Hi Steemit! I am Ricardo and I want to share my vision with you...steemCreated with Sketch.

in #introduceyourself7 years ago (edited)

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Hello everyone!

I'm Ricardo, from Portugal, programmer of profession and passion, and a science, psychology and technology lover. I am eager for knowledge and to understand how things work. I am determined to help others and to give my contribution to making the world a better place.

Versão portuguesa

A bit of my story

From an early age, I felt drawn to try to understand how things work. I spent much of my free time reading books about the formation of the universe, the origin of life and our evolution as a species. My favorite subject in school was science, and on summer nights I spent in the countryside, during summer vacation, I often found myself looking at the stars and thinking about the vastness of the universe and how lucky I was to be born a conscious being, able to see the beauty that all around me (not exactly like, I was a kid at the time, but the idea was that).

As I grew older and reached adolescence, I was detoured to other directions. The concept of being cool and accepted by my group of friends dominated more and more my conscience. Who didn’t have Nike snickers or Fubu hats and belts was a loser! On the other hand, in school, I was encouraged to value grades above the actual learning. All this led me to forsake the curiosity and fascination from reality, that was innate to me, and made me value the opinion of society above all.

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When I finished school I decided to pursue computer engineering, not because it was an area that interested me particularly but because the informatics was a growing market, which could ensure a job and income easily. During the college, and the beginning of my professional life, I really started to like programming. This was because it required me to understand deeply a problem, then design solutions to solve it. I didn’t know then but, somehow, programming fed that childlike curiosity, the urge to see how things work, that I neglected from my adolescence on.

When I finished the course and started working a day job and making money, the influence that the opinions of others had on me began to manifest itself in the form of consumerism. I bought expensive clothes, I didn’t need, brand sunglasses, without even looking at the price, I began to smoke and dine out almost every day.

All this to try to get the approval of others and feel good with my self-image.

Over the years I began to feel a growing emptiness and lack purpose. Usually, I coped with these feelings with distraction (watching tv series, going to out, etc.) but sometimes had moments of clarity where I asked myself the way I was going about life was the right one. After all, I was spending most of my resources and free time on things that should make me feel good, but it wasn’t working. To deal with these questions I turned to self-development and started to implement some healthier habits in my life: exercise, meditation, mindfulness and healthy food. Although these practices have substantially improved many aspects of my life, I continued to feel a lack of purpose. It was through friends, along with some online influences, that I’ve grown my interest in science, neuroscience, and psychology and that, with some research and reflection, I began to get some of the answers I sought.

My perspective

It was only when I started to have some basic understanding of the human mind and the evolution of life, which includes our own, that I began to have a more comprehensive view of reality. I began to feel more and more connected to humanity and to life itself. This reminded me of when I was a little kid gazing at the stars... But I am no longer a child, if before all I could do was to contemplate reality with a kind of helpless fascination, now I have more reasoning, more knowledge, and extremely powerful tools (like the internet) at my disposal. This made me realize that I am in a privileged position to help humanity moving forward and I'm not doing anything about it.

I decided to dedicate my time trying to create a positive impact on the world. Although this goal may seem vague, I think the best approach to achieve it is through the scientific method. In a nutshell, I try to have a clear view on reality and do what I think it’s right, based on the knowledge I have, measuring the results and learning from mistakes. I think the following scene from the final episode of Cosmos illustrates what I mean:

Why steemit?

Despite being a technology enthusiast, my presence on social networks was inexistent. I do not use facebook or instagram or tweeter. However, recently I began to explore cryptocurrency market and, as I studied the most popular coins, I discovered steem and, consequently, steemit. The concept seemed too good to be true! A platform that encourages sharing of opinions and that allows to find and invest in people with similar ideas to ours, creating a global network for exchange of relevant ideas and experiences, without the typical trolls and "cancers" of the internet, was exactly what I was looking for.

I will contribute to steemit community by sharing my experiences in trying to create a positive impact on humanity, such as the series I'm starting on quitting my day job to change the world. You can also count on my opinion in related topics on psychology, health, science, and technology.

