I want to become a writer, a better writer. We share this objective, I know. And I know too of a nice thing from our history. That grandmother’s hands on our shoulders meant we were safe. Two layers above any urgent call. I remember these stories. But what to do now in a world of too many publications, too many platforms and tools helping us, or claiming to be helping us? It’s not easy, especially now that we are witnessing so many systems improving in terms of narratives.
In today’s world, it’s not easy to know if collaborating online is helping us. With too many systems carrying on narratives of support, we may feel flooded. Or overwhelmed in a way that can be comparable to writer’s block.
I wanted to write this letter because I found something cool about HackerNoon: HackerNoon the publication, HackerNoon the platform for writers, HackerNoon the community. But because that wasn’t clear before, we should go back to that day:
That was the day when interacting with HackerNoon meant I was feeling like being somebody, towards a writer, on one hand. But, on the other hand, I felt suspicious about that communication. About that communication, about my own narratives about myself against the world:
@taboca - You Have Been Nominated for at Least one Noonies Award!
So what do we do when we are in doubt? I did. I asked my friends, again, my network. And some of them said things like "Heh, you and 20K others!" Well, no one said that, but I heard that anyway. So I was confused, thinking, "Well, that's how marketing is now." That is a sentence, a saying. And what goes from there, we know, how things go in real life. We skip like we look away from an ad.
But I was lucky that, at that time, I had a bigger problem. Latent, real. That problem, our problem. That I wanted to become a writer, a better writer. So, I had a decision to make. A note: Nothing was so clear, so strong, so focused. I can't fully say why, at that point in time, I took a different direction. Maybe I was tired of not helping myself. Or maybe I sensed something from the publication. So what I did was new. And it something like "Okay, let us play!"
I didn't do it with a mood as in "I am mad with the publication; I will hack them too!” No sir. I somehow took a calmer path, I went along. I needed the publication as much as they needed me. The decision came out like this:
I was nominated, therefore I am.
So I wrote. And next year, nominated for 3 categories. Then again, let us go back to friends. The same. But now, a silence was heard. Of course, as something different was said:
I am playing along!
Let us write. From a nomination to writing more, to being nominated in three categories:
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Start-up
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Psychology
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Management
Things were happening. I was surprised by the level of sensibility of the publication. I sensed that real people were there. That someone read it for real. Psychology? Someone else saw something that maybe I saw but was afraid to say out loud. So, writing by writing, through writing, we were building. Building, to a certain extent, in a world that needs protection, from the other interactions we know too:
There will always be distractions beckoning: Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. Texting an old flame. Getting chores done. (Peterson, J. B. (2018). Essay writing guide)
At some point, I stumbled upon a real editor. And he invited me to a fellowship after granting a user credential of verified contributor. So here, I celebrate something special, very important, that a platform indeed may come first, but right there, through their communications, you will see a style, a culture. It’s not different from a book. I was in front of a book, a good book where you can feel the style, the voice of the author, through authors, through editors, through their narratives:
Through e-mails, their narratives. They were showing who they were, through writing, through their well-done or clear writing, a writing that touches and supports. So I can say, we can, we kept on going. We were collaborating. They were real. I was real.
It was real, that fellowship, so real that I could not accept. Looking back - comparing before and then - I was in front of something far from that initial idea. So I declined as I could not commit as they wanted. That is the change, suspicious to a point of almost missing. Then, playing along. To being. To being challenged. So for that publication, HackerNoon, I would like to say:
tHaNks
And then something else happened, too. I left. I disappeared: I left as in one that says goodbye. I left for about 2 years. What I did, meanwhile, was a result of that movement. I took things to the next level:
I wrote straight for one year, every day, from a coffee shop. Like Forest Gump running. I granted myself that fellowship, following the right to write. And too with other hands, such as supported by Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.
Now I can look back, and when I look back, there is this thing, a being, trying to be, a writer, through writing. When I think about HackerNoon, when I say thanks, I like to say like that, again>:
tHaNks
To close, I celebrate that good/bad thing around us. We live in a world of abundance with too many events happening. There are too many interactions that may be signal or noise. So, indeed, it’s challenging to separate things, flooded with too many systems, platforms, communities, you name it. So if your path is a path Through Writing or another path, I ask you to be gentle with yourself. Indeed, there are too many systems out there with too many narratives. And I remind us, too, that being gentle starts with being respectful.
