The cruel reality and salvation of 'writing' to know before you get exhausted by note. What do creators who can't get past single-digit likes have in common? The realistic ecology of modern people swaying between the desire for approval and self-satisfaction. The question of 'who are you writing for' that is being asked precisely in the AI era. If you are tired of 'writing', please read this article. Why do we log in and wait for notifications again today?

Common experiences of creators (writers/posters) and users (readers) regarding the media platform 'note'.

[Account Creation, Profile, and Initial Impulse Edition] (1-25)

• 1. Putting too much effort into the first post makes the hurdle for writing the second post Everest-level high.

  • Problem/Drawback: Although they talk about self-introductions or grand visions, there are many cases where their enthusiasm burns out, and updates stop for several months afterward.

• 2. The 'profile title' is too long, and in the end, it's unclear what kind of person they are.

  • Issue: A list of keywords meant to make oneself look bigger, such as 'XX Advisor / XX Expert / Former XX / Free Spirit,' actually creates a sense of suspicion.

• 3. Adjusting the size of the header image (the large image at the top of the page) is difficult, and faces or text get cut off.

  • Frustration point: Because the appearance differs between PC and smartphone, there is a design challenge where images intended to look stylish are cropped strangely.

• 4. Setting a goal of 'daily updates,' but running out of topics by the third day and ending up with survival reports that are less than a diary.

  • Drawback: Continuing becomes the goal itself, and one tends to mass-produce articles that are useless to the reader, such as 'It rained today. Nothing in particular.'

• 5. Mistaking yourself for a literary genius just because your first post got one 'like'.

  • Reality: You will later learn that it was an initial boost from the platform (such as being displayed in recommendations) or a welcome greeting from a kind user.

• 6. Ordering an icon illustration from a site like 'Coconala' and focusing on appearances first.

  • Problem: You lack the stamina to keep writing articles that justify the investment, resulting in a hollow shell where only a high-quality icon remains.

• 7. Being too conscious of 'who you are writing for (persona)' and losing your own voice.

  • *Explanation: This means setting up a fictional target reader profile.

  • Challenge: As a result of being too bound by marketing theory, you end up only being able to output mechanical text driven by a sense of obligation.

• 8. You have dozens of drafts (stock) piled up, but none of them are finished beyond the introduction.

  • Drawback: Once the passion from the moment you thought of the idea cools down, it becomes a hassle to write the rest of the content or the conclusion, and it turns into a graveyard of drafts.

• 9. You spam over 20 '# (hashtags)', making it look like a spam account.

  • Problem: In an attempt to target search traffic, you end up scattering tags that have little to do with the article's content, which makes it look bad.

• 10. You write too candidly about your dark past (failure stories), only to feel embarrassed later and set them to private.

  • Psychology: This is an accident where you overdo 'self-disclosure' in the middle of the night, only to regain your composure the next morning and break into a cold sweat.

• 11. You don't know the difference between this and a blog (like WordPress), so you just start using note for now.

  • Challenge: You later realize the constraints of platform dependency, such as not being able to freely acquire a custom domain or customize the design.

• 12. Wanting to change your 'Creator Page' URL (ID) later and realizing the risk that all past links will break

  • Practical hurdle: If you change the alphanumeric characters you set without careful consideration later, past URLs you posted on social media, etc., will become dead links (invalid).

• 13. Going back to read the 'first posts' of other famous creators and feeling a sense of familiarity on your own

  • Tendency: You feel relieved seeing that people who are popular now used to write clumsy articles, but you tend to ignore the difference in the amount of effort they put in since then.

• 14. Writing 'Inquiries for work here' in your profile, but not receiving a single email

  • Harsh fact: You are confronted with the reality that you do not have enough name recognition or track record to get work just by creating a contact point.

• 15. Spending a week worrying about what to put in your 'pinned article (article placed at the top)'

  • Drawback: You get so lost in deciding which article to use as your business card that you completely stop writing new articles.

• 16. The hassle of checking the latest design guidelines when placing the note 'logo (green N)' on your own site

  • Practical work: You must comply with the brand guidelines, and there are detailed rules such as not tilting it or changing its color.

• 17. Mass-producing follows indiscriminately for the purpose of 'follow-backs'

  • Futility: It becomes a mechanical task to increase numbers, and it does not lead to essential connections with readers or turning them into fans of your articles.

• 18. Trying to write high-consciousness style text and using too many loanwords (assign, commit, etc.), resulting in a cringey feel

  • Problem: By going out of your way to use katakana for content that could be conveyed instantly in Japanese, you leave the reader behind.

