Introducing Myself - Traveler, Writer, Creativity Hacker

Pleased to make your acquaintance

Hello out there, all you lovely geeks. My name is Brooks. I'm an American living in China, traveling as often as I can and writing when I'm at home in Shanghai. 

Well, writing and drinking. They take turns.

Here I am, hiking the Tiger Leaping Gorge trail in Yunnan earlier this year.  

I'm looking forward to sharing some of my writing with this community, but I'm far more excited to discover the cool projects that that all of you are working on. If you're doing creative work, please let me know in a comment -- I can't wait to see what you guys and gals have brewing.

Actually, if you don't mind helping out a newbie, please point me in the direction of the creative scene on Steemit. I'm primarily a writer, but I also produce music and play piano, and for my day job I'm a UI designer and content curator. Basically, I have a wide variety of interests.

As far as what I can contribute to this community, my posts will fall mostly into the following three categories: Creativity, Life Abroad, and Fiction.

Creativity

As I mentioned, I'm a writer that dabbles in music and experiential art (apps, installations, and my dream of designing an amusement park), which means that I have to keep my creative juices flowing and abundant. As many of you know, this can be a near-impossible task. Thankfully, over my career as a traveling author and designer, I have found a few tricks designed to clear out the cobwebs and kickstart the creative process. I'd sell them if I knew how, but since I don't, I'd just as soon see someone else benefit from them.

Several of my articles will deal with creativity and lifestyle design, by which I mean setting yourself up as much as possible for artistic success. For a sneak preview of the kind of content to come, try these when you have a moment:

  • Open up a text document and, without stopping, write 750-1000 words. It should take 15-20 minutes. This can be literally anything, including just a long list of expletives or a detailed description of whatever's on your mind. Either way, you're clearing out the pipes. When you've finished, turn your mind back to whatever problem you've been working on and see if ideas come more quickly. That is, of course, if those ideas didn't start flowing somewhere near around the 500-word mark.
  • Carry a notebook for the next week and just write down anything interesting or unordinary that you notice. Really keep your eyes open. After a few days, take mental stock on whether you feel creatively invigorated, because you probably will.
  • Take a walk without listening to podcasts or music. Seriously. Carry a notebook or your phone, and be ready to write down the thoughts that bubble up when you just allow your mind to be silent for a moment.

Life Abroad

I'm lucky. I get to live wherever I want, go wherever I want, and disappear any time I need the chance to get away from it all. When I was younger, I thought that I would need to be rich to accomplish this. Turns out, the truth is a lot simpler.

I moved to Taiwan 4 years ago, then later moved to Shanghai for better work opportunities, and, yes, because I fell in love with a Shanghainese girl. She was with me on that hiking trip to Yunnan, and is upstairs asleep now.

But life abroad can be difficult. It has challenged my ideas about nationalism, patriotism, and belonging, and has opened my eyes to the reality of the modern political machine. More than anything, it has shown me that most people have no idea who they really are, which thoughts are their own and which are culturally taken for granted.

This, too, is something I write about. If there are other expats on Steemit, I expect we'll have a lot to talk about. One topic to expect is the "traveler's curse," described here:

  • The more you travel, the longer your list of must-haves in a new home becomes. You can no longer go home because "home" is lacking some essential thing that your new residence has. You move on to another country or city, discovering something else to love and become attached to, only to discover the shortcomings of that place. Over time, you continue to search for a home with all of these elements that you have learned to love. No such place exists. You continue searching anyway.

Fiction

Finally, we have lies. I like to write fiction and I hope that some of you will enjoy it. If there is demand, I have a backlog of dozens of short stories that I can polish up and put out there. I never intended to publish them, but then, what's the point of hundreds of manuscript pages in a box in a closet?

And who knows? The novel I'm working on might actually be pretty good.


Thank you for reading, and I look forward to talking with you!


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Hey mate, welcome to steemit. My wife @mumma-monza and I are both expats also. We came to Cambodia 6 years ago to travel south east Asia for a year with out 5 kids... Now we don't want to go back to Australia.
Life abroad certainly opens your eyes to alot of things. Politics as you mentioned, being a big one.
Your content sounds like it will be interesting, and your obviously an experienced writer.
As a beginner things can feel daunting and overwhelming at times. I highly recommend checking out @greetersguild. It's a great community built to help you find your feet and guide you through the various aspects of steemit, whilst offering support along the way. You can also use the #greetersguild to help get some support on your post. Your also welcome to join the discord group https://discord.gg/V383U3t, which is a great way to chat and meet new people, and learn.
welcome6.png
Again welcome to steemit, I've followed you to hear more about your adventures in China. My oldest daughter has been busting to go over to China. Good to have you here and Good luck!

