IFC Season 2 Round 6 - Inspiration

in #contest6 years ago

Hello there! Welcome to our digital spaceship castle.
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Artwork credit - @jimramones on steemit

Hey again.
There sure were some fascinating entries in the last round! Glad we decided to go the Choose Your Own Adventure route, I learned a lt and enjoyed it.

I suggest you go take a read through some of the entries if you haven't. Some really thought provoking and interesting stuff!
That's one thing I absolutely love about this contest and community.. I so often learn new and intriguing things I never knew before.

That alone makes it worth it for me, though so many other things do as well especially the fact that people have fun and make new friends and on and on and on.. Even though times are a bit slow, this contest and community continue to surprise me in awesome and positive ways. :)

Oh by the way we got our first entry via email recently and it was a player from steem so not from Facebook or anyone else but it's still progress and it's helping me figure out how it will work, hopefully we can still get some players from elsewhere though if you have an issue with RC credits or whatever you can play via email if you want to.

I'm glad you are all joining me on this journey, as a group we can explore and learn new things and have fun and make new friends together! I'm excited to see where it all goes, and where we are going now is to the next round! Round six of season two!

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The subject of our sixth quest is.. "Inspiration".
I think this is an important subject in general but especially for me right now as I've been looking for inspiration and have been researching the subject myself as well.

So what inspires you? I'd love to hear about it! And I'm sure others would as well. :D

You can make your entry about a person or people, a place or places, a thing or multiple things, or.. Combination of all those and more...

Could be your family or friends or someone you fell in love with or a famous person or an art form or something that happened in history or.. You could create something about inspiration itself. Your imagination is your limit. As long as it's about inspiration in some form or another.

Good luck Information Finders! I look forward to seeing what you have to share.
May we all hopefully inspire each other with this round and just in general into the future!

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So far we have received support and 10steem from @underground and I have confirmed that @ats-david @krnel @timcliff @steemcommunity and @ura-soul will also be supporting us this season.

Underground, ats-david, krnel, timcliff, steemcommunity, and ura-soul are all witnesses, so if you support what we are doing here at the IFC please look into them and give them a vote for witness as well. By the way to vote for ats-david you should vote for his @ats-witness account.

Also it looks like @ecoinstar will donate 100 shares of steembasicincome to the winner of the grand prize!
And thanks to @bengy for delegating 25 steem. :)
A special thanks as well to @davemccoy and @newbiegames and @newbieresteemday who are not technically sponsors but we have worked with them in the past. Looks like newbiegames and newbieresteemday have been inactive for months though we still use their tags for the time being.

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The challenge will finish after 7 days when the post ends and provides its payout cycle or when all entries have been submitted.

25% of the post payout goes to curation and after that what's left will now be split up 75% to the winner of the round and 25% to put towards building up the @ifc account.

For those who play via email.. This will be recorded and saved for you, and.. If you're unwilling to make your own steem account we will at some point be willing to convert it for you to whichever currency however.. Not for small amounts, you must earn at least 10 steem for us to take the time to do this for you.


Rules

1. Round 6 of season 2 starts now and the subject is "Inspiration".
  1. Create a blog post on steem for the contest or send an email if you are playing via email.

  2. Title of blog post or subject of email must contain, "IFC S2R6"

  3. Leave a link to your post in the comments below unless you are playing via email in which case myself or someone else will do so. (This part is important and a lot of people forget this, please put the blog link in the right place so our judges can find it)

  4. And you also have to use the #ifc tag in your blog post as well unless you are playing via email.

  5. You must accept that if you somehow get hurt doing any of our quests you can not reasonably hold us accountable. You must take responsibility for your own choices and actions in life. This is a voluntary game where you choose to play. Only you can make such decisions for yourself.

  6. You are responsible for paying the appropriate government taxes, fees, and service charges resulting from any transactions with the IFC or Marketplace. We are not responsible for collecting, reporting, paying, or remitting to you any such taxes, fees, or service charges, except as may otherwise be required by law.

