💡 What if I tried …… 🤔🤔🤔🤯

(Move along, nothing to see here)

When I was 18, I was severely depressed. With good reason. I’d fucked up high school. Drugs and drinking had a hold on me. My grades were shit. My friends were addicts. My mother, a schizophrenic, was having a serious year-long episode. She was institutionalized. Wrapped her car around a telephone pole. Almost died. The cops were at our house a lot. My father was dead inside. Burnt out, and numb. Numb. There was severe emotional neglect and chaos throughout my childhood. I had no hope for the future. Completely lost, purposeless, and drifting. Purposeless. Drifting. I wasn’t fully suicidal. Like there weren’t any plans in place, but I thought about it a lot. A voice in the back of my mind told me there had to be a way out. I know now that it was god speaking to me.

I listened to that voice. I stopped doing drugs. I drank less. I began to hike every day in the mountains by myself. The sun, the air, the solitude. I loaded up an old iPod. I listened to the Beatles, a lot of classical music, and audiobooks. I didn’t hang out with my friends anymore. I just hiked every day by myself. I got a shitty fast-food job. I used to stay late to clean and just think about my life. I enjoyed the structure. Soon, they made me the assistant manager. I was the only one who was dependable, I guess. I went to community college. I actually applied myself for the first time ever. I got straight A’s. I hooked up with a lot of girls, that was helpful for my mood and self-esteem. I used my grades to get into a good college. I wanted to get across the country. To get away from it all. I went to Chicago.

College was fun. There were lots of girls, lots of parties. I was in film school and actually interested in what I was learning. Everything was amazing. My family is from rural Illinois. I used to visit my grandfather on the weekends sometimes. He was one of my favorite people. In the winter, he got sick. We found out he had leukemia. I got depressed again. I stopped going to college. I spent a lot of time out in the country. It felt more important to be with him as he died. I was there when he passed.

I came home for the summer. The great financial crisis was going on. My friend got one of those Obama new home buyer loans, so we spent the summer having parties and playing beer pong in his garage. One night, the girl I was going to marry walked in. I knew it right away. I didn’t feel like going back to Chicago. So I stayed and went to state school. I started dating the girl that would one day become my wife. I still was partying too much. Binge drinking. I couldn’t escape the feeling I was wasting my potential. Fucked around and did DMT one day. Blast off. Full-on cosmic panic attack. The overarching message: “Your time here on Earth is temporary. So get to work.”

Fuck, okay. So I got serious about my life… again, and I changed everything… again. I had been lazy and unmotivated. I began to focus intently on my craft. I attended every lecture. I made connections. I worked on everyone’s sets. I won the school film festival. I started a production company with a friend while still in school. It took off. We were making good money. We dropped out and did the business full time. I asked the girl to marry me. She said yes.

I found Bitcoin. I took all the profits from the business and put it into Bitcoin. I convinced my fiancé to put her salary into Bitcoin too. We were frugal to the point of being weirdos. We bought a little condo, and we got married. Bitcoin went up like crazy. We had a kid. Bitcoin went down like crazy. My father got sick. We took care of him when he died. I assumed responsibility for my mother. We had another kid. My wife’s parents got divorced, and my mother-in-law was left penniless. I assumed responsibility for her as well. My mother had another multi-year schizophrenic episode. Cops, hospitals, chaos. Then she got cancer. We had another kid. After a short battle with cancer, my mother died.

Then Bitcoin crashed 80% again. We had our fourth kid. For the first time in a long time, nothing happened. It was quiet. Bitcoin steadily rose. I spent time with the kids. There was no chaos. Just peace.

When Bitcoin hit 100k. I took a look around at my loving wife, our warm home decorated for Christmas, my four beautiful children, and I felt that it had all been worth it.

Whatever you’re going through…

Keep going.

This is up there with the pinaple pizza garbage.

Anyone put lemon 🍋 on their steak 🥩?

Anyone put lemon 🍋 on their steak 🥩?

Usually they say muted though, no?

Been seeing this lately - shows comment count but no comments loaded - in Damus

Love the Middle eastern food and other international foods in #Bangkok

Feel like I’ve moved back to #HongKong but better value for money.

And buying weed isn’t like buying an illegal drug

What about finding freelancers on Nostr in our area?

Isn't anybody interested in using Nostr openess and data to build something like this?

Something like Linkedin but better than Linkedin?

#asknostr #nostr

These things are fine right? ✈️

What is Zapvertising? #HOWDONOSTR

Zapvertising is a new form of advertising on the Nostr protocol. It allows businesses to pay users by directly promoting their products or services in their user's notes. When a user or business Zaps a note, they send a small amount of bitcoin to the note's creator. Since these are just payments sent over the Lightning network, the sender can attach any piece of content to the note field. This can be a link to a product image, a video, a podcast, video, etc. The creator receives a notification that they have been Zapped along with an attached note. The user's Nostr app then displays the image, link, etc. for the user to engage with, open, and view.

Zapvertising is a more direct and personal form of advertising than traditional advertising. It allows businesses to connect with potential customers on a more individual level. It is also more transparent, as users can see exactly how much money is being paid for each zap.

The benefits of Zapvertising on Nostr are as follows:

It is a more direct and personal form of advertising.

It is more transparent than traditional advertising.

It is more cost-effective than traditional advertising.

It is more effective at reaching a targeted audience.

It can help businesses build relationships with potential customers.

Zaps are sent via the Lightning Network, a decentralized payment network that is built on top of Bitcoin. This makes Zapvertising fast, cheap, and secure. All you need is a Bitcoin Lightning wallet to get started.

How much is a user's attention worth to you? The larger the Zap sent, the more likely the potential customer is to notice and see your Zapvertisement.

If you are looking for a new way to advertise your business, #Zapvertising on Nostr is a great option. It is a more effective and affordable way to reach your target audience, and it can help you build relationships with potential customers.