• 19. Creating your first 'magazine (article summary folder)' and feeling like you've created your own magazine

  • Drawback: Although you created a folder, there are only 2-3 articles inside, and you end up publishing a sparse shelf.

• 20. Blurring details to the extreme for fear of family or colleagues at your main job 'finding out your account (identity exposure)'

  • Issue: As a result of making episodes too abstract to avoid identification, the article ends up being a boring, generic piece that could be found anywhere.

• 21. The despair of seeing a celebrity surpass your follower count in an instant just by tweeting 'I started a note'

  • Disparity: It is the moment when the difference in existing fame (power) is flaunted within the platform, making steady efforts feel futile.

• 22. Getting happy about earning a 'badge (dashboard title)' and taking a screenshot

  • *Explanation: This is a trophy feature awarded by note based on the number of posts and likes.

  • Basis: You are skillfully drawn into gamification (game-like elements), which keeps you motivated for your next post.

• 23. Trying to write only with a smartphone app, facing the crisis of text deletion due to accidental taps

  • Frustration point: The screen is too small for typing long text, and you end up battling between trust and anxiety regarding auto-save when the app suddenly crashes.

• 24. Almost giving up on the 'Amazon Associates (Affiliate)' integration settings

  • Hurdle: It is a setting for neatly posting introduction links for books and products, but the procedure is complicated, and you end up just pasting the URL.

• 25. The account becomes an 'internet ruin' after half a year, as if the initial enthusiasm was a lie

  • Conclusion: It is a microcosm of the human nature of being easily heated and easily cooled, and you quietly join the ranks of tens of thousands of inactive accounts.

[The Gritty Daily Life of Writing, Editing, and Image Selection Edition] (26-50)

• 26. Spending as much time selecting the 'header image (eyecatch)' for an article as writing the main text

  • Drawback: You go on a journey to find 'somehow stylish and emotional images' in the photo gallery (Everyone's Photo Gallery) and melt away your time.

• 27. Using too much bold text or quotes (markers), making the whole screen flicker and hard to read

  • Problem: As a result of trying to emphasize everything, the reader's gaze cannot settle, and it becomes unclear what the truly important core is.

• 28. Registering your own photos in 'Everyone's Photo Gallery' and being abnormally happy when someone uses them

  • *Explanation: This is a feature that allows other creators to use your images as header images.

  • Psychology: When you get a notification saying 'Your image has been used,' it satisfies a desire for approval that is different from having your article read.

• 29. Ending sentences with 'I think' or 'maybe' too often, causing a loss of agency

  • Issue: Out of fear of criticism or backlash online, you use expressions that avoid definitive statements, resulting in bland writing where it's unclear what you want to say.

• 30. Optimizing paragraph breaks (line breaks) too much for smartphone readability, making it look sparse on a PC

  • Appearance issue: The style of leaving 2-3 lines between each sentence is easy to scroll on a smartphone, but it looks very stretched out on a large PC screen.

• 31. Reading your own writing over and over again and basking in self-satisfaction (getting too carried away)

  • Flaw: Immediately after posting, you reload and read it yourself repeatedly, turning it into a time of mere self-satisfaction rather than revision.

• 32. Getting discouraged when the link's 'card display (blog card)' doesn't show up properly and just becomes a plain blue URL

  • Frustration point: Due to the site's specifications, the eye-catching image or description cannot be embedded correctly, which ruins the appearance of the article.

• 33. Obsessing too much over the placement of commas and periods, causing gestalt collapse

  • *Explanation: A phenomenon where you stare too hard at the shape of characters or the structure of sentences, causing your sense of whether they are correct to become paralyzed.

  • Issue: Because you prioritize rhythm, you end up unable to be satisfied even after repeating revisions all night long.

• 34. Trying to turn articles into a series, but generally stalling around the third installment

  • Drawback: Even if the plan is for a grand work, reader reactions (number of likes) decrease with each installment, making it impossible to maintain motivation.

• 35. Trying out the AI assistant feature (text generation), but ending up rewriting everything because the text is too bland

  • Issue: Although you aimed for efficiency, it only outputs safe, textbook-like expressions, and since your own originality disappears, it ends up being double the work.

• 36. Forcing headings (H2/H3 tags) in just to display the 'Table of Contents' feature

  • Structural distortion: Even in short articles, headings are subdivided just to tidy up the format, causing the flow of the text to become fragmented.

