> What is it about steem?

Hope. I think there are many factors but for me it's hope. I once hoped to travel the world while writing travel content on steem but it wasn't to be. 

I'm hopeful steem can still make inroads into mainstream with our current more focused leadership than the ned show, and maybe the next few years will be very exciting here... ha ha, I hope 😉🤣

'Hope is weathering and waiting out the eye of the storm.'

https://youtu.be/i1vGS1nMsQ0

Hi @agmoore

> Hope you are well and that your trading continues to be profitable. I'm really impressed by people who can make a profit at that sort of thing.<br>

ha ha, yeah me too ;) 

To be honest, I used to be a bit of a throw a dart at a board trader... but the last two months I've taken the time to learn basic technical analysis and it has really payed off. The key is patience... so many people lose money basically because they can't wait for key price areas to be broken either to the up or down side. If you mess around with taking positions in a range then you have to be good at technical analysis, but if you wait for break outs, you can catch multi-thousand dollar moves and this is where bigger money can be made. The art of technical analysis is to map out these key support and resistance levels and keep an eye on the market daily or set a limit order to trigger when the market drops below or above certain levels. 
The case of BTC recent drop is a prime example of how even beginner traders like me can make good money by simply being patent and not getting greedy. All I did was wait for BTC to break it's key level of $7800 and then took a short position with leverage 5x. This means I increased my amount of BTC as the market went down and the leverage (borrowed BTC contract) meant I made money as well despite the price drop. 

I'm currently experimenting with trading the bounces on the way down and it's going well so far :)

P.s. thanks for the advice on the health thing, you are completely right.

Hi Yahia.

Great to see you're still posting too m8.  Yeah, I'm still posting when I can... I've a stubborn streak a mile long 😉

> didn’t recall that you suffered from chronic-anything.

I kept it quiet, but I've been sick with something called SIBO (it's a gut condition) for nearly 5 years now. Tried every treatment for it and every exclusion diet that is meant to help, all to no avail. To be honest, I'm at the end of my tether with it as the symptoms keep on getting worse year by year, but just have to keep readjusting to diminishing capacities. The head gastroenterologist here in Liverpool doesn't have a clue what to try next, and has pretty much given up on me. It can be very frustrating.

I have an old friend who lives in Oxford so if by some miracle I'm feeling human, I might jump on a train and go visit him... as well as checking out your book launch 🙂 

it's not very likely to be honest but if I can it would be great to meet you. 

All the best with the book launch.

> sorry that your illness keeps you from traveling and working a "real" job (should you want one).

ha ha, well truth be told I don't really want a real job. I'd be happier if I had normal energy and cognative capacity to get a novel written and then hopefully, fingers crossed that would be my 'real job' ;-)

> May you make a good living with crypto and may you be well again!!!!

Thanks Carol, I appreciate the well wishes :)

Thanks for the well wishes @owasco

I do love steem, but I've always put unrealistic expectations on myself with producing content here and suffered for it in the past both physically (with this illness, taking on too many steem projects) and financially as I prioritized it over freelance gigs outside of steem. I'm just kind of thinking out loud in this freewrite and cementing my intentions not to do that anymore. 

Thanks for reading my late night ramblings :)