Celebrating a Fantastic Hive Achievement
Apparently, I hit rep 74 the other day, which I have to admit I completely missed until today 😂
So what does it mean to reach 74 reputation on hive?
On a personal level, it fills me with a certain amount of pride knowing how much work I have contributed to Hive (I've written well over 1600 posts to date) and been involved in many initiatives in communities both on Hive, and Steem... Sorry, I meant 'the blockchain that shall not be mentioned,'
According to PeakD's analytics page, I've made 10488 comments, and would like to add that many of my comments are longer than some people's posts 😉
For all the hive newbies reading this post, I will tell you one thing - which I hope might help in understanding the reputation system - the higher rep level you get to the harder it becomes to get to the next level.
I was literally stuck at reputation 73 for 2 years 😂
Engagement is key on hive, both for building a following, and making friends which can equate to higher rewards if you're genuine. When I'm talking about engagement, I mean commenting on others people's posts, not just answering comments on your posts. There are a few Orcas I could name who rarely comment on other people's posts apart from on other Orca's content and some whale's posts... go figure!
This type of cynical attitude pretty much makes me sick when I see it, but having spent a lot of time over the past few years meditating I've come to realise that acceptance, even of behaviours that are negative or duplicitous, is the best way to keep focused on creating what you want to create. Everyone can see the way people behave on hive anyway.
For me, making Rep 74 represents a milestone, and perhaps if certain whales see I've hit this 74 Rep mark I might find a new sponsor 🤞... you never know what can happen on this crazy and wonderful hive blockchain.
At the moment I spend a large portion of my time stressed out writing to strict deadlines for a few mainstream magazines under a pseudonym.
How I Have Given Back to Hive
“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ―Albert Einstein
This is a great quote by Einstein and one that I try to live my life by. Karma can, and will, bite you in the ass if you don't try to share your gifts with the world unselfishly and with love. This is something I have striven for in the past on hive, but since the increasing intensity of my chronic illness, I find it very difficult to write my own blog, and keep up with and submit by the deadline for my main ghost-writing job.
So much goes on behind the scenes on hive that it is difficult for new users to understand how it all works.
I'm not able to dedicate any more time behind the scenes than I already have as real-life issues take all my time, but in the past I was one of those busy bees who helped build some of the individual cells that make up hive.
In the summer of 2017 my first attempt at community building was to start a steemchat group (a chat website created by @firepower that has now shut down) and later a similar discord group called Scuba Diving. A place where divers from around the world could share their stories, promote their posts and generally provide each other with mutual support.
In late 2017 I joined curie as a curator, working approx 20 hours/week helping to find and reward posts from new users for the best part of two years.
In 2018-2019 I ran a creative writing workshop for the Promo-mentors discord community for a year, spending roughly 10 hours/week offering editorial services and tutoring some second language English writer's to help them improve their craft.
Also in 2018 I ran a weekly radio show on the whaleshares discord (prior to whaleshares forking from hive). This discord radio show was called literary corner and I hosted it for nearly a year. In the show I interviewed the most talented poets and fiction writers on hive/steem at the time, discussing their influences and how they first discovered they were destined to become a writer.
In 2019 I joined the @sndbox creative incubator and worked as part of a team building the @projectgiving charity which helped fund a community/environmental project in Tanzania.
In 2020 I started @theinkwell creative writing community with @stormlight24, designing the community media, writing creative prompts and community initiatives for 6 months until I had to facilitate handover to new management due to my deteriorating health, which was exacerbated by a family member getting cancer at the beginning of the pandemic. The Ink Well remains an active and vibrant writing community thanks to the efforts of jayna, agmoore and a whole team of dedicated staff all of whom I want to thank from the bottom of my heart.
Back to Basics - I'm a Writer Who Just Wants to Write
Although as you can see I have followed Albert Einstein's advice about giving back to the hive world with many hours over the course of the last 5 years, without asking for anything in return. I never did any of that stuff for any other reason than I believe that if you help people, the universe will help you eventually. Also, kindness is its own reward!
I would dearly love some of that Karma to manifest in helping my gut illness and other chronic illnesses to heal. Before I became ill over 8 years ago now, I was fit and healthy and used to compete in Olympic-length triathlons! Check out the picture above where I raised over £250 for the NSPCC (National society for the prevention of cruelty to children).
In regards to hive, I simply want to write and possibly create some more digital art like the pieces I have shared in this post. I try my best to network and engage with people through reading and commenting on their posts, but as I'm juggling ghostwriting deadlines, working on a fantasy novel and trying to write more on hive... I honestly think I would end up seriously ill if I took on any of those behind-the-scenes jobs I used to do.
But no matter what, I don't regret any of that work. It fills me with great happiness that I encouraged some great writers on hive when curating for @curie, people who fully deserved to earn more than minimum wage for their talent. Similarly, I am proud to have helped quite a few 2nd language English speakers/writers to improve their diction and sentence structuring. I saw the pictures and other evidence that @projectgiving raised enough money through hive to build a modern toilet facility and an extra teaching space, the smiles on the faces of those children in Tanzania was a magical and emotional moment of joy. And the Literary Corner radio shows were amazing, and great fun, although I got a little nervous interviewing even with a prepared pad of questions in front of me 😉
All images used in this post are CC licence from pixabay and the digital art is my own © raj808 all rights reserved.
I'd like to say a massive thank you to all the people who have helped and supported me over the years.
It feels good to be in the Rep 74 club
Thanks for reading 🌿 😃
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