Watching Grass Grow

Spring is in the air and the excitement of grass growing has filled the house - at least for Smallsteps. There is an Easter tradition in Finland (at least) to grow some grass inside to mark the ending of winter and the entering into the furious growing period that is spring in winter countries. The amount of energy that is burned to bring nature back to life after six months of hibernation, must be enormous.

Perhaps this is how we should mine Bitcoin.

That would be interesting, to see if there was a way for example to incentivize regrowth in the amazon by tokenizing it in a way where there was more value in growing, than cutting down. Of course, there would need to be mechanisms in place to add value to the token itself, since it would need to account for the loss of wood, but it could also be possible to incentivize it in various ways to offset the destruction and perhaps start a faster grow-back cycle. The challenge is that in general, sustainability is more expensive than destruction.

At the human level however, the sense of growth is important for us to feel that we are progressing in life and perhaps, this is why aging sucks for so many of us. As we age, a lot of what we have grown starts to move into a decline phase, so if we aren't replacing it with something, we are more likely to feel the retraction, rather than the new direction of growth. But, one of the things we are able to do until the end of our lives is, learn something new.

They say "learn something new every day" but how many of us actually do that actively and then, those that do, how many look to learn something that we can grow from. Sitting down in front of a documentary on African animals might bring some new knowledge to the table, but is it applicable to our lives, does it help us improve our practical wellbeing? Unlikely.

Yesterday out of curiosity, I was looking at the interest rate on HIVE POWER (HP), which currently sits at 2.85% - that is not much - especially in comparison to the 20% that HBD is attracting. But, is it significant? Well, while it is all relative to stake, whether it is significant to the stakeholder depends on many factors. For example, I have 231K HP staked on the blockchain and this means that based on the interest (that is calculated and ticks over constantly), I am earning 213,000 x 0.0285 / 365 daily. This is 18 HIVEPOWER a day, or 6,583 a year. At current prices, that is 5,900 dollars worth a year or for me, more than a month's salary.

Not bad for a hobby.

@blanchy was talking about HIVE being a hobby token for him and I think it is an interesting perspective, because I see it much the same. I hold some Bitcoin and some Eth as an investment, but I don't look to use it for anything - HIVE however I use for all kinds of things in my personal life in regards to activity on the blockchain. It is funny, because people talk about utility of tokens, but other than being able to spend or earn on a token, most tokens people hold have zero utility.

I like being able to upvote people and distribute value to them, I also like having a say on the way the blockchain is governed and even though my vote voice is small in regards to some others, it is still significant within the community. With HIVE, I feel that I have a say over the growth of the platform and therefore, myself also.

Things might move slowly, but over the last five years I have fundamentally changed my perspective on many things, on and off the platform. One of those is the expected speed of return as I look much longer, but another is the development of the feeling that I am growing as a person. This might be represented in numbers through the growth of my account stats, but it is more the sense of me as a person in general that has changed over time.

Whether I am better or worse is up for debate, but I am definitely not moving along the same pathways as earlier, nor am I thinking the same thoughts over and over, like a robot. There is growth and directional shifts in my personal processes and that sense of growth brings far more value to my life, than sitting down and learning random facts about African animals.

Hobbies are meant to be enjoyable, but if they don't challenge us to grow, they don't change us and looking from the perspective of building "flow", if we aren't stretching to meet goals, we are likely to get bored very fast. For me, I am always looking for a bit of a challenge here and what is compelling, is the more I challenge myself, the more potential I have to grow in various ways, opening up opportunities.

All of this compounds over time and while a lot of people don't "get out of bed" for the small numbers, those same people seem to complain about others getting big numbers. They don't see the connection though, or their disconnection from their practices in the past and what the other people have done during that same period. I have always been trying to talk about the opportunities here and I know it has helped quite a few people build their lives and open up opportunities they only dreamed of earlier, but I still come across many that think I fell into this position.

Sure, luck plays a part, but to grow high, strong roots are needed and that is work that is done behind the scenes, under the surface. I try to present my own processes here, not to brag, but to help others to understand that at least from my experience, a lot more is needed than most people are willing to give. But, for those that actually do the work, learn, adapt and nurture their garden, they are able to flourish and even in the winter, they are still getting ready for the spring.

In this way, it is kind of like the people who are fanatical golf players in the winter countries - the season is only a few months long, but in the off season they are training and practicing on the skills needed so when they hit from the tee for the first time, their ramp-up is short and soon, they are putting from close to the flag. The other players don't say "it is not fair" because they are closer to the flag, but they might wish that they could hit the ball a bit better themselves.

Life itself might be meaningless, but that doesn't stop us from applying our own meaning and prioritizing our activities in an attempt to reach our goals. Knowledge is important, but if what we hold never gets applied, it is useless to know.

While some people watch the grass grow - others are growing into trees.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]