READING
That Medium Magic Carpet Ride
How much has being on Medium changed you for the better?
Since joining Medium, I’ve come to appreciate the written letter in ways I never did. Up until becoming a writer on Medium, I took books and writing for granted. Peaked on that list of bad behavior formation is I took writers for granted.
I used to pick up a book and think only of my end of the bargain: Will this book be worth my time? Will I have the time to read, let alone finish, this book? Is the price a bit much for its genre and thickness? Should I wait and add it to my never-ending list?
As for the books I did purchase, many stayed perfectly wrapped in its plastic seal for months.
That all changed when I joined Medium. This is by no means a shameless plug for Medium, but I’m confessing these thoughts for what they are and how they transpired.
Medium was my return to creative writing after a decade long being in a literary vacuum. Within weeks of publishing I started engaging with writers of various ranks, strengths and experience. You’d think these bantering were trivial, out of courtesy, maybe forgettable. But something magical was taking place as the comments were exchanged. The same magic that has kept me here high-spirited and professionally imbibed by Medium’s melting pot of cross-cultural and enigmatic life forces.
At first I thought I was dreaming. I thought it was perhaps a concoction consumable only when I was scrolling and engaging with subscribed folks on the platform. I was wrong. It inspired a magnetic pull towards bookstores.
I’d search on the net for alerts on book fairs. Each new mall I visited I’d check the building directory to see if there was a bookstore I can peruse.
I started seeing books with a renewed pair of eyes.
Cover to cover, I stopped being calculative and more appreciative about the whole affair. This meant I’d make time for the pursuit. I stopped buying books online. I wanted to feel them in my hands before I purchased them, to be surrounded by them. I wanted to smell them.
It didn’t stop there. It got worse. I started to get sentimental, even romantic.
I’d forgotten how much we invested ourselves in the pursuit of writing. On Medium, reading essay after essay, whether it was by selection or algorithm, I saw how much writers poured their gold into self-expression. This was no longer just about being adept storytellers. Writers pour their heart and soul into the arrangement of words, a play of language, a dance of prose and poetry. It was the art of communication, of layered semantics. I have something to say, hear me out.
Writers weren’t writing to pass exams. Many, I noted, write to redeem their souls, to reclaim a forgotten part of themselves. Writing becomes an extension of themselves, a way of reaching out to others, to be heard, to make sense of themselves. I witnessed dedication, discipline and camaraderie.
Every essay I’ve read on Medium is about healing, or designed for recovery. Even through rants and grouses, there was truth, honesty, and self-discovery.
Here I thought, carelessly, I could resume writing, floating as an independent cloud. Clearly I was as experienced as I was naïve.
I was given a reset on the topic of humanity, ethnic sensitivity, and cultural diversity.
I was re-acquainted with the essence of what it means to be a writer: to write from one’s soul, not just from the logical, rational head. I was re-educated about the writer’s struggle, the writer’s dream, the writer’s goal, and the writer’s aspiration.
I saw two ends of the writer’s market and realized I never knew where I sat on the value chain itself. What kind of writer am I? What type should I be? Why am I here? Why should I stay? What keeps me here? What fuels me to keep going?
One end has those who see writing as a money-making opportunity. Game it and ye shall receive. The other end has folks who bleed and reflect as they write. These are the writers who changed me. They taught me the value of words I thought I knew but carelessly stepped on: hope, fear, pain, desire, anguish, remembrance and memory.
It was through their respective definition of those words that I was reminded of my own spectrum of emotions — some I suppressed to forget, to numb, to conveniently ignore. Some perhaps I needed to control better, to not utter too excitedly.
I saw gaps within myself and spaces to grow.
I saw writing as a window of opportunity to explain myself better: to not trip over myself, to discipline my ego, to be more refined and sophisticated in my speech. When all you do is work, you forget these things. The things that take place outside of work. That was how I found my former self trapped and bored in a vacuum.
The writers on Medium are different to what I thought and knew about writers.
Each day as I read their confessions, thoughts and arguments, I’m reminded that to be human, we have to embrace the darkness with the light, to be brave with the trepidation, to appreciate the highs with the lows. It works the same way when you write a story. There should be balance and binary oppositions for grooves and textures.
I’m reminded that we need to accept and understand differences. No two thoughts are alike. Disagreements aren’t problematic if we can find a common middle ground, let us agree to disagree and be merry. Every writer I enjoy reading are poles apart from who I am, how I live, and what I know.
As the weeks turned into months, I see writers as sensitive creatures of energy that require space to be heard, an audience to progress, peers for support. A writer cannot persist without his/her readers. Words mean nothing if they won’t be read, discussed, consumed and digested.
Slowly, this taught me to see books with a different set of pathos. I’d pick up a book and hold it long in my hands before turning it to read the outside back cover. It’s not about the price or the publisher. I look at the author’s name. I see a book as a person. Someone I should know, need to know, deserves to be acknowledged, like my fellow writers on Medium.
I read the introduction. This time, I try not to be critical or impressed by the arrangement of words. I think of the time the writer struggled to mince those words. I think of him/her seated at the desk, the days that pull through seasons. I imagine the writer mulling over his life’s decisions, wondering about the ending of the chapter, or book, hypothesizing where this chronicle or opus will take him, and how far.
A book is a journey. Reading it, soul-to-soul, I’ve become part of the author’s journey. The reader and the writer have become a team, a mindset, complicit in an escape from reality into another world.
If being on Medium hasn’t changed you, I don’t know what will.
