You can learn things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. - Barbara Sher

That's why I love being a beginner, Barbara!

Maybe the fact that many people don't find pleasure in starting from zero, sets many boundaries to their lives.

A couple of days back I met some friends that I hadn't seen for a long time. They're all informed about my activities on steemit but haven't been in touch with the crypto world by themselves yet.

When we started to chat about that new world, they asked me a lot of questions. Some of them were really thought-provoking, and that's why I decided on writing about them today.

Sometimes it's not about finding the right answer but about defining the right question!

You better perk up your ears @surfermarly, some interesting questions are asked

What would you ask if the answer was 'steemit'?

We've all become professionally blinkered.

After more than one year on steemit, the processes on this platform seem completely logical to me. While some of them took me a certain time, now I feel absolutely comfortable.

I'm definitely one of these people who enjoy being a beginner, needing to deal with unexpected problems, running into dead ends, failing, standing up, learning and finally discovering a solution.

Now if you ever tried to explain the concept of steemit to somebody who hasn't ever been in touch with cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology, then you will suddenly find yourself time traveling back to your own beginnings. There they are again: these complex questions about the "who" and the "why" that are almost philosophical.

You listen to your non-crypto friends who sound excactly like you did a couple of months back.

"Okay, but where does the money come from?"

The core of this questions isn't actually the WHERE in sense of a location, meaning that my friends didn't ask me WHERE the Steem Dollar is physically produced.

They rather wanted to understand (quote): HOW is steemit's eco system even able to operate, being based on a monetary concept of no value.

They didn't understand how an unknown coin could be recognized as a valid currency.

Unknown coin? What do you mean?

After a while I found out that the real unknown in this situation was the missing concept of money.

It really seems that most people have forgotten that money itself doesn't have any value. It's just a tool!

So my answer was: "That money is an implication of trust. It was created to define value and give that value back to the ones who created it - the ones that own it."

And I added: "That's actually how any currency in the world can be defined. The problem with our established currencies is that we gave them into the hands of some keepers that turned out to be less trustworthy than we actually believed."

However, the very concept of a currency is still untouched. Money, coins, banknotes, gold bullions or whatever type of ... is nothing more and nothing less than a tool to define an exchange value.

Money was invented to make exchanges more comfortable, not needing to take your herd of donkeys to the market anymore in order to get some food in return.

The concept of money has always been based on mutual agreements, being an artificial tool to define value.

Thus, we wouldn't stand here today and criticize the existing financial systems and their currencies, if we didn't have a confidence issue.

"So you believe that we can create our own currencies just because we don't trust in the existing ones anymore?"

"Why not?" was my reply.

"On steemit we are able to create value through social interaction and then reward it through a currency we trust in," I added.

I can totally relate. It's hard to follow all these new ideas since the whole concept of cryptocurrencies requires a complete paradigm shift. But didn't all great technological progress started like that?

It's all about confidence and routine.

Regarding money the thing people are most afraid of is losing control.

Now the most dramatical part of the established financial systems is that we believe that we are in control of our money, but we're actually not.

We got used to believe them when they said that everything was fine. It's like it happens in all relationships that are based on trust but then - out of the blue - face some confidence issues.

Due to our long-lived routines and habits, most people feel much more comfortable knowing their money in hands of a bank than administrating it on their own. Isn't that weird?

And then you look into your friends' eyes after talking in monologue about corrupt financial systems, unsafe structures and untrustworthy banks, and they suddenly start to understand why all these new concepts make sense.

What would you ask if the answer was 'steemit' then?

Talking to people who haven't been in touch with cryptocurrencies yet, always helps me to back up my own beliefs. The more I talk about it, the more I'm convinced about it by myself.

Steemit is the perfect gateway into the crypto world for all these people who are not typical early adopters, people that don't jump on every new technological train that crosses their path.

By getting socially involved with the steemit community, they more and more engange with "the new", get confident and gradually find out that the pros outweigh the cons.

We're all in charge when it comes to teaching these pros, we're all steemit ambassadors.

So where does the money come from again? From trust.

Best, Marly -

Thanks for your valuable time!
This blog was launched at the end of July 2016
aiming to provide stories for open-minded
people who enjoy living on the edge of their lives,
stepping out of comfort zones, going on adventure,
doing extreme sports and embracing the new.
Welcome to the too-much-energy-blog!

PS: Don't forget to visit my new site surfermarly.com

Original content. Quotes found on pinterest.com, quotefancy.com and success.com.