Should I Care About The Number of Followers or Claps?
I joined the medium some more than two years ago with the basic aim of expressing or sharing my ideas, my perceptions/perspectives, and my opinions through my writing as well as to hone my skills as a writer. Although I have many ideas that seem good to share but with poor English (as English is not my mother tongue and thus thinking in my mother tongue and translating it to English is like simultaneously driving two cars) and poorer writing skills, I have to constantly struggle to write as meaningfully as possible.
Money was the number two priority (and it always has been in my entire life) as it is for me a tool to survive and not to aggrandize the self or inflate the ego.
Thus I don’t fall under the category of “Motivational Writers” who write stuff like “Think and Grow Rich” ,“How Successful People Think”, or “How to Get More Followers and/or Traffic on Your Blog” etc. It is another matter that the readers of this kind of stuff usually get more frustrated than become successful or happy as at the end of the day they can be so overwhelmed with a deluge of variety of material, ideas and resolutions that it’s hard to know/decide what to do next. Millions of books on self help are being churned out day in and day out presenting an ideal of hyperorganized and singularly driven self as the great engine of worldly endeavour and reward. The result, ironically, is that mostly nothing happens and the motivation is wasted (although motivator always benefits). On the contrary, in my view, with the increasing number of books suggesting how to become rich, the number of people falling below the poverty line is also increasing.
Regardless, I don’t think that being successful means (both for writers as well as their followers) to be rich, famous, attractive, and/or winner etc. Success to me is being honest with yourself as well as others. Attracting followers by selling them illusions or giving them temporary boost is not my cup of tea. Thus I write what I think will help people being genuine humans rather than false gods.
And although I am not attracting a lot of followers like many successful writers who sell dreams (or rather pipe dreams) to a a generation obsessed with meeting inflated expectations of themselves, but I am satisfied that I am contributing some new ideas that challenge stereotypes and misconceptions.
However, what forced me to write this piece was the reaction of some of my followers (I already have very small number of them) after I published my article on the conditions of large number of poor people bearing the brunt of recent devastating floods and compared this to the high profile glorification of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Here is the link:
There is no personal attack and just the criticism of imperial shenanigans. Even then some of my followers would have disliked it and as a reaction they did unfollow me. However, I don’t mind their reaction as for me writing what does rally matter is more important than being liked or popular.
Here are the pictures of the earth after some of my followers unfollowed me:
There is no difference before and after.
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