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An audience of One

 I write this not for the many, but for you, each of us is enough of an audience for the other.

Seneca : Letters from a Stoic. pg.8 


I am reminded of the article by William Zinnser - in his book - On Writing Well - 

"Who are you writing for? you are writing for yourself- An audience of one! 

you have to write ,create - for the pleasure that you may have - with earnestness , pride, quality - to satisfy yourself! 

then the product will be good - and World if it may, appreciate - if it likes! - you should be inward looking when it comes to creativity!"

I wrote my first document on "The Upanishads" in LinkedIn and it kinda went viral!

Then buoyed by that success, I went on to the next one - rushed - and posted the second document - it barely created a ripple! Why? The first one I created for my joy! the second one for popularity!

Cricketer Ravi Ashwin says this : "Nobody will pull you up! you got to pull yourself up! "

Well I have to create , create and create for the sake of it! the audience of one! the joy of creating!

I used  to do my humor podcast - every single week between 2018-20 - yeah every sunday evening- very good - but I then stopped it - why? I was disappointed that my podcast not going viral! 

Is that the point? you are creating -doing hobby- for yourself - to please yourself - if it goes viral in the process - so be it - if not - so be it! 

Consistency is more important than Virality! 

"I have never worked to cater to the crowd, for what I know they do not approve; and what they approve, I do not know; "   Epicurus

"If you prefer to please yourself rather than the populace, it will make you weigh and not merely count, men's judgments - it will make you live without fear of gods or men, it will make you wither overcome evils or end them" Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

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