David. I keep going to call you Dave. Not like ‘Dave – I can call you Dave because we were separated at birth – clearly we are twins’ Dave – I mean for some reason I feel like that’s what you call yourself. I never shorten things if I can help it. I don’t want to call you Dave. You seem like a David when I think about it.

[cringe]

Ok. So I was thinking that what you have said here really hit it with me so thanks for saying it. What Alexainie said the other day, prior to this one that she did which I didn’t see until now, also hit it with me.

I read it and thought the same thing as I thought when I read Alexainie’s thing and I went to leave a comment for Alexainie and then I realised that although I know what I feel about it, I’m not able to meaningfully explain it and hold my own if/when challenged on it – I know that the reason for this is that it’s just not important enough to me to feel the sort of thing I need to feel to get a defined line of wording in my brain to spit out into the page. Yuck.

So what you have said here resonates.

So it’s given me a bit more – vim – to form enough of a thought to be able to share it without feeling like a tool. No, that’s not true. I still feel like a tool. You lot are way smarter than me I’m not enjoying this at all.

[cringe – but not italicised this time, therefore less cringeworthy than my earlier cringe]

But anyway I wanted to say that I came to Medium as a reader for a while and never imagined writing. (Fuck me, I’m having major déjà vu here – maybe I did comment to Alexainie’s thing…) I remember I would have thought the Morning Miracle or whatever was ok. Not because it’s ok but because it’s better than looking at whatever fucking bullshit news the media is printing or broadcasting that day.

Coming here was like a breath of fresh air. I saw the listicles (which I still think of as testicles without hair on them because I’m immature and so are they) and some of them seemed ok but I never really thought of them as something to live by. I looked at them and thought the same thing I think when I see anyone saying ‘do this’ – I think ‘well, why don’t you just keep writing about doing that then, nice one. The people who do that shit can’t see your listicle or your road to a better sex life or relationship with your green grocer because they’re too busy actually fucking doing it’. Those listicles aren’t and never were for the doers. They are for the same people who look at Pinterest. They like to look and imagine but not do.

So they’re ok, aren’t they. They exist for the people here who want that.

Anyway so I never knew that real writing existed here on Medium until I saw something Gutbloom wrote. I can’t remember which one it was. It wasn’t about cows – that came later (cow porn. When I say later, I mean he probably wrote it earlier but I read it later).

It was basically then that I realised what Medium was. It was a real place to be. Real writers were here. Fuck. That’s cool. At no point did I imagine writing here myself. I just read.

Then it was all on. I did what I do in real life. I gravitated towards certain people and certain writing and I followed my nose and I changed my mind here and there and – you know, as in life.

To me, Medium sort of mimics natural or organic movement as in life.

I hope they (the people who vacuum this place) keep it real but I also don’t want it to be tinkered with continuously so that it’s lost all meaning. I don’t want to find a listicle on how to navigate Medium. I love what they’ve built here.

I want to be a doer. Stay a doer, I should say.

I see that the tinkering and the suggestions are needed but I think there’s something to be said for someone or something being found organically and a reader evolving naturally or whatever. Then writing naturally or whatever.

I think if what you’ve said in your thing is so, and what I’m saying here is so, maybe things are all working just fine. I found you, David. David.

[cringe]