I was just cleaning up the kitchen, listening to some loud and energizing music, when I realized I wanted to write a post on Steem again. I haven't felt that for a while, only sharing a picture here and there. For a long while I blamed it on the distraction my felting practice provided - and although partially true, it's definitely not a 24/7 job, so why didn't I use the time 'in between' for some proper Steeming?
Looking back at how I've always experienced anything I do I recognize some patterns which made me realize there are a few things 'to blame' for my absence in the last weeks/month.
First of all, Steem, especially the feed, became a place of repetition. The people who are producing the most repetitive content on Steem earn the most 'recognition', they are the safest to place your auto votes on, which means my feed is getting pretty boring as I already 'know' what I'm going to read or see most of the time. The ones who are less repetitive and always struggling to be seen as they don't get the autovotes as they alternate 'quality' content with shitposting/fun a bit more, have already left. I've honestly had a hard time spreading my 10*100% votes a day, upping my percentage per post week after week. I used to ignore resteems, and now I'm relieved as that's basically someone I already trust and follow saying: put your vote here! Which I've done more and more in the last month.
Second, and this is probably the biggest, is that *I've never held a job for longer than one and a half year - being on Steem for 2 years uninterrupted is basically the longest I've ever committed to anything. My normal excitement curve looks like this: half year learning, half year perfecting, half year looking for a new challenge while feeling bored on the job. Out of habit and because there was no official 'quitting' I had to do I made it to two years, but I guess after that milestone, which I made last December, it was time for a break anyway.
Lastly, as I'm a person who lives through satisfying intrinsic motivation and who is severely unmotivated by extrinsic motivators like money or power, at least 'power' as we're used to defining it, growing the account to some sort of virtual (SP) number is not enough to keep me going. I need something else to stay motivated: fun, inspiration, surprises, intellectual growth, a way to 'play', basically.
When the big 'clean-up' happened at Steemit, Inc., and we were all panicking as the ship seemed to be going down, I ironically had a lot more fun. There were very interesting forums and discussions happening, people trying to organize brain power and skills, and I felt like we were actively building on Steem. This lasted for a while, until Steemit, Inc. seemed to have their affairs pretty much in order again, and now I feel like that surge of motivation has pretty much 'gone'. We're now just passively waiting until we see SMTs and Hives/Communities launched.
I'm glad we're feeling relaxed and confident(ish) again, but in some way, I miss the work ethics I felt we gained during the 'bad' period about a year ago.
For the last few weeks I've found something back on Facebook, a platform I ignored for a long long time, but after getting obsessed with felting I went back to it, finding new groups to share in and people to engage with. At least people who are sharing there are mostly doing it for their art, and for inspiring and getting inspired, which makes engaging there basically stress-free and casual.
I don't get the more meaningful engagements I get on Steem though - although most of us are here for some sort of financial gain, it's also surprising how deep people are able to engage, how they sometimes suddenly show deep empathy or refer to posts I've written a year ago, showing they care and know about my life.
I appreciate that, a lot. I've seen a few people leave Steem lately, some disappeared, others are building a name on Twitter and the more general crypto community, and I understand. I've been searching for a bit 'more' outside of Steem as well. But as I look through the Twitter feeds I also recognize that specific communication style that I've seen getting shaped on that place, a very pointy - and in my eyes aggressive/polarizing - format in which everyone tries to communicate and get likes and retweets and engagements. It's a style that, to me, after being active there from the beginning (2007) gets very annoying, repetitive, and, therefore, boring to me after a while. I can't shake the feeling that on Steem, at least, we see more of a person, more personalities, more originality, and a deeper understanding of some peoples thinking.
And yes, that totally contradicts with my earlier point that I got bored on Steem by its repetitiveness. My wish for Steem is a hybrid social media platform: people writing about their lives and thoughts freely, given many tools to express in many ways, and without the strict formatting that Twitter, Instagram, and all the other short-format platforms force on their users.
Well, that's it, I started this post by telling I wanted to write something again, I didn't promise that I was going to spend hours thinking about a good beginning and a sharp conclusion.
<3 I missed you guys.
The end.
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