Omar Thinks: Lost in Followers
A moment of self-realization
Over the years, I’ve heard about Medium. It seemed to me something niche and I felt I wouldn’t get much out of it. I have academic friends on it and thought, “I don’t know the first thing about academia! What good is this for me?” And then I became an academic of sorts. I even want to get a PhD, God willing.
Some backstory. In 2016, I graduated from Zaytuna College in Berkeley. It’s America’s first and currently only accredited Muslim liberal arts college. Those were the hardest four years of my life and I’d do it again tomorrow. Why? Maybe for another time. There, I learned about thoughts and ideas and logic and the imagination from an Islamic lens and a western lens. After grad school, I was encouraged to write. I couldn’t find my way though.
In between then and now, I learned a bunch about myself. In late November, I opened what I thought was my only Medium account to take writing a little more seriously. As I got closer to 20 followers, I began to get excited. My wife was happy. My mother-in-law even congratulated me.
Twenty followers in a few short weeks? What?! That’s way better numbers than I had on Substack. And that’s with promotion!
I was caught in a wave of emotion and notifications. The Thursday before publishing this, I came to a realization about myself. I put too much attention to the number of followers. I sat in my office at work and said,
Bro. What. Are. You. Doing?
And then I laughed. I have preached and spoken in front of audiences of various sizes. How many times I’ve told people to be careful about getting hooked on that dopamine and notification count, I don’t know. But there I was, in my office, stuck on it.
For the thirty-one followers I do have, thank you. Thank you for paying a little attention to me, enough to read these words. For those who do come afterwards, welcome. I promise I’ll be better and provide even better material.
In the meantime, see you at the next post.
