Most of us met on 200WordsADay.com. Using a single word to describe 200WAD then it'd be optimistic.
I was elated to discover a gathering of people I could've never imagined before. Up until then online communities meant either Facebook or Reddit. Facebook was still based on the people I knew in real life. The most it offered was a digital version of talking to people I already knew. Reddit was huge, and the discussions were mostly asocial, strictly focused on the topic. With so many anonymous and random usernames you couldn't really expect to feel a personal connection.
200WAD was the first place that felt small enough where the people mattered, and the people were strangers from around the world. And because 200WAD revolved around writing, it was easy to open the door to these strangers. Just write about your desires, thoughts, and fears, and chances were that it would resonate with somebody else.
Back to elation. What exactly elated me about connecting with strangers through writing? Because I had never been a part an online community untethered to the physical world, all of my social circles were heavily dependent on locality, age, and socio-economic status.
On 200WAD those things mattered less. No longer were age or attractiveness filtering criteria for connection. There was a freedom in this. That's one thing. The other thing that drove my initial elation was the realization that I was within such a novel composition of people. I had never been surrounded by people who valued independent hustles so much. In my physical relationships people accepted or even embraced the more typical way of earning a living. On 200WAD it was normal to embrace the Tim Ferriss method. It wasn't odd to follow Gary Vee here. It wasn't bizarre to spin up your own SASS.
In a way, my initial elation with 200WAD had less to do with writing and more to do with finding this novel group of people who I considered hustlers. People who until then were just talking heads on Youtube. Now I was writing together with them every day!
I was elated to discover a gathering of people I could've never imagined before. Up until then online communities meant either Facebook or Reddit. Facebook was still based on the people I knew in real life. The most it offered was a digital version of talking to people I already knew. Reddit was huge, and the discussions were mostly asocial, strictly focused on the topic. With so many anonymous and random usernames you couldn't really expect to feel a personal connection.
200WAD was the first place that felt small enough where the people mattered, and the people were strangers from around the world. And because 200WAD revolved around writing, it was easy to open the door to these strangers. Just write about your desires, thoughts, and fears, and chances were that it would resonate with somebody else.
Back to elation. What exactly elated me about connecting with strangers through writing? Because I had never been a part an online community untethered to the physical world, all of my social circles were heavily dependent on locality, age, and socio-economic status.
On 200WAD those things mattered less. No longer were age or attractiveness filtering criteria for connection. There was a freedom in this. That's one thing. The other thing that drove my initial elation was the realization that I was within such a novel composition of people. I had never been surrounded by people who valued independent hustles so much. In my physical relationships people accepted or even embraced the more typical way of earning a living. On 200WAD it was normal to embrace the Tim Ferriss method. It wasn't odd to follow Gary Vee here. It wasn't bizarre to spin up your own SASS.
In a way, my initial elation with 200WAD had less to do with writing and more to do with finding this novel group of people who I considered hustlers. People who until then were just talking heads on Youtube. Now I was writing together with them every day!
But I guess I was pre-emptively worrying about a longer-term problem when I didn't even get the short-term problem (of having people show up daily) solved lol.
You two have any ideas? Not just as makers but as even users. Like is there anything concrete that if you had you would be feeling that 'having to show up' beckoning?
So far, you are doing a good job of keeping people engaged and making this group a tight bunch. Keep that up.
and I have been thinking of a shared way for us to take notes on a shared book.
So if we were reading/read atomic habits, we would have shared place where we can 'note' together
This project idea is very interesting.
A peer cohort for propelling ambitious self-directed learning projects. Join for motivation, accountability, feedback, structure, clarity, and creative momentum
https://hyperlink.academy/courses/hyperlink-learning-adventure-club/76
I will do this learning adventure club after the echo writing cohort. I want to do one at a time lol otherwise I fear that I'll feel swamped the whole time.
Did you know about Hyperlink.Academy before? I had never heard of it until shared.
Agreed about one thing at a time.