September 2022, I need to get up to date with myself it seems

September was an amazing month. I never thought that I would be waking up in Paris, together with @lackofcolor. Besides all the good things that happened, my social battery took quite a beating. While suffering from burnout, depression, and a bunch of other complexities a few years ago, I feel that I received a headstart when we all had to deal with the temporary lockdowns caused by COVID.

Enduring these hardships made me very well aware of the challenges that come with living in isolation. Despite the self-suffering damage that I inflicted on myself, it was quite hard to see the world as most of us do. Yet, during these times I found another meaning to add to the quote that I thought was cool to have as a photographer "we develop by seeing beauty in the negatives". Even though I was always a positive type of guy, I started to see more positive things during hard en enduring times.

The truth is that people around you make your world a better place, so you better choose them wisely. I'm so grateful for having met people on the blockchain (and in real life), that make a difference and have made their impact on my life. Some of you probably don't even realize how grateful I am for you to be here. But I can ensure you, if you're reading this, you are one of them.

---

Paris; Focus Art Fair

Focus Art Fair was an incredible experience. @hiddenblade made sure of that. Never did I imagine to be able to do this -for her, but never did I imagine she could do this -for me. This job was exactly something I needed, and bringing lackofcolor along was perfect. I still can't wrap my head around it, it may sound cliché, but 'things happen for a reason. I tried my best to capture a lot of the art fair to show her once I got back home. I still have a lot of photographs to show her (and all of you) of my trip to Paris.

Getting hired by @hiddenblade was a blessing in disguise. It is quite revolutionary -to me- to be able to land jobs and projects on the Hive blockchain. Finding that trust in someone to perform on your behalf is not an easy task.

Want to read more?
Focus Art Fair
Pyramide du Louvre
Arc de Triomphe
Eiffel Tower

---

HiveFest

I won a ticket to HiveFest. HiveFest was a lot. It was nice to see everyone that I connected with on the chain. Even though I didn't talk to many or a lot, my photographs back home told me stories. Also, the presentations gave me some great insights, and some gave me a good chuckle. @Celestal and I were having a real blast, and it was awesome seeing him again after 4 years. I'm looking forward to meeting up with him again. Other than the presentations, the in-between activities that @roelandp hosted were amazing and amusing. It allowed us to connect and talk with each other. It's always nice to see everyone having a blast and enjoying themselves.

The fourth day was a bit of a flexible plan, @lackofcolor wanted to come to Amsterdam, in particular, to meet @celestal, @gtg and @raz0ulplaysgames, but she was getting a bit too tired along the way, so we ended up eating mini Dutch pancakes with Celestal before getting some 'real food' with Raoul (as a thank you). Maybe next time!

Thanks to the recipe I received from CBRS, I made @coldbeetrootsoup back home for lackofcolor as well. She loved it. It's a super refreshing meal with some earthy taste to it.

It was also very nice that @howo hired me to take portraits of him during his stay in Amsterdam.

Want to read more?
Day 1: A bunch of wallet addresses meeting up! || Opening Drinks
Day 2: Close Encounters [Conference][Boat trip][Balls of Steel]
Day 3: Close Encounters and Coldbeetrootsoup

---

?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=44802397

Kemari Network Meeting

To end the month, I went to e network meeting with an old friend of mine. The last time that we spoke was during my depression and when he was wondering if I could work on a project for him. His company grew a lot since then. The network meeting was pretty cool, and it was good to see him after a long time.

"So, everyone is different, right? Why approach them all the same" This is exactly what I've been doing since I started my own business. If you want to speak to everyone at once, you will end up talking to no one. This is why I can relate so much to how Kemari is executing its projects for its clients. They truly understand what our future target audience looks like.

---

Social Battery

For me, social gatherings are always quite energy-consuming activities, hence it is the reason that I usually try to avoid them. This was much the case until I found my passion and love in photography. It was a way for me to put on a mask, yet, still see everything, like... everything. Photographing people for me is capturing emotions, and I see it as my task to capture the best emotions that I can, so I surround myself with positive memories that I can share with others around me.

In 2017 I got diagnosed with Hyper Sensitivity which was discovered when I was struggling with acute insomnia and depression for about 2 years. It taught me a little bit more about myself and it gave me a place to store certain aspects of my life that I couldn't understand at the time.

For as long as I can remember, I've been struggling with other people's emotions and feelings.

---

Started two courses about Digital Currencies, and NFTs & the Metaverse at the University

I also started taking on two courses at the University of Nicosia. These are online courses that you can take at your own pace. While I've been studying for Blockchain: Digital Currencies, I haven't had the chance to fully dive into the NFTs & the Metaverse course. It's quite promising. My goal is to get a better understanding of the world we're living in today and to be able to explain this to people around me in a less chaotic manner. I can get lost once I start talking about the things I have a passion for. Also, a piece of paper that I can put on my LinkedIn profile would be nice, and perhaps I can work in the field of Blockchain together with content creation for companies.

And what are the odds... @katerinaramm was one of the first names I saw when I joined their Discord server. She's going for her Masters! Ohhoo! Good luck to her!

---

Some random stuff

43.000 more views in 5 months

I checked @lackofcolor's macro iris clip; it already has 63K views! The last time I posted about it, it had a little over 20k (July). I think I had 13 subscribers on my YouTube channel, and 74 right now. Feel free to sub if you'd like to see more videos on YouTube. Would be cool to have 1000 Subs and start doing ads so I can compare the 'rewards' of both Hive and YouTube (and proof why Hive is so much superior).

---

1 minute a Month

I also uploaded the 1 month in 60 seconds clip I made during my depression. These were my highlights throughout the entire month. I remember the shot where I'm getting coffee well, on that day I made about 24 steps in total, to get a coffee. Even though this clip is from a very dark period, it still gives me strength and perspective. It helped me a lot back then, I believe once I finished the clip, and watched it, something switched for me, and I started to take more care of myself.

---

LeoFinace weekly AMA

I also made this design for @LeoFinance. I wonder what @khaleelkazi thinks, haven't heard from him at all :D. I want to see if I can start using NFTshowroom to upload all the things I made for Hive and projects on Hive. It would be much easier for me to share, and I start building up a portfolio on-chain. Might have to think about it a bit more before, but I think I have made up my mind about it.

---

My PKM is growing

My Personal Knowledge Management (system) is growing a lot. Especially when I start writing blogs on Hive. It helps me with my routines and plan. My to-do list is growing though, but it is nice to see things being marked as done. I'm writing almost all my posts in Obsidian.MD (the tool I use for my PKM). I still use HackMD, just to upload my photographs.

---

Started playing Valheim again

I might want to write a post about our Hive server on Valheim as I've been gathering a lot of screenshots (but haven't spent time on writing). @pusen has been so kind to initiate a new Hive Gaming server. @derangedvisions made this possible some time ago, and I was having a lot of fun with fellow other Hivers. Here is where I've met @castleberry!

Currently, the @dragonslay101 is the Viking who's on the most, and with who I've been playing a lot. We might create a house in the mountains or maybe in the plains.

Playing games is something I usually do to blow off steam, if you see me gaming a lot, you can guess that I need to relax quite a bit.

---

Cheers!

Thank you for reading my monthly update. It's more of a social (personal) update that allows me to share my thoughts about specific things I did, as well as keeps me motivated, and the opportunity to digest and reflect. I probably have missed a lot.

Ruben

_{Follow me on Foundation | Follow me on Twitter | Follow me on Instagram}