I meant to write on another topic, but I decided to visit a writing forum I used to frequent and got hopelessly caught up in reading old posts. I joined the group—only back then it was called a club—when Themestream.com was a popular outlet for writers. Writers would post their articles, essays, and stories on Themestream, and for every page click each piece received, the author got something like two cents. Naturally, many writers would frequent the writing forums, linking to their Themestream articles and hoping to get a bigger clicking audience.

One day, an extreme feminist posted a link to her man-bashing Themestream article. It was negative, biased, and extremely one-sided. Needless to say, it began a heated discussion among both the men and the women in the forum, and that was when I joined the fray. From then on, I became a high profile flame warrior, somewhat of a cross between an Eagle Scout and a less composed Kung-Fu Master, starting threads with ice-breaking posts, easily countering various yahoos’ underhanded digs at me or responding to newbie questions with helpful tips. It got to the point where people kept suggesting I write a column for profit, which—by the way—I would seriously consider if anyone were actually willing to pay me for my words.

Anyway, I had such fun and fury wasting my free time on completely unproductive writing, that Human Encyclopedia kept scolding me for taking the club so seriously and said that my time would be better spent writing my own novel or creating some artwork to sell, instead of helping some “other wannabe” (his words, not mine) with their writing. Yet, I couldn’t help it. The obsessive-compulsive side of me would not let go, and I’d let myself get so fired up by something someone posted in the forum that I’d stay up late at night composing rebuttals.

And then it happened: I got bored with it. Yahoo! changed the format of the club, and suddenly it wasn’t worth the hassle of pop-ups and various other annoyances. Besides which, a lot of the regulars were leaving the club, and people were no longer posting things regularly. So I stopped visiting the forum and gained back my free time.

Still, I miss it. I miss interacting with the regular members, and I miss participating in a heated discussion. The last time I visited, I realized that some of my best writing might actually be there and not here, which is just a crying shame since none of the threads in which I participated could ever be as historic as the thread in which the smiley face [ 🙂 ] was invented.

So yes, I was a warrior once… and dumb. Now I’m just playin’ plain dumb.

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