Hello fellow Steemers!

I'm Jaan, from Finland.

First I would like to thank my friend @meister for visiting me all the way from Switzerland and introducing me to Steemit.
The first time he mentioned Steemit was roughly a year ago. At first I was reluctant to look into it. I merely glanced at the concept and went on my merry way. Back then my mindset was very anti-all-currencies. I was having a very anxious time with money and wished to have no part with it.. but now I see that I might have been unjustifiably overly suspicious and prejudiced.

Last night the topic of our conversation drifts towards Steem. I got increasingly curious as he kept explaining the idea of the whole concept. Fast forward a few hours and I'm sitting reading about Steemit with a newfound excitement, as if I were a kid again.. and now here I am, making my first post.

I was on Digg when it started to crumble. Like most people, I migrated to Reddit.
I loved Reddit for its sense of community. I loved to see the general mindset of the world. What we as a collective hold as truths and how we were bringing a lot of injustice in the world to light. I loved to see the voice of the people on topics that mattered. I loved being a part of a community that seemed to care for you and the world.. of course you have your negative nancies in every group and sometimes people were rambling and raging about the most trivial things, but hey.. let all flowers bloom and so on.

In the past few years the amount of time I've been spending on reddit has been steadily going down. There is at times too obvious censoring and in a certain way I have lost my sense of community.

I have always been creating this or that and lately I have been juggling with too many ideas on how to earn an income with something that I create. I have felt an increasing burden on this matter as of late, I just feel most alive when I am creating and not just pressing buttons for the sake of pressing buttons.. and now with Steem.. I see a new window of hope.

My initial feelings after a day of getting to know the community are feelings of.. authentic and unique expression. A community by the community.. These are the same feelings I had with reddit on my early years there.

I'm looking forward to getting to know you, the community more in depth

Now.. I would like to share with you..

A brief history of Jaan:

Adventures, creations, dreams & hopes.

I was born in southern Finland in the early 90's and my early years are filled with care-free adventures in the forest, tinkering with computers, traveling around the world with my parents, going on extensive hikes with my father, summer vacations from school spent visiting my fathers side of the family in Belgium and of course, the typical boys messing around in their neighbourhoods.

Around the age of 15, I was forced to make a heavy decision in regards of my future. What I wanted to study.. the problem was, I didn't have the slightest clue on what I wanted to do with my life.
Growing up with the tidal waves of technological advancements made me ever curious of our technology and the doors it might open, and I've always had a slight interest towards computers.
So I made the choice to get a basic degree in IT.. I quite soon discovered that my feelings towards the subject truly were of mere slight interest..

During my studies I made a dear friend who was really into martial arts. At times he would do his "mad ninja moves". There came a day that he kicked a water bottle out of my hand which I held as high as I could... I'm 191cm (6'3") tall and he was about 2-3 head lengths shorter than me. I was standing there at awe and told him: "Oh man.. I want to learn these slick tricks as well. Teach me your way". He guided me to a local karate club in my hometown..

Now that I think of it.. many years ago I shared this story..
I became heavily interested in following martial arts for the rest of my life. For the first time in my life, I had a deep passion.
I made attempts to fund this passion of mine. I started an athlete blog to help gain sponsorships. I shared stories, articles and later on ventured to make videos.

For this blog I wrote the story of how I discovered my passion for Jiu-jitsu.
You can read it: HERE!

I greatly thank you if you took the time to read that. It is one of my early creations in which I discovered another passion of mine, storytelling. You now know a significant part of my journey, something that greatly affected the course of my life.

A lot has happened in the past 2 years since this article was released.
My main focus was brazilian jiu-jitsu. I trained two times a day, lived with my mother, on the weekends I would work as a bouncer and participated in competitions every chance I got. During this time I found love. Only for her to move to the coast to study. At some point my training partners grew new interests and stopped training. I felt as if it was hard for me to grow in my sport. I suggested to my girlfriend at the time that I shall move in with her to the coast. I will apply to study philosophy in the university and start training in one of the oldest jiu-jitsu gyms in Finland. It wasn't long after that I was heading towards a new home with carload of my belongings.

The more I attended open lectures and read for the entrance exams.. I grew more and more suspicious if this academic line of philosophising is truly what I hold true for philosophy. . I failed my first entrance exams.. but I was determined that this must be it.

I've had some issues with my back before and around the beginning of the winter in 2015 it cramped in a way that I haven't felt before. I was preparing for a competition in Belgium and suddenly I got this feeling in my lower spine. As if someone had stuck a knife in there. I shouted and fell on my knees.. I told my sparring partner that he can go join the regular practice, I will just stretch this out. I try to stretch for a while, only to realise that the pain is growing. I lay on my back on the floor to catch my breath for a second.. Next I realise I can't get up. The pain is unbearable.
I'm taken to the hospital with an ambulance. The doctor gives me a magic shot and some pills and in a few hours I'm able to walk home. Ta-Da, magic.

