And I think Fickled Lines started the same way most coping mechanisms do:
quietly.

Not with a plan.
Not with some deep “I’ve always wanted to write” story.

It started because my head was too loud and writing things down helped.

At first it was just random thoughts in my notes app.
Tiny observations about people.
Funny things.
Sad things.
Thoughts I couldn’t really explain properly in conversations.

Not because I thought I was profound.
Mostly because overthinking silently is exhausting.

I think that’s why this site became such a strange mix of things.

Because I’m a strange mix of things.

Some days I feel deeply emotional about life and human connection and the terrifying loneliness of modern existence.

Other days I’m one debit order away from becoming a full-time comedian.

So there’s both here.

The heavy stuff.
The soft stuff.
The dark humor.
The sarcasm.
The existential crises.
The random South African observations that sound ridiculous until you realise they’re painfully accurate.

Because honestly?
People are ridiculous.

We say:

“I’m tired.”

when we actually mean:

“I haven’t felt like myself in months.”

We joke about trauma because vulnerability feels embarrassing.
We romanticise old memories even when they nearly destroyed us.
We pretend we’ve moved on because explaining heartbreak properly would take too long.

I understand that kind of human behavior deeply.

Probably because I do it too.

Fickled Lines became the place where I stopped trying to sound polished all the time.

Sometimes posts here are emotional.
Sometimes they’re unhinged.
Sometimes they sound like someone who desperately needed closure and a nap.

Fair enough.

But everything here is honest.

Not influencer honest.
Not curated honest.

Real honest.

The kind that comes from being awake too late thinking about life.
The kind that comes from trying to survive adulthood without becoming emotionally numb.
The kind that comes from laughing at things that actually hurt because sometimes humor is the only thing keeping people together.

This site isn’t here to teach people how to live.

It’s mostly just me trying to make sense of life, people, memories, chaos, love, loneliness, South African survival mode, and the fact that human beings are somehow both deeply beautiful and deeply concerning at the same time.

And maybe if some part of you reads this place and feels a little less alone in your own head…

then I think it’s doing what it was supposed to do.

— Nikita Smith
Fickled Lines