• 37. Mixing 'polite style' (desu/masu) and 'plain style' (da/dearu) mid-text, causing the persona to waver

  • Flaw: Only the paragraphs where emotions run high switch to 'plain style', breaking the overall consistency and making the reader feel uncomfortable.

• 38. Noticing typos and omissions after posting that were written on a smartphone but are obvious on a PC

  • Operational error: Predictive text errors from flick input (e.g., 'idou' becoming the wrong kanji) suddenly become noticeable when the screen size changes.

• 39. Using a 'draft share URL' to have a friend read it, but creating an awkward atmosphere by pressuring them for feedback

  • Communication cost: Although you send it wanting opinions before publishing, for the recipient, it becomes 'heavy labor requiring serious feedback'.

• 40. You start reading books to write book reports (reviews), and the pure joy of reading is lost

  • Task: Because you turn pages with the premise of 'how to summarize it on note', your immersion in the story and the mental space to accept the author's claims honestly are eroded.

• 41. You swear never to do it again due to the harshness of transcribing interview articles (tape transcription)

  • Physical labor: The work of turning one hour of audio into text and formatting it into a readable note format (conversational style) requires several days' worth of energy.

• 42. You try your hand at audio distribution (radio style), but you can't stand the unpleasantness of your own raw voice and delete the data

  • Psychological barrier: You cannot bear the gap the moment you objectively hear your own recorded voice, and you learn the difficulty of audio content.

• 43. You don't correctly understand the 'Creative Commons' license notation and end up nearly committing unauthorized reproduction of images

  • Serious risk: You borrow images from the internet while keeping copyright rules ambiguous, and you carry the risk of receiving trouble or warnings later.

• 44. Realizing after publication that your heartfelt essay has just become a 'venting outlet for complaints'

  • Drawback: It is not a sublimated work, but merely workplace dissatisfaction or personal grievances, resulting in scattering negative energy to the readers.

• 45. Abusing the stylish technique of intentionally 'opening' kanji (writing them in hiragana) and making it hard to read

  • Collapse of balance: By excessively opening characters, such as changing 'no toki' (time) or 'arigatou' (thank you) into hiragana, the writing loses its tightness.

• 46. Using technical terms repeatedly without explanation, building an insider-only geeky article

  • Problem: The content becomes something that first-time readers cannot follow, which results in sluggish PV (page view) growth.

• 47. Making the title too safe, like 'About...', and getting buried like a grain of sand in the desert

  • Drawback: Because there is no hook to attract the reader's interest, it gets ignored without catching anyone's timeline.

• 48. You start 'rewriting (correcting)' a past article, but end up wanting to rewrite the whole thing, causing your schedule to collapse.

  • Issue: Unable to bear the clumsiness of your past writing, what was meant to be a minor correction turns into a major project that takes all day.

• 49. The 'note writing screen' is always resident in your computer browser tab, putting you under silent pressure.

  • Mental fatigue: Because the task of 'I must write' remains in your field of vision, a corner of your brain never gets to rest, even during work or on holidays.

• 50. You eventually reach the state of mind where simple, unadorned plain text (no formatting) is the easiest to write.

  • Loop: After exhausting all the various formatting functions, this is the pilgrimage of realizing that competing solely with the power of the text itself (content) is the most efficient and pure way.

[Numbers, Evaluation, Dashboard, and Desire for Approval Edition] (51-75)

• 51. When a 'Like' notification arrives, you check the dashboard (management screen) repeatedly, even while at work.

  • Problem: Because your desire for approval is stimulated, you become overly sensitive to slight increases in view counts and likes, and your concentration on your actual main job drops significantly.

• 52. Feeling jealous when an account that started after you is instantly chosen for 'Official Recommendations'

  • Mental challenge: It creates mental instability where you arbitrarily compare yourself, thinking your articles are of higher quality, and feel dissatisfied with the platform's evaluation criteria.

• 53. Checking your dashboard after a long time and having your heart completely broken by seeing total views in the 'single digits'

  • Reality: Because exposure by the algorithm (display on the timeline) drops sharply when you stop updating, you are forced into continuous labor.

• 54. The absurdity that the quality of an article and the number of 'likes' gathered are not proportional at all

  • Drawback: You feel disappointed by the phenomenon where a 'ramen I ate today' post written in 5 minutes gets overwhelmingly more likes than a full-blown essay you spent 3 hours on.

