I gotta say there are only two discord chats I spend any extensive amounts of time in. The unfortunate thing is that when I'm active in Discord, the vast majority of folk are not, and most likely sleeping. Timezones can suck sometimes. But I'm active in these because I feel welcome, and I feel invested in them.

The Alliance is one of these. It really does feel more like hanging out in someone's lounge room. Irreverent, warm, friendly, funny, and fun.

Albeit in the last couple of weeks I've actually written and posted, the last couple of months (since Japan) has been a time of very little engagement on Steem. Sometimes I'm on Discord more than I am on Steem.

Engagement is something I've been struggling with and thinking about. And it has nothing to do with the Steem price. Given how much I earn per hour in my work, it's going to take Steem going to Jupiter, not the moon, for me to be a full-time Steemian. Just sayin'.

My WP blog gets no reach. I don't even reckon anyone who votes on my posts on Steem reads them. Writing and posting is not a money-earner for me. And whilst all my Steem is not staked, most of it is, and most of it is delegated out. The biggest beneficiary being the other community that I have an admin-style role in. And that will be increasing given the projects and visions we have for that.

I don't understand the math behind curating, and following curation trails.... times and voting percentages. I set them high and found my VP drained immediately. And clearly, it also depends on how and how many votes those curating accounts give out that depend on how much the % of VP drops. This obviously becomes less of a problem when SP is higher. I'd love some guidance on that to learn how I can set those things things properly in steemauto, because I cannot spend the time to properly manually vote, I have to trust in the curating of others.... which is why there are only 3 trails I follow. The Alliance being one of them.

We may not have PoI in the Alliance, but we have what I will call PoGI - Proof of Genuine Interaction. That's more than I can say about another server since engagement there has been tokenised. Again, just sayin'.

I hope this community continues to thrive. Even as a plant grows, it has to periodically drop dead leaves and bits. It's normal and it's natural.

I'm glad that if I get any votes for my content its because it deserves it, not because it's on an automated system.

😊🙏🏽☯️