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Adii Pienaar

Family man, seeker and learner. Revealing my inner-poet. Conversio is my current gig (previously co-founded WooThemes.).

Silly Self-Censorship

Why don't I just say what I think?<...>

My writing here has always gone through highs and lows. I also thought that I write more when I carve out the time (to do so), am in a generally positive frame of mind and / or feel like I have something to say.

Recently though I realized that all of those were in fact true of my life, yet I wasn't writing here or even tweeting some of my thoughts. Yet I'm learning so much, feeling incredibly stimulated and definitely have thoughts to share.

The thing that's been holding me back is fear: Is what I say relevant? Does an article I publish justify the time I'm expecting someone else to take to read it? Am I just adding more content (and noise) to a world that has too much of it already.

I have been censoring myself and avoided putting my thoughts out there.

So what do I do instead? I plan on writing these epic, well-researched and perfectly-crafted articles. Looking at the amount of outlines and drafts I have in-progress would however suggest that this isn't working well for me.

Instead this is the kind of posts that I like to write. They're short, opinionated and broadcast my personality.

And there's a decent amount of people that are willing to give me their attention by reading that. It's not the kind of attention that will turn my blog into a major media publication, but it's more than enough incentive to keep me writing for myself.

Ultimately it's about being authentic, telling stories and sharing experiences. There'll always be enough (whatever this is in your definition) like-minded people that will be willing to listen and interact. Regardless of how niche your thoughts, there's a long-tail of attention... :)

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