Earth is no place for humans, and Steemit collects broken hearts

I wrote a post two months ago called the "Steemit Broken Hearts Club." After that I was able to have @stellabelle on my mspwaves radio show with me. She helped share a distinction of users with me that instantly clicked when I heard it.

There are two types of Steemians

The first type of Steemian is someone who found Steemit on their own after a long journey to get here.

The second type of Steemian is someone who found Steemit because a friend told them to join.

The Earth is broken

I happen to believe a number of controversial theories regarding why the world works the way it does, but the score board doesn't lie. Just by the public numbers that are known there are eight people in the world have as much wealth as over 3 billion people. The world is constantly at war and under threat of nuclear war seemingly all the time. Draconian laws have been implemented allowing a massive global surveillance network that spies on your computer, home, social life, and seemingly knows every minute detail of your life. The confluence of these things, especially the monetary system induced poverty, creates a scarcity mentality, which is further hyped with round the clock media showing violence and suffering.

A partial recap of my story

My short hand assessment, other than some really lovely people I've met or created, is that this whole planet is broken, harmful, and wickedly violent. Somedays I wonder if this is a literal hell.

Now, the consequence of this having to do with Steemit is two fold. I remember in my awakening journey there are two deep spells of depression. The first was after 20-30 years of living under one set of beliefs about how the world works and learning the hard way that the world doesn't work the way I thought it did. In my case, and from my sense of things of how it works for others, it starts losing a lot of money. I started a business based on some expectations of the world, government, and environment. What should have been a no brainer failed miserably by the very state I was trusting. I lost a lot of money, but also because of that I had to go searching as to how after paying such close attention to the media, officials, and things that were around me that I could have possibly been wrong.

Mark Twain said "It's easier to fool a man than to convince them they've been fooled." So, I embarked on a multi-year pretty depressing journey to figure out how my smart brain could have possibly been so terribly deceived by this system. So, the first major depression on this journey was really about seeking how could I have been so wrong, and working my way through all that I was taught and paid attention to was just thoroughly false.

So, finding out I was wrong about the world, particularly about the role of this current government as a benevolent force for good in the world was bad and hard. It was pale in comparison to the multi year epic journey trying to figure out how this place actually works. Learning about the Federal Reserve and the system that's guarenteed to enforce and cause poverty. Learning about the massive harm pharmacuetical companies cause. Forcing myself to realize that 2 planes can't collapse 3 buildings at free fall speeds directly into their own footprint on the same day. Then working my way back through history to determine other Orwellian historic falsehoods of epic magnitude. And finally coming to accept that the world is quite literally run by horrible immoral banker criminals and that the scoreboard I was seeing was a direct purposeful result of that.

So, there are two major depressions in my life. Each lasted years. Tack into that the death of my mom, challenges caused by drinking for a while, some failed romances, and difficulty with some jobs and you get a picture of some hardship here.

So, I can share that finding my way to Steemit really took years of journeys, multiple depressions, and a shit ton of hard work to get here.

I think basically all category 1 Steemians have something like that

After multiple months of interacting with Steemians of all types in Discord (we've got about 5,000 of them in PALnet) I've come to the conclusion that we're a group of mostly broken people doing the best we can to survive, find community, find acceptance, find love, and find purpose. There's so much emotional, personal, social, and interpersonal dysfunction it's staggering. We are certainly carving out a digital home, and for many thats at the expense of a terrestrial one.

"Yeah, ok, but what do I do with that @aggroed?"

The plan doesn't change, the course doesn't change, the mantra doesn't change. But we have to learn to integrate it in new ways.

The tack we are sailing is Peace, Abundance, and Liberty.

Those aren't just nouns they are verbs. They have to be practiced and executed on. The truly hard part is that you don't just apply those outward. You have to apply them inwards too. You have to make peace with yourself. You have to give yourself freedom to both experience what you have and still love and forgive yourself for it. You have to alllow yourself an abundance. Hopefully it comes financially too, but you have to allow yourself an abundance of joy, of love, of kindness, of gratitude, and of a worthy life.

That often comes with the mantra of deescalation. These things are hard. Not only do you have to try to deescalate conflicts between you and others, but you have to deescalate conflicts internally as well. You have to pull back the language that you are using to describe yourself and others with an intention of self love, outward love, and forgiveness all around. Forgiveness, doesn't need blindly accepting bad shit being done to you especially as it's on going. You have the right of non-consent for the things that aren't ok, but remember that we're all flawed, fucked up people here (except maybe you category 2 folks...), and we're all struggling to figure out a way to live on this planet, with each other, and most difficult of all; with ourselves.

So, here's my Friday advice

Take a deep breath. Realize that even with your flaws you are a person worthy of love, kindness, and friendship. Try to practice a few acts of everyday kindness and express everyday gratitude.

Chin up. It's hard, but changing the world is like that. I honor you, I respect you, and I love you for trying. I forgive you when you fail. And for the exceptionally hard I honor me, I respect me, I love me for the work that I do. I forgive me when I fail, and I know I'm doing my best to learn and grow and make this place a better world than the one I found.

Relax, smile, and just in your head pick a random person and think "I hope they have a great day today."