Acceptable content


A. A blog post or email about the subject of "Inspiration".

B. Language is primarily in English and if you would like to participate from elsewhere in the world it is up to you to translate your message into English so we can understand you.
C. Do your best to make sure everything is properly sourced.
D. We also encourage role playing for those who enjoy doing that. :)

Also we now have judges guidelines so you can see what the main judges generally look for in an entry, links to those will be below.

https://steemit.com/contest/@apolymask/my-judges-guidelines-for-the-ifc
https://steemit.com/informationfinding/@xomegax/guidlines-ifc
https://steemit.com/ifc/@charisma777/the-ifc-is-baaaack-you-won-t-want-to-miss-this-season-check-us-out
Good luck in the contest!!


Click to enter the Discord chat room.

Click to go to the rules page.

20180421_151139_0001.pngOriginal by @yeszuzia and modified by @charisma777

PS.. If you'd like to be a part of the community in some way but don't want to play in the game, we're still looking for a few regular judges and always looking for guest judges and sponsors.

Please feel free to resteem or share this blog post on any social media to help get the word out to more people who might want to play! <3 Thank you.

Also if you want to play via email or be notified of each round or get updates then please send an email to informationfindingchampionship@gmail.com
with the subject "Add to IFC mailing list".

Plus here's a YouTube video I made on the subject of the IFC that I'm going to include with each round post.

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Glad to see you're back... Always see your creativity at work @apolymask! :)

Hey davemccoy! Nice to hear from you. :) I hope you're doing well! And I'm not totally sure what you mean by always seeing my creativity at work, but.. It's nice to think that my energy and efforts get around! Hopefully this is still just the beginning and one day I am able to make much more positive change in the world! I appreciate the role you played in helping me to do that. Thank you. <3

Hey hey hey! Can't believe we're already at round 6. I was a little too preoccupied in the last few days. But I'm feeling good about this one and I'm definitely planning to make an entry as well!

I remember landing the second position in round 1 with just one point behind the first position holder. Let's see what happens this time around! :D

Hey again ayushjalan! And yeah.. Same here, time sure is flying! Getting closer and closer to the halfway mark and before too long we'll be at the finals as well! And then I'll get another break before the next season starts. :)

Glad to see you entered again! I was wondering if you had forgot about us or something like that, I read your entry already and left a comment and I thought it was great. I can't say who I'm going to vote for yet especially as we don't have all the entries in yet but I really liked yours and have a feeling at least one of my 3 votes is going to yours. Excellent job on that one, it hit me on a deeper level than usual.
And yeah! You got off to a great start and almost won the first round, nice job! Looking forward to see how it pans out in the future and good luck to you!

I didn't forget about you guys, lol. Like I said, I was a little preoccupied with exams and stuff. The free time that I did have, I gave almost all of it to writing my articles. As you can see on my blog, I've actually been trying to be more consistent and push out more content to make up for the time I didn't post that often.

The thumbnail editing, photo editing, and figuring out a good way to present my thoughts in a manner that is both easy to read and entertaining, takes a bit of a time, but it's all so worth it when I see the finished article sitting on my blog like a crown on top of all my other articles.

I did read your comment last night, but I was too dizzy to pay attention and didn't want to write a mediocre reply so I'm waiting for today afternoon (not sure what time it will be in your country) when I return home from college so I can give all my attention to your reply without any distractions :)

It was a really fun project to work on and even if I don't win, I'm still very proud of how my article turned out to be. I'm just hoping for the best!

I didn't forget about you guys, lol. Like I said, I was a little preoccupied with exams and stuff. The free time that I did have, I gave almost all of it to writing my articles.

Glad to hear you didn't forget about us! I see, sounds like you've been pretty busy!

The thumbnail editing, photo editing, and figuring out a good way to present my thoughts in a manner that is both easy to read and entertaining, takes a bit of a time, but it's all so worth it when I see the finished article sitting on my blog like a crown on top of all my other articles.

It is indeed time consuming, though that's good you feel it's worth it! :)

I did read your comment last night, but I was too dizzy to pay attention

Hopefully nothing to serious with the being dizzy? Just busy I assume? Or like a health condition kind of dizzy? I used to have some issues with dizzyness in the past so I can relate if so. Too much tech and not enough exercise and nature can add up at times, it can be difficult to find the right balance.

It was a really fun project to work on and even if I don't win, I'm still very proud of how my article turned out to be. I'm just hoping for the best!

Word! That's a good way to look at it. :) I try to look at my endeavors in similar manner and I find that helps a lot and is typically a good mindset to have.

Too much tech and not enough exercise and nature can add up at times, it can be difficult to find the right balance.

Exactly. I barely get any time to exercise. It's either Steemit, guitar classes, studying for exams, or trying to find a job. I got a lot on my plate right now but I still wanna keep Steemit as a priority because as I've said numerous times before, this is what I love to do!

Although I do have to admit that my health hasn't been that good lately. I'll have to reschedule my time once I'm done with the exams. I can't expect myself to be mentally well when I'm physically unwell.

Word! That's a good way to look at it. :) I try to look at my endeavors in similar manner and I find that helps a lot and is typically a good mindset to have.

It's so much easier that way when you "do your best and leave the rest" because then you're not constantly thinking about the results but are rather enjoying the task. I used to do the same when I used to write for @averageoutsider's contests. It really helps focus more on your content rather than the reward. Your story appears more genuine that way, I think.

Exactly. I barely get any time to exercise. It's either Steemit, guitar classes, studying for exams, or trying to find a job. I got a lot on my plate right now but I still wanna keep Steemit as a priority because as I've said numerous times before, this is what I love to do!

I can relate, I've been seriously neglecting exercise for quite a while! Though am trying to make it a priority as it's very important and I'm glad I'm finding time to fit it in.. Even just a lil bit each day makes me feel a lot better!

Although I do have to admit that my health hasn't been that good lately. I'll have to reschedule my time once I'm done with the exams. I can't expect myself to be mentally well when I'm physically unwell.

Yup.. There's a big connection there between mind and body and if one is off it usually really effects the other as well, good to see you recognize that and I hope you find the time to find more balance soon!

It's so much easier that way when you "do your best and leave the rest" because then you're not constantly thinking about the results but are rather enjoying the task. I used to do the same when I used to write for @averageoutsider's contests. It really helps focus more on your content rather than the reward. Your story appears more genuine that way, I think.

Agreed man. Well said! Sometimes the hardest part is just getting over the resistance of starting and getting out on the "field" so to speak in a metaphorical sense, but once you get out there and try and show up and give it a go I think that's one of the most important things.. Even if you don't succeed, just to show up and try.. Cause.. It's really hard if not impossible to succeed if you don't even show up and try. And.. Sometimes it's not even so much about winning or succeeding.. But just giving effort and putting yourself out there!

I can relate, I've been seriously neglecting exercise for quite a while! Though am trying to make it a priority as it's very important and I'm glad I'm finding time to fit it in.. Even just a lil bit each day makes me feel a lot better!

I don't know why but I often have trouble sticking to a proper schedule when it comes to taking time out for exercise. I try to set time apart for it but something always comes in the middle and I have to sacrifice my physical health for either academic purposes or some other work.

Do you have any advice I can use to help this situation? I would love to know if you do.

Well said! Sometimes the hardest part is just getting over the resistance of starting and getting out on the "field" so to speak in a metaphorical sense, but once you get out there and try and show up and give it a go I think that's one of the most important things..

Totally. I remember I wrote an article about the same a long time ago. It's so much easier to get the work done once you've started. I find the same thing happening when I'm writing my articles.

Oftentimes, I'll have a good idea of what I want the article to be like as a whole, but don't know where or how to start. But once I do, it just kinda seems as if the words flow through me, especially when I'm writing about my personal life.

Even if you don't succeed, just to show up and try.. Cause.. It's really hard if not impossible to succeed if you don't even show up and try. And.. Sometimes it's not even so much about winning or succeeding.. But just giving effort and putting yourself out there!

Exactly! It's not always about winning, but rather about showing up and participating. I obviously haven't won all the contests that I've entered for but I still love the articles that I wrote for those contests and that's reason enough for me to keep participating even if I don't win.

But I have to admit, it does feel kinda better if you actually do win, haha!

I don't know why but I often have trouble sticking to a proper schedule when it comes to taking time out for exercise. I try to set time apart for it but something always comes in the middle and I have to sacrifice my physical health for either academic purposes or some other work.
Do you have any advice I can use to help this situation? I would love to know if you do.

