CH #5 If you seek happiness for yourself you can have everything in the world and still be unhappy but if you seek happiness for others you'll find happiness yourself. Trulshik Rinpoche XI

*Steem is a blockchain based social network.

The Ultimate Steem Book

• Introduction - The Ultimate Steem Book / Audio
• Chapter 1 - My Steem Witness Application
• Chapter 2 - Decentralized Governance / Audio
• Chapter 3 - Steem's Ultimate Introduction / Audio
• Chapter 4 - Attention Is The Ultimate Currency / Audio
• Chapter 5 - The Most Positive Influence In My Life! PART 1 (Audio version coming)
• Chapter 5 - The Most Positive Influence In My Life! PART 2
• Appendix 1 - The Ultimate Guide To Steemit (Working On A Revision)
• Appendix 2 - The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Ever Heard (My Best Paid Post)
• Appendix 3- A Very Inspiring Quote By Dan Larimer

Steem Is The Most Positive Influence In My Life! PART 2(sub-titles)

Part 2

• Teaser
• The First Steem Fest Was A Success!
• The Future Isn’t Set Yet!
• Why And How I Became A Witness
• Life’s Fundamentals
• Steem Scalability Announcement
• End Notes
• Bringing Closure

Teaser

It is fundamental for humanity to come to as much unifying agreement as possible so at the very least war and violence can be avoided.

Thinking and working on technological advancements like automating unpleasant work, letting people live healthy for many hundreds of years if they wish so, super AI, transhumanism or others that might let us colonize alien world or even might allow us to communicate with beings from outside our solar system are noble causes but make agreement, consensus and unity even more important.

The First Steem Fest Was A Success!

The first Steem Fest happened on November 11 to 13 in Amsterdam and was the brain child of @roelandp. I’ve listened to 90%+ of the Steem Fest presentations and read more than a dozen posts about the event if not many dozens. I’ve read more than once from multiple people that this event and weekend was their best ever. The feelings I got from what I read were those from a genuine group of people who just lived a blissful experience. Also many people said a lot of this event's success was to be attributed to @roelandp's hard work.

This takes me back to one of Dan Larimer’s quote where he says he envision a crypto community or crypto economy where being shun of that community would put anyone in a undesirable position or even an “impossible” position.

This Steem Fest might be considered the symbolic birth of this community where people are more enthused to relate with those who know Steem over those who aren’t yet aware of this it.

Below is part of Dan’s quote which can be found here in its entirety and which I already quoted many times.

So I can envisioned up the blockchain technology will allows us to create a world where the forces that incentive for being part of the Bitshares community, of the blockchain crypto-community, the efficiencies you gain are so strong that your profits are so much higher that being rejected or shunned by that community forces you to do with people outside it.

To me and it might very well be the case for a lot of us right now, my whole life is some sort of Steem Fest!

(What it end up looking like when I party. Yeah. That's me.)

The Future Isn’t Set Yet!

To put everything I’ve written so far into perspective, we’re blogging on Steem to create consensus, to influence and be influenced. If we create strong consensus among the thousands of Steemian then we’re rewarded with hundreds of dollars but even more rewarding is the direct influence we're having over each others mind and over Steem’s future consensus.

Right now Steem consensus reach out thousands of people and like I’ve said in the past it’s mind-boggling to think about Steem’s future where this consensus could come from many millions to many billions of people. The future isn’t set yet!

I’ve written this chapter in part to express myself as clear as possible about the source of my biggest hope and joy over the last few months. I wanted to share the essence of what is found in this post for many months already. It feels awesome now that I’ve succeeded. Expressing ourselves is an ever

I also wanted to share probably the biggest factor as to why 2 months ago I stop running which I was doing every day for more than 1 hour. Why I began meditating more than 10 minutes a day for the past 2 months which I recommend to everyone. Why I now record myself on an audio recorder daily and also why I began to write or edit my writing for more than 1 hour a day or more than 15 hours a week for the past 2 weeks.

Hopefully now people can better understand. Hopefully now I’ve become a better influence and people can relate and be inspired. I'll resume running in January.

(2015 - 10k - 1st place)

Witness Updates

I’ve updated my witness node to the latest release (v0.16.0). I fully support this release. I read a lot of discussion about the price feed and I keep up-to-date with everything related to witness. I read 95%+ of all witnesses posts.

Why And How I Became A Witness

I became a witness because the whole thing perfectly aligned with my desire to make Steem my primary income in order to help me realize what I’ve been talking about throughout this book.

