My little robots have been working
After a long period of inactivity, I logged into my medium to find that my articles have been getting views almost every day since the last time I logged in over a year ago.
Interestingly, throughout my hiatus, I had not shared links to my previous work with anyone — I had all but forgotten I had a Medium account — but I opened my stats pages and found that my view count had gone up by about a thousand views, with several readers taking out time to let me know through comments that they found my articles helpful.
I was pleasantly surprised by how far and wide my writing had gone and how much impact it had, even without me expending any effort to push it out.
Suddenly, I remembered an analogy David Perell gave to explain the benefits of writing online:
When you create and share an idea, you put your ideas onto the internet, which means that little robots can basically carry your ideas… and they go all around the world. There are people sitting from Malaysia to Mauritius to Algeria who are scrolling the internet and want to learn about whatever you have written or created a video about. When you’re sleeping, playing tennis with your friends, or on a walk by the river, you pay no charge.
Those robots are like little carrier pigeons that deliver your ideas to people all over the world. What’s amazing is you can make something once, and the robots will work for you for the rest of your life. As they deliver your ideas to people, serendipity happens — you meet new people, they reach out to you, they want to give you money, they want to help you, they have a consulting project that they need your help with — anything, whatever it is.
This reminded me of a time early last year when I felt the same pleasant surprise. While writing a paper, I was forced to log in to Academia.edu to download an article. That was when I remembered I had an account there.
I strayed into the stats page to find I had amassed 2k views and almost 200 downloads across three poorly-written research papers I uploaded with little thought in 2016.
Wait, what?
The high I had after realising how useful I unintentionally was to all those students and researchers from all over the world lasted a few days.
When I listened to David for the first time, I thought his analogy was brilliant. Still, it was only while riding on the most recent excitement of seeing how many people had found my writing valuable that I really understood the analogy.
For the first time, I could relate. It was like I too was experiencing what it felt like to have robots labouring day and night to take my ideas to places I had never dreamt of visiting. All for free! All without me doing as little as asking politely.
The benefits of sharing my thoughts online are modest, but they are tangible. Seeing how much impact my thoughts have had simply because I put them out is both humbling and invigorating.
I am now forced to imagine what would happen if I shared my thoughts a little more frequently or created better content.
All this brings me to the realisation that the journey of sharing ideas online is a continuous exchange — a dialogue with the world. It’s about offering a piece of oneself to the digital realm and, in return, opening up an exciting world of possibilities.
So, while the benefits for me may seem far from grand, the fulfilment derived from knowing that my ideas are out there, touching lives and sparking conversations, is a reward that transcends any numerical measure.
So, here’s to the little robots, tirelessly delivering ideas, creating connections, and making an impact. And here’s your unique perspective, insights, and voice. Whether it’s writing, art, music, or any other form of expression, embrace the opportunity to share your creations with the world. There’s no telling who it could help or what doors it will open for you.