As a result of a complicated series of negative events in my life I took a step back from hive.  I stopped witnessing something like 6 months ago, which was a first for me after ~7 years of witnessing.  I stopped posting as frequently.  I stopped voting Hive posts.  I stopped witness voting and I stopped proposal voting.  I even stopped my beloved Meme the News posts.

I still worked on various projects I've built on Hive, but I stuck to the projects rather than the blockchain.  I've had to write about 1,000 pages of legal documents, and it required a major undertaking to develop new understandings in law.  I think my brain is fundamentally rewired as a result.

By taking a step back I’ve had some time to clear my head and think through some things.  This is the part of my journey where I return home and reintegrate with new knowledge and experience.  This reintegration is partially out of necessity and the timing of the Splinterlands proposal, it's in part because I think the biggest altseason of all time is about to impact us, it's in part because I have new knowledge and understanding, and a big part of the timing is having had a long enough mental break to clear my head.  There’s likely to be some gnashing of teeth, a lot of gnashing of teeth, but I imagine there's a good number of opportunities as a result as well.

I think Splinterlands will thrive in this upcoming market.  I think it’s imminent.  My guess is that giant geopolitical events are about to unfold and those events prove out to be highly fortuitous to bitcoin and crypto.  My guess is that Splinterlands will once again become a powerhouse for play to earn gaming and drive adoption and use of Hive.  This run will be especially potent as all the work developing the fly wheel will kick into high gear during an insane bull run.  If this vision of the future comes to pass Hive will have a powerful ally in Splinterlands and I'm hoping you'll choose to support Splinterlands along this journey as it will have a massive beneficial impact on Hive and Hivians.

## What’s the plan and what am I talking about?

When I was working for the largest chemical company in the world I had a boss that shared a simple format for public discourse.  His strategy boiled down to this-

Tell them what you’re going to tell them (we are here)
Tell them
Tell them what you told them

I have a series of things to share and want to lay them out in a series of posts over the next few days. This post is me telling you what I am going to tell you.


## Methodology
I’m going to pose a variety of hypothetical questions and then answer them.  If you have constructive questions to add along the way feel free to leave them as comments and I may add them to the queue.  The questions are meant to do a few things-

**Air out grievances, find compromises, build support, and grow the chain with Splinterlands at the Vanguard**
- Air grievances and respond.  
- Grow support for the Splinterlands Proposal
- Share some of my concerns over the current governance of Hive,
- Re-engage Hive in a positive way.  *Unburdened by what has been.*

**The questions I plan to ask and answer in order to summarize the complaints and concerns around the Splinterlands Proposal include:**
- What constructive criticism has been posted about the Splinterlands proposal?
- What are some of the root causes that make a handful of powerful whales adamant about blocking the Splinterlands proposal?
- Particularly address my experience in how it seems/feels like a lot of the negativity is personally directed at me rather than at the project.

**The questions I plan to ask and answer to Support the Splinterlands Proposal include:**
- What is urgent about the Splinterlands proposal?
- What does Splinterlands do to support Hive?
- How does the Splinterlands Proposal help Hive?

**The questions I plan to ask and answer to highlight my concerns around Hive governance include:**
- What is decentralization?
- Why is decentralization good for projects?
- How can you measure decentralization?
- How decentralized is Hive right now?
- What is the appropriate use of stake?

**The questions I plan to ask and answer to reengage Hive include:**
- Why should anyone care whether Aggroed is active or not?
- What’s my positive vision for Hive?
- How can that vision be realized?
- Aren't you just being selfish by doing this now?
- What are the key benefits I bring to this platform?

## Objectives
Particularly in light of President Trump’s recent speech before the bitcoin community I believe that unprecedented amount of support for Crypto is about to drive it to absurd all time highs.  That was the single most important speech I've heard regarding bitcoin and crypto in my lifetime and Trump sets up the United States Government to be one of the biggest allies to crypto in the world.  It's essentially a 180 degree turn from the shit this industry has put up with from the likes of Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren.  It's a remarkable turn of events that just occurred.  

Crypto turning into an election year issue, setting reasonable legislation and regulation in place, and getting one of the most powerful governments in the world active in helping the industry succeed sets forth a range of outcomes to me and induces my brain to ask the question "how high can Hive go?"  We've fallen pretty low and need to 15X to get back to the Hive all time high, but it's not uncommon for blockchain projects to go 100-1000X in bull markets.  So I'm left daydreaming about "What is the penultimate outcome for this project if this community can work together to grow?"  And my answer is at the high end of that range.

I want to be in a solid position to promote Hive and Dapps. A strong Splinterlands is essential to maximizing success of this next run for Hive, a case I will make down the line in a separate post. I hope to convince you that working together is to the benefit of all of us.  

Please stay tuned for my second post, which will address spoken and unspoken concerns that community members have or likely retain regarding me personally as well as some vocalized constructive criticism of the Splinterlands proposal. If you have concerns, please bring them to me and/or Matt, or post them publicly so that we have the opportunity to take your words into consideration. I'll try to shake the rust and demonstrate high standards in the process.

In the meantime please take heed of the following notice:

`People that are actively blocking the proposal and refusing to give any feedback or have any discussions on the matter will see votes removed.  Constructive criticism is welcome.  Silent stonewalling, false claims, and ad hominem attacks will lose votes for their witness and project proposals.  Further, I would prefer not to have trollish comments on these posts whereas I normally don't care.  I'll be downvoting purposefully toxic comments/commenters on these specific posts.  All constructive thoughts are welcome, but not all delivery of those thoughts will be welcome.`

Feels good to be home.  Should be fun!

Joshua 1:9 
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.