The Joy of Pursuit

The opposite of Hanahaki

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

In the last two weeks, I've come to realize that the world is huge(r) and that it doesn't really matter about catering entirely to what other people want, although it's always good when your interests match. But like the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure," your writing will find a home somewhere. You just have to look for it, and sometimes you don't have to look very far.

Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places

Lately, my niece and nephew have been interested in writing their own stories, often watching me type away on my laptop. My nephew said to me that he wants to make "a real story like aunty," after staring unhappily at his first picture book. (He wrote the story and I added the pictures through an AI image generator—it's a weird story, but so is he. Can I really blame him? He is a six-year-old.)

I think I've created a lifelong reader and hopefully creator.

Your Creative Journey

I joined Substack, thinking to myself: What am I doing? What am I going to write about? Will anyone even want to read it? Then I remembered I'm still creating on Medium even though no one's really reading it; I'm doing it for myself and because it makes me feel happy, knowing that if not now, then someday some fortunate individual might stumble on my work and think, "Oh yeah, I totally understand!"

Finding Your (NOT) Unique Voice

It was while I was thinking about what to write for my bio that I realized I do have something valuable to say. I have an inherent experience that I can leverage. I don't need to write about how to make money and how to sell products because I'm absolutely rubbish at those things. I can write about my own lived experience with a chronic illness and navigating the world with it. This is something valuable to some, and actually, it's valuable to all people because at some point in your life, you will be in that community of people with illness, whether short-term or long-term, and you will experience those kinds of feelings and those kinds of struggles, and you will search for a community of people like you.

Connection Is What Matters

At the end of the day, we're all looking for connection. We're looking out at this big world and hoping to see someone like us—someone to make us feel seen and understood.

One important thing

I have come to learn and appreciate is that no matter how unique or special you think your circumstances are, you are not special—and that's okay. It means that there are people like you. It means that you can find your own community of people like you.**

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So if you're in the process of looking, don't give up. Keep looking. No matter how grand this world may be, it is a tiny speck of dust in the gargantuan universe.

Isn't it great when you can do the things that you like?