• 55. The reality that a famous creator's 'mere daily tweet (3 lines)' gathers 100 times more likes than your own best article

  • Disparity: It is the cold power balance of the platform, where 'who wrote it (existing fame)' has more influence than the quality of the content.

• 56. Posting 'screenshots of your dashboard' on social media and acting like an influencer

  • The problem: You might want to report your numbers with a smug face once your page views exceed tens of thousands, but those around you will coldly view you as 'someone obsessed with numbers'.

• 57. Worrying excessively about the tone (level of politeness and distance) of replies in the comment section

  • Communication cost: Even for positive comments, you have to think about crafting a polite reply that matches the intensity of the other person's profile, which drains your mental energy.

• 58. Letting a single 'criticism from a reader (negative comment)' drag on for a week

  • The drawback: Even if you have 99 positive reactions, your brain's capacity becomes dominated by just one stinging word, and your motivation to write declines.

• 59. The sense of obligation to visit the pages of people who liked your posts as a 'return favor'

  • The futility: It becomes a rally of 'mutual follows and mutual likes' out of a sense of duty rather than genuine reading, and your timeline gets filled with articles you have no interest in.

• 60. Start graphing weekly and monthly 'PV trends' in Excel or spreadsheets

  • Putting the cart before the horse: You spend time analyzing numbers like an analyst, but it doesn't lead to the crucial 'action to improve the quality of the next article'.

• 61. Eagerly awaiting the congratulatory notification (green pop-up) from the official note account saying 'This is a well-read article this week'

  • Dependency: Evaluation from the official account becomes your identity, and in weeks when no notification arrives, you excessively reflect on whether your writing style was bad.

• 62. A ghost town where you have many followers, but no one reacts when you update your articles

  • Issue: Followers gathered through mutual follow campaigns and the like do not read your articles, so they become hollow accounts where only the numbers have bloated.

• 63. Trying to set up a 'paid article (paid note)', but it doesn't sell a single copy, so you silently revert it to free

  • Harsh reality: You overestimate that your knowledge and experience have value, and although you put a price on them, you are confronted with the cold, hard fact that there is no demand from the market.

• 64. Spending the whole night worrying about where to draw the line for the 'free area (preview)' of a paid article

  • Practical Conflict: You fall into the content marketing trap where if you hide the core part too much, it won't be bought, but if you reveal too much, people will be satisfied and won't buy it.

• 65. Getting as excited about receiving 100 yen through Creator Support (tipping feature) as if it were a bonus from a large corporation

  • Psychology: The experience of having money paid directly for your writing has a mental value that exceeds the amount itself, and it gives you a rush.

• 66. Getting caught in the sales funnel of suspicious paid articles by others claiming 'How I achieved a monthly income of XX yen!' and buying them

  • Risk: You tend to become an 'information weakling' who wastes money on content with low reproducibility or content that is essentially just an information product designed to incite purchasing desire.

• 67. Launching a 'Membership (monthly community)' only to close it quietly with zero members (or just one person you know)

  • Drawback: You create a fixed system dreaming of passive income or a fan salon, but you are made to realize that you have absolutely no sustainable ability to attract customers.

• 68. Being chased by the 'monthly deadline (obligation to update)' of a subscription magazine, and becoming a serial-writing pauper even though you are not a professional writer

  • Issue: Since you are being paid, you cannot help but write, leading to counterproductive labor where you face your PC in tears late at night after work.

• 69. Subscribing to a celebrity's paid note, but being unable to write a review even if the content is thin and you think you've been 'deceived'

  • Peer pressure: Because the atmosphere of the fan community is already established, there is a stifling feeling that you will be ostracized if you express critical opinions.

• 70. A mysterious sense of guilt about making your own articles 'paid', and the fear of being thought of as a 'miser'

  • Mental block: Even if you are disseminating valuable information, you cannot take the step toward monetization due to a Japanese psychological resistance to seeking compensation.

• 71. Reloading your purchase history and sales management dashboard multiple times a day

  • Drawback: Even though the numbers don't change every minute, the action of pulling the smartphone screen to refresh becomes a habit (addiction).

• 72. You get invited to a collaborative magazine, but eventually, no one updates it, and you become a ghost member.

  • Organizational issue: It starts off exciting, but because there is no enforcement, mutual dependence increases, and it eventually becomes a dead space that no one manages.

• 73. You try to turn your personal experience into 'know-how,' but it ends up as a boring summary article of generalities.

  • Problem: As a result of trying too hard to 'cleanly summarize' by stripping away specific episodes, it ends up as a textbook-style piece of writing you've seen somewhere before.

