I Am #AliveAndThriving Today! || #IAmAliveChallenge || Daily Off-Grid Jungle Journal Entry: Day #386 - Essential First Steps on Hive - GaiaYoga Gardens, Lower Puna, Far East Big Island, Hawai'i - Thursday, August 17, 2023

I live barefooted and naked, very close to Earth and Nature, in an 18-acre, off-grid, clothing-optional, food-forest intentional community (GaiaYoga Gardens), way out in the jungles of Lower Puna, far East Big Island, Hawai'i. I love my life, and I'm immensely grateful to live where and how I do, on my own terms! I would not want to live any other way! 😁🙏💚⚡💥🔥✴️✳️❇️👣🌱✨🤙

Warm greetings all! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

I see newcomers on the Blockchain every day that try to dive in without understanding what they're doing yet, with little to no success or traction. I want to help them all, but there are so many! With that in mind, in this post today I want to talk about some of the very first essential steps for those new to Hive, that will greatly assist the speed of their integration and success on the Blockchain. There are many various important things to keep in mind on Hive, but I consider these to be the baseline most essential.

1.) Secure Your Keys - The absolute first thing to do once an account is created is to secure your Hive keys (master, owner, active, posting, and memo). In previous posts I've described the best ways to do this, and how I do it myself, so I'm not going to go into detail today. Preferably our keys should be backed up and secured in multiple ways, to ensure that they are never lost or compromised. The Buttercup Password Manager and the Bitwarden Password Manager are two very useful methods. Using zero-knowledge cloud storage, like MEGA, is also another good option.

2.) Make a Solid Introductory Post - I see so many newcomers skipping this step, trying to jump right into publishing posts, and yet it is one that can truly help put them on a very good starting path. Aside from choosing an appropriate community to publish it, and using the #introduceyourself / #introducemyself / #introduction tags, a good introductory post is one where individuals share of themselves openly, honestly, and authentically, to let the Hive community know who they are, what they love, what their passions are, what is important to them, and the like, preferably with some lovely photos.

3.) Choosing Appropriate Tags and Communities for Posts - This is another one where I see a lot of newcomers missing the mark a bit, as not posting in the appropriate communities or using the correct tags can not only limit one's potential growth, but can also get one muted in particular communities. Finding and publishing posts in a community where we feel at home, and where what we post is well received, is the idea here. Using proper tags is equally important, because the tags often determine in which community a post appears (choose carefully), and what tokens we could receive at payout.

4.) Set a Trustworthy Recovery Account - This is another one of those really important steps necessary to secure our accounts. If our keys are ever compromised, and someone gains access to our account, locking us out by changing the keys, this account-recovery mechanism is how we may recover our accounts. The original master or owner keys are necessary for this to be successful (yet another reason to make absolutely certain that our keys are backed up and secured). We can choose either another trustworthy individual's account, or a second account of our own, which is how I do it. If our accounts are ever stolen, this is the only way to recover them, so this is of paramount importance.

5.) Take Time to Read and Learn about the Blockchain - I definitely understand just wanting to dive in and figure things out as we go, but on Hive taking our time to learn how things work and flow here will take us much farther much more quickly. Hive truly is a massive Ecosystem, with a lot going on, so it takes time to take it all in and learn well. Taking our time, one step at a time, reading and learning as much as we can as we go, will benefit us, and everyone else, immensely. There are a great many wonderful guides and tutorials that people in the community have published over time, that can be very helpful indeed! Since I arrived here almost 2 years ago, I've been collecting and organizing a lot of useful information to help bring newcomers up to speed, which I keep and publish in a Simplenote note, Useful Hive Onboarding Resources. I update the information in this note often, do it's a good link to save for future reference.

I could go into other important steps, but those five are indispensable, and are a good bite-sized chunk of information for the moment. I'll likely share others later. I truly hope that they are helpful and useful for any newcomers that come upon this post, or who are given it by a supportive Hive friend.

Catching up, and staying caught up, on my Hive notifications and tasks, has been pretty easeful and mellow for most of the week, which is a welcome change, especially considering how far behind I was on Monday. I left the Flow House yesterday around 4:30PM, to focus on some land work, after getting Hive to a good pause-point. I made sure to walk around a bit to take photos for this post, before I dove into working. While there was some nice sun earlier in the day, the later part of the day was mostly cloudy, which wasn't the best for photography, but I worked with what I had.

My main bit of land work yesterday was helping Braja (Ano's mother) with a few small tasks at her place (emptying her compost bucket and moving some recycling to Woodstock). After helping Braja, I went to go plant the chakruna branches that I had cut the day before, but I didn't get too far in that process, as I kind of got derailed. Iolanthe was going for a sleepover at Omya's place, so my super-cute gray kitten friend was put in my care once again. Since I couldn't plant chakruna and watch the kitten, I put everything away to hopefully finish today. Once everything was put away, I went to the Landing to make some food, with kitten in hand. As I was making food, and for about an hour after, I stayed in the Landing sharing a very interesting and engaging conversation with Allie and @aukuna on the Great Awakening, which is a topic that often pulls me into quite long conversations.

After finishing the lovely conversation with Allie and @aukuna, I made my way back to the Flow House, to do my evening round of Hive catch-up and tasks, which I was able to get done again very early, even though I ended up going to bed just after 11:30PM, after completing a round on LeadsLeap and CTPX. I didn't sleep very well for the third night in a row, though I did get sufficient sleep to at least be functional today, very thankfully.

Watching the crypto bloodbath is pretty surreal. When the next crypto surge comes, I'll be ready to sell all my DOGE/SWAP.DOGE, to then buy as much HIVE as I'm able. I hope that this surge comes sooner rather than later, but I'm a patient bugger regardless. My jump to dolphin level awaits this next wave.

It's now just past 1:30PM, so it's a beautiful time to end this post, so that I can jump into my afternoon round of Hive catch-up and tasks. I deeply appreciate you all! Until tomorrow morning or afternoon! Onward and upward, joyfully together! 😁 🙏 💚 ✨ 🤙

All photos were taken with my Motorola G Power Android Phone.

Thank you all so much who have helped me get to where I am today, and allowing me to share more of the beauty and magic from my life and my world with you, and for your continuous appreciation and support! I am truly deeply grateful! 😁🙏💚

If you'd like to find me on other alternative platforms where I have accounts (I spend most of my time here on Hive), click on this signature image below to go to my LinkTree page.

If you'd like to send me a BTC Lighting Tip (made possible by the fantastic work of brianoflondon on @v4vapp), just scan the QR image below. 👇

Signature image created by @doze, and the dividers made by @thepeakstudio, with all tweaked to their present form by me.