to be heard.

Although writing comes with the advantage of being heard by many more people than I can access by simply talking, it comes with it’s own disadvantages. Mainly, the principal component of an effective communication to be heard and understood: hearing. The relationship between the writer and the reader is a one way street.

Because of that, writing (and the same applies to videos) is a very violent form of communication. I, a foreign agent, am inserting thoughts into your head without you having the option to intervene. Your only options are to either stop or continue. You can’t ask me a question, point a contradiction in my line of thought or do any sort of contribution to the process.

I wish I could simply talk to you. But sadly, I don’t find many people interested in talking about the things that interest me. Maybe I’m too arrogant. Maybe I think too highly of myself so I don’t let others change me so I become interested in what they are. Maybe this is simply who I am.

Normally my texts are directly related to the title. As I find this form of communication an extremely blunt tool without the elegance that I need, I restrain myself to simply writing about a single subject at a time. That way the reader at least consents to the cognitive violence that entails afterwards. But this time I’ll allow myself to express myself a little more.

My other texts are extremely disorganized. They are simply me writing as I think, without any regard for the reader. It’s simply me screaming for help. Desperately wanting to be heard and understood. But I think the time has come for me to starting addressing the limitations of the medium. I think that from now on I’ll be more cognizant of the reader. That if I want to be understood, I should write something understandable. That instead of aspiring to be a crazy/genius/god, I should just be a human. But maybe that’s the most inhuman thing that I could do.

I would love to make a career of being a writer — mainly because I like writing and it feel “natural” for me — so then I could have free time to do other things. That would allow me something that I find essential to being a good writer: have a fulfilling life. You need varied experiences to have inspiration, otherwise you have nothing of note to write about.

I have a blog in Portuguese that I wrote poetry and various sort of things for 14 years. It registered a big part of my life. I ended it with a puzzle: a text with a password. If you read my texts in there and understand who I am, you can guess the password. Two people so far have correctly guessed it.

Now I want to start writing in English, so more people can read. As it is not my native language I don’t yet express myself as well as I do in Portuguese. But that’s fine, I think the essence of what I want to express still comes through.

But with all of this is kinda hard to explain why I keep writing. Nobody, besides family and close friends, read what I write. I don’t really have the expectation of becoming a professional writer — the things that I want to write are not really compatible with a book (at least I can’t imagine it). And although It sounds incredible, I don’t think that I’m good enough to be a Kafka, where people discover my writings and I become famous after my death. What I write will probably only exist in a forgotten corner of the internet and as fragments inside the minds of AI’s.

Why I write? Because I like to write. Because it’s fun. Because I’m bored. Because I have something that I need to say. Because I would love to become famous and be heard by many. Because I’m human.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you more than you can comprehend. Have a good life.