• 74. You count the 'likes' of accounts in the same genre and treat them as rivals on your own.

  • Small-mindedness: Even though the other person doesn't even know you exist, you decide the winner and loser on your own, get jealous, and wear yourself out mentally.

• 75. The absurdity that, in the end, your writing is most engaging and interesting when you write it in a private 'draft' that no one else sees.

  • Conclusion: It is a paradox that the moment you become conscious of others' evaluations, page views, or monetization, your writing becomes distorted, and pure output for self-satisfaction shines the brightest.

[User (Reader) Experience & Platform Culture Edition] (76-99)

• 76. Never reading articles again that you put into the 'read later' function (bookmarks or magazine additions).

  • Problem: You are satisfied at the moment of saving, and you forget about its existence as it gets pushed away by new information on the timeline.

• 77. The timeline is divided into two extreme layers: 'stylish essays' and 'gritty side hustles/monetization techniques'.

  • Landscape: Due to the nature of the platform, there is a unique chaos where literary works and hardcore business know-how are lined up side by side.

• 78. Being comforted by the 'creator's handwritten thank-you message (illustration)' that appears when you press the like button.

  • Positive element: This is a part where the sense of the person who set it up shows, and if a random, interesting message appears, the favorability of that account rises sharply.

• 79. Applying for 'contests (theme projects)', but the selection criteria for the winning works are too emotional and unconvincing.

  • Issue: In corporate-sponsored contests, etc., there is a tendency to feel uneasy about the fact that 'how much it induces tears or how emotional it is' is prioritized over data or logical correctness.

• 80. Reading through the notes of 'people who are good at writing', despairing at your own lack of vocabulary, and putting down your pen.

  • The downside of input: As a result of being exposed to too much excellent content, your own writing feels like a kindergartner's essay, and your motivation to share completely withers.

• 81. The despair of finding that the conclusion you most wanted to know right after purchasing a paid article ends with 'in short, it depends on your motivation'.

  • The drawback: The high cost of learning when the knowledge you gained by paying several thousand yen is just mental theory (general theory) that you could find by reading one self-help book.

• 82. Your smartphone's 'notification pop-ups' become full of note, causing you to miss important messages.

  • The annoyance: Your notification screen is taken over by a barrage of 'So-and-so liked your article' and 'So-and-so published an article'.

• 83. Becoming a 'note addict' whose hands won't stop scrolling while browsing the timeline.

  • The addiction: Although not as stimulating as Twitter (X) or TikTok, it is a time-thief trap where you find yourself an hour later, drawn in by the comfort of the printed word.

• 84. Looking back at the list of articles you have 'liked' in the past and being surprised by the bias in your worries at the time

  • Psychology: You only liked themes related to 'job changes', 'human relationships', or 'self-affirmation' during specific periods, which becomes a resume of your mental state.

• 85. The contrarian nature of searching in a separate tab to buy a product just to avoid clicking an 'affiliate link' in an article

  • Human Karma: Even though it should be a platform for supporting creators, it is a psychological resistance where you somehow want to prevent others from receiving a referral fee.

• 86. Wanting to 'support' (tip) as a gesture of encouragement, but giving up because entering credit card information is a hassle

  • Practical Abandonment: If the cashless flow is not one-tap, the enthusiasm of goodwill cools down due to the trouble of taking out a wallet.

• 87. Being unable to keep up with the enthusiasm of official events like 'Creator Fes' and watching from afar

  • Gap: There is a temperature difference between the enthusiastic festival atmosphere (inside jokes) within the platform and general users who have a detached perspective.

• 88. When searching on search engines (like Google), personal note diaries keep appearing at the top, making it impossible to reach the desired information.

  • SEO issue: Because domain power (site reliability) is too strong, it is a bug where personal subjective experiences occupy the top search results rather than objective facts or professional sites.

• 89. Secretly feeling anxious because my reading speed is slower than the estimated 'this article can be read in X minutes' display.

  • Drawback: If you don't finish reading even after significantly exceeding the displayed time (e.g., 3 minutes), you feel like your lack of speed-reading ability has been exposed.

• 90. Leaving mysterious fan comments like 'Please let me pay you' on wonderful free articles.

  • Culture: A unique, gentle (somewhat excessive) space is formed that is characteristic of note, where creators are deified and worshipped.

• 91. Wanting to read a paid article, but calculating my 'total monthly subscription (fixed costs)' and deciding against the purchase.

