I’ve been using Medium for two months — and it’s already spoiled me
Ah, the struggle for authenticity
I love writing every day(ish) on Medium. It gives me new perspective, new appreciation for details and situations in my life that I wouldn’t even have noticed a couple of months ago. I love sitting down and taking the time to actually formulate a thought instead of chewing on it all day like on an old ball of gum, until I get so desperate to get it out there that I pretend I’m in a reality show while I’m making the bed or folding socks and tell it all the the imaginary camera crew that’s following me around for season 15 of “Anna Maria: This is The Life”. (I would so watch that, wouldn’t you watch that?)
And, of course of course of course, I love the little green hearts, and notifications that tell me one person, or three persons, or ten persons recommended what I wrote, because it means they took the time to read it and were in some way touched, if only for a couple of seconds. I, my words, touched someone who I’ve never even met. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what it is.
I love looking at the stats, those lovely lovely green bars rising and sinking like an abstract landscape of meaning and connection.
And that’s also where my problem starts. Because methinks I’m looking at the stats too much. Enjoying them too much. Clicking that button much too often. Now instead of just writing out those thoughts swirling around in my head and hitting publish with a hopeful smile into the void, I check myself. Is this impactful enough? Is this what people want to read? That one last post that was a bit introspective and blue, but also with a hopeful glimmer in it, people liked that, so maybe I should write something like that again? Or is it time for something more political and combative, to show I’m still connected to reality, to this f***ed up world we all live in?
I don’t like that train of thought. I love the connection on Medium, but I don’t want to write to gain an audience, or a following. It’s completely legitimate to want that, and Medium obviously is an awesome place to do that, but it’s not for me. Not now. All I really want is to write every day, and to share my writing, because I don’t want to sit in an isolated bubble wondering if anyone would ever understand me. Now I know, and that is awesome. I don’t need anything else.
So please help me out, oh following that I don’t have: tell me if you think I’m getting a bit slick, or exploiting a theme or a mood merely for the sake of an imaginary popularity. (Which is different from obsessing over a theme or a mood for the sake of good old-fashioned healthy simple obsession. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what writing is for.)
Oh, the longing for authenticity, and the selling of authenticity, and the exposing of authenticity. As soon as you think about it, the bubble bursts…