I’ve joined Steem in its early days in May. I already knew about Bitcoin, Bitshares, Dan Larimer and DPOS. I learn about Bitcoin in 2011 and began reading about cryptocurrencies daily in early 2012.

Very early after joining Steem, I began to spend a lot more time on the chat asking questions about it than posting. A lot of the Steem witnesses from back then can attest to this. I’d be back from work and read for hours on end the captivating chat logs all the while trying to keep up with what was being added as well as trying to add to the conversations. I know I wasn’t the only one doing this. I remember quite a few people doing the same.

One day in September I noticed a post about how to set up a Steem witness. I already knew quite a lot of those set up tutorial but this one made me think like I could succeed in my goal of becoming a witness.

As soon as I read the post I contacted the author of the post @someguy123 who guided me for more than 5 hours through all the steps and missteps and many more hours through many other lessons and price feed setting, etc. Like I've just said, I had already read about how to set up a witness but without @someguy123’s help I don’t think I would have succeeded that day.

@someguy123, @klye as well many other witnesses have been of much help since. There’s competition between the witnesses but I feel like cooperation might be even more omnipresent.

Overall setting up a witness and keeping it running has been a very fun ongoing experience. It has keep me learning more about Linux, running servers as well as enthused me to think about beginning some coding lessons which I will if I think this became the best way for me to benefit the Steem community.

I currently begun revising my Ultimate Guide To Steemit to help everyone get a much better grip of Steemit. I'm also working on a couple of other promising projects.

Life’s Fundamentals

It is fundamental for humanity to come to as much unifying agreement as possible so at the very least avoid war and violence.

Thinking and working on technological advancements like automating almost all unpleasant work, letting people live for many hundreds of years if they wish so, super AI, transhumanism or others that might let us colonize alien world or even might allow us to communicate with beings from outside our solar system are noble causes but only make agreement, consensus and unity even more important.

Here’s something that keeps coming back on my mind when I think about Steem’s wider adoption and a lot of our attitudes towards life in general. It’s a Louis Ck’s quote who is the funniest comedian in the local cluster. He has taught me so much.

The whole interview but even more so at 1m41s to 2m32s.

This is another version of the same bit and is even funnier. Gizmodo

Steem Scalability Announcement

Dan just recently posted this How to Process 100M Transfers / Second on a Single Blockchain. This is something I didn't expected so soon but which I was hoping for so much. I mentioned the dream of seeing billion of people on Steem and this technological advancement was needed for this to happen. It seems like this scalability issue might already be solved. This is huge. (pun intended)

End Notes

Centralized system of fiat currency issuance will always be inferior to provably tamperproof decentralized cryptocurrencies. The current fiat monetary system is leaving our world at the mercy of those who controls this system but it doesn’t have to be this way anymore. Cryptocurrencies have giving humanity a provably fair alternative.

We’ve seen almost nothing of what Steem can achieved and what it is giving birth to in each of us but as many know by now Steem and my relation with it as well as its relation with me is the most inspiring thing in my life right now.

I continue to be reading more than 100 Steem articles a week and I’m also working on my other Steem projects. I’m still Steeming easily more than 30 hours a weeks. Even though I’m far from posting every day, it doesn’t mean I’m not Steeming.

I might began to directly contact 1-2 rich entrepreneurial friends to give them an indepth overview of Steem.

Last week I responded positively to a newly joining Steemian who said was looking for some kind of mentorship, to which I proposed myself. We talked for more than 2 hours last Saturday on skype for the first time and I must say I only wish it could have lasted longer! I guess this is part of what Steem is all about, creating and sharing long lasting enjoyable experiences.

Bringing Closure

If there’s anything to remember from this article it's this: I shared my joy and hopefully inspired other to do the same. It doesn’t have to be about Steem, all sources of joy are worth sharing.

I know a lot of this post might be over simplified rationalizations but I enjoyed going through them. Writing this book is the most meaningful thing I ever did so far in my life and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

This book is by far the thing I’m most proud of in my life and just like Steem I know it’s only beginning…

Either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.
(Franklin paraphrasing Pliny the Younger)

This is the song that made me shed tears the most often. I find it very fitting even though it's kind of sad I consider it very empowering. There's no studio version of this song just so people don't look for it like I did. (Disclaimer this song has some religious undertone. I’m not said to be a religious person and some people have use the word spiritual to describe me)

Please consider voting for my witness. Every new votes make me super happy!

• https://steemit.com/~witnesses