  • Economic brake: For modern people who are pressured by monthly payments for various video and music streaming services, paying for one-off text content is a high hurdle.

• 92. The loneliness of seeing people leave the village when a creator announces, 'I am moving to another blog.'

  • Change: There is a melancholy in seeing off those who leave the warm community of note in search of lower fees and greater SEO freedom.

• 93. Because of the constraints of '# (topics)', every article ends up with similar structures and variations of conclusions.

  • Issue: While jumping on themes suggested by the platform increases exposure, it has the downside of losing overall diversity and promoting homogenization.

• 94. Longing for intellectual and high-level discussions in the comments section, but in reality, it's just template greetings like 'Great article!'

  • Reality: Deep critiques (reviews) are rare, and there is a shallowness in communication where superficial compliments and social pleasantries occupy the majority.

• 95. The strange deliciousness of 'resignation entries (articles about quitting a company)' read late at night, regarding the drama of someone else's life.

  • Psychology: Raw struggles and the process of making decisions tend to be consumed as the ultimate non-fiction entertainment.

• 96. Finding another note that introduced (quoted) your article, going to see it in a frenzy of excitement, only to be let down because the introduction is just one line long.

  • Disappointment: A disappointing phenomenon where it's treated as something like 'This article is also helpful [URL]' without any deep discussion taking place.

• 97. The reality that despite being a versatile platform that should cover 'text, images, audio, and video,' over 90% of users end up using only 'text (characters)'.

  • Essence: A distortion where, even if multi-functionality is advanced, what users are seeking is the origin point of 'an evolved version of a blog that is easy to read and write'.

• 98. The cruel reality that no matter how beautiful the design, gentle the worldview, or convenient the features are, if the quality (intelligence or passion) of the content written by the author themselves does not accompany it, it will not reach anyone's heart and will quietly remain buried at 1 PV.

  • Problem: There exists a harsh market principle of self-responsibility where the comfort of the platform does not guarantee that 'you will be read'.

• 99. The infinite loop of self-satisfaction and the desire for approval: getting tired of others' evaluations (number of likes/followers) and making excuses that you are 'writing for yourself,' but when the numbers actually grow, you are ecstatic that 'I wanted to be read by people after all'.

  • Basis: Creators are constantly swaying between the ideal of 'wanting to express freely without caring about others' eyes' and the instinct of 'wanting to be recognized and supported by someone.' It is an inescapable conclusion (loop) that even while complaining about the distortions of the gentle town (platform) called note, we have no choice but to press the login button and continue releasing today's diary or know-how into the internet sea.
    

To me, who is reloading the screen every minute while muttering, 'I don't want anyone to read this.' About the quiet thirst of that night that couldn't be put into words.

My fingers hitting the keyboard stop abruptly at the third line.

The 'heat' that should have been in my head just a moment ago disappears somewhere the moment it touches the white margin of the screen.

I look at the number displayed in the upper right of the screen. That digit count that increased just a little from yesterday, or hasn't moved at all. Every time I check it, I hear a sound like cold water dripping from a thin pipe deep in my chest.

Actually, I know.

Even when I'm agonizing over how many characters to make my profile,

Even when I'm lining up hashtags that no one else uses,

Even when I'm searching 'Everyone's Photo Gallery' for a stylish sunset image that has nothing to do with my own heart.

What I'm looking for isn't the right words.

It's someone's quiet nod saying, 'It's okay to be here.'

Since when did it happen? The note that I was supposed to have started writing for myself turned into a tool to steal a 'moment' from someone's timeline.

At night, I turn off the lights in my room and scroll through the smartphone screen in bed.

Someone's 'know-how for success' and 'beautifully captured daily life' flow by.

Only the surface of my eyes, staring at them, reflects the light of the liquid crystal and shines white.

Deep in my ears, only the sound of the second hand echoes excessively loudly.

When I get a 'like', I feel like I've been saved for just two minutes.

But by the third minute, I'm already waiting for the next notification.

In that repetition, that 'inexpressible impatience' and 'fear of being left behind' that I should have truly felt, gradually fades and turns into beautiful plastic scraps called 'generalizations' that are everywhere.

Accounts that only have titles sleeping in the drafts.

They are the traces of your breath that were once surely there.

Consuming other people's stories,

And having others consume your own story,

I have become a little tired of it.

I close the screen.

On the darkened display, my own face, pitifully defenseless, is reflected.

Hey.

Who, and what, did you really want to be found?

You should already know the name of the faint trembling that your fingers remember now.