Leech Everything, Seed Something
I think I was doing pretty well with my digital life until the day my mentor decided to tell our class this:
“How much do you give back to your online communities?”
Silence….
“You guys are parasites to the Internet. You need to stop being parasites.”
I thought about it, and in truth, I was. I was leeching off the internet’s vast resources and in return giving nothing. Had the Internet been my mother or my older sister, she’d have called me a selfish brat by now.
That single line brought me back to my writing (or *cough* typing) desk. It’s been a while since I seriously blogged, and I may have gotten a little rusty, but, there’s always today!
Don’t become untraceable!
Trust me when I say this, it hurts you a lot more when you delete your old blogs in a bid to start anew than it might hurt you to get criticized by strangers. I used to have a blog that revolved around video games and manga that used to garner around two thousand visitors daily. Not much, but fourteen-year-old me got a sense of achievement about it.
That was until I decided to delete it because my parents didn’t want me to spend much time on the net. And, I was so dumb at that time that I forgot to backup my blog. Poof, there went the grand dream, never to ever come back. Unless of course, someone has saved it somewhere in the deep web. (In which case, honestly, it might have gathered some illicit edits that I wouldn’t want to be associated with my name anyway.)
On the whole, save everything you have ever made. I don’t mean to say in the sense that you need to hoard everything. You don’t have to show everything to the world around you. Let your work be there as a gauge of progress for your eyes only.
Open up
Yes, I get it. Not every person can be a people-person. You don’t have to be. But, there’s a fine line between opening up and sharing things you enjoy or have learned and wish to teach. No one needs to know who you are unless you wish to make yourself known. They’ll be there for what you share, not who you are. Think of it as the content making you, not you making the content.
Think of the millions of people who have made blogs, tutorial videos, programming documentation, hell, even the memes you use on your social media. Why would they have yet spent that much time doing all that? Truth be told, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a creative outlet; perhaps it’s to gain a sense of achievement. Whatever may it be, the new generation certainly has more learning resources than the last, and the proverbial online Library of Alexandria should only keep expanding. I wouldn’t like to see a stagnating pool of information on the superhighway and neither would you. Aim to add new thought instead of rearranging trite expression of old.
Of course, with all this pressure to innovate, you’re probably afraid now, terrified of the masses waiting to criticize you. The time is now, you need to…
Grow a thicker skin
First, there is taking criticism the wrong way, and next is getting offended by it. Think of it in this way, you are already pretty lucky that someone acknowledges your presence on the sphere and, they’re trying to help you.
Do this: try going through every blog you like reading. Go to the comments section, see how the blogger receives the comments. Is it well received, received coldly or, ignored? Next, try seeing the page views and if they’re shown, the analytics. See what I mean?
It’s easy to get offended online. People might not know what customs or culture you follow and might make do something to annoy, irritate or, anger you. You could tell them that that’s not the right way and proceed with your stuff. However, attempt to educate others at your own risk.
Never ask too much, you might just get it.
When’s the last time I heard this phrase? I have heard it multiple times, from many different voices. So now you have made something and have shared it with the whole world to see, and now you feel a desperate need to be acknowledged by people. Don’t get into this vicious spiral. I repeat. Don’t.
Entrepreneur James Altucher says, “When we are not chosen, we feel bad. When we are chosen — even by idiots — we feel good.” Don’t ever get into that mindset. Not being liked is fine, but so is being flattered by a dumb set of people is even worse. You don’t get to know what’s better for you and your creativity and learning progress start hitting a plateau.
Wish for the right things, and work your way hard towards it. Like the Red Queen’s Race from Through The Looking-Glass, one must keep running to stay in one place, but to change position, one has to run faster.
Whether you are a greenhorn or a battle-worn veteran of internet writing, as long as you keep learning to improve yourself in more than just one way and are ready to face criticism head-on, you’ll succeed. Stop being a King Nothing — fight. Fight, for you’re a warrior of your own reality!
I suppose that’s all for now. I hope that this piece will bring out more people to come to terms with themselves and start seeding few of our lives. We can leech all we want, but let’s give back as well, shall we?
