About

Why a Free Blog?

Ferenc Molnár, a Hungarian playwright and author said that first we write for the love of it, then for a few close friends, and then for money. Money, however, creates a financial incentive that keeps a writer so busy promoting their work that their time for research, thinking and writing diminishes. Their writing becomes fast food for social media scrollers and skimmers – those who scroll instead of reading; who scan content to get the gist of a piece and hardly ever read from beginning to end – absorbing nothing. Feeding a snack hungry mob further detracts from interacting with readers, connecting, and sharing opinions and comments.
This blog will remain open and free. I love writing, hope to  interact with readers, and get others through the forge.

Because

Life is inherently challenging, unpredictable, and sometimes brutal. However, these very difficulties, the “hammers” of life, become the medium through which we grow, discover, and forge ourselves. In this blog, I reframe adversity not as a threat to avoid, but as an invitation to engage, act, and cultivate resilience, agency, and self-knowledge 

Even as this blog focuses on how we endure and grow through life’s “hammers”, it does so in full awareness that suffering is not abstract. Across the world, millions of people are displaced by conflict, and countless lives are cut short by war, violence, and instability each year. These are not distant statistics but lived realities and evidence of how harsh and unrelenting life can be. We may not all be in a position of political or social power or have the resources to influence global events or reach across continents to offer direct aid.

But we can act where we are. We can notice. We can respond. We may not be able to help many, but we can help one. When we encounter someone being hammered by life, we can choose not to look away. We may not be able to stop the blows, but we can stand alongside them, and do what is within our reach. 

Perhaps this is where meaningful change begins. It takes small, deliberate acts of care, not sweeping gestures. And if each of us commits to helping even one person, the weight of the world, though still heavy, becomes just a little more bearable to carry.

Author: Runa Prinsloo