On Writing For Medium

What are we doing here? Why are we writing?

Some people like to write. No. Some people just can’t stop writing because they feel a passion inside. But writing can be so many things. We have ideas we want to show; we like to write listicles to see if we can make a penny; then there are scholarly researchers; political writing. Should I go on?

I remember being sixteen. I would write stories on my dad’s typewriter. I would write a humourous critique on some B movie I’ve watched; I still remember this one I wrote about a Mexican horror movie. Then I would show it to my cousins, and that was about it. They said, “Nice, you still have to work on your grammar.” My cousin Claudia was married to a film director, and I lived to show him my writings and hear his yes or no opinion.

There are two things about why we write. No, there is one thing about writing: we do it for love. We do it because we love expressing ourselves because we can, and we’re good at it, but we do it so that others will love us. Will they love what we write? Will they think it is funny or steer an emotion toward another human being? — and this is the thing love is made of.

And, of course, writing is a proxy for everything we manifest in society. Every single thing that we created was once only an idea. An idea that needed to be recorded. And the oldest and most reliable way to keep this idea from evaporating was writing.

All movies, stories, and everything that we have ever invented was first an incomprehensible stream of thoughts, and our skillful craft was organized into a sequence of codes and symbols that everyone could read.

But let’s look forward to the age of the internet because this is where things became laced with the steroids of steroids. Writing is the lightest and cheapest thing you can do on the Internet. One page of writing that contains a life-changing message occupies a minuscule and dirt-cheap space on a server. So, we use it to death, and why not.

But then, social media also became part of this equation. Writing and social media = Medium. OK, now we’re in the ballpark. Medium is basically a forum or, better yet. We write something, and hundreds of thousands of nice cousins read our shit. We’re looking for love, just like a little kid who discovered how to write and impress adults. Apart from some professional writers on Medium, the vast majority fit this criterion. (of course, that is open for debate)

Our writing is a little expression of our need for love. What will I write today that will garner the most likes and comments? We mentally ask ourselves in a moment where this stream of thinking is trailing between the conscience and subconsciousness. But we do. And when we hit it, writing will give us the best rush of endorphins we can get. It lasts for a moment, and the next thing we think of is to do it again.

This is where things begin to shift paths. Because now we’re not thinking about our writing but about that rush we got. The rush of love. Like a little needy dog, we do the trick to see if you’ll get the treat. Oh brother, what have we become?

Medium is primarily a social media thing. And if you zero in on the writing, you’ll see that it is all laced with these intentions. The intention of getting noted. And this is a human emotion that cannot be denied. And then there is the money thing. People are trying to perform a little trick for a penny. Please get a job.

This morning I decided to put a stop to the emphasis on social media but mostly a need to curb this horniness of wanting to be noticed. So I’m writing this with the intent of writing this. I didn’t even post a picture because why should I post a picture? Don’t you know how to read? Are you a little kid that can only read a book with pictures? Whatever.

So, the moral of this story is that if we let ourselves be taken over by the opinion and love of our cousins, we’ll not be focusing on our writing because love is a drug, and we want the buzz. We have to write for God. (no particular Christian and Jewish God but the higher power)

Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing here? A little trick to get the treat or deepen our art of writing and conceiving ideas? Are we creating a better world with our writing? Becasue if we’re not, we might as well don’t waste our time filling a blank page with useless zeros and ones.

And what about do unto others? Do you read what others are writing? The more you read, the better your writing becomes. What about reading people who you like and not what just wash up in the feed? What about becoming pro-active in your writing and not in your ability to loot at stats every five minutes?

And if this post is DOA, I’m not going to care. Maybe one person will read it and will dig it because they got the message I had to say. At least I had fun writing and have practiced writing just like a meditation, where we practice noticing what we’re thinking and regard that as just thinking. Yes, you can clap, and you can comment. I don’t mind.