To conclude the post, which is running long, I would like to say that I am very happy to be here and eager to exchange views and ideas with all of you! I hope that we can help and enrich each other, after all, that's why we're here.

Thanks for reading this far! Feel free to ask questions and give your feedback.


If you enjoyed what you’ve read, I would like you to check the work of my brother @shaden and my great friend @zebeto.

See you soon!
Ricardo

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Welcome to Steem @ricardocastilho I have upvoted and sent you a tip

Hey dude and welcome!!! I was amazed too when I first saw Steemit and not am hooked lol!!
Nice job on the post and nice job on changing your life around. I need to do something similar in order to become a littler healthier and happier. I find now though I seem to be waiting for a kick in the ass to get started. I want to do it and I know what I need TO do, I just find a way to not start it yet... did you find this ?
Cheers mate

Hey mate! Thank you very much for your support!

I totally get what you are saying about knowing what you need to do and still, don't find the motivation to do it. To me, it was useful to realize that indulging myself with candy, cigarettes, tv series, and other self-centered pleasures wasn't making me happier at all. So if focusing on my self-pleasure didn't make me happy, and was actually making my life worse, why continuing down this path? Just because it's comfortable? Even from a purely selfish perspective, it's better to "do what you need to do" because you will feel better!

Also, we have Steemit community to support us doing so: writing about what you intend to do can also reduce the activation energy to actually do it. I think people will be happy to be your accountability group, me included. I'm doing something similar with the series I am starting on quitting my day job.

I hope my response can help you. I don't have all the answers, far from it, but I'm driven to learn more and more. It would be nice if we could help each other to improve. =)

Cheers

Thanks mate. community is huge especially if you're trying to get involved here. That serious has a wicked sounding title so I will forsure check it out. I want to shift to quit my job too as the months go on here... Im in love with all this crypto and steemit stuff tbh... lol Im hooked now!!

Yeah! Totally agree with you and, spoiler alert, this crypto and steemit stuff are part of my plan of quitting my day job =) Thanks for your input man, let's stay in touch ;)

Bem-vindo!!!! Hope you enjoy Steemit! It is a great community to meet people from all over the world. I am a Brazilian writer and videomaker, living in London. Here I post about photography, travelling and stories. Have a look at my profile and if you like it, follow me. :-)

Thank you! I will check your blog for sure =)

Welcome! If you want let's team up. btw there's also steemit chat ;) https://steemit.chat/channel/general

Thank you very much for your support and resteem!

great stuff, love carl sagan.... great banner too, one of the best i've seen! found you via @OCD

Thanks a lot man! I really think the world needs more Carl Sagansl =)
I'm glad that you like my banner. The credits for making it go to my brother @shaden though, he is the artist in the family!

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Thank you very much for your interest! I will be honored if OCD Team share my post!
I read a bit about your initiative, great stuff! Keep it up!

Nice Stuff.
Welcome to Steem :)

Upvoted and Resteem! :)

Thanks for all the support Miguel!

Cheers!

Welcome aboard from a fellow programmer, self-improver, and lover of the stars. I'm still trying to figure out how to make a positive impact on the world, too, though I haven't applied any observational methodologies to it yet. I'll follow along to hear your findings! :)

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome Katie! It's great to find people, such as yourself, who share my views!

I am also trying to figure out the best course of action to help humanity and the world. With my current knowledge, I think it's key to raise peoples awareness to the fact that our current society is too self-centered and each of us can do much more to help each other. I will be relying on the internet and my skills as a programmer to develop projects that can spread this message. That's why I am currently starting to the steps to quit my day job and dedicate myself fully to those projects. Maybe we can work together in the future... =)

I left my day job too after my project was canceled, to try to get out of the bubble I lived in. I look forward to seeing what you do - sounds like a worthy goal! :)

Thank you for the support! =)
I've taken a look at your blog. Very good stuff, super well-written btw =). I really admire your determination (and guts) to change your way of living. Most people in your situation would just find another job and settle with the comfort they already have.

Keep it up!