Always try your best!

Nice to see you working through things in order to always persue your art and push yourself forwards! Using negative inlets as an outlet to make your creativity grow is amazing and something sought for! 
What's is your bar/ restraunts name in Florida? My family and I are from Illinois and travel to Florida to see family member at times! We would love to visit your bar if we are traveling through the area! 
Have a a great day and keep Steeming On!

really you write this friend, can change human life to be creative, thanks for sharing @abrockman, you are a kind person.

Fantastic content

Thanks for sharing this, i find it very inspirationnal as i'm also in a hard place from my health and physical condition. I hope you the best, and your art is amazing ^^

You pushed me to paint different subjects. As I normally paint landscapes. Her is your handy work. 
![2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmaBD1xhzMBevTa6t7sTPyHkwX8d3EiSxs78mPvDQPLi5W/2.jpg)
Thank you for inspiring me. We all have to learn from our mistakes. I wish you well.

I was hoping you'd be able to bounce back and I'm happy to see this post.  I wrote about the little incident myself [here](https://steemit.com/life/@nonameslefttouse/do-i-make-mistakes-yes-am-i-perfect-no-do-i-owe-abrockman-an-apology-maybe-so-let-s-find-out-shall-we).  I wanted to explain my side but at the same time make an attempt to right any wrongs.  I'm sure I directed some traffic your way and hopefully helped you get a few followers while you were taking a break.

It is what it is, what's done is done.  Can't change anything.  I can't really apologize for feeling misled and reacting the way I did but I can say I'm sorry for causing some distress in your life.  My intention wasn't to hurt any feelings or whatever but I do realize now, it probably stressed you out so I do apologize for that.

Hey Brock, I think people misunderstood your intentions, itakes some time to find your bearings on this platform. I'm almost two month in and still trying to find a productive balance. Keep posting, telling your story and finding allies. I'm sure you can be succesful here. Good luck and best wishes 🤙🏽

Great to be running on Steem with you brother @abrockman! Awesome article, and you've got my 100% upvote, lol. You're inspiring, my friend!

Hey man, I had no idea this happened, but hey we live and learn! Honestly, after watching that video on your process I was blown away...I can tell how much time and effort goes into the creation of your digital paintings. You're crushing it, and inspiring people at the same time, so keep it up. Just my two cents, but you're a hell of an artist in my book.

Hi @abrockman, glad to see you back! I was hoping that hiccup wouldn't end up completely turning you off the platform. 

I'm curious what you learned about bots though in terms of their negative impact. I've been on Steemit for about a month now and I see some people use them when they want to promote something, some don't. I've experimented with them and found in the worst case scenario I pretty much broke even(if I don't mind being paid back in SP, which I don't) in terms of payout, and each time I gain a few new followers I'm assuming from the greater exposure. 

Of course I know some people abuse them by taking rewards for shit content, but if you're creating high quality content and you want to promote it, what's the problem? 

From what I can see Steemit's built in Promotional section doesn't work, and the bots seem like the best band-aid until the platform comes up with better solutions for new users to grow. I don't think it's going to go anywhere if in general peoples advice is something along the lines of, you have to put several months in the hole, or just create great content and don't think about the money, etc. That's fine if your content is something that you can't make money from anywhere besides Steemit I suppose, but as a professional artist who makes all of my income from creating art in one way or another working for free is not really an option. I don't mean that to say I'm too good for that blah, blah, I mean I literally cannot afford to spend time making art that's not going to make me any money. 

I think a lot of the artists here are doing what I'm doing ie posting mostly older work and something new every now and then, but the dream would be to be able to make enough money on Steemit to have it replace some of the other work I need to do to pay bills etc. 

So my question to you and anyone else who wants to chime in is what's so bad about bots?

I think steem it could be a good why for people with disabilities to earn iincome  . I first started as a just a blogger but i thought about creating digital art to go along my blogs .

lovely to read this post.. thanks a lot!
<blockquote>
All of the most recently mentioned infractions came together in a perfect shit storm, hen I also garnered the attention of an infamous Steemit “enforcer” & his crew (he who shall not be named). He is now under the assumption I am a scammer because of all of the above-mentioned activities as well as my association with @JerryBanfield. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change his mind at this point, but, if you are reading this… I am not the person you think I am. I actually think what you do for the community comes from the right place (the way you handle it is another story). I have done a bunch of research into your history and mission the majority of which I agree with, So I hope we can be civilized with each other, especially after making changes to what your issues were with me.
</blockquote>
dont worry about crazy people or what anyone says! never waste time trying to change them.. WE know who you are! Just be yourself.. You know the truth and who cares what others think. There will ALWAYS be a critic in the room!

Nice to see you back.

https://youtu.be/Akec_5zCgso

AJ thank you very much for sharing your experience with us here to help us all learn!

@nonameslefttouse I am happy to see your conversation about this and am resteeming to help more of us see it!

Loved this little gem:

>“We are surrounded by scammers and It’s up to us to look BETTER than them”. 

good stuff man

The most shocking thing in this post, for me, is that someone could think that being friendly with @jerrybanfield is a bad thing. Boggles my mind after following him for the last couple of months. Perhaps a recent posting about [the real Jerry Banfield](https://steemit.com/dsound/@jerrybanfield/20180304t215049328z-will-the-real-jerry-banfield-please-stand-up) affronted their sensibilities. 😎

A good read.

I am very new to Steemit, just beginning to start visiting regularly.  I got a bit phased by a post on ethics which seemed to be a little too, well, strict.  This is very new territory however, a reward system that is true genius (IMHO).  There are going to be some very novel problems I expect in how the system is used, I have been thinking a lot about what could come up.  Still, after a while I began to think we won't really properly understand these problems until we dive in and get involved, so I resolved to do just that.  You openly admit to making some mistakes, and we can all learn from those mistakes, so thanks for sharing your experiences.

All I can say is wow. You have achieved some serious traction in a month.

I read this with the intention of learning from your experience as well. I'm glad that I did. I am sorry for what happened to you but know that this post has helped a minnow like me to place things in perspective. Thank you, @abrockman!

Thanks for sharing your story

You embody "INSPIRATION".
I completed my first month here on February 24th and you have touched my   heart with your talents and even more than that by being who you are. 
I opened your Post called "Going Home" and what I discovered was just beyond words.  The post was amazing but when I discovered the artist behind the painting I was just awestruck to say the least.
Hope to be a silent witness to your journey here on Steemit.

Resonating 100% with your words @abrockman. Glad to have you back on the platform with new ideas and a new vision 🙏🏼

this probably helps me a lot

Your story is very inspiring.!

es bueno tener la determinacion de hacer lo que uno le gusta y si la mantienes se te presentan estas oportunidades como steemit

I'm so sad that you got dragged into drama here. 

interesting post here. the dillemma of the modern digital age is not a new one but it is intense. this is the same issue musicians faced selling to A&R men and dealing with the industry. 
I love the honesty shared here by @Abrockman as well as @nonameslefttouse . What is apparent and, true enough from personal experience, with the question of integrity in any creative industry it isn't what you do, but how you do it. 
Both of you clearly maintain integrity to your art forms but are clearly also willing to use different roads to present them. I no longer see the argument. nothing really is that sacred, we just believe so at the time. the world will do what the world will do regardless. If one person feels qualified by not using bots, while another feels qualified to use them, at the end of the day all that really matters is the quality of the art. The rest is pretty much subjective, but then an argument could be made for the quality of the art being subjective too. 
Anyway great post, probably the first one with real feeling I have seen on here in days of posting and trawling steemit trying to understand what the fk it actually is about, and if anything real lies beyond the steem