🌀 The Maze of the Unknown
Sometimes life — Medium — and things you don’t know yet can feel like a maze.
Every turn looks the same, every path echoes back at you. You wonder if you’re lost or learning.
And that’s how Medium felt to me — a maze of art, analytics, and identity that only made sense once I began understanding Medium as a writer
When I first joined Medium, I thought writing was simple: publish, wait, grow.
But then I discovered everything else: publications, curation, distribution, algorithms, and the quiet politics of storytelling.
It was overwhelming — like meeting Mazikeen from Lucifer: sharp, unpredictable, and a little terrifying.
Then I realized the first life lesson of all:
Stay curious. Ask why.
Confusion is not a sign of failure — it’s the entry ticket to understanding.
Every writer who ever mattered — from Tim Denning to Sinem Günel — once stood exactly where I was: staring at a blinking cursor, wondering how the system worked.
🌍 1. Medium Isn’t Just a Platform — It’s an Ecosystem
The more I tried understanding Medium as a writer, the more I realized it wasn’t just a platform; it was a reflection of how we grow.
At first, I thought Medium was just a blogging site.
But it’s more like a living organism with a thousand moving parts — writers, readers, curators, and algorithms all feeding one another.
Once you start seeing that, everything changes.
You stop asking, “Why didn’t my story go viral?” and start asking,
“Who did this story resonate with — and why?”
Medium isn’t a stage; it’s a garden. Growth happens where you plant intention, not just words.
Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”
That’s exactly what Medium is — a series of dots that make sense only when you’ve been here long enough to see the pattern.
⚖️ 2. The Tug of War Between Art and Analytics
Here’s the paradox: you write from your soul… then you need to title it for SEO.
You want to be honest… but you also want people to click.
For a long time, that tug of war broke me.
I felt like I had to choose — to either be the artist or the strategist.
But then I realized: art and analytics aren’t enemies — they’re partners.
Tim Denning doesn’t just write what he feels; he frames it in a way the algorithm understands.
Ayo Awosika doesn’t write to please robots; He writes for humans, but he respects the data that helps humans find him.
I’ve learned to treat analytics as feedback, not judgment.
It’s not selling out.
It’s letting your art travel.
🧭 3. Medium Rewards Evolution, Not Perfection
When I first began, I wanted every piece to be flawless.
I would spend days editing a single sentence, terrified of being misunderstood.
But perfection kills progress.
Medium doesn’t reward the most perfect writer — it rewards the one who keeps showing up and evolving.
Think of Mark Zuckerberg building Facebook from a dorm room, or Steve Jobs failing with the first Apple computer. They didn’t wait for perfection; they grew into it.
Consistency compounds faster than confidence.
The more you write, the more the platform begins to understand you.
Your audience isn’t looking for a perfect writer.
They’re looking for someone brave enough to evolve in public.
🌱 4. You’re Not Behind — You’re Becoming Intentional
There was a time I compared myself to everyone — the viral writers, the ones with 10K followers, the ones in big publications.
But the truth is: I’m not behind. I’m just becoming intentional.
Every post teaches me something — about rhythm, emotion, honesty, or restraint.
Every rejection or silence is a whisper saying, “There’s a better version of you waiting on the next draft.”
Medium is a mirror: it reflects your growth back at you.
If you feel confused, lost, or unseen, it only means you’ve stepped beyond surface-level writing.
You’re not failing — you’re evolving. Confusion is the language of becoming.
✴️ Final Reflection
The maze never ends — but maybe that’s the point.
The deeper you go, the clearer you become.
So if you’re here, trying to figure Medium out — breathe.
You’re already doing the hardest part: learning to stay curious.
Because in writing, as in life, everything compounds — your questions, your drafts, your growth, your voice.
And one day, you’ll look back and realize that even your confusion was part of the creation.
💡 Life Lesson:
Confusion means you’re no longer running in circles. You’ve simply stepped into the part of the maze where growth begins.
Now, I’m not behind — I’m just becoming intentional, learning to breathe through the confusion, and truly understanding Medium as a writer.
🌱 If this essay resonated with you and you’d love to go on your own writing journey — I’m building a small email series to help you start. It’s a free five-day course where I share how I learned to write with purpose, clarity, and emotion — straight from my own story.
👉 Join the 5-Day “Write with Intention” Journey
I write stories about creation — not just in the cosmic sense, but the human one. Stories about how small things become infinite when touched by belief.