.

Although it is easy for the shadow to creep in, I see Steem/blockchain success more as a when not if. I have been running my own business consultancy for about 5 years now and although it is a struggle still, it is somewhat stable but, the ceiling is low, there is only so far I can go. It has taken a massive amount of work to even get to this stage. The work and effort I put into Steem is similar in volume to the early days of my business except, there is no salary cap on my time.

My wife has seen me struggle first in my business and now at the kitchen table for years now and one day, I hope that I will be able to realize the returns on the effort in. Some have money to invest, I have sweat and the beauty of the Steem blockchain is that proof of brain, experience and skill matter and with consistency, can even get rewarded well. Of course, this takes work, nothing comes for free in this life and when it appears to, make sure your back is against the wall because one way or another, a price will be paid.

Although I have put the effort in, it is never a solo process here because to prove I have a brain requires feedback and that comes from the community, social proof. This means that relationships matter and I don't care how smart you think you are or how good your content is, if you are unwilling to recognize the need to build relationships here, you have failed the first test. This is not only a social network, it is a community of trust where value is given to those who are trusted. It is an imperfect model but like any emerging community, it takes experience to develop trusted connections.

I have built up a network of people I trust here and, they trust me or at least, my content. As the user base expands and more and more relationships build in a similar way, the stability of the network does too as those trusted become anchor points within the system that can be relied upon to deliver and support to other systems. What this means is that in time, a very large number of people are able to be supported by a network that spirals out from the anchor points, I call them community nodes. These serve any purposes.

One of these is someone I trust and have done for a long time and that is @acidyo. He is someone who considering I have no idea what he looks like has still taken large amounts of his time to support me in various ways. Votes are one thing but the time we have spent on other topics have proven more valuable to me than his vote. I hope that the reason he has taken his time over the last year is because he trusts me and perhaps in some future, I will be able to take the support and continually keep paying it forward. @timcliff posted an interview with him the other day and if you haven't read it yet, here is a link.

Trust is the most important aspect of a healthy society and is why blockchain is going to be so big as it allows strangers to trust each other and, information to be able to be trusted through a verification of the handling. The social fabric of most of the world is eroding through a lack of trust spawned by authorities who have over-stepped their bounds in many aspects of the world. Governments, banks, newspapers, currencies and centralized corporations have become so greedy that even the most ignorant and innocent are waking up and, losing trust.

Mass adoption is just a matter of time as for now, blockchain technology is the only viable solution to various aspects of the trust network and has the added benefit of decentralization so that the borders of country and industry maintained and defended by the untrusted, are porous. this is going to allow people who previously were on opposite sides of a fence through engineered polarization to learn that our goals and incentives are aligned, we can trust each other. The floodgates will open.

Speaking of mass adoption, trust and @acidyo, a few weeks ago he put me onto a new account upon the Steem waters and thankfully, an investor into the Steem blockchain, @dhenz. Welcome mate. What I have liked about his videos on @dtube is that even though he has invested heavily into Steem, he talks about the blockchain ecosystem and how there is space for blockchain for use case specific needs, Steem included. I have spoken about these a few times in various ways but the tech is not my area.

In his latest video he talks about utility coins a bit as well as trusting humans. Too many people have gone the Code is law route which I have always seen as problematic because, code is always limited, human potential is not, for better or worse. Relying on code alone to incentivize behaviour is going to always lead to authoritative dictation. I would like to draw some attention to him because having what appears to be a knowledgeable investor buy in will hopefully increase some trust in Steem as a project, at the very least, he is stuck here for 13 weeks ;) It is nice to have someone positive around, so don't break him.

I have said time and time again that it is in uncertainty where the real value lays and that is where we find ourselves each day. There is nothing certain, nothing guaranteed and even though we have fears of and expectations about the future, to get to where we want to be can't be a passive movement because passivity supports the status quo. I have never been one for politics or social movements but when it comes to building what I consider to be a better world, I want to be counted and perhaps in the fog of old age nostalgia look back and say, "I was part of that, I made a difference."

My daughter has become the voice on my shoulder, my better conscience and I never want her to have to ask me, "You knew, and you did nothing? You had a chance to change things, and you stood still?" I don't want to have to ever face that question, I would rather her say, "Dad, you failed, but you tried."

For me, I don't want to fail but if I do, it is never going to be through a lack of effort on my part and perhaps this is why I don't sleep well at times. Ever since I was a child I saw sleep as an interruption as it got in the way of me doing other things, experiencing new and trying to make some kind of difference in this world. Yes, I am idealistic and do not hide the fact but, I am realistic enough that ideals are never met with idle hands.

So, tomorrow is another day, my business will take up the sunlight, Steem the moon. Fitting.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]