Why Medium Matters to Me
I just read an email from the Medium CEO. He says:
This is why Medium exists: To deepen understanding of the world and spread ideas that matter.
Isn’t that beautiful?
When I began writing for Medium, I was obsessed with only writing and gave little time to reading. I was obsessed with looking at how many people clapped and commented and with my stats.
How childish that was!
Today I read and follow writers. The perspectives are many and like the CEO says, reading stories on Medium does deepen understanding of the world.
There is at least a bit of learning in every piece I read.
And more than anything else, my ideas are accepted and read too. I experience ‘acceptance’ and that matters. To all humans it matters as it is an important emotion that we all love to nurture, don’t we?
But more than anything else, for me the journey on Medium has been enriching. What started off with ‘an end result and goal in mind’ (making money) has now taken another turn; I have begun to enjoy the process.
The Bhagavad Gita says: “To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction.”
This is not easy, Medium has nevertheless taught me just this. I write for the love of writing.
Sometimes what a writer says resonates with me while some give me a complete different perspective, so different from my understanding. Given the various cultures and ways of life, we must be open to various opinions though each one of us is entitled to our opinions.
However, let us as writers, reflect on whether our ideas matter — are the ideas we are spreading making a meaningful impact on readers?
For me it is a good point to reflect on; so it makes writing that much more challenging. As much as writing gives me pleasure it must make me think of its purpose — that is what I now look for in my writing. Writing can save the world in its own subtle way. Let’s endeavor to do that, one step at a time, one article at a time.
