Milestone post - 50 followers : My first 2 weeks on steemit - Focusing on community

While to some extent this is just an excuse to organize my thoughts.......nope, that's all it is, end of thought. I will use milestone posts to do just that, organize thoughts and share my recent experience using steemit, as well as future plans.

Why I came...

So I came here thinking it'd be a great place to share a collection of short stories I have been working on, fiction infused memoirs that explore the process of deconstructing, reconstructing, and obliterating the self and finding faith in the universe. I also hope to reach out to like minded people who want to build community, to help whoever I can and to invite abundance into my experience. Little did I know that it would be the center of my attention for days (years?) to come.

I've been pushing my Patreon account for a few months and feel a little underwhelmed, more at the lack of a community surrounding the website than my own inability to gain patrons. I'm not looking to "sell myself" and would prefer to stay relatively anonymous and have organic connections with potential readers rather than think in terms of a "fan-base" (otherwise I would have started doing youtube videos a long time ago). So it seemed to me that Patreon and Steemit could be used together to build something positive.

A change in plans...

I was hoping to post my stories directly to steemit and eventually I will, but as it turns out, Steemit might not be the best platform to post stories that I worked tirelessly on..... Not yet anyway. I am still very low in steem power and currently without any personal savings to invest in my account, so by sharing right now, I risk getting very few views and very little payout. Luckily I have a brain full of random ideas to share, all of which have the potential to be of some value to someone and a heart full of passion to make sure those ideas are put to use.

Things I've contributed so far...

• Random thoughts like this - sometimes very well received and other times ignored, as expected.

• Guidance for utilizing the law of attraction and related topics - My two most disheartening post so far, I spent time on it and received no attention except from @blunderbabe , my new steemit best friend. I will have to try again later.

• 2 Japanese blog entries - surprisingly received the most attention out of anything, my first post brought in almost $60. I will continue this but at a slower pace.

• Ideas for the steemit community - Hope it catches on

• Entry into the weekly fiftywords writing contest - my first time trying something like that, a nice challenge -

Manifesting positive outcomes

The good news is that I am meeting a bunch of really talented, decent, like-minded people and I see the potential for great things to come out of the relationships formed here. Even if STEEM crashes and burns (I doubt it will) and I end up making no money, I still feel like I spent all that time in front of the computer doing something productive and worthwhile. Many people out there seem to think there is an inherent contradiction between "selfishness" and "selflessness". We are all one and so to care for others is to care for yourself, to care for yourself is to care for others, there is no reason you can't do both at the same time, and I feel many here understand that. It's got me super ultra excited.

As for the goal to make money using this platform - a payout is almost inevitable. Whether it will be a little extra change to pay the bills or enough to realize my dreams (of freedom, security and the opportunity to support a variety of energy-filled and cooperative community spaces) is up to my own attitude as much as anything else.

Distractions

I have to admit, as pure as my intentions are, I find it easy to get distracted by the power dynamic here. It's not that anyone is holding on to power or deliberately using power in negative ways, it's just the way people function when things are based around a currency. Mass attracts mass, money attracts money. In short, while it is an awesome and potentially game-changing platform, this new world still has problems similar to the old world in which it came from.

I'd like to ignore all that and focus entirely on creating quality content but when I see a fluffy substance-free feel-good post that might have been written by an series of algorithms bringing in hundreds of steem dollars, I think about what I could be doing differently and find myself drawn into the game. I start thinking about how to improve my position in the community. I start to contemplate potential strategies. I'm good at this, but it absolutely has the potential to compromise the mission.

I know that if I shared my identity and my music with it, I would find it much easier to build a following. I am, by no means, concerned with building an image, but doing so gets peoples attention a lot quicker and easier. It tempts me. But getting peoples attention quickly and easily isn't the reason I am here, I want to connect, I want to create opportunities in as organic a way as possible. If I do decide in the future to become more intimate with the community, sharing pictures and contact information, it will be (as @francesleader said in a comment on my post "to show that I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear".

The take-away

• As I said above, community is central and this site is ripe for building it.

• Introspection and Self improvement - Before joining steemit, I was basically on an ego-vacation. I felt truly infinite. It was a good place to be, but it wasn't fully engaged with the world. Now I feel I am coming back to earth and able to put on the ego suit again. This whole balancing act between just being who I am without expectation and giving freely and having to come to terms with the current reality, getting pulled into the game, will most likely continue but it's teaching me so much about where my heart is at and where my head is at. I feel pretty good that I mustered up the energy to write this post despite receiving a payout of around $0.02 on a few posts that I put lots of energy into. It means I am still willing to be myself, freely and without expectation. Of course I could focus more on a strategy to reach the most amount of people and get the highest payout possible, but I trust in my intuition and the value I have to add to the community, and I trust that the community, like life in general, will be a reflection that teaches me what to work on and where to shift my focus.

• A newfound appreciation in the art of writing - From the time I started writing until I started at steemit, I felt my writing was just a tool to share ideas, if with no one but myself. There was art to it, yes, but I was focused on the storytelling aspect. I feel like I am re-discovering the art of words. Until now, I've thought of writing as a way to organize my thoughts, but now it is becoming a learning experience in and of itself. I have become addicted to writing because I can see how it helps me to grow.

• An account worth $30! Let's see if I can x10 that in the next 2 weeks, why not, right?

Plans

I hope to just go with the flow. I will make plans and then throw them away the next day. I will spend some weeks focused on writing, others only curating, I might jump between topics, I will make sure that most posts have substance but there will be a few sloppy ones here and there. For now I hope to continue making connections through comments and the occasional self-help BS post, the occasional Japanese blog, the occasional music or life related entry. My stories will make it up here eventually but for now they are available on my patreon (linked above) which is entirely pay-what-you-want. I may take a break from aggressive steemit posting to focus more on some stories and songs.

I really hate stock photo's though and don't have many of my own to use. Tell me what you think of my horrendous attempt at using PAINT, maybe this will be an opportunity to develop some talent in design X-D

Stay true to the mission! The rest will work itself out!