Writing About Writing, Homesteading As A Lifestyle Choice, A Crypto Brewing Game & Why I Am Posting To Publish0x
It was quite the rainy morning and although I got up rather early the gloomy weather did not make me feel inclined to hurry while doing the daily writing so that I could then get busy outside afterwards. I could tell rather quickly that the day was a 'total bust' as far as getting anything done outside goes and that I would more than likely remain cooped up in the shelter all day which was fine by me because I was feeling rather stiff (and sore) from all my recent physical exertions. It was a rather mellow morning though and I felt like the writing that I got done was some of the better stuff that I have written of late but I also realize that I did not have the self-induced pressure of trying to wrap up the writing quickly (like I usually do) so that I can get busy working outside and not waste too much daylight in the process.
As far as all that 'writing stuff in the morning' goes I have yet to start feeling burned out from doing it first thing in the morning after I have let the dogs out and brewed my morning espresso which is good because the idea to switching back to writing at night is one that I still shy away from mostly because writing (and of course editing) while fatigued can be a real hassle and a massive source of frustration. Like I have said before I will eventually grow weary of writing first thing in the morning and make the switch back to writing at night (mainly just for a change of routine) but for now I am really enjoying exerting the discipline it requires each morning to sum up my experiences and transmute them into words. Something that may not be all that obvious is that with all this damn writing I am telling the story of my life largely to myself and although I keep other folks in mind during the process... it has and perhaps always will be a therapeutic endeavor intended to keep me putting one foot in front of the other whilst actively thwarting my inclination to feel isolated and wholly alienated from other humans.
Okay, I was thinking to not write more about 'writing' but here goes! I have been chronicling my days more or less uninterrupted (except for a few short breaks for the sake of my own sanity) for one thousand three hundred and eighty-one days now and along the way I have traversed a rather large gradient of how the heck I feel about doing so, how I write, what I share, when I write, why I write and so forth and so on ad infinitum... and while I have spent a lot of time writing, I have also spent a lot of time reading what I have written and especially so with the first nine hundred and fifty-seven days that I edited three times into a draft for a book. Of course I cannot help but notice that I write a heck of a lot more words each day now than when I began and that although I miss keeping things 'short and sweet' I also have to admit that I have grown quite fond of writing longer pieces that paint a larger picture of my life and also accommodates folks with the opportunity to learn stuff along the way if they so choose to do so.
As much as I like to 'stay in my lane' as far as writing genres (topics) go I am aware of the fact that I tend to meander from topic to topic and not everything can (or will) fall neatly inside the 'homesteading' topic but as I have said many times before 'homesteading is a lifestyle choice' and there is a heck of a lot of aspects for me personally that go along with that 'lifestyle choice' but honestly it is not the only 'lifestyle choice' that I have made even though it is probably the most all encompassing one or at the very least the easiest one to sort of lump everything under the title/topic of and keep chugging along without having to constantly 'switch lanes' and drive myself crazy trying to figure out what should be labeled with which topic because doing so would lead me into the inevitable rabbit warren of too much indecisiveness and not enough focused action.
As much as 'homesteading' for me involves doing a bunch of chores and projects each day, getting dirty, living rough and a number of thoughtful steps towards a semblance of self-sufficiency... there is also music, art, technology, education and a myriad of other things that I routinely involve myself in and have as part of my lifestyle which may or may not be the case for other folks who homestead or are interested in homesteading as a lifestyle choice. My inclination is to just include as much as possible in what I share and along the way try to convey how all the aspects of my lifestyle fit together whether it is on the topic of technology, the arts, do it yourself projects, plants, fungi, animals, land management or whatever because hell even the weather has a part in it all. As much as focusing on a single topic is a good practice for any creator I think that it is important to not de-humanize my very human experience by losing sight of my life beyond the scope of a mere lifestyle choice. I honestly think that kind of self-filtering/censoring is not entirely healthy because it has the side effect of pigeon holing everything in a very narrow/suffocating manner that for me personally stifles inspiration and creativity and lacking those things I find life to be rather bland and lacking any real flavor to say the least.
All that jazz aside, the rain kept up for most of the day but I did get the opportunity to go to the local feed store and get some more dog food (yeah I am still stocking up on it) and also get more chicken feed which I had ran out of. I explained to the shop keeper about the bag of grain feed that I had gotten on accident last time and they informed me that it was the equivalent of feeding them 'nothing but treats' and albeit super healthy treats but that it was not what I wanted if I wanted to promote egg laying. He also told me that feeding them that kind of grain mix feed was the most high dollar route that I could take! The shop keeper was super helpful with educating me on what my chickens (at their age) need and explained what the four different types of feed that they stock are for and I wound up getting a fifty pound bag of pelleted feed for almost half the cost of what the bag of grain feed cost me. I almost got two bags of the stuff because a hundred pounds would probably feed the chickens for about four months but I was short on money and was already planing on getting dog food and decided that I can always feed the chickens dog food but I could never feed the dogs chicken food if it came down to doing so!
Aside from that trip out to get the animal feed I just stayed indoors out of the weather and finally took the time to check out that CryptoBrewMaster Hive blockchain game and also played some other games just for the fun of it. As far as the brewing game goes I still have a lot to learn but at least the interface for it is clean and simple and without having to read any directions I was able to get my brewing license and complete a few tasks which earned me some components for brewing. It is hard to say if it will hold my interest in the long run but since a few folks have recommended it to me I figured that I should just check it out and see for myself. Like most games it will of course take time to 'build up' my account/character and it is always a matter of if I find it entertaining or not as to whether I stick with it.
With crypto games I assuredly have a different mindset because I am also looking at rewards versus time invested or in some cases crypto invested. Some of those kinds of games can have a pretty high monetary barrier and thankfully this one did not because although I have a little free time now and then to invest... my monetary scenario has been (to put it mildly) 'difficult' the last many months and I would do well to avoid straining it further or trying to stretch it all too thinly to cover my needs each month. I even had to do a thirteen week Hive Power Down to scratch by with and even though it was a rather small amount I disliked having to extract it from adding more value to the network by having it staked and in the end I felt like I had robbed my piggy bank!
Anyway, I am still learning more about the Cardano network and I am slowly building up a supply of Ethereum (and two ERC-20 tokens) by publishing stuff on the Publish0x website and so far I like it because although I have not yet been earning a lot I have been earning some. Eventually I will have enough proceeds from it to buy and then stake some ADA (Cardano tokens) via that node software that I have been tinkering with the last several days. I basically want to make enough on Publish0x to further my goals with the Cardano network not so much because I find the profitability attractive but because I like the idea of turning a bunch of written words (as well as digital images) into a cryptocurrency that I can then stake and earn a return on over time. It is all undoubtedly a techno-alchemical-electrical-creative process of taking thoughts, writing words with said thoughts, generating something of value and ultimately being able to buy dog food each month or pay my outrageously priced unlimited data plan that is the true backbone of the entire endeavor aside from my willingness and discipline to create media through various mediums. The rest of it would not be worth a damn without that last bit but I guess that is beside the point because after all thoughts are bio-chemical-elctrical 'pulses' firing as wetware on the brain's hardware and to pass that 'spark of thought' on to another electrical form (or any form really) is pretty damn neat to be a participant of just from a perspective of the sheer novelty of it all.
Alright, I think that I should just wrap this all up for now and get on with my day. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
Just a gloomy autumn day!
Thanks for reading!
More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.
A little over three years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!
The way that the Fantastica Chronicles came about is that I was living at another place when I started chronicling and sharing my days but eventually I wound up moving to a new place. The new place is a homestead named 'Fantastica' so I started with 'Day 1' upon my arrival here and just kept documenting my days much like I had done for the previous nine hundred and fifty-seven days at the last place that I lived.
I have mostly done that 'documenting' at Fantastica exclusively with words (and pictures) opting not to do the videos because as I learned at the last place, sharing videos over an intermittent and slow internet connection is horribly time consuming and what I often think of as an 'ulcer inducing' experience. All that said, I opted for simplicity with the documentation and have no real regrets for doing so.
The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.
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That Is All For Now!
This post was originally posted to the Hive Blockchain here:
https://peakd.com/homesteading/@jacobpeacock/the-fantastica-chronicles-day-424