My journey here has been one magic carpet ride.
Here I thought it was going to be just about writing. Turns out I was reborn as a reader and a writer. I hope you are enjoying your own magic carpet ride.
If you’re new to Medium, welcome aboard. For my fellow writing patriots, the sharing continues. Here are essays that stood out for me this week.
Cup of Keith offers us a thorough literary review about a creature that turned out to be larger than life — pun intended. The entire piece on Godzilla is a cranial dessert.
“For the past few months I had kept this upcoming film on my radar. It’s commonly said that only the Japanese understand how to make a good Godzilla film. Seeing that Godzilla is an anti-nuclear horror story detailing the tragedy of the atomic bomb made by Japanese filmmakers, anytime an American studio makes their version it loses all meaning rather quickly.
A few weeks ago, I was at a local bookstore. On the shelves I saw a book I never knew existed, Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again. Two novellas written by Shigeru Kayama and translated by Jeffrey Angles. These two novellas were published in Japan in 1955, close to the release of the second Godzilla movie, also titled Godzilla Raids Again. They had never been translated into English until October of this year. Both stories were in one book. I bought it without looking too far into what they were. In order to get a sturdy grasp on the 1950’s context of Godzilla, I read them before seeing the upcoming film. Shigeru Kayama was one of the original screenwriters for the first two Godzilla movies. He wrote these novellas as a way to further capitalize on the success of the original film, and to reassure his audience that Godzilla has an anti-nuclear message. There’s even a brief foreword, written by Kayama, in which he states, “Godzilla [is] a creature that doesn’t actually exist anywhere here on the planet. However, atomic and hydrogen bombs, which have taken on the form of Godzilla in this story, do exist.”
For Pride 2023, Julio Vincent Gambuto’s first-hand account taught me how the life of a gay man was ever-evolving. Insightful and delightfully written, a must-read.
“The gay gaggle has great benefits. It can also suffocate. A core group of gay friends can be a source of strength, camaraderie, and family. It can also limit your spirit. Choose your friendship circles for how right a fit they are for you. If they light you up, inspire you, support you, and make you laugh, then double down. If they are more work than your actual job, then move on. Life can be but it’s not always Queer as Folk.
Don’t spend too much time proving you’re not a cliché. It’s exhausting to always try to prove that you are not what the world thinks you are. Maybe you are. Life goes on. Stereotypes and clichés exist for a reason. They’re dangerous in certain contexts and powerful in others. Do what works for you. If that’s someone else’s idea of a cliche, so be it. Hello from Chelsea in New York City.”
If you’re in the mood for macabre, Tracy.3 has a piece for you. A true account of a killer, this investigative piece takes you on a trip across the globe à la dark tourism style. My kind of hot and spicy.
“The commonly told story — and what’s on the police report — is that Si Ouey was caught red-handed trying to burn the boy’s body. The boy’s father, Nawa Boonyakan who was out looking for his son, allegedly saw Si Ouey tossing branches on a pile of dry wood and saw his son’s body underneath.
Later, Nawa stated in an interview, “When I saw my son’s body lying in a pool of blood, it was miserable. There is still straw covering the entire body. As far as I know, he is going to burn my son.”
Nawa and another man grabbed Si Ouey, tied him up, and called the police.
The boy was reported to have been stabbed in the neck and had a deep incision from his naval to his throat. It was also reported that his liver and heart were missing. When searching Si Ouey’s home, the police reported finding a heart and liver in a basin.”
For an off-the-beaten path love story, here’s one by Michele Cambardella. A piece that’s close to her heart, her essay reads like a novel I’d snuggle up with on a beautiful sunny afternoon with a cup of ginger tea. And that’s exactly how I read this essay.
“We were cleaning her dresser, getting her ready to move in with us after Dad died, when I stumbled on this collection with a return address of The Windsor Hotel.
“Oh, those are letters your father wrote to me when he worked at the mountains,” she explained.
I looked at her in disbelief. So many thoughts were running through my mind. My father was an incredible man with many gifts and skills but writing was not one of his talents. As a matter of fact, writing and reading were always laborious and tedious for him. Yet, sitting before me were 78 letters and one postcard, all handwritten by him.
“Can I read them, Mom?” I wanted to respect her privacy but, frankly, I was dying to read them.
“Of course you can, but you are going to be disappointed. They all say the same thing,” she cautioned. She discounted them as “no big deal” and something about the way she said that did not ring true.”
Talking about the true form of a modern novel, Biz Stone shares a sharply-written corporate episode that addresses the rumors on Twitter (now X) at the height of one of its many fiascos. A lot was happening at the headquarters and as the tectonic plates were moving, heads were rolling. Here is Stone’s lived version of it.
“I was awkwardly participating in a panel discussion about hackathons using an interpreter when I got a call from my friend Jack (who at that time was Chairman of the Twitter board). I thought it was a good chance to excuse myself and take a break. I ducked into a little office and Jack said, “Biz, the board is firing Evan. It’s going to be announced at the staff meeting tomorrow. We’re putting Dick (then our COO) in as the interim CEO. You need to get on a plane and be here tomorrow.”
This was a total shocker. I was halfway around the world in non-stop commitments and suddenly my number one collaborator and CEO was being fired. No notice. No reason stated.”
To writers and readers, here’s to another year riding your soul through journal entries, penning love letters, and more ❤
I leave you to rise with a benediction on your magic carpet ride. Dr John Frederick Rose, I offer you music as beautiful as your snapdragons. Blessed be.
From me to all.