I'm not sure if I do because I don't know what your life is like and it's hard for me to say without not knowing much about you. But.. I guess I would say to try to realize that if you don't take good care of yourself you'll likely regret it later in life. Maybe if you treat it like a sort of life or death situation you'll find more time for it because if you don't take care of your health it will likely decrease your lifespan.

Other than that I would say.. Perhaps try to do excercises while you're doing other things like listening to an audio book, or if you watch any YouTube or TV or stuff maybe you could do it while you're doing something else.

Something I like to do is.. Exercise and then work, and then when I feel like I've been working too much stop and exercise for a bit and keep rotating between work and exercise and breaking them up so you're not just sitting or being one place too long. Another thing I've been doing recently is stretching in bed before I go to sleep, lol... It's tough though cause I'm usually so tired I can't do much before I pass out.

I think more than anything though is just to find the right mental way of looking at things.. TO make it a priority now so it doesn't become a major problem later on in life. We tend to find time for what we think is important, so you have to make it really important to you.

Oftentimes, I'll have a good idea of what I want the article to be like as a whole, but don't know where or how to start. But once I do, it just kinda seems as if the words flow through me, especially when I'm writing about my personal life.

Word! I feel very similar.. It's amazing what we can do when we set our mind to it and get started, and there's plenty of distractions like social media and phones and games and music and so many things to keep us away from it if we let it. I'll check out your link when I get a moment. Might be tomorrow though as I'm trying to get so many things done and still get to bed early, including lifting weights/exercise! Maybe I'll get to it tonight though, we'll see.

Exactly! It's not always about winning, but rather about showing up and participating. I obviously haven't won all the contests that I've entered for but I still love the articles that I wrote for those contests and that's reason enough for me to keep participating even if I don't win.
But I have to admit, it does feel kinda better if you actually do win, haha!

Yeah I agree. A lot of people will let their ego get in the way and if they don't win enough they quit. But maybe if they competed more and practiced more without worrying about winning and losing they would win more in the long run as well. And haha yeah. It does feel good to win. :) But sometimes It can feel just as good but perhaps in a different way to lose and not feel bad about it, to grow and experience and appreciate the process regardless of the results.

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Long train ride today, so I took the opportunity to write a bit! Here is my entry :

https://steemit.com/ifc/@bengy/inspiration-ifc-entry-s02r06

Hello again @apolymask! Here's my entry:

What Inspiration Means To Me - People, Places, And Poetry [Entry for "IFC S2R6" writing contest]

Took me around 2 days to write the whole thing but I'm really happy with how it turned out and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

Here's another entry from @plushzilla via email. I will make sure to remind the judges when it comes time to vote on this round to keep an eye out for it and to not miss it.


Sorry, this one is a little bit late, but I have been getting inspirations all week and interestingly enough they have been related and I was able to join the dots right at the end of the week (i.e. today).

On Monday I visited a friend who is a music teacher and not only does she teach piano and flute, she also specializes in something called 'voice therapy', which is something between music and speech therapy. The concept is to use singing as a way for a person to express their feelings and emotions, sort of like instead of sitting down and talking to a therapist you are singing instead. I found out recently that she actually went through domestic violence as a mother and had to leave her husband, who she married at a very young age so it left her with years of torment and some psychological scars. However, it was also through music that she found a way to express the emotions and release the bottled up sadness, and now she is using her passion of music and skills in teaching to help people going through difficulties in life.

On Wednesday I spoke to a friend's friend who suffered from post-natal depression and was looking for ways to help improve her mental health while she is recovering from the trauma. I didn't realize that the incidence rate of post-natal depression was so high (same goes for miscarriage), and that GPs don't really provide much information about this for expecting mothers. So she wanted to get organizations to provide better awareness through information about strategies and resources available to deal with post-natal depression. Something that really helped her get through this difficult phase of her life was her love of singing, although this was something that she didn't not do very much during that time because she was depressed.

