I know some of you guys paid for that. Dozens of times.

If you think about it, if someone is an inactive follower, they won’t get the post sent to their feed, because they don’t have a feed in the first place, and so it won’t count against your engagement rate.

This is the case whether if it’s a bot follower or just an inactive human follower who is a real and genuine follower but doesn’t use the app at all or does not engage with your posts after consuming them.

According to his behavior, as detected by the system, he is engaging with your posts normally like he does with any post he enjoys and consumes, even if he ended up not liking or interacting with the post in any way measurable that you can find in your detailed insights, because they stopped and consumed your post for quite some time before they left it, and they do so with almost all other posts that they enjoy consuming on the platform. The algorithm will consider that their normal behavior and that will never count against your engagement rate, that is, this won’t be an indication that your post isn’t doing well. The algorithm knows all, and judges how well your post is performing accordingly. The algorithm won’t give you increased reach though.

Remember, there’s something called scroll stopping, and audience retention rate, view duration, …etc. Saves and shares aren’t everything.

Remember, I never asked you to do anything, I never made a call to action. Because the algorithm already knows your normal and genuine behavior, and doesn’t want you to maliciously deviate from it for any reason.

You may finish a hundred tiny quick tasks that are totally useless and unfulfilling, which would not be rewarding enough overall, even if added together, which would make you fatigued and drained all the time no matter what you do, even if all of these tasks are infinitely important and necessary for your success.

This isn’t about pushing the narrative or notion that a normal job sucks, nor is it a call to outsource everything that looks like pure labor in your business. I am highly against this, because I do believe that getting a job could be fulfilling, and doing things you hate for a living is totally normal and shouldn’t be demonized. Also outsourcing lets other people get all the fun while you end up stuck with boring and basic management stuff, and become under pressure all the time to produce or work more, because now others work for you, and you have to pay them. It’s okay to have a business or even several businesses that operate that way, but it shouldn’t be the ones surrounding what you’re passionate about. What I wanted to say is that reward has nothing to do with how boring the task is. Some tasks are incredibly exciting but give you zero reward, because they’re pointless and get you nowhere. Gaming is a good example of that. This is about evaluating stuff on a task by task basis. Some things will give you more reward than others, even if they’re all equally important, and even if they all have the same potential to lead you to achieving your goals eventually.

Do not hesitate to create more. It’s what keeps us sane.

It won’t always make sense.

Making art will always seem like the wrong thing to do.

Nothing will ever change that.

Do not pay attention to the guilt that may follow afterwards. It’s because you’re still processing what has taken place earlier.

One thing that everybody seems to miss when they discuss the topic of surviving narcissistic abuse is the fact that you have to understand how valuable and important you are first before you ever hope to survive the abuse one day.

They constantly want to send you the message that you are not that important, and so you should snap out of it and accept their abuse, they think, because you are not better than them.

This is the narrative that they try to push onto you all the time. You are as unimportant as they are, because you know, equality and stuff, and so they should be allowed to abuse you unchecked all they want, and if you refuse any of that, you are the one with the arrogance issues.

The only way you can counter that isn’t to bolster your belief in your importance more. But is to not engage in battle with someone who thinks you are just as unimportant as they are.

Yes, shock them by the fact that life is unfair, and that some people are more important than others.

I’m not saying some people should die because they are worthless. I’m not implying that some people shouldn’t have human rights. I’m not saying some people shouldn’t be allowed to live. But some people believe and know they are trash people and expect others to all be like that. They believe that everybody is as useless and evil as they are, so why should there be a problem with them harming other people for fun. They don’t believe they or anyone else has intrinsic value or worth. They don’t value human life or anything else that exists. They don’t value or care about anything and they hate everything and everybody, including themselves, and they think they are the best for holding those kinds of beliefs.

This is why manipulators win arguments with you. They believe they don’t matter. They don’t value their life or that of anyone else. They see the world as a playground they can have fun in as long as they can. They don’t think anything or anyone in the entire universe or existence is important. Nihilistic worldviews. And they want to pull you into their black hole of nothingness. You can choose to not play their game. But the gaslighting, you cannot escape it without realizing that you have to consider yourself something totally different from them, even if that meant you’re more important.

It’s not burnout you need to be afraid of. It’s not having accomplished anything in the first place.

You are buying into a nihilistic culture that pushes the narrative that you are enough and awesome already without even trying, you already have everything you need to be happy, and all your complaints and problems are in your head. And here lies all your problems.

Wait, before you start hating me, I mean you no harm.

I want you to keep doing whatever that you already do the way you are already.

But the writer and intellectual within me can’t stomach you being mad at the wrong enemy.

Having nothing to lose or having lost everything gives you the opportunity of exploring stuff without the usual panic that newbies go through because they only tread lightly. They are always testing the waters.

You are right to not be afraid of making mistakes. If you are, you will stop every now and then, perhaps even too frequently, which would signal the system in control that there’s something called doing nothing at all for a while, let’s try it. It will test that by making you lie in bed for like a week. You hit the break too frequently. That puts you in a predominantly stopping mode, not a taking action mode. Really your mind tells you: okay, if you hit the breaks one more time…

But your creativity block – if you have any – is due to a phobia of perfectionism and burnout.

You should embrace perfectionism because it’s the only thing that shifts the project or task you’re doing from rewarding into pure labor. You will be denied the entirety of the reward if your mind did not verify that the finished product was perfect. And hence, your focus on parroting the notion that it is about the journey, because you never tasted what reaching a destination really feels like for once.

This is how writing works: You have an idea that normally does not exceed a single sentence. You keep writing until you feel satisfied. And that might end up being several pages. This is a key feature to distinguish between true bred writers and content creators, who are so obsessed with cutting it short to appease a gold fish attention span audience.

You should not be afraid of burnout because it comes from not having accomplished enough, and from not having used your full potential enough, not from having been too creative or productive.

I know you need to rest. But you are afraid of getting tired before you even begin putting in the work. Finish something impressive, and then you can rest all you want.

The pullout from Afghanistan could’ve been better.

Bottom line is: It’s not ending the military presence in Afghanistan that we’re opposed to. It’s how we withdrew. Not the fact that we withdrew, but how the entire withdrawal process took place. And certainly not the inevitable consequences of the withdrawal. The consequences of withdrawal are not something to celebrate, but it had to be done, with disregard to these consequences. It’s not our responsibility to take care of these matters through military intervention. The problem is that they can always give a good excuse for staying.

They will never have no reason to stay. The idea isn’t that we should only pull out when we’re no longer needed. The idea is that we shouldn’t be there in the first place, even if we’re needed.

The right move was pulling out of Afghanistan. The wrong move was how it happened.