Hello fellow Steemians, @surrealist here! My name is Tom, I'm thirty four years old and I live in London, England. I've been sort of bumbling around Steemit for about three weeks now, so I thought it was high time that I introduced myself, and told you a little bit about how I came to Steemit, and what I hope to achieve here.

How I discovered Steemit

Like many people I first heard of cryptocurrencies during Bitcoin's dramatic tulip-fever-like breakout around Christmas 2013. I found the idea of a decentralized currency fascinating, and was awed by its seemingly meteoric rise in value. Looking into it further I was amazed at the speculation into the plethora of new clonecoins, altcoins and straight up shitcoins that were coming to market.

Despite understanding the broad concepts of crypto, being a pretty nontechnical person it was hard for me to see what value (if any) these new coins were creating in the crypto world.

Then came the crash and as I watched Bitcoin's price steadily decline over the next few months, I honestly thought that perhaps the experiment had failed, the cryptocoins had had their day.

So it was a shock when checked into CoinMarketCap a few weeks ago and saw that in maturity Bitcoin had soared above its value of years past. Not only that but Ethereum, only a concept when I last checked, was now the second most valuable coin on the market. Intrigued once more, I started browsing coins.

This is wen I found Steem. It had a good name and a nice logo, so I clicked through to the site and was instantly amazed!

Here was an ad-free social blogging plaform powered by its own cryptocurrency. I'd finally found a coin whose real value was manifestly visible for all to see - a proper community right there on the blockchain! After a couple of hours spent happily browsing travelogues and recipes and art, I was hooked and knew I wanted to get stuck in and be part of this movement.

So how come it's taken me three weeks?

I'm an Arch-Procrastinator!

In my early twenties, I was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I had the feeling that everything would work out in the end, so long as I kept my head up and just doing what I was doing. I had many dreams and plans, but I never made the effort to put any of them into action, and as I drifted through uninspiring jobs over the next few years the plans hopes and dreams fell by the wayside. I settled into a state of melancholy and eventually into a full blown depression that lasted into my early thirties.

During that time I couldn't see much point in anything really. I was working in a cafe at the time and putting on a brave face for customers, but would return home from work and collapse in my room, hiding myself from my housemates and avoiding social contact as much as possible. This self imposed isolation fed back into my feelings of worthlessness and depression spiralled.

Eventually a trusted friend, who had been in a similar situation herself, persuaded me to seek professional help. Though it was a struggle to get referred, and I was on a waiting list for eighteen months, in the end I was lucky enough to get some long term, one on one psychotherapy with a therapist I grew to trust.

With her help and the support of my friends and family (for whom I feel truly blessed) I was able to start turning my outlook on life around and being more kind to myself.

Looking back on those years it's sometimes hard to believe I'm the same person, and yet there is still one element of the depression that I haven't shaken off - my crushing, paralysing tendency to procrastinate.

It's something I'm determined to overcome, as it was this fear and hesitancy to engage with life that first lead me into those dark years.

That's where Steemit comes in!

I'm hoping that by starting a blog here on Steemit I can find an outlet and a channel to reengage with some of the hobbies and passions that I neglected during my years in the wilderness. Thus I propose to concentrate my posts on the following:

Travel
Some of most enjoyable time here on Steemit has been spent reading travelogues. I love how they allow you to take a journey through the prism of someone else's experience. Though I haven't travelled solo in years, and I haven't got any exotic holidays lined up, I do have one of the most exciting and culturally diverse cities in the world on my doorstep; a fact that I have taken for granted for far too long. So I plan on writing a series of posts exploring London, showing off what I consider to be some of its hidden gems, and also discovering other places I've yet to explore. If all goes well perhaps I could take suggestions or requests from fellow Steemians!

Photography
At school I was an avid photographer. Back then I used a Pentax K1000 and developed the film in a darkroom. I loved it and it saddens me that I gave it up. But in an age of smartphone cameras there's nothing but my own hestitancy to prevent me getting back into it and a few haunts around London should give me plenty of practice!

Art
I've always been a fan of making art, in particular collage. I grew up in an old bookshop surrounded by beautiful old lithographs, and I love combining elements of these with more modern ones to create a visual narrative or joke. While I derive real joy simply from making these, recently I've only been making them for as birthday and Christmas cards for friends, as though I need a reason other than my own enjoyment to start one. I'm hoping Steemit can become that reason. Here are a couple of pieces I did a few years back:

Life
While the above are the areas I'd like to concentrate my blogging on, like most people there are many other things I enjoy such as cooking, reading, walking, etc. so I'm likely to throw up a few posts relating to these activities. While on a more serious note I'm likely to spend a few posts discussing mental health and wellbeing, as these are subjects many people struggle to talk about, so hopefully sharing some of my own experiences can be of some support to someone in a similar situation.

So there you have it. I'm really looking forward to engaging with you all here on Steemit, and with the real world I've kept at arm's length for so long. If you've read this far I must offer my thanks already.

A final note and a lesson already learned
I originally wrote this up yesterday. As it's the first time I've written openly about myself in years it took a few hours of self- doubt, stopping and starting, and general procrastination, but I finally got all down. And then in a fit of self-sabotage I accidentally italicdeleted the entire post. I hadnt saved it!

A couple of years ago I would have screamed and wanted to bang my head against a wall and give up on the whole thing, by the funny thing was that the simple act of writing the post, even without publishing it, had given me a real boost. So instead of beating myself up I just thought, 'Oh Tom, you numpty!', took the evening off and came back to it today.

If there's a lesson here for any fellow procrastinators out there it's this. Stop putting it off and do something now! that and back up as go, I guess :)

So sod the fear. Here's to living! And here's to peace, love and happy Steeming!