Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

Can We Change The World Or Are We Beaten Before We Even Try?

June 7th 2022 I was in crisis. I felt unsupported, undervalued and underappreciated as a writer and member of this site. I still have no real idea if my experience with this is 'normal' or if I am the exception because of the many reasons this might be so. Without input, I naturally fill in the blanks left behind by readers who say nothing at all about how they felt after reading my words.

For me, I would much rather hear that I am a terrible writer, than hear nothing but crickets. This, after knowing so many have been on my port and read my work, yet so few have anything to give in return...comments... critique...advice...encouragement...even, "Go find another hobby!" Anything would be better than silence...in my opinion, the worst sound an author can hear.

I work so hard and put my heart and soul into every word I post. I want to give the reader something worth their time, but it seems the majority of the time I have to be my own judge on if I, and what I write, am worthy of their time...or if I am just kidding myself.

The self-doubt I feel when a couple of hundred people have read a particular piece of my work, yet only one or two take the time to leave any comment at all, can at certain times, be overwhelming.

Is that normal for everyone here? Or is it a case of my expectations being too high when it comes to this kind of thing?

Are we (as I have found on another site called Tumblr) so caught up in promoting our own brand, that we see others as competitors? Or is it quite simply apathy among a group who should be doing more to support each other and promote those who ARE really special (and even those who are just trying to be the best they can be) no matter what that does to our own egos?

Please, don't think I am placing myself in any elite or gifted group because those calls should never be made about our own work, but is gifted to others when we feel everything we should feel when reading someone who is awe-inspiring, captivating and who, once we have finished reading, have no doubt are above the ordinary.

I understand that writing should be done for our own satisfaction. And that if we are lucky enough to get some feedback, any feedback, we should count our blessings. But, does it HAVE to be like that? Especially on a site like WdC, where we are a community of like-minded and fellow artists who I'm sure all struggle at some point or another, even the very best, with self-doubt and questions of our own worth.

I cannot help but feel this message will fall on very few ears and even fewer who care enough to put their own two cents into the equation...and if this is true, then so be it. It won't stop me from adding to my backlog of work, but it certainly won't help me either and I think that is the saddest part of everything I am trying to convey here. Has the world changed so much that we must become a reflection of it...to become the very things we despise the most about it?

Change is inevitable, but the direction of those changes starts with us, the individuals in every community, and not with the masses, who we are later so eager to blame for it all being so wrong.