Hey @philippekiene! 5 kids? That's crazy. It's great that you and your wife are able to bring them with you, and I'm sure those experiences will stick with them for their whole lives. Where in Cambodia are you? I was thinking of going to Siem Reap/Angkor for the October holiday, and according to your profile, you own a bar, which means that you're probably my kind of folks.

I'll definitely check out @greetersguild. It seems like everyone is recommending it.

Articles about China are coming, and please feel free to ask if you have any questions!

We live in Siem Reap. Yeah for sure stay in touch and we can meet up when you get here. Are you a poker player by chance? Steem has its own poker league if your interested also @SPL. Another community with great people, plus you can win SBD. There's so much going on... I'm finding new and exciting things all the time.

Welcome to Steemit, wrychime! Best wishes for a very enriching experience here in this fun-loving community :) All the best

By the way, there are several groups you as a newcomer can join. They will stay with you for your journey, helping and mentoring along the way.

@greetersguild invite link https://discord.gg/AkzNSKx
@newbieresteemday invite link https://discord.gg/2ZcAxsU

Lol, beat me to it.

Hey, thanks! I'll check these out right now.

Nice to have you here. This is a great place for creative people with various interests.
A little tip from a musician on Steemit: upload all you tracks on Dsound (so you get more listeners), describe how you made the track, how it makes you feel, anything you like really and always have some cool cover art. Hope you have a nice time on steemit :)

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Hey @diffuseloop, thanks for pointing me toward Dsound. I'll drop some of my stuff over there eventually. I'm actually listening to one of your tracks (Points) right now. I dig it, and your artwork is rad.

Thanks man, I'll be posting new material soon an dI got the guy who designed the art to join steemit a few days ago :)

Hello Brooks, its cool that you are in china as most of English speaking people in China are successfully making informative videos about Chinese market. I also mentioned you in my post. If you like it then please follow and upvote me, if you donot like it, then please message me in that post, then i will remove your information.
https://steemit.com/newsteemers/@sultanmr/6cqfvq-best-new-steemers-introductory-posts-page-2

@sultanmr Hey, thanks for the mention! I might try to get some content out about the Chinese market eventually, but I want to make sure that the readership is there. It's easy to feel like you're yelling into a void with topics like that, regardless of how informative the content might be. I'll be on the lookout for other posts along those lines, though. Could be a good outlet. Thanks!

Great Content!

Can we continue to connect with each other as we submit more content?

Upvoted!

Luppers :)

Welcome to Steemit wrychime. Let me know if you got any questions about Steem or anything related to it! The official FAQ can be found here and has A LOT of information https://steemit.com/faq.html - Also remember, Steemit is just ONE of the sites built that uses Steem the blockchain. We also have DTube - our very own Youtube, DSound for Soundcloud and Steepshot if you prefer Instagram like experience. I'd also like to mention ChainBB - forums, Busy - Steemit with more modern look basically, DMania for memes and Dlive for streaming just like in Twitch! You can also earn Steem by gaming now! Search for Steemgar if that's more your thing. Welcome to the blockchain! :)

Hey @janne, it's like you've opened up this whole world of stuff that I wasn't even aware of. Thanks a lot! This seems like such a cool community. I'll be looking into DSound and DTube, in particular, but ultimately I'm most comfortable with old-fashioned writing. Still, the possibilities here seem unlimited.

Welcome to Steem, @wrychime!

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Hello dear!
welcome to steemit
Telling you the fact that there are several groups you as a newcomer can join. they can be with you in your compaign and journey

Hey, thanks! I'll try to join a few.

@wrychime ...welcome to this great community..I'm positive you'll do well , I've followed you, please do well to follow back..peace!

Hey @greatestman, thanks for following! I'm checking out your stuff right now. Very positive writing! Cheers.

inspiring story, welcome to the platform, hope you do well and like it here! traveled for four year and post about it now, back in Amsterdam thinking about a plan to go on the road again.
Keep sharing and have fun

Hey there, thanks for commenting. Where did you enjoy traveling? It's interesting, one of my favorite places to visit in the past was actually Amsterdam!

Asia, Austrlia, Canada, cruiseships