This one feeling is more addictive than Social Media…

Tanya
Sep 3, 2025
5 min read

…and it’s totally legal!

This one feeling is more addictive than Social Media by Magicthreadworks

I started writing when I was really young. I remember my first ever poem that I wrote was for a school magazine when I was in 4th grade. Even then I was quite impressed with myself. When my poem was not selected to get featured I gave myself logic that obviously they would have thought that the poem sounded like, a mature person with perspective has written it, and is not an original by a kid, hence they rejected it.

I believe I was my most creative and confident self when I was young. I believed I am special and meant to do amazing things in life. My first bout of creativity came in the form of hindi poetry and songs, Hindi being my dominant language at that time. I used to write on the last pages of random notebooks and diaries. Thanks to my mother, some of those are with me even today.

The second phase of my writing manifested during my early twenties, this was the time when I started writing blogs. This was the time when I transitioned towards english and since then English became the language I think in. Most of my blogs this time show a strong desire to make something out of myself but very unsure of what I was after. I was being exposed to the world for the first time and these blogs were mostly my conversations with myself about what was there on my mind. By this time I made up my mind that I want to become a writer. There was a phase of almost 3–4 years when I had written rather consistently.

Post which there was almost a gap of 10–12 years when I haven’t written a thing! Life suddenly takes you by a storm and you just go with the flow without having anything to anchor you. I believe one’s 20s are like that, you become everything and nothing at the same time. When I read back blogs to analyse what happened, i realised that I have written most of my blogs when I was sad or feeling low. So give myself consolation that I must be really happy during these in between years that I had nothing to write.

This post is not about the past, this post is essentially about now and why I started writing again. What stages I went through to finally really commit to this craft.

Stage 1: Desire

As I established so far, the desire to write and express myself was always there. This is my one skill that I am really proud of and it gives immense joy to just say my thoughts out loud. Most of the time the audience for this would be just me, I never minded that though. What was more important to me was bringing a thought to existence and giving it a life with words. I had no qualms about whether the work gets any validation or not. In fact, initially I was unsure of my work earlier that I either never made it public or marketed it.

Stage 2: Pain

Over the years, I have been making an announcement to people about how my dream is to become a writer and publish a book. When there is something you yearn to do, there is frustration which keeps building inside you if you are not acting upon it. There is an Indian Movie called Tamasha. People who have watched it are divided into two parts — Most who do not understand the film at all and then those who swear by the film as if the film is about their own life. I belong to the second group too, each time I used to watch this film it used to tear me up. I am living the life of an imposter. Running a race which is not mine. Fulfilling a dream which I never dreamt. I made it a ritual to watch this film once every year just to remind myself what I could actually have been. They say “ When the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of going through a change, Change happens. “

Stage 3: Fear

I have feared judgement. There is always a load of self doubt, my grammar isn’t correct, my idea will not resonate with anyone, people will laugh at me behind my back. Trust me there is a whole process to overcome fear, which keeps you frozen for quite a while. Until one day you say Que Sera Sera and finally click on that post button. Even then I was very cautious of being found out by people I knew. So I kept my identity anonymous, never shared anything I had written with anyone I knew. It takes quite some time to really build confidence in your craft.

Stage 4: Freedom

When you post something on the internet for the very first time, something anti- climatic happens. Where you were thinking that your write up will go viral in one go and then you would have to face trolls, instead nobody reads your article. Literally nobody. You will not even get reach, let alone reads. Then you start sending your article out to the close friend you actually trust, even they don’t bother to read it completely, because let’s face it — the topics of their choice are different from yours or they are just not into reading when there is so much scrollable short content available.

At first you feel sad about it. Then suddenly realisation struck that if nobody is going to read it then you can literally talk about anything under the sun. People who were supposed to make fun of you aren’t going to read it anyways. This freedom is what sets you free.

Stage 5: Addiction

The key here is writing about things you like, just because you want to express yourself. You are not bothered about validation from other people or Money. That’s when this habit becomes addiction. There is a new observation you had, you would want to write all about it before you lose your train of thought. It’s like there is a moment of epiphany and divine inspiration is flowing though you — you are just the medium in the process. Just to watch your thoughts take form on screen and manifest into a magnificent write up gives you another level of rush.

While you are having fun by being busy building your world, you also find people on the way who deeply resonate with you. Conversations flow and you eventually find your tribe.

I am so glad and thankful for people that I found on medium with whom I had a deeply satisfying exchange of ideas.

This piece is dedicated to my Medium Family: