I fully agree.
The votes that count the most are those we receive from our neighbors, from our pals in Hive. They are the relationships we build from engagement.
I have never been able to write every day except on the rare occasions that I have been able to do the HiveBloPoMo, but I try to show up every day to comment and vote for others' content. Some days I have more time, and some days I don't, but I think manual curation is the way to go. That's not to say I don't support curation projects, I even do some for one of the bigs one. But there is a lot of content that is left out. Sometimes because it doesn't fit the criteria of the projects, or because we are human and some of it goes unnoticed, that's why it's so important as you say to be able to have control over our Hive Power if we want to make some difference.
That's exactly what I wanted to say with the post... I know that many curators are doing a great job for some whale accounts, or curation projects, but there are always those "different posts" that don't fit in the "category" and we can't forget about them...
Support good curation projects, but also, do manual curation with our own Hive Power... There has to be a balance, and we have to take responsibility for our actions... It pays of with having more friends on the chain (and out), and there is no currency or crypto that can measure that!
Thanks for the comment and it's always a pleasure to notice that other people think in the same way as I do!