On Sunday I taught an origami workshop as a guest presenter for an art therapist who changed her career from a teacher after dealing with the loss of her husband who dragged her through a terrible time when he was sick and blamed her for all the problems in their family. After he passed away she was able to use her love for art to pull herself through this dark period and now also helps others to use creative activities to deal with difficult situations in life and see the positive side of things.

I have been able to connect with so many people in the 'real-world' that shared experiences which put them through a difficult period, something that added a lot of burden and threatened their mental health, yet each of them found a way to climb out of the abyss through a connection to the arts. More importantly, they have also managed to use this as inspiration and motivation to help others now. I did wonder if there could have been more done on the prevention of these issues, and this is something that I am using as my own inspiration to start working on ideas that will help people build up emotional resilience and mental fitness to deal with the tough situations in life.

I also know many people in the Steemit community (but I won't mention specific names here) that also went through challenges in life, and through Steemit have made connections with others that share similar experiences. I have personally seen how many have also managed to pull themselves through some tough situations (or are still dealing with it), but the support and compassion shown by people in the crypto-community is so inspirational that it makes you really see the positive side of the social networks online.

And that's my thoughts on inspiration for this round of the IFC.

No worries about the delay you weren't that late and we still haven't finished judging round 2 yet!

On Monday I visited a friend who is a music teacher and not only does she teach piano and flute, she also specializes in something called 'voice therapy', which is something between music and speech therapy. The concept is to use singing as a way for a person to express their feelings and emotions, sort of like instead of sitting down and talking to a therapist you are singing instead.

That sounds really interesting! I actually only recently just learned of music therapy so voice therapy is new to me as well. That's sad to hear she dealt with domestic violence.. Though great to hear she was able to channel it into something so positive and healing not just for herself but for others as well!

Also sorry to hear about the post-natal depression your friends friend dealt with, I didn't know about post-natal depression either.. That's really cool she was also able to improve and heal more through singing as well! Very interesting.. I've recently been working on sort of singing but not really cause I've never been taught, it's more spoken word poetry than anything but I feel like it helps me a bit with my depression as well! Something to consider in the future, maybe if I do it more it will help me in a similar way.

Once again sad to hear about the art therapist who lost her husband and dealt with a lot of stress in the relationship, though once again great to hear she was able to creatively channel that negative energy into love and healing not just for herself but others as well!

I have been able to connect with so many people in the 'real-world' that shared experiences which put them through a difficult period, something that added a lot of burden and threatened their mental health, yet each of them found a way to climb out of the abyss through a connection to the arts. More importantly, they have also managed to use this as inspiration and motivation to help others now.

That is really inspiring to think about! I think I've done similar with my poetry and photography and videos and other artwork in the past, for I did not want to just be consumed by the darkness and I wanted to make something positive out of it if possible and also to help others, so it was really cool to hear those 3 stories you just mentioned and it helps me put things into perspective more and realize how powerful art is.. I definitely think I need to keep trying to use art as a tool to help myself and others when I'm dealing with my darkness..

I did wonder if there could have been more done on the prevention of these issues, and this is something that I am using as my own inspiration to start working on ideas that will help people build up emotional resilience and mental fitness to deal with the tough situations in life.

That's an awesome set of sentiments and initiative.. Very admirable and noble and inspiring in my opinion and I wish you as much success as is possible in your efforts!

I also know many people in the Steemit community (but I won't mention specific names here) that also went through challenges in life, and through Steemit have made connections with others that share similar experiences. I have personally seen how many have also managed to pull themselves through some tough situations (or are still dealing with it), but the support and compassion shown by people in the crypto-community is so inspirational that it makes you really see the positive side of the social networks online.

Well said.. I've seen similar and experienced it myself as I'm pretty open with my sad feelings and I've got amazing support here on steem and on Facebook and in general in life, a lot of people especially men are sort of I think conditioned by society to repress it and keep it to themselves but I think that often makes it worse and more difficult to manage and understand, and.. If we can encourage people to be more open with their problems and let them know we will be there to help in whatever ways we can I think that is super important.

Great entry @plushzilla ! Super inspiring in my opinion and hit me on a bunch of levels that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'm not sure how I'm going to vote on this round yet but I have a feeling at least one of my three votes is going to you. Thank you for sharing and also for helping me to look at things in a better light. :)