Fire in the Foxhole

Share this post

Make conversations to keep meaningful writing

foxhole.one

Discover more from Fire in the Foxhole

Fred Jame on life, tech, writing and more.
Over 1,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Make conversations to keep meaningful writing

I have written over 7,000 stories on the ‘net since the early 1990s, not counting the old lost messages on alt.bbs.whatever.

傅瑞德
Sep 29, 2022
2
Share this post

Make conversations to keep meaningful writing

foxhole.one
Share

Before the days of Twitter and Facebook, a few whining paragraphs made a story on my blog. Since everyone had their own blog, the online world was quite “decentralized.”

When you want to respond to something, you visit a particular blog and leave a carefully crafted message. You might find a string of people responding to the same story and form a mini conversation or even an online party.

Then there came social networks. People are herded as “friends” and become centralized on a timeline. Timeline flows and washes messages and comments away like there’s nothing important.

It’s now easier to respond to a message, and you don’t even have to write a word since a 👍 is all you need.

We reply, we respond, we give thumbs or claps, but we are not making as many “intellectual conversations” as before.

After some clean-up, my 7,000 stories went down to around 2,000 with relatively substantial content.

One of the reasons I could write so many was that I made a lot of intellectual conversations, and I was always able to find news topics from them and have a healthy dose of stimulation from my readers, so I kept writing almost every day.

Now I follow the Facebook and Twitter timelines and subscribe to about 100 blogs and news sites. But I have a feeling that I was dragged by topics and news, not the exchange of ideas.

This is not good. I need conversations, stimulation, and passion to churn out meaningful, inspiring stuff.

In my blogosphere, I am still one of the most diligent writers in Taiwan. People either make short bursts on Facebook or become media writers, as blogging is already passé.

Hardly a conversation. How regrettable. Make one, anyone?

Originally written on Aug 17, 2017.

2
Share this post

Make conversations to keep meaningful writing

foxhole.one
Share
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Fred Jame
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing