A long time ago, on a writing forum, they started a story submission contest. I submitted a story about a young graduate whose parents decided to leave him on his own while they traveled the world. I’m not much of a writer, and the story was very raw, but someone on the forum said it read like it was written by a child. It was an honest review, but for an adult who was just trying to find their footing, it landed hard. Somehow it never occurred to them that the person writing it might have the heart of a child — and might not have been ready to hear that.
On the same forum where I started posting personal things, I was told that kind of content belonged on a blog. So I started one — but eventually deleted it when things became too much to handle. I’m older now and have developed a thick skin, though it does sting a little that no one seems interested in what I write unless I personally ask them to read and review it.
Keeping these experiences in mind, I tried writing more complex things, but they ended up coming across as cryptic. As someone on the forum once pointed out, it shows through your writing when you haven’t read widely — and they weren’t wrong. But I think I still have the heart of a child, one who simply wants to see his writing, no matter how primitive, find its little space on the internet.
So the obvious question now is — Hamdan, why aren’t you writing anything? And the honest answer is that I have simply run out of energy, the zest for it. But one good thing is that AI corrects the grammar and structure and makes it more readable. Of course, to the purists, using AI is, for lack of a better word, a crime.
To continue from the last post — I alluded to the idea that two strange babies raised together will act like siblings and won’t fight unless they are provoked. But immediately after posting it, the story of Cain and Abel came to mind. No one taught them any differently, yet one killed the other and later lamented it. So my argument is moot.
One more thing from the last post — what I didn’t mention was that the friend I was with also explained to me what the dark and profane meaning actually was. I did end up using the phrase in a six-word story on the same writing forum, purely to get attention. I later lamented it, deleted it, and left the forum for good.
Had I not had these experiences, I would not have had the chance to grow. What happens between friends can stay contained, but airing things on the internet is a different matter entirely.
Of course, the obvious question is — why bring it up again if you already lamented it? To that I would say, hush, I have a blog’s belly to fill. But in all honesty, I needed to get it out of my system and find my peace with it.