Morning Musings: How Steemit is Changing my Approach to Content Creation

As those of you who visit these pages regularly know, writing has been my preferred form of creative expression, pretty much since childhood. 

In the relatively short history of the web, I have had several dozen web sites, several dozen blogs and-- at last count-- have written several thousand articles on everything from stamp collecting to finding inner peace. 

The common denominator: The written word-- story telling.

It has not Always Been Fun... or Easy

With Steemit, I am having a great time doing one of my favorite things, and that's awesome!

But I also spent a lot of years feeling mostly frustrated. 

I have been a self-employed person for a really long time, after choosing to turn my back on mainstream Korporate Amerika. I just couldn't keep supporting a system filled with exploitation and cut-throat competitiveness when I was constantly railing against the destructiveness of that same system. It just seemed too much like a hypocrisy to me.

In case you're wondering, I'll be the first to admit that self-employment is no magic pill or panacea that gets you a marvelous life of freedom and fun. As many self-employed people will probably agree, much of the time it can be a long hard slog that leaves you wondering whether you'll be able to pay next month's electric bill. And you find yourself wondering "Why do I even BOTHER???"

What Does That Have to Do with Writing?

I have a lot of "ideas" stored up in my head-- Ideas that I haven't had the opportunity to explore. Why? Because I haven't been able to rationalize or justify "taking the time" to work with them.

You see, when you're dependent on your own efforts for income, you have to prioritize "income producing" activities over "non-income producing" activities. 

In my case, writing was almost never substantially income producing, so while my desire to write was there, writing almost always ended up on the back burner while I got busy doing other things. 

Yesterday, I wrote about having time and setting priorities. One of the things I omitted from the discussion of setting priorities is that sometimes you do have external constraints (like paying bills) that determine how you allocate your time.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that is has been years since I have been able to "afford" to write freely. And I am grateful for this marvelous venue called Steemit... because it is allowing me to change my approach and give a higher priority to explore writing again!

So much gratitude to the creative geniuses who dreamed up this platform!

Resuming the "Personal" Angle...

One of the things I never really liked about writing "articles" for web sites and publications was the journalistic requirements: "Must be written in the 3rd person, 400 words, and please remove the personal parts from the content." 

Maybe it's just me, but I find it extremely hard to "connect" to impersonal formulaic content. I recognize such as "content," but it's not stories. Even if I am reading "directions," I still want to hear the writer's personal experience; the little "bits" in which we learn that getting the lid off the doomaflitchie is actually super hard and might cut your hands. Not just that "it has a lid that unscrews counterclockwise." 

Interestingly enough, most people like the personal angle. Part of the reason Facebook got so successful is precisely because the content is "personal." Unfortunately, Facebook has no depth.

Steemit, on the other hand, is unique in that it combines depth of content with personal stories. 

Somehow, this format encourages people to get more personal than merely posting a picture of the taco they ate for lunch, and then waiting for the "likes" to count up. 

And that's nothing short of BRILLIANT! Because how we truly connect with each other in this otherwise distant and technological universe is through personal stories... not through cold facts and numbers.

Why do I say that? How do I know? 

Because I've seen this happen before. Because many of my best friends today remain the people I connected with the last time there was social blogging/content site like this... in 2002-06. Not just "friends on the web," but people I know and have met, all around the world.

Now I am seeing it happen again, here on Steemit... people traveling and meeting up; Steemit meetups; SteemFest and more. 

So the point of this post...

... is to tell you that you are part of something much bigger than a "social media platform" here. Not just because you're earning rewards... but because there is true community here.

Treasure it, and be grateful. Communicate and connect. Don't screw it up with greed.

Now go out there and have a beautiful day!

What do YOU think? Were you part of the early "social blogging" movement from 15-ish years ago? Do you notice that Steemit is "strangely similar" to those communities? Have you noticed that Steemit-- even if you take away the rewards-- if NOT like other social content sites? Have you noticed how strong the sense of "community" is, on this site? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- start the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Posted 20170622 09:37PST