Time passes and my back pain is easing. But under no circumstances would be able to train jiu-jitsu. During the winter my girlfriend and I come to the conclusion that we have outgrown each other. So.. we part ways.
I move my stuff back to my mothers house. The winter goes on and I enjoy the company of my old friends, wallow in the pain of the fresh wounds and worry about my future as I still could not train.. I had started to doubt my ability to sustain an athletes life. Finland seemed to be a milestone behind in supporting athletes.

During the winter a friend said she wanted to visit India once again, but wanted a friendly shoulder for the beginning of the trip. I cracked a joke that I could go as a jiu-jitsu bodyguard.. Some days passed and I shared this joke with some friends.. I shared it a few times too many, I started to believe in this joke. I had some savings and I couldn't train anyway.. I had been traveling a lot in my youth with my parents and I saw this as an initiation to a more mature life. An independent journey in a vast and greatly different culture.

Next I realise I'm en route to India..
The next 4 months are filled with a few tears, enormous amounts of joy and freedom, growth, new friends, new passions and a growing sense of wonder for the world. It is on this journey that I met @meister. Thank you for this great friendship, brother.

Quite early on in my travel I was staying in a dormitory.. Well, it was a rooftop with metal railings and there were just a few mattresses on the floor. But the view.. oh the view was just absolutely stunning. I would fall asleep with the leafs of the trees rustling in background, at times I could even hear the oceans waves.
I would wake up with the sun slowly inching from the horizon. Birds starting to sing and the moisture still hanging in the air. You really can not have a bad day after a wake up this soothing.

One evening on this rooftop. I was swinging in my hammock, listening to music and was having this moment of pure bliss. I had just shared stories with an Italian girl and an Israeli boy. Earlier in the day I had gotten to know a German boy and a Chinese girl. Oh, how I loved to hear stories from different experiences and cultures.
Then it struck me..
AHA! I've had this idea before.. to film storytelling and share them with the world, but.. I didn't have anything to film with.. Oh to heck with it. I have everything I need to make a beginning. I shall record our conversation with my phone and type it out later on a computer, I will take a picture to add some depth to the stories. YES! Everything is here!

I continue my travels meeting new people and I had this magnificent "excuse" to ask people to share their complete story. It is something I truly, truly, love to hear, every.. single.. time. In my mind I find every story so interesting. It is a unique journey of growth and self-discovery. It is a story of vastly different mindsets and cultural differences.
I've now been building this project for a year and I have published roughly half of the stories from India..

More of this at --> Humane Human Story

I kept a journal during my travels and my love for photography, that stems from my mothers passion and career with photography, made the journey very special for me. Lately I've entertained with the idea of sharing these stories with pictures, but we shall see. I think Steemit might be the place where it will be welcomed..

But yeah.. let's get back on tracks.
I arrived back home to enjoy the Finnish summer. I roamed around care-free and was making plans where to move. I had several ideas that I played with, but went on with plans to move to my old gym. To live, train and teach there. That would seem like a lovely experience. I had cleaned a storage space from there and brought a desk there. Then it was time to visit a friend in Lapland.

On my first days in Lapland. I couldn't stop saying: "I need to move here, I need to move here.."
I spent a week there and then on the train ride back south, an opportunity appeared. I had a job interview, then and there on the train.. During the summer I had been saying that I would like to live in the far north for a year or year and a half, to experience the cycles of complete darkness in the cold winter and nightless nights of summer, so I played with this idea of moving to Lapland for a while and thought: "Ok, I really love jiu-jitsu. But I don't see a future in it for myself.. I hold it dear and will practice it every chance I get.. so.. I will move to Lapland, work at a hostel and collect stories from travelers and locals over there.. I'll save up money for camera equipment and start making video stories.."

A few weeks later I get to know that I got the job in Lapland.. Onwards we go.
A friend helps me move a small carload of stuff a 1000km to the north.

During the winter I started to think how can I make the videos and learn more at the same time.. I came to the conclusion that I will begin studies to aid me and give me more freedom to make video stories.
So I looked into different schools and subjects. I came upon a course of study in the University of Lapland. I got curious..
I applied and during the summer took the entrance exams. It was a whole different world than with philosophy. I was actually having fun in the entrance exams..
A week later I get to know that I was accepted. YES!

It won't be long now that I start these studies and learn even more in depth about videos than I already have self-taught. Here I can get good advice on which ways I can grow my hopes and dreams. Needless to say, I am very excited..

So.. this was a brief story of my journey. But who am I?
That is a question that even I ask myself now and then. I am still learning to know myself to the full extent.
I am a sack of meat, bones and nervous systems that other similar sacks call Jaan.
I hope to be able to assist in making the world a better place. I love pondering life, truths, beliefs and everything about the cosmos.
And now I feel like I am venturing onto something that I will spend a great deal of my life with..

In India I was told that Jaan means Life. In my native tongue Jaan means I am sharing.. Now that I taken on a storytelling project, I have giggled on several occasions that my name in essence is.. I am sharing life.

It's now 6 AM and I haven't had a writing frenzy like this in years. Thank you Steemit, this has been wonderful. And I hope to share a lot more with you all.

Thank you for reading.

Final bonus for getting all the way to the end, a short video of my time spent in Lapland: